The Hedge King’s Power
Their footsteps echoed off of the marble floors of the Unseelie palace. Ronan kept a firmly restrained Foley in front of him, followed by Sylvie, and then Beth. The knowledge of what would happen next was a lead weight in Beth’s stomach. Sebastian had come with them through to Faerie but had branched off, opting out of a face to face with the Dark Lady. Beth didn’t blame him.
She tried to take a deep breath as they neared the throne room. She wasn’t Marcas Foley’s biggest fan, in that she kind of loathed him, but that didn’t mean she wanted to eat his soul. Beth wasn’t sure what she hated more, that she had to take a part of him inside her or that some version of her was chomping at the bit to do so. Self-loathing wasn’t a new companion for Beth, but it still wasn’t a welcome one.
The guards posted outside the large double doors took a nod from Ronan and allowed the four of them inside. Beth shouldn’t have been surprised to find Aengus Bierne conversing with the Queen, but she was nonetheless. The nobleman was close enough to Maeve that he was almost perched on the arm of the throne. The room already smelled like what Beth craved so deeply; lightning and gunpowder; Cthonic.
The smile on the Queen’s face was uncharacteristically gleeful and the laugh on her lips was sultry. Beth would have suspected that she was high if not for the sharpness in her gaze when she finally turned to the rag tag group of warriors.
“‘At last,” said the Queen, her tone displaying a malicious kind of lust. “Foley.”
She pulled away from Bierne and sat up straight, her features alight with interest.
Beth glanced at Ronan for any sign of jealousy over Maeve and her obvious rendezvous with her drug dealer but, as usual, his expression was frustratingly blank.
“Aengus, Sylviana, leave us.” The Dark Lady’s tone was back to its typical iciness.
Sylvie bristled. “But mother --”
“No. What are you even doing here? I expressly told you to stay away from my Knight.”
“I was helpi --”
“No. Get out.”
Sylvie huffed and gave Beth a look filled with worry. Then she turned and strode out, Aengus in her wake. The Queen, Beth, Ronan, two guards, and Marcas Foley remained.
“You’re going to regret not just telling me in the first place, Foley,” Maeve promised, a cheerfully murderous glint in her dark eyes.
Marcas Foley said nothing.
The Queen, not satisfied with that, leaned forward, her fingers curling over the edges of her chair arms. “Elizabeth here has the power to suck your soul from your body and relive your memories. You’ll become nothing but an empty husk. A revenant. And I will know the secret you so gracelessly tried to sell to me.”
Marcas Foley smiled a smile that sent chills scuttling down Beth’s spine. “Good. She deserves to see.”
Maeve sat back, looking a little unsettled. “...begin.” She fixed her gaze on Beth as Ronan pushed the prisoner to his knees.
Beth choked down one more deep breath and then moved forward, placing her palm on Foley’s head like a faith healer would to heal a sick zealot, except she would be doing the opposite.
It took a moment for the contact to register but she soon got the image of a box in her mind, a box that represented all that this man was and had ever been. The box beckoned like a forbidden lover. She hoped she wouldn’t have to sift through his whole consciousness to find the scene she needed, but how would she know if she did come across it anyway? Hopefully it would have a big red neon sign.
Beth swallowed and opened the box.
It was better than she remembered it being in the Drochaid. Better than all the times she’d tasted it before. Lightning coursed through her, alighting her nerve endings with such euphoria that for a moment, or maybe an hour, she forgot who she was and what she was supposed to be doing.
But then the visions came. First person perspective of tattooing an octopus on someone with dark skin, no light, no tan, no … he must have done it enough that it had all begun to blend together for him.
Now she was fucking a water nymph with a penis that wasn’t hers - strange. Now she was covering the wall of a burnt-out apartment in meticulous design - with a sharpie of all things. The images sped and blurred and shifted and the feeling of riding a crackling wave of electricity without being hurt continued to grow. She was being slapped by the water nymph - no, a different one. On a street corner. Prostitute?
Suddenly, time slowed, and everything sharpened. This scene was important. She could feel it, could feel Marcas Foley’s life changing.
It wasn’t raining yet, but the smell of ozone in the air was strong, almost masking the asphalt and piss scent in the alley a few blocks down from her shop - shit, no, Marcas Foley’s shop. She rounded a corner and stopped when she saw two figures. She slipped easily behind a tall stack of moisture swollen wood pallets and watched.
