LOFTIN

I was running alongside her, but my mind was going faster than our feet.

She felt so warm and soft under my arm. So perfect. But I couldn’t let myself think that way. She was Nemain’s daughter. Powerful beyond anything I’d imagined. Her father must be one of the Kings of the Seasonal Courts. It could even be my father.

He’d spent plenty of time groveling at Nemain’s feet, trying to save Autumn. Maybe it was because he was already familiar with her, that he’d given her an heir, that she hadn’t turned him into nothing.

How did Karis cause the creeper vine to grow and sprout leaves? I couldn’t get it out of my head. That was a power from the Spring Court. Since the courts were ruined, there hadn’t been life in this place. Coated with poisonous ash, everything had faded, dried, fallen, and withered to the point that I thought Faery wasn’t just dying, but was already dead.

But Karis brought something small to life. I’d spent many nights in that hollow trunk and knew there weren’t any vines on it. No signs of life for years. How could she bring it back in barely a moment, with a single touch of her hand?

And given the chance, what more could she do to repair the damage her mother had caused?

The apple and bread disintegrated in her hands, but if she’d tried to stop the decay, she might have succeeded. Before today, Karis had no idea she could manipulate nature. Fear and awe fought for possession of her expression. I’m sure I wore an expression to match.

Her mother had absorbed the powers of the Kings and Queen of the Seasonal Courts, and she’d passed those powers onto her child. That was the only explanation. The Spring Court was ruled by a Queen. She didn’t inherit her power to rejuvenate nature from her father; she’d taken it from her mother, who had taken it from the Queen of Spring.

Nemain took powers from all the rulers, which meant Karis had them all. It also meant there was no telling who her father was.

I set a slower pace, claiming danger in the darkness. But in reality, I realized she needed to pace herself so she didn’t wear out. Her blindness had limited her movement in Ironton.

We walked quickly, but I stopped her when the distinct snuffling sound of a Wirry cut through the night. I grabbed Karis and held her still behind a tree, holding a finger across my lips. Easing my knives out of their sheaths, I motioned for her to stay put. She nodded her agreement.

My muscles stiffened.

Karis closed her eyes tightly.

He appeared just a few feet in front of us, a short, hunched-back creature that seemed harmless, but his form concealed brute force that could crush a fae with a single blow. He bared his saw-like teeth and sniffed the air before continuing past us. He should have been able to see us, or at the very least smell us. I relaxed my grip on the knives’ handles and let out a slow breath. It made no sense. Maybe something was wrong with it.

Karis refused to open her eyes.

I’d told her to keep quiet and for once, she listened. That didn’t mean she wasn’t scared out of her mind. I sheathed my knives and gently clasped her arms, feeling her body tremble beneath my hands. She blinked up at me and I smiled reassuringly, and then bent to whisper in her ear. “It’s gone.”

She loosened the grip on her staff and took a deep, shuddering breath.

Her scent was driving me mad; so sweet and distinctly female. And her lips. I wasn’t lying when I told her they were torture. I wanted to taste them more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. Her eyes searched mine as I lingered, considering all the consequences of throwing caution to the wind.

Kissing her was too risky.

Incredibly, in just a few short hours, Karis had come to trust me.

It was unsettling. The thought wasn’t an easy one to stomach. It was what I wanted, my goal from the beginning.

Earn her trust.

Befriend her.

See that she’s willing to follow you anywhere.

Lead her into hell.

I just didn’t realize I would feel this stone in my chest when I thought about her fate. She seemed nothing more than an innocent pawn in her mother’s game. But my father... I had to free him. Just as I was Karis’s only hope of survival in the forests of Faery, I was my father’s only hope as well.

With his power returned, the Western Forest and what was left of our people could thrive. We could restore at least a sliver of this world to what it once was, and in time, maybe restore all of the courts. I couldn’t let one girl make me forget about that. There were bigger things, more important things at play than one female fae.

Even if she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life.

We walked slowly after that, Karis more alert to the threats hidden in the shadows. Eventually, when the sky began to lighten, Karis stumbled next to me and I caught her. “Sorry,” she apologized. Sleep clung to her voice, deepening it slightly. “I’m tired, but I think I can smell his trail now.”

“You do,” I confirmed.

