For the next few nights, I woke thrashing and sweating from nightmares. The wool blankets were damp and clinging. Fia soothed me, her low, melodic voice a counter-charm to the terror, caring more about my well-being than the sharp punches and frantic kicks she received sleeping beside me. She blamed herself—assuming the harrowing encounter with Caius was the reason my sleep had fractured.
But it wasn’t Caius’s predatory smile I saw in my nightmares. It was his song.
My fae minders had been relentless. They had trained me to sing so many songs, sometimes laughing—a sharp, high sound that echoed off the cold stone walls—when my inadequate human voice couldn’t quite land the necessary resonance or hold the inhumanly high pitch. Looking back, it wasn’t being human that was the problem—it was expecting impossible, perfect performances from a terrified seven-year-old.
I remembered the lessons more in feelings than details: the cold slickness of the training rooms, the acrid tang of silver polish used on their instruments, and the way my hands would shake. There were times music brought a fleeting, pure joy—the pressure was off when they made us practice or perform in a choir, our little voices united, the notes strengthened by the older youths. They tested our little fingers on strings to see who might have aptitude, but they declared my finger placement too clumsy, too unfeeling, to be worth their time.
The only instrument I ever took to was the flute—not because I had particular skill, but because someone played with me.
The hazy, fragmented vision was lost between sleep and waking: Purple eyes watching me patiently from beneath a curtain of silver-white hair. Instead of striking me when my small fingers fumbled the notes—the stinging snap of a thin reed on my knuckles—he’d simply smile, a slow, deep warmth that had no malice, and remind me in a soft voice to take my time. When I couldn’t sleep, consumed by the fear of my training masters, his song had lulled me to a deep, dreamless, satisfying rest.
That same captivating, profoundly comforting song was the one Caius had used at The Holly & Hound.
The realization was a fresh wave of nausea. The melody of my only safe haven, the one anchor to a fractured childhood, had been twisted into a tool of control and dread. The green-eyed prince had stolen the song of the fae with the purple eyes. And now, the sweet sound that used to promise safety carried a note of danger.
Fia played for me on those nights, not knowing that the instrument that once brought me solace was now tainted. My fake smile and forced show of relief fooled her. Or maybe she pretended that it did.
We hadn’t risked stopping in any towns, even the smallest villages, for two weeks. Fia believed, with crushing finality, that we couldn’t risk it. Our cabbage and pottage stews grew thinner and thinner, stretching the supplies until the broth was barely opaque. By the end of the second week, the sour, briny odor of the pickled plums began to seem genuinely appealing. Fia silently surrendered some of her meager portion to my bowl, her worry etched around her eyes. A fae could last much longer without sustenance than a human could, existing on the sheer vitality of their magical nature. But that didn’t make the gnawing discomfort easy.
“Let’s go for one day,” I begged, my voice edged with hunger and frustration. “We’ll earn what we can, restock just a little. We won’t stay the night. We’ll be quick.”
Fia sat on the rough planked floor, her knees drawn up to her chest, arms crossed tightly over her legs as she stared at the empty, wooden bottom of a basket. The ruined plan to stay safely in Afon-Glyn was an open wound between us. She knew we couldn’t keep hiding and survive; there was only so much we could forage—especially now that Fia feared the very ground and forests might whisper our whereabouts to a searching fae prince.
“Doing magic—even the simple coin tricks—is too big a risk right now,” Fia said, her gaze flicking nervously to my folding table, as if the scarred wood itself held incriminating evidence. Her skin looked papery in the morning light, her vibrant aura subdued by stress and hunger.
“Then we use the emergency stash,” I snapped, the hardness in my voice a defense against my empty stomach. I got up from the floor, the cramped movement jarring, shaking the wagon slightly, and reached for the ornate box tucked in the drawer.
Fia was faster. She swiped the box with a practiced, desperate motion, cradling it against her chest like a shield. “That’s your dowry,” she said, her dark-honey eyes wide, full of panicked possessiveness.
I rolled my eyes so hard I felt the strain behind my temples. “My dowry?” I scoffed, letting sarcasm weigh my voice low and heavy. “Who am I getting married to? Beady?”
Her dark-honey eyes dropped instantly, weighted by shame. I regretted the jab instantly. I thought she’d forgotten that fragile, human dream—the one where I could settle down, safe and secure. We hadn’t spoken of a life where we could grow roots since we fled after her heartbreak years ago.
“Next year,” she said, a strained, unnatural determination pushed into her voice. Her usual warmth was replaced with a brittle, protective hardness. Her eyes met mine, and the sight was like a physical blow. “You’re old enough now to be on your own.”
My face drained of blood, a rush of dizzying cold sweeping down to my feet. My palm planted on the cool wood of the side wall to brace myself. “What?” I whispered, the word sharp, disbelieving.
“Wren.” Her voice broke entirely, a raw sorrow wetting her eyes, which shone unnaturally bright as the early morning light poured through the high window. “I don’t want to leave you,” she said, her hand gentle on my cheek, a feather-soft contrast to the severity of her words. “But after…” Her eyes pinched, the familiar, crippling glint of guilt overriding her fear. “Staying with me is a risk. You can go to another country, or even move to a big city—with lots of iron. You’ll be able to settle down. Permanently.”
“Why would I want that without you?” I accused sharply, the pain instantly manifesting as anger. My walls went up, thick and hard, bricked over with bitterness. “You’re all I have, Fia.”
“I know.” She smiled, but it was a desolate expression. “And that’s my fault. I wanted to be your sister so badly…I didn’t let you form bonds with other humans.”
I couldn’t deny it. Because Seelie fae couldn’t lie. And I knew she was right, even as the truth tore at me.
“Why one year?” I asked, forcing practicality back into the conversation, trying to anchor us away from the grief. “Why not tomorrow?” I shrugged, injecting false casualness. “Why put this off?”