The Knight’s sword reflected off of a high up window and seemed to blaze against the throat of a woman. A woman Foley didn’t recognize. But, Beth realized with a sickening sense of falling, she did.
Delphine.
Beth’s oldest friend was begging for her life, tears streaming from her pearlescent pink eyes.
“Please don’t. I don’t want to die!” she sobbed. “She’ll kill you for this, please.”
Ronan snorted, his handsome features twisted in a sneer that made him ooze malevolence. He looked nothing like the man Beth was falling in love with. He looked like a monster.
“She won’t,” he promised. “She loves me. So tell me what I need to know and maybe you will live.”
“I c-can’t.” Delphine’s tears were pearlescent too, Foley realized, squinting to see better in the dark.
“Then you die,” Ronan said with dispassionate finality, as if reading aloud the last item on a grocery list. He pulled the sword across her throat and she fell to the ground, blood bubbling.
The vision wavered as Beth’s heart kicked into hyperdrive and she fought to grasp her own consciousness, regain herself. It took a moment, but she broke free of Foley, pulling her hand back to her chest with a gasp like she’d been burned. Beth found herself staring into his now-vacant steel grey eyes.
She panted, tears streaming down her cheeks, chest heaving as she tried to pull in as much air as possible.
She looked up in terror at Ronan, who now wore an expression of concern, a hand extended toward her, offering comfort. He’d said he didn’t know where Delphine was, or even who she was.
He lied.
How could this Ronan, her Ronan, be the same man in that alley? Delphine had begged for her life. Beth had come to see Ronan as a defender of the people more than an enforcer. Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe he was who she’d heard about as a child. The boogeyman. A murderer in the name of the Queen.
“What did you see?” Maeve’s voice cut cleanly through the sound of Beth’s hyperventilating.
Beth swallowed and tried to calm herself, but it was no use. Ronan reached for her again and she pulled away.
“I need a moment,” she said, hoarse. Maeve hadn’t directly ordered her to spill her findings and she would take advantage of that. She needed a moment to think. Away from Ronan.
The Queen pursed her lips, impatient. “Fine.”
“I-In the hall.” Away from Ronan. Away from Ronan, everything in her body screamed.
Maeve rolled her eyes. “Fine! Go.”
“I’ll join you,” said Ronan, starting toward her again.
She took a step back and tried to prepare an excuse to be alone, but Maeve saved her the trouble.
“No. Stay,” she ordered.
Had Beth once hated how cruelly the Queen treated her Knight? Never again.
Beth turned and nearly tripped over her legs, stumbling into the hallway. The heavy doors fell shut behind her. The guards gave her a dubious look but she ignored them and ran, ran until she felt far enough away to safely collapse against a wall.
Beth pressed her hot face to the cold marble and tried again to calm herself, to slow her breathing, but all she could see were Delphine’s desperate eyes as the Knight stole her life. How could that be the same man she’d slept with the night before? How could that be the same Ronan?
Footsteps approached, and Beth tensed, expecting her husband. Instead she looked up to find Aengus Bierne, to both her relief and dismay.
“Leave me alone,” she ordered. She was too busy trying not to burst into ugly tears to notice the smug delight in his expression.
“Ah, but my dear, that’s the last thing I want to do.”
And then, for the second time in a week, there was a needle plunging into Beth’s chest, right below her collarbone.
“Fuck,” she managed to sputter. Then everything went dark.
Beth knew immediately when she woke that she was in the Hedge. She was thrown over Bierne’s shoulder like a sack of pissed off potatoes as he walked briskly. She wasn’t sure where he was going or how he had even gotten in. Guards covered the castle’s Hedge entrance night and day and he couldn’t have gone through the Glen because Rose would have stopped him.
Maybe that’s why he’d been seducing Maeve with Cthonic. To gain access to the Hedge. But why would anyone want access? This place was a wasteland. A dumping site for Beth’s revenants. She shuddered at the thought or running into Foley, lifeless or not.
Questions cycloned around Beth’s mind in time with the bile in her stomach.
“I’m going to be sick,” she announced to Bierne’s ass.
He stopped walking and unceremoniously dumped her onto her butt on the cold and glass ridden asphalt. She noted that her wrists were tied in front of her. She gazed up at him. He hadn’t used as strong a dose of knockout agent as Trina had so she was able to move her limbs and digits for the most part. Or maybe he’d used a different kind. Beth still fought fatigue, trying to blink it away.