“It’s going to feel amazing to get back home and sleep,” she proclaimed wistfully, before her smile fell. “I can’t go back, can I?”

“Would you want to live in Ironton, knowing how they feel about the fae? Your glamour is gone.”

She chewed on her bottom lip. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

We were quiet for a long moment before she asked, “How are you not ready to fall over? Don’t you need sleep?”

“I don’t require much,” I admitted. She was so young, she required rest after such an arduous day. The amount of sleep she needed would diminish slowly over time, assuming she lived a long life.

When her stomach growled, I offered to get food for her. “We need to stop and rest, and you need to eat.”

“I don’t have any more food.”

I smiled. “Good thing you have a hunter as your guide.” I found a small clearing near a rocky outcropping and positioned her in the middle of it. She clasped her staff in her hand. Why she dragged the damned thing around was beyond me. Not that it was really in the way. When she tired, she used it as a walking stick, and she’d even brandished it against the Banshee.

I smiled and shook my head. Foolish girl.

“I’ll be back soon, but you have to stay here and keep hidden. You can keep my sword.”

“No!” she gasped, scrambling to her feet as I stood to leave. “You’ll need it. And I have my staff and knives.”

Most of the Unseelie could snap her staff in two. And the knives? Anyone could take them or knock them away from her, and quickly. She obviously hadn’t been trained to use them.

I smiled at her. Oh, she was keeping my sword. I wasn’t taking no for an answer. “I have other weapons, and we can make a fire to cook what I bring back. It’ll be safe for a short time. You can gather fallen branches, but keep this cliff in sight at all times.”

“I will,” she promised. I hoped this time she listened. I’d stay close. There was something nearby. I could smell it.

* * *

KARIS

I wondered what Loftin would hunt for us and hoped it was something I could stomach. The beasts in this place were enormous and terrifying. I still don’t know what passed us in the night. I couldn’t make myself open my eyes or stop chanting in my mind that we were invisible.

But this morning, my imagination was in overdrive and it was all Loftin’s fault. I kept thinking of Loftin stalking his prey, overpowering it. Him bringing the kill back and sharing it with me. A primal part of me stirred at the thought, but I pushed it away. I needed to focus. Ironton was safe, but Iric wasn’t, and he had no idea about the smoke being nothing more than a lie. We didn’t need to be here. Or he didn’t, at least. He needed to get back inside the wall as soon as possible.

Then he could have the life he deserved, the one Vivica envisioned for her son. With a wife and children, and most of all, happiness. He’d be alive and safe inside the wall. If I had weakened it by being inside, it meant they’d be safe as long as I was in Faery. The wall wouldn’t fade away.

Keeping the cliff in sight, I gathered dead limbs from beneath the nearest trees. It wasn’t a difficult chore, as most of the trees were dead; gnarled and knotted perversions of what they once must have been.

Several armfuls later, I had a large pile of wood and a small pile of dead leaves. I whittled some wood shavings for kindling, having heard Iric do the same thing many nights. I hoped he was still resting and that we’d find him soon.

While we were walking away from the creature last night, all I could think of was a great shadow, blending into the darkness and looming over the forest, searching for something it was unable to find. I could feel its frustration and the anger seeping out of its dark tendrils. If we had stopped to sleep, I wouldn’t have rested. Not with that thought running through my head over and over again.

There was flowing water nearby; not a river, something smaller. A stream. I’d already gulped the entire canteen of water I’d taken from the rain barrel in Ironton, and we would need more with our meal. It couldn’t be far. The water’s trickling flow was so loud.

With the canteen hanging around my neck, my staff in one hand, and Loftin’s sword in the other, I set out in the direction of the sound. Just out of sight was a small stream, but a little farther was a clearing, and if I was right, the brightness ahead was sunlight glinting on water. The forest gave way to a beautiful lake so vast, I couldn’t see the other side.

Peering around, there was nothing and no one nearby. I briefly sniffed my clothes, and while I didn’t smell horrible, I figured I could wash my exposed skin and face while I was here and be back before Loftin knew I’d been gone. Setting Loftin’s sword and the canteen on the ground beside me, I knelt at the water’s edge, cupped my hands, and brought the cool water to my face and neck.