Moisture lined her eyes, now fully brimming with unshed tears. “Because I don’t want to leave you,” she said, the raw truth of her love overwhelming her protective logic. She crushed me to her, pulling me into a desperate embrace. The ornate little wood box of dowry was pressed painfully between us. “One year should be enough time. I can help you save up more. And I’ll be around just in case…until the trail gets cold. Then, I’ll help you get somewhere far from the Veil.”
“And what will you do?” I asked tearfully, my voice still bitter with hurt and fear of the impending loss.
She inhaled sharply, her whole body shaking. “I don’t know,” she murmured, her chin poking my shoulder with movement. “Maybe I’ll go back. Try to find out who my real parents were.”
I pulled back from the hug, a firm grip on her arms, my focus sharp and hard. “You already know who your real parents were. Same as mine.”
She smiled then, genuinely touched, the hardness dissolving into her natural sweetness. Her lips trembled. She inhaled slowly, shakily, and finally nodded. “Then maybe I’ll find out why my blood relatives gave me away just to get you.”
Again, Fia found a way to make it about protecting me, about solving the mystery of my worth. There was no cure for her ingrained, devastating kindness. Maybe the people who raised her—our parents—were good...enough for me to have deserved this loyalty.
I sniffled, rubbing my nose against my sleeve, letting the lingering emotion drain away. Fia scolded me gently, reminding me that poor manners like that would do me no favors in finding a good husband. I laughed, the sound shaky. Like that was top of my mind. She was sort of right—I would need to get better at human interactions. Not that I was convinced we should say goodbye. Yet, if agreeing to her timeline gave her hope—restored part of her damaged dream—I could pretend to go along with it. Until I figured out something better. A dream that kept us together.
“But what are we going to do about my current human problems?” I asked, adding a teasing, lighter note to my tone, deliberately trying to move the conversation forward.
She frowned, her narrow brows furrowed in confusion. “What human problems?”
On cue, my stomach let out a long, loud, gurgling complaint, echoing the narrow cabin of the wagon. We both looked down at my midsection, listening to the fading complaint. Then we laughed, the lingering tears in our eyes now tears of shared, relieved laughter.
“Okay, fine,” Fia said, her arm draping over my shoulders, the weight grounding me. “You do need to eat. I need to eat.” She set the ornate box back atop the drawers. “Let’s get back on the main road and find a place to stop—for a day. One day. No more overnight stays until we’re two—no three—regions away.”
It was the sort of practical compromise my empty stomach—and my wounded heart—could agree with.
*
The compromise Fia struck—one day of earning, followed by a frantic, multi-region flight—led us back onto the main trade route. But two hours later, the road narrowed again, and the air grew heavy and mute. The sunlight, previously crisp and clear, became muted, as if passing through thick, yellowed glass. It was eerily quiet; the usual drone of insects and birdsong was absent.
We should have reached a village by now, a small collection of cottages. Instead, we pulled into a scene of unnatural devastation.
“Oh, Wren, look,” Fia whispered, her voice tight, barely a breath. She pulled the reins back, forcing Beady to slow to a tense, near-silent walk. The mule’s ears were pinned back, his usual placid rhythm replaced by skittish, uneven steps that scraped anxiously on the road.
This place was called Oerfaen—Cold Stone—the once-sturdy marker half-shattered, leaning sadly beside the road. We’d been here a few years before. It was a small farming community Fia had always liked because the people believed hard work and community were the key to a good living, not in setting out superstitious offerings for fae protectors who had probably never even passed through their weathered main street.
But this wasn’t the village we’d felt welcomed in before. It could hardly be called a village now. It looked as if a giant, clawed hand had swept through the main street. Half-timbered houses lay tipped over, their thatched roofs shredded like old paper, exposing dark, skeletal rafters to the oppressive midday sun. One stone cottage was cleaved completely in two, the split so clean and massive it suggested an impossible force. The air here was dead, heavy, smelling of damp plaster, rot, and a strange, cold musk that made the hairs on my arms rise with alarm.
Fia immediately wanted to turn the wagon around. “We can’t resupply here,” she said, stating the obvious, but more to rally her own shattered nerves. The raw anxiety in her eyes was a flickering spark. “We should turn back.”
But I was already leaning out of the wagon, my earlier hunger forgotten, replaced by a morbid, cold curiosity. The wreckage was like nothing I’d ever seen. It was too precise, too thorough to be a natural disaster. No wind or rain had met us on the road here.
“What happened?” I asked, squinting. A strange, smoking blackness rose from one of the clawed strikes on a thatched roof. It wasn’t the smoldering of a still-burning fire. It was a dense, coiling shadow, thick and viscous, refusing to dissipate even in the straight-on midday sun. “We can’t just leave them, Fia,” I said, urgency taking over. “What if…someone needs help?” I knew it was naive, but the ruin felt too fresh to abandon.
Fia’s gaze swept the silent, ruined street, her dark-honey eyes wide with dread. “Whatever did this, Wren…it happened recently. And those people—” She nodded towards a cluster of figures standing amidst the rubble. Their faces, when they occasionally glanced at us, were not sad or grieving; they were flat, vacant, and haunted. “We can’t help, Wren. We’ll go to the closest village—let the local alderman know.”
Just then, my eye caught movement. Two small figures stood huddled between the skeletal remains of a leaning building—two little girls, dressed in grimy, ragged wool, clutching each other tight.
“Stop the wagon, Fia,” I said, urgency overriding every ounce of caution. “They’re children.”
“Wren, no!” Fia hissed, her breath sucking in sharply, but I was already moving, my focus entirely on the two girls.
I hopped off the slow-moving wagon before Fia could argue further, landing lightly on the cracked, dry earth. I approached the girls, keeping my hands visible, projecting calm I didn’t feel. They were frozen in terror, watching me with wide, filthy, tear-streaked faces.
