The Day Human Way (7 page)

“How about if he was the one to make them unconscious? Then he didn’t do it to an unconscious sidhe. Maybe this is his plan to hurt them and cover it up by acting like he’s trying to save them,” the first pointed out. “We saw how angry Liam was making him. I can see you two are bonded. Can you be sure he wouldn’t act on his instinct to keep you to himself?”

“He’s not like that,” Nessa replied, exasperated. No amount of talking was going to get the sidhe to not view Devin as an enemy.

Devin stood and moved beside her. He was calm for the situation, and all his emotions were checked back behind the emotional wall he liked to put up. At least on the outside no one would see the anger that Nessa was still sure was there. The ironic part was his anger was no longer directed at the courtiers. He was angry with Nessa, but none of the men there would ever be able to tell the difference. She really should have told him more about Liam.

‘
They will never trust me,’
Devin told her.

‘
Doesn’t matter,’
Nessa replied. Even with all the emotions she did feel from him, and the anger and jealousy that had been there only minutes ago, Nessa was sure that Devin wasn’t the one causing the illness. Unfortunately, the other sidhe thought the complete opposite.

“Devin, it might be a good idea to back away from this until we can get these men better,” Uncle Rolf suggested. Nessa didn’t want Devin to leave her with several angry sidhe. The anger was directed at Devin, but she still didn’t feel safe with them.

Devin looked at him and nodded. He turned to leave, and Nessa’s mouth dropped in shock. He was walking away so easily. That wasn’t like him. Was he part of it after all? Was he just going to let the men die? Was he leaving? Without turning around, Devin talked silently to her in her mind.

‘
Take them somewhere in the palace together,’
he told her.
‘Keep them safe and isolated from everyone. I’m going to get some help on this one.’

‘
What?’
Nessa asked in disbelief. Of all the times to listen to her uncle, he was choosing now? Was he really leaving?

‘
Don’t worry, Princess. Whoever did this won’t hurt you.’
Devin mistook her shock as fear for her own safety.

‘
What?’
she asked, still too shocked at seeing him leave the room.

‘
I’ve gotten better at my spells. You’re completely safe,’
Devin answered.
‘Just keep them isolated. I don’t know what set this off, but there has to be a witch around. I’ll get some help so we can figure this all out.’

Nessa didn’t understand but knew enough to do what he asked. Devin was planning something, and she was sure he would do it perfectly. Devin had a knack for situations like they were in now. She trusted him completely.

“We need to take them to our sick wing of the palace and keep them isolated,” Nessa told the men. “It might be contagious.”

“See,” the second man said as Devin disappeared out of the room, “I knew the day human did this.”

“Devin wouldn’t have done this,” Nessa snapped, starting to get angry herself at all the accusations.

“Then why is the day human leaving?” Liam’s relative asked. He was still glaring at the spot where Devin had just been.

“Because, unlike the sidhe who want to sit around and point fingers, he’s actually going to investigate what happened.” Nessa was furious with the sidhe now. It was true; they were never ones for figuring out the truth. All they really wanted to do was sit and cast blame until someone killed the accused, whether the person was guilty or not. Maybe if they opened their eyes, they would see that Devin was actually an asset and his day human way was a bit more productive than that of the sidhe.

“Only he can activate a curse like this,” the second man complained, still blaming Devin.

“This wasn’t a curse from the sidhe,” Nessa replied, exasperated at how much they wanted to blame Devin. “This is a witch curse.”

The men immediately backed away from their relatives in fear. Outsiders were not tolerated well in the villages, but outside magic was even less tolerated.

Uncle Rolf reached down to usher Nessa away. His hand wrapped around her arm, but there was a space between his hand and her arm. The bubble Devin had encased her in was still around her, but tightly. And she could move it. Devin had been practicing, and she appreciated it. Any lingering fear for her own safety disappeared when she saw that. Even if he wasn’t around, Devin was still protecting her. She should have never doubted that he would keep her safe.

