Aodhan did go to her then, because it would have taken a dozen cave trolls to stop him. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight.
“It wasn’t you.” He’d never spoken any spell or word or magic with such intensity. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I’m so sorry. I should have realized this might happen. I should have warned you.”
She made no move to embrace him back. Her body was cold and rigid against his, as unyielding as iron. “A mother is supposed to be able to break the spell. That’s what Cuan said, what you said. I should have been able to do it. But I couldn’t. I failed my son, again. If he’d had the mother he deserved, a good mother—”
“He has the very best of mothers.” Aodhan pulled back enough to capture her bleak gaze, willing her to believe him. “I swear on every Goddess, it was nothing you did, or didn’t do. This is that damn cack-handed knight’s fault, not yours.”
She blinked, his words getting through to her at last. “Ferghal?”
“The bloody fool should stick to swinging swords. All high sidhe have an innate ability to cast glamours, but to do it well requires practice and training. And Ferghal, damn him, clearly has neither.” Aodhan grimaced, recalling the tangled snarl of magic he’d briefly sensed around Kevin. “Your son was already thoroughly enchanted by Maeve when Ferghal stole him. Any halfway decent mage would have known to remove her spell before working their own glamour. Ferghal, however, has just been slathering layer upon layer of his own unskilled seelie magic on top of Maeve’s unseelie spells. Kevin’s so tangled up in glamour, it’s a wonder he doesn’t glow in the dark.”
Cathy’s brow furrowed. “But shouldn’t I have been able to undo all the magic? Why would that make any difference?”
“Because, to use a technical term, the glamours over Kevin’s memories are fucked to buggery.” He tweaked a lock of her hair. “Let’s try a metaphor. Say you want to let your hair down. If it’s clean and tidy, then you’d just have to take out the tie and shake your head, right? Now imagine that you’d worn it up for weeks on end, and rolled through a couple of briar patches for good measure. That’s the current state of the spells on your son. You’ve snapped the tie, but the magic is too tangled to come free without a good currying, as it were.”
The faintest flicker of hope rose in her face. Aodhan wanted to cup it between his hands and breathe on it, like coaxing an ember into flame.
“You could really tell all that from just a glance?” she asked.
“I am a master mage. I’ll need time to inspect the spells in order to work out how the bloody hell to straighten out the mess, mind.”
Cathy’s gaze flicked to the closed door. “So we grab Kevin and run? Call Motley to portal us out of here?”
He shook his head. “Ferghal wasn’t joking about the quality of the wards around this place. Whoever laid them knew what they were doing. I can work magic freely within them, but reaching out is considerably harder. Or in, for that matter. Even if I could somehow get a message to Motley, I doubt he’d be able to open a portal within the grounds of the estate.”
Cathy’s mouth tightened. “I suppose we can’t just run for it, either.”
“Not with Ferghal hanging around. He’d know the moment Kevin left the house, and Eislyn is a damn sight faster than our poor transformed trees. If Ferghal gets called away to fight Morcant, we might be able to risk it, but it would be a gamble.” He brushed her hair back behind her ear, letting his fingertips linger on her skin. “Look, things aren’t that desperate yet. If we can get this wretched tangle of magic unknotted so that Kevin recognizes you, we can still just walk out of here. And Ferghal’s expecting you to fix the glamours on the boy. We have the perfect excuse to work on Kevin in private.”
Cathy let out a sigh, her body relaxing a fraction at last. “If he’ll let us. I know my son. He won’t cooperate. As far as he’s concerned, I’m just another wicked fae come to meddle with his mind. ”
“Then we have to win his trust.” Aodhan kissed her forehead. “And don’t forget, we have a secret weapon.”