“Hello,” I said gently, trying to make my voice sound ordinary and warm. “Can you tell me what happened to your village?”
The older girl, maybe ten, hugged her younger sister tighter, her eyes flicking nervously toward Fia’s unnaturally beautiful hair. “The Unseelie,” she whispered, her voice dry as dust, barely above a rasp. “They sent a beast. It came from the shadows. Divine punishment.”
A knot of cold air froze in my lungs. Punishment. Like the Seelie were owed for protecting humans from Unseelie threats. Where was their protection now? How many times had I been told it was an honor to perform for the noble creatures who guarded the Veil’s borders? The lie was sickening.
“Where are your parents?” I asked, my heart aching with genuine empathy.
The little girl pointed a trembling finger toward the massive pile of splintered beams and dark stone that had been the tailor’s home. “They’re under the stone. They told us to hide.”
A sinking horror drained me. They were orphaned, alone. This senseless attack had left them with nothing but each other. The children’s raw, physical fear was dizzying. I couldn’t leave them with nothing.
“Wait a moment,” I said. I turned quickly, running back to the side of the wagon. “Fia, stop! I need to get them food!”
Fia reluctantly pulled Beady to a halt, but she didn’t turn off the main road. I scrambled through the narrow wagon door, hopping in to reach for the back. I shoved aside a wool blanket, searching for something small, non-perishable, and non-essential. I chose a small, heavy sack of shelled walnuts and, after a moment of painful deliberation, the mostly empty jar of pickled plums—the vinegar might actually appeal to the starving children’s dulled senses.
Just as I hopped off the back step of the wagon, clutching the food, I noticed the crowd.
Before, there had been only three or four scattered figures. Now, ten or fifteen villagers had slowly converged, emerging from the shadows of ruined homes like grimy ghosts. They formed a ragged semicircle, their eyes fixed not on the damaged houses, but with chilling intensity on Fia and the bright auburn of her hair.
“Wren, we’re going,” Fia said, loud and firm, the slightest tremor in her voice a sign of untamed fear. Her hands were already tightening on the reins, ready to bolt.
I ran to the little girls, shoving the sack of nuts and the jar into their filthy hands. “Take it. Hide it.”
“Hurry, Wren! Now!” Fia’s voice was strained, high. She looked utterly trapped.
At that moment, a bearded man with a wild, bruised face and dark, sunken eyes broke from the semicircle. He pointed a trembling, accusing finger at Fia.
“Are you a faery?” he shouted, a breaking croak of rage and despair.
Fia’s jaw clenched, the muscle working visibly beneath her skin. She couldn’t deny it. “We’re not staying!” she promised, her voice clear and strong, sacrificing the truth for safety. “We mean no harm. We will go.”
“Harm? The fae’s wrath brought that thing!” screamed a gaunt woman, emerging beside the man. The whites of her eyes were cobwebbed with red, her eyelids plump from swelling. “Your kind punished us! For what? For minding our own business?”
Before Fia could respond, the bearded man lunged, grabbing wildly for Beady’s reins.
“You brought the monsters here!” a young man shouted, taking a shuffling, broken step forward, leaning heavily on a splintered piece of wood used as a makeshift crutch.
Without a second thought, I sprinted forward and shoved the bearded man’s arm away from the mule’s harness. My hand connected with the rough wool of his sleeve and then the sweaty, cold skin of his wrist.
The contact was an immediate, dizzying downpour of maddening terror.
A horrifying current of raw thought flooded my mind, a wrenching intrusion: I saw his trembling hands tightening into fists, his eyes fixed on Fia’s wide, honeyed eyes, the single, clear thought icy sharp: KILL THE FAE. Make the monster leave. Spill the fae blood.
I stumbled back, gasping, my own hands cold and shaking, the residual, murderous rage like icy shards scraping my nerves. The man roared, tearing his hand free, and swung a fist not at Fia, but directly at me.
The sudden, brutal impact of the man’s fist was a blinding jolt, a pounding pressure that sent me falling back onto the dry, gritty earth, pain flooding my cheek and temple. The whole world tilted, my awareness filled with an agonizing ringing. Before I could process the shock, soft hands seized me, hauling me up by the waist with effortless, terrifying strength.
“Wren, move!” Fia’s voice was a high, desperate hiss, closer to a snarl than a plea.
I scrambled onto the front seat of the wagon, my hands snatching the falling reins, but my eyes were locked on Fia. She had placed herself between the bearded man and me. The fragile veneer of her human disguise was gone. The gathered crowd, their faces twisted by fear and fury, wailed, gasped, and shouted at the sight. It was as if all the available light in the desolate town had suddenly been drawn to her, illuminating her otherworldly features.
From the side view of her face, I saw the wild perfection of her true form: the slight elongation and sharpening of her canines, the long, delicate point of her ears, and the unmistakable, fierce glow of her golden, feral eyes.
“Stay back!” she snarled, the sound an animalistic, raw authority born of her fae heritage. All the softness, the sweet, comforting human sister she pretended to be, was utterly gone. A few observers near her fell backward, dropped from pure, instinctual terror, or captivated by the shocking power of her unleashed beauty.
She shoved the bearded man hard. Even a common fae like Fia, running on fumes and fear, was vastly stronger than most men. He stumbled back and slipped on the dry earth, landing hard with a sickening thud.
Fia glanced over her shoulder at me, her golden, feral eyes meeting mine. The dread that jolted through me, even as I recognized her, was a cold twist in my gut.
“Go!” she ordered, the command a sharp cut of sound. The compulsion was there, but weak.
I whipped the reins, urging Beady to move. The mule was terrified, confused that I was forcing him to walk toward the still-closed circle of shouting people blocking the road.