Uncle Rolf noticed her new protective skin. “What is that?” he asked quietly after directing the relatives of the sick men to take the bodies and follow them.

“Devin,” she answered.

Smiling, Uncle Rolf shook his head.

“That’s some day human you got there.”

Devin waited in
the glen for his visitors to arrive. Luck was on his side in that they were already near enough to only take a couple of hours flying to get to him. If they hadn’t been at the retreat at the lake they would have had to fly all the way across the United States, which was considerably longer than the two hours total it took for them to catch a plane, land, and drive out into the national forest where the sidhe lived. It would have been quicker to pull them through the trees, but he wasn’t about to try that yet with normal humans. Night humans were much easier to heal than day humans, and pulling a non-sidhe through the trees was bound to hurt them somehow. He was unsure if he could actually heal a day human without making them a sidhe anyway.

Lindsey sat hidden not too far away from Devin. The old sidhe was one with nature, but Devin’s new insights made it obvious where the old one was. Lindsey didn’t pay attention to him but watched the trees. Devin looked in the direction he was staring. The older sidhe was connected to nature more than any of the others. The life inside him reacted with every touch to the plants around him. Lindsey turned his head slightly. The signals from his body fed into the earth and the plants around him and then came back. It was amazing to see. Devin could feel it now, too. Lindsey was ancient, even in the terms of night humans who could live several day human lifetimes. If Devin had to guess, it was even possible Lindsey was an original sidhe.

“They should be here in less than a minute,” Lindsey told Devin without looking at him.

Devin nodded.

“The day human witches don’t belong here. Be careful of them and what they teach. Sidhe should only know one kind of magic. When you start to mix them, there will be problems.”

Devin nodded again to Lindsey’s advice. There was much he still didn’t know about the sidhe, and the giant old sidhe before him was a great source of knowledge.

“They can mix?” Devin asked to be sure. “I was under the impression only those born of the witch bloodline could do their magic.”

Lindsey turned his huge green eyes to Devin briefly before looking back to where the witches would come from.

“If accepted by the witches, anyone can learn witch magic, day or night human. They don’t discriminate,” Lindsey replied. He sat as still as the large trees next to him.

That changed everything. Devin gazed into the forest for his guests. He could feel them walking, but had yet to see them. If Lindsey was correct, Devin might not be looking for a witch in the sidhe village after all. He could have a sidhe that was trained by witches. Was that even possible?

Lindsey seemed to be following Devin’s realization and nodded to him. “While the sidhe keep their villages isolated, they do leave them. Most sidhe, beyond the princess, are raised to leave every now and then. No one speaks of where they go, and everyone keeps it a secret. They like to pretend they don’t need the outside world, and that it’s better in the village, but the elite males have all traveled outside at some point in their lives.”

That made even less sense. “The witches are all females.” Or at least Devin thought they were.

“Not all,” Lindsey answered before sitting down and blending into his surroundings. “Like I said, they accept everyone.”

Devin glanced up at the two approaching women. This was getting a bit more complicated. He hated to draw more people into the mess, but he was sure he was going to need to. He couldn’t fight a magic he knew little about with his own magic that he knew just as little about. Keaton might have thought power was the answer, just like the sidhe, but knowledge could be just as powerful, too.

The older of the two women smiled at him as soon as she saw him. Her dark hair was plaited into one long braid that almost reached her waist, making her seem older than the thirty years she was. Her dark, almost black, eyes crinkled as she smiled. She came forward and wrapped Devin into a hug.

“It’s been a long time,” she complained, not letting go.

“Four years isn’t that long, Maria,” Devin remarked, hugging the woman back.

He had spent a summer with the witches and their night human counterparts but had not been back since. His memories of his tie with the witches and skinwalkers were all enjoyable. It had been the first time in a long time he didn’t have to fear for his life. There was no fighting and no wars. No night humans waiting to attack. He had spent a summer just being a teen, for the most part, with a little combat training on the side. To Devin, Maria looked exactly the same as she had the day he said good-bye to them.