I blinked as droplets of water fell from my lashes, splashing into the lake again. In the surface, an image formed. It was me. My face was shaped like a heart and my dark, messy hair was still tangled in the braid that I’d made before leaving Ironton. My ears... the tips were pointed. I’d felt them, but seeing them was something else altogether.

It was true. I was fae.

It didn’t seem real. All of this – since I stepped into Faery – everything seemed like a dream. Maybe it was?

Pushing my hair back, I marveled at them. They were beautiful.

I flexed my long fingers in front of me and glimpsed down at my dirt-stained shirt and pants, both too small for my body, but all Dusty could scrounge up at the last minute. I studied my face and ears, wondering how this was possible.

How had my entire life, or what I could remember of it, been a lie? Or was this a lie? Was Loftin glamouring me now to make me think I was fae? But if that was the case, why would he want or need to?

The memory of the Retriever nursery rhyme surfaced; the words that made being in Faery sound like a great, albeit dangerous, adventure.

On a midsummer’s day,

she’ll be carried away.

Creatures new and old,

desperate for her blood.

Take the shadow pass,

Find the looking glass.

Devils on her heel,

her skin they’ll peel.

Run and leap back through,

with the faery brew.

If I’d been glamoured my entire life, why did the magic finally fail? I should be grateful it didn’t, though. The people of Ironton would have burned me at the stake or chopped me to bits. My neighbors – the same ones I wanted so desperately to fit in with.

How did these two worlds become so far separated from each other? Maybe it was for the best. Maybe things that were so drastically different couldn’t co-exist peacefully.

I frowned at my features, ones I’d been brought up to fear and hate.

The reflection faded, and in its place came another image.

“What are you doing?” A young man’s face appeared, his full lips parted and his brow furrowed. His hair, the color of ice, hung long and straight past his shoulders, and his ears were pointed. He was fae, but not a monster. Was he Seelie? My lips parted as I stared at his face, so clear in the placid water. Was he beneath the surface?

Why does he look so familiar?

“Karis, where are you? Why did you leave Ironton? You must go back immediately.”

How did he know my name and where I lived?

“Who are you?” It felt like a dream. The morning sun was warm and comforting on my skin, taking away the chill the water had left behind. My voice sounded far away. Or maybe that was his. Or ours.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, but recovered quickly. “You are in grave danger. You must go back home.”

I shook my head at the watery apparition. “I can’t.”

His silver eyes bored into mine. “I am a friend. Trust me when I tell you that you need to return to Ironton. The smoke will shield you,” he implored.

“I’m looking for someone. Once I find him, I’ll take him back to Ironton.” I needed to calm this man down and make him understand, and I had no idea why. I looked fixedly over my shoulder for Loftin.

He stilled. “Is someone with you?”

I opened my mouth, not wanting to betray Loftin, but feeling compelled to tell this stranger and confide in him. It was as if I could hear his heart pounding through the water’s glassy surface. I felt his fear and tasted its bitterness.

A sound came from the forest behind me. Something was approaching. I glanced over my shoulder, scanning the scene behind me but seeing nothing. I could hear and feel it, though.

“Is something there?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” I whimpered, not taking my eyes off the woods. The fingers of my left hand trembled as they reached for the grip of Loftin’s sword. Just then, something wet slithered up my right forearm and sank into my skin, something serpentine. I took up my knife, both to defend myself, and to find out what had caused the unusual sensation. “What is this?” I frantically examined the space between my right arm and the forest behind me, sure that any second now, something was about to gobble me up.

“A gift,” the young man answered dreamily. “If you need help, it will protect you. Simply will it to live, and it shall protect you against anything in Faery.”

The strange sensation on my forearm eased, but in its place was the outline of a viper, carved in shimmering ink, its scales like shards of glass. I swept a thumb over the serpent, expecting it to shred my skin, but my flesh felt no different. It was smooth and supple, although the strange serpent on my arm shimmered in the sunlight.

“What did you do?” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice as another rustle came from the woods.

“It is an Asper, and every creature in Faery will fear it if you will it to life. Its bite is lethal to every fae.”

I didn’t understand how to ‘will’ the Asper to life, and I didn’t know who the fae was who gave me this gift. I glanced behind me where an increasing apprehension was growing, but still there was nothing. The air did not turn frigid. Nothing lurked among the dead and dying trees, because I could see straight through them. There were no shadows.