“Out of our way!” Fia shouted, her voice ringing with amplified power. The people murmured in fear, their circle grudgingly split. Beady’s nervous steps lurched the wagon ahead. Fia guarded the way from the ground, pacing alongside the wagon, the sharpness of her gaze landing on anyone reckless enough to move toward us. They backed off when she snarled or hurried to the side of the wagon. The tension was high, taut as a bowstring. It was a fine line between keeping them back and risking angering the crowd into working together to overpower us.
Fia paced behind the back of the wagon as we broke through the human barrier. Beady, sensing the open road, was brave enough to run now. I urged him to go faster. Fia let us get some distance, her head turning rapidly, watching alleys and the skeletal remains of homes for hidden threats.
When the edge of the village—the perimeter of the disaster—was in sight, I heard her pounding footsteps chasing us. She caught up easily with Beady and, with a powerful, graceful bound, leaped onto the seat, the wagon shaking from the movement. She snatched the reins from me. I could hear fading shouts from behind us, but I couldn’t tell if they were chasing. The cold chill of fear had me stuck to the seat, my fingers curled painfully under the edge of the wood.
I knew humans could be awful. I knew they had good reasons to hate the fae. But Fia hadn’t hurt them. These easily frightened, easily destroyed people were supposed to be the ones Fia wanted me to belong with, the ones who would keep me safe once she was gone.
No. Fia was wrong. The burning sting on my face was a tangible lesson. How could I ever fit in with people who turned so quickly to cowardly violence? My yearning for a normal life had curdled, a sour, coppery taste on my tongue.
“How’s your face?” she asked, her voice tight, suddenly softer.
She glanced at me. Some of her human mask was back, but her eyes still held the unsettling, unnatural glow of Seelie light. I couldn’t control my sharp flinch. She looked back at the road quickly, her cheeks flushing with shame. “Sorry,” she murmured, her voice laced with deep, self-conscious regret over the loss of her control. She freed one hand to take mine, gently lifting it from its painful, cramped grip on the seat and squeezing my cold fingers.
She knew seeing the mask slip terrified me. It brought back the terror of the rare times my fae minders would beat a child who performed too poorly, refused to obey, or somehow embarrassed them. That man might not have been fae, but the way his face contorted before he hit me held the exact same furious, unreasoning malice. I’d rather stand beside Fia in her feral, honest state than a human like that any day.
The intense ache in my cheek stung under the testing pressure of my hesitant fingertips. My skin felt tight and hot.
“We need to get you to a healer,” Fia said warily, her own breathing still too rapid.
“What if this Unseelie monster attacked Porth Sêr too?” I asked, bitterness returning.
“Then we hope nothing’s broken, and we head to the next place,” she said, her voice firming with resolution.
“It feels broken,” I mumbled, wincing with the frown and wincing again at the wince. Half my face was simultaneously a heavy stone brick and a searing fire. Numb and hot. The pressure was pushing into my left eye, the swelling already promising to obscure my vision.
Fia glanced over again, her eyes finally returning to her normal shade of dark honey, though they held a lasting shadow of fright. “It does look bad,” she agreed. “But maybe not broken.” Her soft fingers hesitantly touched the skin near my jaw, the warmth feeling wildly out of place. I flinched away and elbowed her side for the attempt. “Sorry.”
She nervously fixed her skirt, smoothing the hem that rode up her calf when she’d made the leap. “I knew I should’ve studied with that healer longer.”
“You’re the one who said we stayed too long,” I reminded her, the old argument a comfort. “And we never found anyone who made licorice treats that great ever again.”
“Wren, really?” She sighed, shaking her head. “Of all my stupid decisions, leaving the licorice lady is your biggest complaint right now?”
I shrugged, the movement sending a stiffened ache through my neck and shoulder. “They were really good.”
Fia inhaled slowly, forcing the last of the feral adrenaline from her system. “We’ll try Porth Sêr,” she announced, her voice firm, accepting the risk of the larger town for the necessity of safety and aid. “It’s the only place near here we’ll find a healer experienced enough to help with…”—her mouth pressed into a line, worried line—“with that. If we push Beady, we’ll make it before they close the gates.”
*
The constant, rhythmic jarring of the wagon on the road was agony. My left cheek felt tight and hot, a heavy clay mask uncomfortably molded to my face; the area around my eye was swelling into a dense, purpling bruise that severely limited my vision. Fia drove without speaking, her profile grim and set, clearly holding back her fear for my sake.
Porth Sêr wasn’t a place Fia preferred. It was the antithesis of the isolated, quiet life she craved. It was larger, a proper, walled-in town. We approached the gate slowly, the carriage wheels chewing the final stretch of dried mud. The town’s stone walls were ancient and crumbling, moss softening the hard edges of age, but a few crude wooden barricades—temporary replacements that had lasted a decade—stood sentinel. The town survived as a vital trade hub, connecting the many scattered, tiny villages in the region.
Although not as grandly positioned as Afon-Glyn, Porth Sêr still hosted a festival to welcome the spring. That contained, simple celebration—a potential risk—was another reason Fia had wanted to avoid any place larger than a farming village. But now, it was the only hope for a competent healer.
Our wagon slowed as we reached the gate. The guard—a local man armed with a worn stave and a wool cloak draped over a plain leather jerkin—leaned heavily against the open stone arch, blinking slowly at us through a long yawn. His position was purely formal, meant only to give the townspeople a pleasant illusion of security. They had a volunteer guard system consisting of the town's tradespeople, staves in the hands of the baker, weaver, and farrier. But Porth Sêr wasn’t counting on its unenthusiastic volunteers for protection.