“It’s what,” she paused and counted, “a fifth of your life? I’d say that’s a long time.”

“It may have been a fifth of my life before, but since I don’t know if I’ll live a normal day human life now, it might be nothing in the long run,” Devin replied. Things had changed, and he didn’t want to think about that part. He was pretty sure Nessa wasn’t interested in the night humans that were to court her, but the thought of a long, possibly forever life where he had to watch Nessa be with someone else sounded agonizing to him.

Maria stepped back and looked Devin over. Her dark eyes sparkled as she examined him.

“Now that’s interesting,” she replied. “I never pegged you for one that would become a sidhe. In fact, if I recall correctly, I think your very words were, ‘I’d die before becoming a night human.’”

The younger girl beside Maria coughed, and Maria glanced down at her.

“He’s not,” she said, barely more than a whisper, and her cheeks flamed red.

Devin looked at her and tried to remember which witch this one was. Nothing about her stood out. She had shoulder length brown hair and brown eyes to match. As she stared intently at the ground, she blushed, yet that still didn’t give him any idea who she was. He stared harder, but he couldn’t tell. It had been four years, and it seemed like she was barely a teenager. She would have been a little kid when he was with them before, and he hadn’t exactly been looking to play with kids during his stay. He was there to train against magic and to learn how to defend himself. The night human skinwalkers the witches paired up with were some of the most powerful fighters in their human form. He had spent three months of getting beat again and again by those men to grow stronger and enjoyed every minute of it.

“She’s right.” Devin still didn’t know who the girl was. “I’m still a human.”

“Not possible,” Maria exclaimed. “You have sidhe magic in you now. Even I can sense it.”

Devin laughed. “Seems I met someone that didn’t believe in anything being impossible. The former sidhe king proved a lot of things possible that no one thought could be.”

Maria’s mouth hung open. “The grandfather king?” she asked in awe. Obviously, even the witches knew about the sidhe king.

“Oh yes, it’s quite the story. When we get time, I’ll tell you all about it. But right now I need you to help me. There are some sidhe under a spell, and it gets worse when only I touch them. I’m pretty sure it’s witch magic,” Devin explained, turning to lead the way.

“There are no witches here besides us,” the girl pointed out, and then looked back at the ground as her face reddened even more.

Devin turned back to her. She was still avoiding his gaze. The girl seemed to have a great sense of magic around her. She was strong. It hadn’t even taken her a moment to sense the whole village. Even Devin with his super sidhe powers needed more time than that to check on everyone. There were a few thousand people in the village after all. It hit Devin then.

“Cassie?” he asked. She had just turned thirteen the last time he saw her. She had been around when he studied with Maria, but she was more of a nuisance than anything. She was the only witch he met that didn’t know about the night humans. He never understood why they wouldn’t tell her about them, and he was surprised at the lengths everyone made to keep it from her when they were training her as a witch like her mother.

Cassie finally met his gaze. Her chocolate brown eyes studied him and looked deep within. He remembered how unnerving it could be to look at her when she was reading your soul. Even back when he was in their city years ago, he knew not to look directly at her.

“He has magic within him, but it’s not witch magic,” Cassie commented to Maria, and then turned away. She obviously saw more but was keeping it to herself. He was glad that time taught her a little control of her power. Cassie looked to Maria before continuing. “I don’t understand. You said he wasn’t a sidhe. How can he have magic then? You said they would all have some magic, but this isn’t some. This is a lot. How can he have this much magic and not be part of their kind?” Cassie was great at sensing magic, and could actually read a person’s potential if she so chose. Devin had no clue how they kept her from knowing about the night human world with her gift.

Smiling, Maria nodded to Devin. “This is a whole different type of people here. Remember, I was explaining that on the way here. They have a little magic each, but it seems Devin went and found the only one that had a lot of magic. I’m guessing he somehow gave it to Devin without making him one of them.”

Cassie nodded but wasn’t satisfied with the answer. It seemed like she wanted to ask more, but stopped when someone else entered the clearing.