Page 153 of First Light
“Aisling, you’re a beautiful, talented, intelligent woman.”Except when you’re trying to kill me.“You deserve a life away from here. You deserve more than what your family has in mind for you. Just let me go. Help me get out, and Iwillhelp you.”
“You’re lying.” Aisling walked back to the table, looked at the book, and took another herb from the basket. “But I can do this. I can make you forget.”
“I don’t want to forget.” Carys blinked away tears. “I don’t want to forget any of this.”
Not even the fear.
The fog in Carys’s mind was starting to clear. She didn’t know if Cadell was breaking through the wards Regan had cast or if someone was working another kind of magic, but she felt the dense blanket of magic around her thinning.
“You and I, Aisling.” She struggled, her limbs warming and growing stronger. “We can figure something out. Maybe you can come to the Brightlands with me.”
“No.” Aisling shook her head and ran to check the cauldron. “I’m running away, so it doesn’t matter. I don’t care.”
“I don’t believe that.” Carys could see the woman’s madness but also her pain. She cared. She cared very much. “What do you think Seren would want you to do? Ruin both our lives because you made a mistake? Because you loved Lachlan?”
“Seren!” Aisling spun and held up a shaking finger, pointing at Carys. Her eyes were wide and her lips flushed. “Don’t talk to me about Seren. She was my best friend, and you never even knew her.”
“What would she want you to do?” Carys pressed Aisling again, sensing a weakness. “Would Seren want you to do this to her sister?” Carys knew that Aisling was desperate, but she was clinging to a plan that was swiftly crumbling under her fingers. No matter how lovesick, guilty, and panicked Aisling was, she was also intelligent. She had to know that none of this was going to work.
“You’re not her sister.” Aisling shook her head and turned back to the cauldron. “I was her sister, and she took the man I loved.”
“I can help you,” Carys whispered. “I can help you get away. You could start a new life somewhere very far away.”
“I don’t believe you.” Aisling turned and sneered. “You’ll tellLachlan.”
“I won’t.”
“I don’t believe you!” she screamed and swept the basket from the table. “Why are you distracting me?”
Because if Aisling managed to finish whatever potion she was working on, Carys might be fighting for her life without remembering who was a friend and who was an enemy. She’d be lost in her own mind.
A distant sound like stone grinding along rock rumbled through the earth around them.
Aisling froze. “Regan is back.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Aisling ran to the table, grabbed Seren’s journal, and ran back to Carys, stuffing the journal back in Carys’s pocket. “Don’t let Regan see it.”
The grinding sound of stone ricocheted through the chamber, and an arched doorway appeared in the wall. Through it swept Regan, dressed in dark trousers, a leather vest, and a long royal-blue cloak that covered her head.
“What are you doing?” She stood at the mouth of the archway, her eyes fixed on Aisling, who was standing near the cauldron. “I told you to get rid of her. Can’t you do anything right?”
“People will ask questions if we kill her.” Aisling held up her hands. “If she forgets all this, it can all go back to how it was.” She pointed to the fire. “I’m making a spell to erase her memories, Regan. You can take her back through the gate. You told me you could do that.”
Regan shook her head sadly. “You silly little girl. Don’t you understand what’s happening? There is more at stake here than your lovesick mewling and stupid guilt.”
She walked over to Aisling’s cauldron and swung the rack awayfrom the fire. Her skin sizzled where it touched the burning metal, but Regan didn’t flinch.
Aisling covered her mouth as the steam died on the surface of the bubbling mass.
“And you.” Regan turned to Carys. “The fae should have eaten you in the forest before you ever set foot in this realm.” She cocked her head. “I might know one or two who would eat you now.” She smirked. “And not in any pleasant way.”
She turned away from Carys and walked to the table where Aisling’s grimoire was sitting. “Where is the spell you wrote to blind the dragon?”
“What are you talking about?” Aisling’s voice was small.
“You blinded that beast when you poisoned his mistress the first time, or he would have come back when she got sicker.”