The town felt old, but surprisingly functional. Just inside the gate, a newly installed iron water pump gleamed faintly in the afternoon sun, a splash of modern engineering among the dusty, half-timbered homes. The streets, though still dirt, were lined with small, flickering iron lampposts—the lamplighter, a young, gangly boy—already approached a post to light the candle inside. These small, practical updates hinted at a commerce and a stability that were jarringly absent from the ruins of Oerfaen.
The core reason for Fia’s dislike of Porth Sêr wasn’t the trade or the iron lampposts. It was that the town credited its protection and prosperity to a massive, moss-covered stone idol in the center of town.
This was no fae shrine. It was a place to worship one of the old gods.
I didn’t know if the old gods had ever existed, or if they were merely a story that had been given life as entertainment for travelers in the time before the Veil thinned. But what I knew for certain was that the fae abhorred any mention of them. I hadn’t learned of their existence until Fia returned me to the human realm. Even Fia, detached as she was from high Seelie culture, turned up her nose at their shrines. Her nostrils would flare and wrinkle, as though a foul, coiling smell had hit her every time the old gods were mentioned. She told me she simply found it annoying when humans put their faith in myths. But her reaction was too instinctive for me to believe it was that simple. It felt like a deep, species-wide cultural wound.
As we passed beneath the arch, the setting sun cast long, distorted shadows of the ancient stonework across the bustling street. I watched the faces of the tradespeople already heading home for the day—a baker with flour still dusting his eyebrows, rolling his picked-over bread cart inside a shop with newly painted shutters. From a distant forge, the rhythmic clink-clink-clink of a smith’s hammer carried on the crisp air, fading as the workday ended. A woman was gathering unsold, wilted flowers from a street stall, her apron tied with a bright, satin ribbon that seemed out of place in such a rustic setting. They looked tired but cheerful, their voices a low, contented hum, utterly oblivious to the shattered lives four hours down the road.
A heavy, bitter taste settled in my mouth, tasting of regret and the metallic tang of the bruise on my face. I wondered how different these people truly were from the desperate, vengeful mob we’d run from. If an Unseelie creature or a swift plague ruined them overnight, would they become just as quick to blame the first strange traveler to cross their gate? Two young women walking arm in arm, their skirts gathered in elaborate, fashionable folds of rich velvet, hesitated on the cobblestone street when they saw me. Their cheerful chatter died. Their eyes, wide with sudden apprehension, fixated on my grotesquely swollen face—a clear sign of trouble—and then they hurried down a narrow, shadowed alley to avoid crossing in front of our wagon. The gesture was a small, sharp cut. I wondered if they’d stop to give a couple of orphans food or if they were simply smarter, more selfish than my foolish, impulsive self. How could I ever trust humans when their compassion curdled so quickly into self-preservation?
The town’s main inn, The Dunlin Perch, was a striking, almost unnerving presence just past the gate. It was one of the newest buildings, its freshly cut, pale stone bricks a stark contrast to the venerable, moss-covered architecture around it. Its facade was a statement: adorned with ornate, dark-stained carved wooden flourishes—geometric knots and rolls—and massive, sparkling glass windows that let the interior light spill out onto the street. It was a clear, ostentatious declaration of Porth Sêr’s growing status as a trade hub.
Fia stopped us near a side alley that led to the stables behind the inn, pulling Beady to a gentle, weary halt. The air here was tinged with the familiar scent of hay, manure, and the faint, savory smell of cooking from the inn’s kitchens.
“Wait here,” Fia said, her voice tight, the natural melody clipped short. She slid off the seat with her usual effortless grace, but I caught the slight, almost imperceptible hitch in her movement—a sign of the exertion and fear she had just pushed through. “I’ll ask where we can find a healer.”
I watched her walk toward the inn’s heavy, lacquered door. The door was framed by polished brass fittings, an unnecessary modern touch. She pushed it open and disappeared inside, the warm, gilded glow of the interior—full of expensive candlelight and human chatter—swallowing her whole. A cold knot of anxiety formed in my stomach. Leaving Fia to negotiate with strangers felt dangerous, yet walking into that gleaming inn alone felt worse.
I hopped off and went immediately to Beady, needing the familiar comfort of his warmth and solid presence. I ran my hands over his sturdy neck, burying my face in his coarse mane. He’d been through just as much as us, if not more; the lingering fear of the mob was still a faint, nervous tremor beneath his skin.
“Thanks for your hard work today, boy,” I whispered, nuzzling his velvety muzzle and rubbing his ears, the movements soothing my own frayed nerves. He snorted softly, a breath of warm air against my good cheek, as if acknowledging the praise. “Good boy, Beady.” I clung to him, finding more solace in an honest animal than in the fickle, unpredictable humans of Porth Sêr.
Fia returned within minutes, her auburn hair slightly disheveled. The sunset, a fading palette of orange and purple, cast a dramatic light over the building.
“Finally, some good luck,” she announced, her tone purposefully cheerful, but I could hear the sheer, bone-deep tiredness dragging down the edges of her voice. “They have a healer staying at the inn right now. I also arranged to have Beady pampered and fed while we take care of you.”
A raised eyebrow was my only skeptical remark. I knew we were practically broke.
Fia rolled her eyes, but the gesture was quick and strained. “I haggled, okay?” she said defensively.
“With what?” I pressed, the question edged with suspicion and genuine worry. What little coin we had might pay to barely feed Beady, but pamper him? And have anything left to pay a healer? Impossible. Not to mention Beady would need to eat tomorrow, and the next day… and I was desperate for something other than pickled plums.
“I’ll tell you later,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “The healer agreed to see you now—right now—or else we have to wait until tomorrow morning.” She poked gently under my ribs, causing me to squeal and feel a corresponding twinge in my stiff neck. “Get inside. Go straight to the second floor, second room on the right from the stairs.”
