Conall breathed in deeply. A satisfied smile danced on the edge of his mouth.
"Do you know how drop your glamour?"
"No." I slid up my hood.
Standing legs apart, his hands came to rest on his narrow hips. "You understand the physical of your nature?"
I let the clumps of grass fall and wiped my hands on my jeans. "I'm fast. I heal."
"Have you measured your strength?"
Disconcerted, I rubbed my nose. I hadn't thought of what being a fairy really entailed. I knew that they were fierce and hard. They healed fast and were the most powerful of the demons. They had strong characters and were beautiful. They had buckets of pride and protected what they thought was theirs. They had magic. I was one of them. But what did it mean to be a fairy? Was there a pecking order like there was within the Sect and who protected, and guided them? Did they really live as nomads and in small families by choice? Or was it a result of the Rupture, like the Wall was.
"I haven't thought about it. I haven't thought about much to be honest. Stuff keeps happening a tad fast."
"If I was human," he snorted, "and discovered I was much stronger, faster I would not be able to stop myself." He shrugged. "My nature is proud."
I thought on it for a while. "It's hard to believe all of this. You all seem so real." Conall gave me an odd look. "Understand, in my world demons are odd not humans."
"A complicated way of saying you're adjusting."
I stuck my tongue out at him and placing my legs a foot apart, bent my knees like I was to do some damage. Balling my hands into fists, I pushed thought to the back of my head to clear up some thinking space.
"I'm ready. Let's do this." The sooner I got this done, the sooner I could get back to Tomas.
"You know you're fast?" I bobbed my head. He grinned, a slash of white against the dark tan of his skin. "When the spell broke how did you feel?"
There was that buzz word again. Spell. Breandan had mentioned a spell breaking and something being painful. My heart picked up. Was this going to be painful? Is that the real reason why Breandan wanted this fairy to show me instead of him? I realized Conall was waiting for my answer.
"Uh" I thought back to running away from the Clerics, their dogs chasing me down; believing I was about to be ripped to pieces by teeth. "Scared."
His brows pulled together. "Scared? Not a strong emotion, and certainly not strong enough to break a spell."
"I was completely bricking myself."
I watched as he translated that into something he could understand. "Better," he concluded and looked at me hard. "Before the speed what was your state of mind?"
I hopped from one foot to the other. "Did you not hear me? I was terrified. I wanted nothing more than to be far, far away from an ugly painful death."
"Precisely. Your state of mind is crucial when conjuring. Glamour is no different."
"Ah, no incantations over a cauldron bubbling with chicken feet and grave dirt?"
I had a flash of myself doing a tribal dance in front of an open flame with mud on my face, an animal fur slung about my naughty bits. and bones plaited into my hair. I muffled a snigger.
"If you are a witch laying a spell to hide than yes, but not fairy glamour. It is done with little concentration. Eventually you'll conjure and drop your glamour with ease. When we glamour ourselves we suppress our nature. This cloaks our ears and makes us less otherworldly by fixing our features to one state. A safeguard is created around our being. Once sight passes through it makes us look more human. We dislike when people are in our," he pursed his lips, "the humans call it personal space unless they have a close connection to us."
I struggled to understand. "So, the ears and the glowing still exist but we just can see it?"
"The glamour disrupts what the mind perceives to be true. If you cannot see, smell, touch or hear a thing why would you believe it is there?"
I remembered the shield over Breandan, the pulsing around Devlin. "As fairies we can sense glamour." I said and nodded.
I had definitely gotten it wrong. Devlin wasn't human at all. He was a fairy, a fairy hiding in plain sight at Temple. How he had managed such a thing was beyond me. To enroll you have to meet the Priests and take a vow to uphold Sect Doctrine.