“What the fuck, man! I was having a moment!” Anger fueled her. The shock of what Foley had witnessed had faded when her consciousness had. Now she was more focused on exactly why she was in the Hedge with glass in the seat of her jeans. Getting kidnapped was going on her list of things to never let happen again under any circumstances.
Aengus looked impatient. “Get up, Elizabeth. I suspect it won’t take long for your husband to notice your absence, and we have things to get done before he recovers you.”
Beth shivered, staring sullenly up at him. “What things?”
“Important things.” He leaned down and took her arm, tugging her up into a standing position. “Come.” He continued in the direction they’d been going before, not seeming to care if she walked on her own or if he had to drag her.
Bierne wasn’t a bodybuilder by any standards, but he was a full-blooded Fae and that lent him a certain amount of strength. Not to mention that Beth was still weak from the knockout agent. He pulled her along easily, not stopping when wires reached out to catch on her jeans.
Beth was thankful that this time she was wearing shoes. She fought flashbacks of bloody feet when she had run through here after her wedding.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I have a place here.”
She gaped. “You have a place here? What, like a vacation home?”
“No. Just a ritual spot.”
What? “You do rituals here?”
“Yes.” At least the man wasn’t bothering to lie.
“What kind of rituals?”
“The kind that lets me steal your power for a while.” He sounded smug.
Beth had heard of those kinds of rituals. Very little information made it through a bar without finding the ear of the bartender. The rituals weren't easy, and they weren’t common. She’d heard that the Seelie side had outlawed them. When the Fae started fucking with witchcraft it was never good.
“Why would you want my power? It sucks.” Her voice wavered now, fear starting to settle in the pit of her stomach. Beth wasn’t going to come out of this unscathed. It was a lose-lose, because either Bierne took her power and probably most, if not all, of her life force in the process or Ronan rescued her. Ronan, who she did not want to think about right now at all.
“That’s where you’re mistaken. You harvest a soul for memories. I harvest it for the Cthonic. You can not consume the soul. You’d know that if you ever put any effort into it.”
Beth gaped at him again. The idea of resisting that feeling was inconceivable. Even now, after she’d been put to sleep and woken up, she still felt the miniscule aftershocks. Little pops of ecstasy under her fingernails, in her scalp, making the hairs on the back of her neck dance in wonder.
Aengus glanced sideways at her and noticed her expression. “It takes practice,” he admitted.
That, also, was unthinkable to Beth. Having to do that over and over again. Aengus Bierne must have some kind of supernatural sense of self control.
Her mind was still shaking off the fog. “So … you’ve been harvesting for a while.”
He nodded curtly.
“Where did you get the power before?” Someone else must have this power. Beth would have noticed if he’d dragged her into the hedge for a life-altering ritual. Hopefully.
“The Hedge King.”
She felt as though her jaw might just fall off. “You met the Hedge King and you stole his power? He has the same power as me?!”
“It’s a long story. But yes, he has the same power as you. He has since learned to guard against me, so it is fortunate that Maeve told me of your power.”
Of course she had, the awful she-devil. Had Aengus been buttering Maeve up just to find out if there was another with the power? That seemed too circular. Harvest the Cthonic and use it on the Queen to find out if there were more ways he could harvest the Cthonic.
“Are you selling it?” she asked, curious as to what else he was doing with it other than getting in good with her majesty.
“Some. Here and there, to get by. Why, interested? You probably can’t afford it.” He offered a nefarious grin.
Beth grimaced. “Why didn’t Maeve just ask you to find Foley then? Don’t people see the memories of whoever they’re drinking or whatever?” She wasn’t sure how people ‘did’ Cthonic if not straight from the tap, like her.
“She had already set you on the task, little soul sucker,” he said the nickname with glee. “And gave up her favorite toy to do it. Besides, she asked if I had the power and I said no. Because I don’t. It’s fading.”
“How did we get into the Hedge?”
“I opened a door with the last of the power.”
Beth contemplated that. “That’s part of it, isn’t it? The Hedge? Access?”
He nodded. “To set the revenants free. This is their domain as much as it is his.”
“It wasn’t always,” she said, thinking of childhood tales.
“No,” he agreed. “It wasn’t. His or theirs.”
Beth shook her head again, trying to clear it fully. Maybe the Hedge King wasn’t necessarily a villain like Fae lore made him out to be. Maybe he was just a guy had had sought refuge here, away from the Courts or the mortal world. Maybe he was as overcome by his power as she was by hers. The more Cthonic she consumed the more she wanted. Her heart sped at the idea that someday it would be all she thought about.