She patted Beady’s muzzle, the contact lingering, and shooed me toward the inn door. It felt wrong to separate. But she stood straight, projecting confidence. Her exhaustion, however, was undeniable—the almost green pallor of her skin a hint of how much energy she’d overspent. Maybe she just needed a minute alone to pet Beady, to draw the same quiet comfort I had, before facing the next step.
I left her to enter the glittering inn, the fear of walking into that crowded, foreign space heavy in my chest. I looked back once to watch her steer Beady and our dusty, creaking wagon disappearing into the stable alley. Now, I was truly alone.
With a shaky breath, shoulders squared, I pushed through the heavy door of The Dunlin Perch.
The immediate impact was an overwhelming buzz of sound, light, and scent. The inn’s large central space wasn’t a smoky, communal tavern; it was a sprawling, opulent sitting room dedicated to evening tea. The air was thick, but not with ale and sweat—it was scented with expensive cinnamon tea, polished mahogany, and high-quality beeswax candles. The room was dazzlingly lit by several immense, multi-tiered brass chandeliers, their polished surfaces reflecting the golden light and magnifying the noise.
I felt instantly, painfully conspicuous. My road-grimy, drab brown dress, patched by Fia and smelling faintly of dried sweat and mule hair, was a jarring mismatch for the clientele. Most of the town’s locals wore simple, earth-toned wool, similar to mine, but cleaner, their faces open and unconcerned. The merchants and wealthy visitors were a modern kaleidoscope of color: men in tailored coats of deep indigo velvet, their cuffs starched and crisp, and women in gowns with wide, structured panniers that pushed their skirts out dramatically, the fabrics shimmering with unnatural dyes.
They sat clustered around small, highly polished oak tables with delicate, curving legs, sipping tea from fine porcelain cups and speaking in hushed, polite tones that still managed to feel overwhelmingly loud.
As I hesitated near the entrance, I felt the familiar burn of curiosity—the not-so-subtle glances—fixating on my dirtied appearance and, most painfully, the grotesque blooming bruise that consumed half my face. The cold knot in my stomach tightened. These were the people who, minutes earlier, had been too polite to look at my injury but were now staring with morbid fascination. Staring is fashionable when wrapped in the relative safety of your own world.
Second floor, second room on the right.
I turned toward the staircase. It was magnificent: a wide, winding construction of dark, gleaming wood, the banister carved with heavy, elaborate grapevines and floral patterns. With every weary step, my heavy, worn boots clumped audibly on the expensive runners that muffled the ascent.
The ascent was a slow, painful escape. The sharp, high-pitched chatter and the metallic scent of brass and tea gradually faded beneath me. As I reached the landing, the rich sounds of human commerce and leisure were replaced by a duller, calmer silence, broken only by the distant thud of a closing door or the faint, high whistle of steam.
I found the second room on the right—a simple, unmarked door, thankfully free of the gilt and carving downstairs. The quiet was a tangible relief, thick and still, broken only by the internal thump of my anxious heart.
A wave of profound relief washed over me. I was leaving the unsettling, judging world of the main floor behind, moving toward the quiet necessity of healing. I knocked twice, lightly, my heart pounding a faster rhythm than the distant smith’s hammer.
The man who answered the door was a dark, massive figure. His thick beard was a coiled bush of grey and silver streaks, his deep, sun-weathered skin wrinkled and rough. His shoulders were impossibly wide, and his hands, where they gripped the doorframe, were scarred and calloused, knuckles thick as walnuts. He looked more like a retired mercenary or a blacksmith than a practicing healer. His dark eyes, set deep beneath bushy brows, moved slowly, assessing me from my dirty boots to my violently bruised face.
“You don’t look like your sister,” he said, his gruff voice deep, rattling slightly in his chest.
“I get that a lot,” I managed, the practiced, clipped answer instinctively tumbling out.
He grunted, accepting the explanation without interest. He shuffled back, an arm outstretched in a rough gesture of welcome. “Let’s get this done with,” he said. “I was about to turn in.”
His words made me hurry. He closed the door behind us with a solid thud that echoed in the small room. This felt instantly, overwhelmingly like a mistake. Should I trust this dark, menacing figure? The closed door, shutting out the last vestige of the inn’s public life, felt like a trap.
The man limped past me through the narrow entryway, his right heel dragging a little with each step, inviting me to follow him into a small sitting area. The room itself was a contradiction: the wallpaper was a faded, gaudy damask pattern common to the inn’s style, but the furniture was an odd mix. A plain, sturdy wooden chair sat beside a wooden table scarred by years of use. The only modern furniture was a couch with plump, damask-patterned cushions.
He fetched a large wooden box, rattling with unseen contents, and set it roughly on the wooden table. He looked up twice, surprised to see me still paralyzed just inside the closed door.
“Come sit,” he commanded, his voice impatient. “I don’t have all night.”
Willing my feet to move was difficult; willing myself to move fast was worse. But his irked stare, heavily shadowed by his thick, bushy brows, was a hard pressure, a reminder not to waste his time. I moved to the couch. The cushion, stuffed with generous amounts of horsehair or cotton, was so full that it barely shifted under my weight. It was an uncomfortable opulence.
The man opened the wooden box. Inside, stacked and organized with meticulous care that wholly contradicted his rough appearance, were glass phials of assorted, viscous liquids, tiny pouches of finely crushed herbs, and vibrant powders. His thick, calloused fingers moved with surprising delicacy, hovering over a few selections, touching one only to grumble and switch to another.
“How’s the eye?” he asked, not looking at me.
Dumbfounded by his methodical precision, I said nothing.
He paused, finally meeting my gaze with a flicker of impatience. “Can you see, girl?”
“Mostly,” I said too quickly, the lie betraying me. He looked up, his brow arched in silent judgment. “Not really,” I admitted, an embarrassed mumble. “The swelling makes it all blurry.”