When I glanced back to the water, back to the faery, he was gone. However, where his face had been, another glimpsed up at me. She was beautiful. A small, horse-like creature treaded in the water in front of me, peering up at me with wide, soulful eyes. It blinked and nudged its nose toward me as if it wanted to be petted. As if it needed love...

In the forest, there was nothing. Maybe I’d sensed a small animal foraging for food, or heard it rustling in the leaves. I turned my attention back to the small water horse and reached my hand out to pet it.

The animal moved quicker than I imagined was possible, snapping its teeth onto my sleeve and dragging me into the water.

I struggled, kicking and clawing toward the surface, toward the light I could still see. But the water horse dragged me far into the lake and down into the murky depths, where algae and weeds tangled around my limbs. Running out of oxygen, I knew I’d made a grave mistake. I failed to listen, and in doing so, doomed Iric.

Loftin wouldn’t find me now.

The animal lost its grip on my pant leg. When I realized I was free, I kicked hard toward the surface. My mouth breached and I took in a deep breath before the horse clamped onto my boot and dragged me under once more. Sunken boats, tufts of lake weed, and logs settled on the bottom. My body was dragged over them all, beaten and bruised, but all I could think about was oxygen.

I needed air.

As soon as I thought it, I could breathe. A sphere formed around my head and I panted into it, gasping and sputtering as I coughed up the lake water I’d inhaled. It pooled around my neck. The horse lost his grip when I kicked it in the face, but was already circling back around. I had no weapons. Iric’s knife and sheath had been torn off in the water, probably by debris, leaving me with nothing to fight her off with. I wasn’t a proficient swimmer, but I had to try to get to dry land. That was my only hope.

When I raised my arm to show the creature the Asper, and tried to flex the muscles of my forearm to make it appear alive, nothing happened. The beast was not deterred in the slightest. The ferocious-looking Asper didn’t protect me at all.

Somehow I made it to the surface again, the bubble of air around my head popping when it hit the air. “Help!” I struggled to keep my head above water. “Loftin!”

As if I’d conjured him, he appeared at the shore, cursing and throwing his weapons off. He was so far away. Too far away.

When a keening sound came from behind me, I gave a panicked scream and dipped below the surface, gasping when I emerged again. The horse was coming back. It materialized several feet away, but was slicing through the water like a knife through soft butter.

“Loftin!” I yelled. He was already in the water, using strong strokes to get to me, but there was no way he would reach me before the creature did.

I was going to be fae food.

Moving slowly toward the shore, I fought against the weeds tangled around my feet, against my own inabilities, and clawed the water desperately. When the horse breached the surface, snorted and dove back beneath the water, I knew it was moving in for the kill. It let me go twice. It wouldn’t make the same mistake a third time.

A torrent of bubbles rushed to the surface.

I winced, expecting the worst, but instead of the horse, Loftin surfaced. Water sluiced off his skin as he tucked his knife between his gritted teeth, his lips thin and his eyes tight with anger. He swam for us both, wrapping an arm around my stomach and pulling me back to shore. I crawled onto land, backing far from the water’s edge.

Loftin trained his sunset eyes on me, but there was no warmth in them. “Puca are one of the oldest and deadliest of the Unseelie. If I hadn’t heard you...” He took a deep breath. I could hear his pulse pound and see the vein in his neck throbbing with the beat of his heart. I didn’t want him to finish his sentence; didn’t want to know what might have happened if he hadn’t been nearby and close enough to help.

“Loftin, I’m so sorry. I heard the stream and followed it to the lake. I just wanted to wash for a moment and fill the canteen again,” I babbled. “I’m sorry. I thought it would be safe.” No wonder Iric couldn’t trust me to take care of myself. No wonder I needed people to babysit me.

Loftin seemed as though he might explode…and then he did. “You thought wrong! Again! Will you do us both a favor and assume that everything is dangerous? Absolutely everything in this forest is deadly! Everything. Even the water!” he yelled, clenching and unclenching his fists at his side. Pacing, he continued his rant. “It’s like you don’t want to find Iric at all. You almost ruined... everything.”

* * *

LOFTIN

She gave me a long, hurtful stare and glanced away.

I gathered my bag and gear and took up my sword from the ground where she’d left it, sheathing it and trying like hell not to study the green grass and flowers blooming all around where she’d knelt at the water’s edge.