How the hell was Aengus managing to be so composed after having ‘practiced’ as much as he would need to? Beth glanced sideways at him as they walked and studied his profile. He had circles under his eyes that may or may not have been there a week ago when she’d first met him. The wedding hall had been lit only by firelight and crawling with shadows, even if she could remember clearly his every facial detail it would have been too dark to tell properly. Now, however, in the overcast grayness of what must be midafternoon in the Hedge she could see it. Lines on his face. Lines that should not be on the face of a Fae. He was still handsome, in that devilish way, but certainly worn.
“What is your plan here, then? What do you use the Cthonic for if not as a means of getting rich?” She hoped his candor would remain. Not that it really mattered. Why would she need to know his endgame if she was dead from the ritual?
Her luck failed her when he simply gave her a mysterious smile and tugged her onto a different path. A snarl ripped through the silence and Beth shuddered. Aengus paled and quickened his pace, glancing over his shoulder in what could only be terror. It was nice to know that he was afraid of the hedge beasts, for some reason.
Claws scraped loudly on asphalt, like the beast had taken a corner too quickly and slid. Aengus and Beth were both running now, although she didn’t know which method of dying would be worse. Her instinct screamed that being ripped apart by a hedge beast would be, so she ran as fast as she could. Which happened to be faster than Bierne.
“Which way?” she called as they approached a T. Her hope was that his ‘spot’ would provide them with protection.
“Left,” he panted.
They ran for another few minutes with Aengus barking directions at her. Just as the growling behind them became more distant, as though they’d lost the beast in the maze, he told her to stop. Beth did so, gasping for breath. Aengus came to a stop beside her and turned to his right, alerting her to something that she never would have noticed had he not pointed it out.
Before them was a steel door that looked as though it had been welded into the wire bushes. The transition from bush to door was almost seamless. The facade was simply metal with no design and no decor at all save for a large keyhole where a handle should be.
Aengus, of course, had the key. Beth wasn’t sure where he had pulled it from, for his clothes were as tight fitting as one could get in the medieval style that Maeve preferred. He slid it into the lock and turned. Every internal tumbler very audibly clicked.
“Will we be safe here?” she finally got the chance to ask.
“I will be,” He replied, stepping through the doorway.
If he hadn’t regained an annoyingly strong grip on her arm Beth would have taken off at once, fuzzy headedness and bound wrists be damned. She could create rifts, couldn’t she? How hard could escaping be? But then he jerked her through and the door closed behind her, closing off that option as well.
There was no roof on Aengus’s ritual spot, though it looked like he had tried to construct one out of tarps, steel beams and other miscellaneous industrial crap. The wind had battered at down and the acid rain had eaten through some of it. The circle in the middle of all the refuse had a circumference of maybe eight feet. It just looked like a clearing in a junkyard where one might come to dump a body, except for the markings.
The circle was outline in chalk and decorated with various symbols that Beth had never seen before, even in her youth. Rituals like this weren’t banned at the Unseelie Court like they were at the Seelie, but they weren’t commonplace. If they were done, they were done in secret, where nobody would find the evidence.
Beth supposed this place fit the bill.
Aengus Bierne released his hold on her and began to bustle around, pulling trash and debris away from the circle. It seemed to have been a while since he’d had visitors and it reminded Beth of a bachelor clumsily cleaning up his apartment for company.
She blinked and walked him as she stood there, awkwardly trying to get feeling back into her hands. A glance behind revealed only the same vision of the door. No handle, no decoration, just that dark keyhole. She shivered, the chill of the Hedge encompassing her now that her adrenaline from running from the beast was beginning to dissipate. Dread spread throughout her now as she watched Bierne before her.
He was kneeling on the asphalt, a stick of chalk in his hand as he touched up the symbols.
Beth swallow. “Cool hangout,” she murmured.
He looked up at her with a brief smile. “It does the trick. I’m not summering here or anything.”
Beth wished she could sit, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to lower to the ground with her hands bound without falling over or scraping her knees. Besides, she had a feeling she’d be sitting soon enough.
She was right. It didn’t take long for Bierne to straighten and admire his handy work for a moment before coming toward her. He gripped her arm firmly again and dragged her forward.
Suddenly, thunder rumbled, and a pulse rippled through the atmosphere, seeming to rent the very air.
Aengus cursed in response and pulled her faster, throwing her to the ground in the center of the ring. She caught herself on her elbows, which hurt like a bitch.
“What was that?” she gasped.