He nodded, the movement stiff. “Thought so.” He mixed together a pinch of a silvery-white powder, a sprinkle of crushed dark green herb, and three controlled droplets of a viscous, yellowed liquid in a small clay bowl. He raised a hand, hovering it gently over my cheek. “Hold still,” he warned me, his voice softening a fraction. He tapped the swollen skin in a few, specific places. I flinched every time, but my locked neck muscles and fingernails digging into the cushion kept me from running.
“You’re very lucky,” he said, his voice returning to its gruff tone. “Nothing broken. Just severe bruising and swelling.”
I was shocked. This was what it felt like when it wasn’t broken? I swallowed the metallic taste of relief and pain. Good thing my assailant had been too tired to hit harder.
“I’m surprised your sister needs to hire a healer,” he commented casually, his large hand stirring the gritty paste.
My spine went rigid with immediate, cold alert. He knows.
He paid my reaction no mind, smearing his mixture across my cheek. The gritty application was rough, and the scent—a sharp blend of chamomile, pine, and pungent, bitter undertones—stuck immediately in my nostrils. The remedy began to tingle, a cool, invasive sensation.
Then the intrusion began. Strange, powerful thoughts flowed from his mind to mine: a heavy, crushing sorrow that consumed him as he gazed at my bruised face. An old regret, thick with scar tissue, shielded the source of his secret pain, but the more he tried to hide, the deeper my involuntary gift dug. A young woman’s face abruptly floated up in my mind’s eye—an overlap of her laughing with a rosy flush, and then her face, bruised, battered, and utterly lifeless.
Not again, the thought echoed in the cavern of his mind. Another victim of their games.
This man hated fae creatures with a deep, personal vengeance. But I also felt an immense debt he owed them, a baffling contradiction. It would take a longer, more focused touch to learn the source of this conflict.
When he stopped touching my cheek, I finally managed to answer, my voice low and firm. “My sister isn’t a healer.”
“No, I suppose not,” he said, his gruff voice flat. He replaced the brass-fitted corks on his glass phials and returned each to its correct, labeled space inside his heavy wooden box, the organization meticulous. In the corner of the room, a gilt-framed mirror reflected his dark silhouette in the dim candlelight, catching the details of patches clumsily sewn into his coat. “But most Seelie have a gift for it. Thought she might have picked it up, with a human sister to mind.”
Panic splintered a path up my skin. He knew. He’d recognized what she was. The sheer recklessness of Fia bringing me here paralyzed me. Of course a decent healer would recognize a fae instantly.
He glanced up, his dark eyes instantly finding the panic in my clenched jaw. “Your business is your business,” he said, his tone utterly devoid of judgment. He closed the wooden box, clicking a metal latch to lock it. “But you might want to leave Porth Sêr in a hurry. Seems you’ve got a secret to hide.”
I couldn’t tell from his guarded thoughts who held his loyalty—or if he had refused to take any side but his own. Risking his anger, I stood sharply, wood creaking with sudden movement, and reached across the table to grab his wrist, my fingers brushing the thick, hairy skin of his forearm.
“Why do I need to leave?” I asked, demanding his thoughts lead me to the answer.
Green eyes. The vision, sharp and clear, hit my consciousness. My ankles twisted under me, and I fell back onto the cushions. This man had seen Caius. Searching. The single word linked the image of emerald eyes with another, more horrifying vision of a fae crest—a blue merlin posed before a green mountain—proudly pinned to the lapels of dark blue cloaks. A group of marching fae. Searching. They weren’t far. They were in Porth Sêr.
His mind was too well controlled, too heavily armored in sorrow and discipline, to get anything more direct. Huffing from panic, my hands trembled.
“You have a gift,” the man guessed, his dark eyes narrowing in shrewd observation. He leaned forward in his chair, suddenly intensely curious. “Psychic?” he asked. He paused, chin raised and lowered as he dismissed the guess. “Empathic, perhaps?”
I stood again, trying to reclaim my calm, quickly shifting away from the couch toward the door. The heat from my raw fear was thick in the room. “Thank you for the medicine,” I said, my voice thin. I paused, looking back at his guarded, dark eyes, sensing the glint of curiosity battling his inherent caution. “And for the warning.”
He nodded. “It won’t be completely healed,” he said, his gaze fixed on my face, “but you’ll be seeing fine in a few hours, and look mostly like yourself by the morning.”
“What did my sister pay you?” I asked, needing to know the cost of the risk.
“Nothing,” he answered. “But I will ask payment of you. For healing, and for denying I ever saw you or your sister here.”
“I thought you said my business was my business?” My voice was sharp with panic.
“That was before I knew you were gifted,” he said, an amused, shadowed smile curling under his thick beard. “But my last pursuit in this life is finding curious people like yourself. I’m looking for someone with a particular gift.”
“You really want to know?” I asked, the urge to give him a dangerous answer overwhelming my common sense.
His eyes narrowed, signaling his full attention.
Ignoring the frantic warning voice shouting in my head, I said, “I can hear people’s secrets.”
His eyes widened for a fraction of a second, and then immediately relaxed, dropping their fierce scrutiny. “As I thought,” he mumbled, turning his attention to tapping the heavy wood of the low table. “Curious, but not what I need.”
He leaned back, arms crossed over his massive chest. “Take care of yourself, girl. Leave town tonight.”
*
I flew down the wide, winding staircase, my boots clattering despite the thick runner. The noise in the main sitting room hit me again, but now it was just a distracting roar. I ignored the tea drinkers, darted past the check-in desk, and burst out the heavy front door into the chilled evening air.
The main street of Porth Sêr was now shrouded in deep twilight, lit only by the sputtering glow of iron lampposts fitted with thick, protective glass globes. The light, weak and yellow, spilled deep, hungry shadows pooling in the eaves and alleys.
Fia.