Karis quietly stood and followed me back to the cliff where our food was waiting. I’d killed a Harick. It wasn’t much, but it was more than nothing, and I needed to skin and cook it quickly so we could move. We had many miles to cover before we reached the Northern Forest and the Court of Ash.

“You should lay down and rest while you can,” I growled.

She followed me back and sat down near the pile of dead limbs she’d collected.

As I cut the pelt away from the small animal, I thought about what had happened. She almost died. If I returned to Nemain without her, she would make me suffer for a long time before she killed me. Not that I’d go willingly.

I knew what she did to the huntsman who was supposed to bring her Karis’s heart when she was only a child.

Who could do that?

Who could order another to cut the heart out of her own daughter? Especially when she was little more than a child.

I shook my head.

You couldn’t make sense out of evil, and Nemain was exactly that, through and through. She would stop at nothing until she got what she wanted. If she wanted her daughter, and if I could deliver her in one piece to get what I wanted in the process, it was what I needed to do.

And this morning? Maybe the Puca was a blessing. If I kept reminding myself that we were simply traveling companions, it wouldn’t be so hard to deliver her to her mother. Karis was just a mark, a job; an exchange I couldn’t live without.

But the longer we travelled together, the more I realized I didn’t want to just exist anymore. I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t have the luxury of being her friend, and I sure as hell needed to quit staring at the wet clothing stuck to her body like a second damned skin, the see-through material of her shirt with her nipples puckered beneath it.

Scald it all.

When she closed her eyes, I breathed onto the pile of logs she’d gathered, igniting them. She heard the kindling ignite and her eyes snapped open. Her spine straightened and she looked back at the fire and then to me, the question lingering in her eyes. How did you do that?

I didn’t bother answering. “Sleep. You need it.” She wasn’t going to be able to handle this journey if she didn’t take time to rest. She wasn’t human, so she didn’t need to sleep one third of the day, but she did need to nap when she could.

With the meat cleaned, I made a spit and arranged the small Harick carcass across the makeshift spit. The flames licked at the pink meat, turning it brown and in places, blackening it. Karis’ breathing finally evened out. She slept soundly for a while, but suddenly opened her eyes, wide awake again.

“The meat is cooked through. It’s safe to eat,” I offered.

As we ate, Karis fidgeted, sniffed the air, and fidgeted some more. She stood and sat back down, only to stand up again. She kept looking at me from the corner of her eyes. “What’s wrong?” I finally asked when I couldn’t take it anymore.

“I don’t smell Iric. His scent is gone. Do you smell it?” her voice broke on the last word.

“The smoke from our fire’s probably overpowering it.” Even so, I sniffed the air, realizing she was right. “If you’re ready, I’ll put the fire out and we can get going.”

“How do we know which direction to travel?”

“Tracking humans isn’t hard,” I declared reassuringly.

“Okay.” She blinked away the moisture from her eyes and threw her bag over her back.

I stomped out the fire until only a small trickle of smoke wafted into the air. “We’re going into the hills, leaving the Southern Forest and traveling into the Eastern Wood, former home of the Court of Spring. You’ll need to be mindful of your steps, as the trail is littered with boulders and stones. It’s easy to twist an ankle and injure yourself, but that’s where Iric’s scent trail was headed. We’ll probably catch up with him soon.” It was fortunate for me that he was heading in the safest direction for us to travel, and the quickest toward the Court of Ash.

She pursed her lips and nodded once, holding the rope to the bag across her back in one hand and her staff in the other. I would have told her to leave the wooden stick behind, but she seemed to draw comfort from it. As her hand tightened on the staff, something glimmered in the sun.

“What’s that on your arm?”

She tried to pull away, but I caught her wrist and brought her toward me. Her chest heaved against mine, our toes touched, and I bent down so she couldn’t turn her eyes away. I pushed her sleeve up.

“Where did you get the Asper?” I breathed. It wasn’t there yesterday.

She squirmed against me, trying to pull her arm from my grip and failing. I could see the moment she decided to tell me the truth. The sternness in her face melted away. “It was a gift,” she whispered.

“You met Finean?”

At the nod of her head, everything inside me caught fire. If there was anyone I hated worse than Nemain, it was Finean, King of the Court of Reflections.