pick it, but I have a feeling that, if I’d been given a choice of all the cars in the world, I probably would’ve picked this one.”
“A perfect match,” he said. “How was the trip?”
As we began walking toward the castle, I said, “I didn’t know it’s walking distance.”
“It is, but it’s just as well you brought the car because it will be dark on the way back and your eyes are…”
“Not magical?”
“Well…”
“Keir. You don’t have to pussyfoot around the truth. I’m a Mundie.”
“Hmmm. You are and you aren’t. Soon you’ll have the sight.” He bent his head slightly toward me. “Without the shoes. You’ll have perfect health and a very long life. Your background will be what it is, of course, but your constitution is changing.”
“I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that.”
“You want bad health?”
I laughed. “Of course not.”
“So welcome to Tregeagle. I live over here.” He pointed to an outbuilding with pinkish-rust colored stone that matched the castle and other buildings. “Would you like to see the place first or have tea?”
“Tour before tea.”
“This way.”
“This is my first ruin.”
“There’s not much to know other than to watch your step.”
“You’re vying for worst tour guide ever.”
With a chuckle, he said, “Oh. You want a dash of history.” He gestured toward a nearby plateau. “These stones came from a Roman fort that sat right over there. The materials were here already and just needed to be moved. It was built by one of King John’s barons then slowly fell apart when it wasn’t properly maintained. About three hundred years ago one of the fae queens fell in love with it. Liked the look and feel and the fact that it occupies a strategical location, from a magical point of view.”
“What kind of strategy?”
“She recognized that it had all the makings of a powerful faerie mound with the perfect disguise above.”
“Um. This is probably going to sound woefully ignorant, but I don’t know what a faerie mound is.”
He dropped his chin to his chest and smiled. “Seems I have my work cut out for me then. The fae have the ability to create entire worlds underground and undetected, generating their own light and climate, independent of the sun. Magic kind aren’t subject to the restraints of physics as understood by humans.”
“You’re saying that there are people, um, fae living here? Beneath this ground?”
He nodded. “Indeed. There are worlds unknown to humans, undetectable by the human magic of technology.”
“Do you think there may be a mind-blowing point at which my head will actually explode?”
He laughed. “Rita. If you weren’t supremely adaptable, the Powers wouldn’t have chosen you. Your head will not explode. Every time you learn something new, you just shift your concept of reality a tad and keep moving forward.”
I felt like giving Keir a fist bump because that’s exactly what I’d been doing ever since I received the envelope from Lochlan.
“Was it here before the town was named?”
With a grin, Keir said, “Put that together, did you? Yes. The town was named Hallow Hill because of the location of the mound.”
“Can I see it?”
“Sorry. No. Your composition is too dense to enter. That may change over time. When the sight settles on you permanently, you’ll gradually become more like us.”
“I see.”
We both laughed and I was grateful that he ‘got’ my sense of humor.
We spent an hour looking around the beautiful ruined stacks of stone. Climbing stone staircases with steps so worn they slanted downward at an angle.
“I’ll bet this was dark inside when it was still fully enclosed,” I said. “There aren’t many windows and the few that are here are so narrow they wouldn’t let in much light.”
“Weather was a concern in old drafty castles with high ceilings. Did you know that’s why tapestries came to be popular?”
“No.”
“They were originally rugs, but humans started hanging them on the walls in winter to insulate from the cold and help retain the heat generated by fires.” He waved toward the building he’d pointed out as his house. “I have some of them.”
“Tapestries from the eleventh century? They have to be priceless.”
He chuckled. “I suppose they would be. If they were for sale.”
“You don’t worry about theft?”
He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “That is utterly impossible, Rita. I assure you.”
My first impulse was to ask why theft was impossible, but decided I’d put that ‘consciousness shift’ off for another time. “Magic kind never have to worry about such things as paying the light bill, do they?”