“Someone entering the Hedge. Presumably your husband. He found you faster than I anticipated. We must work quickly.”
Beth stared down at the ring on her left hand, twinkling up at her innocently. She’d forgotten about the tracker. She really didn’t want to face Ronan after what she’d seen, but he had to be better than this, right? These rituals never ended well, especially for those in the position she was currently in.
Without any more ado, Aengus began to talk, but the language wasn’t any she recognized. Ancient words, cold words, words that made her muscles tense and her tongue quiver.
Suddenly Beth was no longer chilled but warm, and getting warmer. It felt like someone had turned up the thermostat in the entire Hedge. She began to sweat as Bierne spoke, commanding a power with his words that felt like hellfire. She could even smell the acrid scent of melting tar. That was overwhelming by itself, but then she felt something stir within herself. Her power, perhaps? It laced her veins and vibrated along her bones, tingling in every corner of every cell. The whole of her anatomy felt ignited and she sweated even more as the power moved within her, trying to get out, to get to Aengus Bierne.
To say that it was painful was a vast understatement. Beth’s back bowed and she screamed, or at least she thought she did. The power that was such an integral part of her essence was being ripped from her, and she felt every stitch being pulled, like she was some anthropomorphized embroidered quilt being torn apart piece by piece.
And then it just stopped.
Well, Aengus’s words stopped. Beth gasped and looked up, panting hard and drenched in sweat. Aengus was in the air, courtesy of a man who had his throat in hand. The man was tall and had long, dark hair, pulled back in a half pony tail like Ronan often wore his. He wore long robes that reached the ground and his scowl was severe as he looked upon the power-stealing drug dealer. Two hedge beasts flanked him, bile and slobber dripping from their growling, fang-filled mouths.
“A death wish, hm?” His voice was deep. It sent shivers through Beth as she pushed up to her knees, but that could have been the cold air rushing over her overheated skin.
“I left you alone this time,” Bierne choked out.
“This is about more than just my wellbeing. You have taken too many souls. And you have been irresponsible with your revenants. They roam the mortal realm now, and the Drochaid as well?” He tsked. “You have been very naughty indeed, Aengus Bierne. I should take your soul as punishment. Leave you to mindlessly wander the labyrinth.”
Bierne coughed in response, the man’s grip on his neck obviously having tightened.
Beth gaped at who could only be the Hedge King. He turned to look at her, not releasing the Fae caught in his grasp and she inhaled so fast that she choked on her own spit. His eyes were bright amethyst, identical to her own.
He looked her over briefly. “Are you hurt?” There was curiosity in his voice, but no concern.
“Still intact,” she managed to whisper hoarsely.
He turned back to Aengus. “You borrowed my power. You tried to take my daughter’s as well. Give me a reason not to end you here. Other than that I’d have to live your tainted memories.”
“Maeve,” Coughed Aengus.
A slim eyebrow rose. “I have no love for Maeve. I owe her no favors.”
“I have a plan in motion,” he paused he drag in a breath, “to overthrow everything. To rework the whole … summer-winter system.”
“You have a plan to become all powerful yourself, no doubt.” The Hedge King sat the shorter Fae on his feet. “For if you truly were to overhaul the monarchies you would have to do away with me as well, which you have already tried, and won’t succeed at.”
“I didn’t, I --”
“Just go. I have no wish to relive your life right now, and you may not borrow my daughter’s power as you borrowed mine. Leave, Aengus Bierne, and never return to this place.” The King’s words sounded tired, but his tone was backed by firm finality.
The sniveling drug dealer didn’t have to be told twice. He scrambled for the door was gone, leaving it open behind him. One of the beasts snarled after him.
The Hedge King turned to Beth, his face neutral as he looked her over. Somehow, she pushed to her feet, wobbling a moment before ultimately managing not to fall over.
“Come,” he said, starting toward a wrought iron gate that hadn’t been there before. The beasts followed obediently. He waved his hand and the gate opened.
Beth glanced around the clearing one more time before following him.
They walked through the door of a fortress. It wasn’t opulent, though it was certainly fancier than the rest of the Hedge. They were in a large hall, complete with a vaulted stone ceiling, tall windows and even places to sit, albeit uncomfortable looking metal benches. A throne stood proudly upon a dais made up of random chunks of metal welded together.
The beasts left his side to drink from a low pool of water that flowed from the wall, like an indoor fountain. It was probably the only clean source of water in the entire Hedge. Unless the beasts drank the acid rain.
The King gestured for Beth to sit on one of the benches.
“Hold out your hands,” he ordered.
When she did he cut her ties with a knife he’d pulled from his robe. He helped her unravel the rope that bound her and set the knife beside her on the bench, apparently trusting her not to stab him with it.
Beth flexed her fingers and moved her wrists in small circles, trying to regain feeling, all the while keeping her eyes trained on her father.
He wore grey robes, perhaps to blend in with the metal and pollution environment of the Hedge. Or maybe it was the other way around. The Hedge had probably conformed to his inner landscape. Maybe the wasteland was a result of his power, and hers. Maybe this is what Beth would become. She shuddered.
“Thank you for saving me,” she rasped out.
The King nodded absently before moving to a nearby window and gazing out of it. “I have saved you many times, daughter. Every time you wandered into my domain.”
Beth was struck silent. That explained a lot. For instance, how she’d survived her post-nuptial escape. She had been unarmed, exhausted, and emotionally compromised. Not to mention barefoot, freezing, and wearing a stupid dress. And before that, she and Benji had only been children. Benji’s fire had helped but he was untrained. It made more sense that they’d had help from an unseen force than they’d just survived out of sheer luck and their own miniscule merit.
Beth blew out a breath. The silence was beginning to make her skin crawl, but she had no idea what to say to a father she hadn’t even been searching for.
“How did you meet my mother?” she finally asked, settling on a topic.
The Hedge King sighed, as if disappointed that this was the direction she had chosen to take the conversation.
“She is sister to the keeper of the gate. There is an entrance to the Hedge in the Glen Ros and one night your mother found it. She was fairly inebriated, but managed to charm me into bed nonetheless. She visited me a few more times after that, until Maeve decided to keep a closer eye on her. Probably due to her miraculous pregnancy.”
That sounded like Fianna; drunk, charming and a sucker for a handsome face. He was handsome, Beth realized, looking more closely at his profile, in an Elrond kind of way. He had a strong jaw and high cheekbones, as well as broad shoulders.
“You didn’t fall for her, did you?” Beth asked, dreading the answer. She hated to imagine this powerful Fae pining away in isolation for her slutty mother all these years.
He turned to her, amusement in his jeweled eyes. “No, daughter. It was a dalliance, nothing more.”
Beth exhaled, relieved. “Sorry I’ve never, um, tried to meet you or anything. She was pretty tight-lipped. I wish I had known about the power. Did she know?”
“No. She figured it out when yours manifested. She came to see me, to ask about it, but you had run away by the time she returned.”
Beth crossed her arms. “Well she practically disowned me first,” she said bitterly.
Instead of responding the Hedge King crossed to a stone bowl that sat atop a pedestal in the middle of the large room.
“Your husband searches for you,” he said, gesturing.
Beth rose and joined him, gasping when the water within the bowl showed an image of Ronan sure footedly navigating the maze, sword out and Sebastian at his side. He looked beautiful and dangerous. The scrying bowl was high def enough to show the steel determination in his midnight blue eyes as he scowled his way through the Hedge.
“Is that another part of our power? The scrying?” she asked, breathless.
“No. I can only see the goings on in the Hedge, and that is because it is my realm.”
Beth’s mouth was dry, she nodded absently. “I should go. I’d rather not run into him.”
Pearlescent tears, begging, rain, and bubbling blood all flashed through her mind, reminding her exactly why she wanted to be nowhere near Ronan right now.
Delphine.
The Hedge King cocked his head, almost in surprise. “If truly you do not wish to face your husband then I can buy you a little time, but there are few places you can hide where he cannot find you.”
Beth stared down at her ring for a moment before slipping it off. “This will help. It’s a tracker. Can I leave this here?”
He nodded.
“How do I get out of here?” she asked. The urge to stay and get to know him nudged at her, but the revulsion she felt at the thought of Ronan won out. “Not that I wouldn’t like to stay and, um, chat,” she added.
The ghost of a smile graced the Hedge King’s lips. “Another time, perhaps.”
He turned and with a small flick of his wrist created a rift between realms, more visible than anything Beth had ever been able to create by herself. Granted, she’d only recently realized that it was her making the doorways all along.
“This will let you out at your house,” he said, holding a hand out to her.
“You know where I live?” she asked faintly, taking his hand and reaching out to feel the disturbed air around the fissure.
“Yes,” he said, offering no further explanation. “Travel well.”
Beth stepped through and let go of his hand and just like that was standing on her creaky front porch.