I raced down the side alley that led to the stables, my lungs burning and my vision still blurred slightly from the swelling. The alley reeked of hay and the sweet, fermented scent of old feed. I shoved open the heavy stable door. Inside, the air was warm and heavy, the comforting sounds of shifting hooves and chewing hay echoing in the stalls.
I scanned the rows. There, tucked in a large, clean stall, was Beady. He was standing contentedly in a thick bed of fresh straw, his muzzle buried in a pail overflowing with oats. He looked up, snorted softly at my frantic entrance, and immediately went back to his dinner. Pampered and safe, just as Fia had promised.
But the wagon was not there. And Fia was gone.
My heart hammered, a pounding pressure more painful than any punch. I scrambled back out to the alley, checking the small area behind the stables. There it was: our familiar, battered wagon, tucked tightly against a stone wall, a thatched patch of roof drooping slightly.
The hinges screeched when I threw the back door open. Empty.
“Fia!” I shouted, the sound swallowed instantly by the vast, open silence of the courtyard.
Panic, vibrating and overwhelming, hurried my heartbeat. The chilled night air made my teeth chatter. Or maybe that was my terror. The fae wearing House Edris colors were here, searching, and she had stayed behind.
I ran back toward the main street, pulling myself back into the weak lamplight. My vision reeled, the yellow lights blurring into starbursts. My breath hitched in my chest, the world tilting violently as panic seized me.
Too late. Too slow. Too naive.
Flashes of memory, sharp as glass shards, ripped through the paralysis: The cold stone floors of the fae training rooms. The whispering of silk and the sour scent of disappointment. My golden-haired friend, Elara, dragged away, sobbing, because she had embarrassed their captors by entertaining fae nobility too poorly. Her high voice had wavered on a note, and she was simply gone.
Your turn. You were seen. You were named.
I remembered the excruciating pressure of performance, the ghost of sensations flooding my mouth—my throat raw from reciting incomprehensible fae poems as judging, impossibly beautiful eyes watched me in complete, damning silence. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to fight the crushing weight of that childhood dread. I was trapped again, paralyzed by the fear that any single mistake, any wrong move, meant disappearance.
You’re safe. No one can find you here.
A quiet voice splintered through the panic. Just as the world threatened to dissolve into pure, screaming panic, a lullaby quieted the flash of horror. A boy’s voice, gentle and patient, echoing in the core of my mind, reminding me of a promise: You are clever. And brave. If you can save me, you can always save yourself.
Purple eyes, shining like rare amethysts, watching me over the edge of a flute. He was the one moment of safety, the ghost of a soft hand amidst the cold terror.
My rapid, ragged breathing hitched, then slowly, agonizingly, returned to an even rhythm. My hands unclenched from useless fists. The panic drained, the vibrations in my bones settling into stillness, leaving me with only the sharp clarity of urgency. The purple-eyed boy was gone, but the certainty of his voice remained.
Save yourself, Wren.
I took one deep, clean breath of the cold Porth Sêr air. Fia was not gone. Not yet.
I had to think like her to find her. She wouldn’t have gone far from the wagon or Beady, especially knowing the fae were searching the region. But had she gone to resupply? The shops were all closed at this late hour. How had she haggled for a lower cost to feed Beady and secure the healer’s time?
Fia had acquired many skills out of necessity. There were many ways she could barter her labor. No one was weaving or working the fields at this late hour. What kind of labor would interest an inn like The Dunlin Perch? A hot blush burned up my neck, flushing my cheeks. No, Fia was a romantic, rigidly old-fashioned in that way. She was willing to do dirty work for coin, but only literally dirty, not morally grey or personal.
As I stood there, frantically scanning the dark side of the building, a shadow detached itself from the wall near the stable entrance. A large, sleek rat skittered out, paused to twitch its nose at the warm air escaping the inn’s kitchen vents, and then vanished into a crack in the cobblestones.
Rats. Of course. A wealthy trade hub inn, with its large stores of food and valuable merchandise, would be battling a costly vermin problem.
And Fia had a particular skill for dealing with pests. I remembered a story she’d told me years ago, laughing nervously about the only time—years before she’d saved me—when she’d overtly, spectacularly used her fae charm for human coin. She’d played her flute to lure an infestation of rats straight out of a miller’s storehouse and into the nearby river, terrifying herself with the power she commanded.
I whirled around and sprinted back toward our parked wagon. A drawer thudded open with a jerky movement. My fingers found the familiar, smooth wood of her flute. It was still there, loosely wrapped in a piece of soft linen.
A wave of relief was immediately drowned by dread. Using the flute would be a risk—a detectable trace of fae power. She had chosen not to risk it. She must be tackling the job the old-fashioned, strenuous, and messy way—hunting the vermin by hand in the dark.
This certainty didn’t end my panic, but it gave me a vital direction. If Fia was nearby, likely working in the heavy, dark shadow cast by the inn’s high walls, she could be using her fae speed and sharp senses to silently dispatch the pests.
Our time could run out any second. The seconds I spent searching for her were seconds we could be sneaking out of town, or seconds closer to the searching fae. My mind battled with the decision even as my feet started their desperate search. Hitching Beady to the wagon now is safer. Leaving a note for her at the front desk is smarter. But leaving her was unthinkable.
I followed the intense, savory scents from the inn’s kitchens, the aroma of roasting meat and caramelized sugar competing with the cool evening air. A small group of kitchen staff was gathered around a massive, iron-fitted service door, wafting out a blast of lingering, intense heat. One young man, with a greasy apron tied over clean, striped trousers, was sipping steam from a mug. Beside him, a stout woman with arms crossed, her face flushed red from the heat, was complaining to a thin, nervous boy whose hands were chapped from dishwater.
Adrenaline gave me the courage to approach the group. “Excuse me,” I called, trying to project urgency without hysteria. “Have you seen a woman with vibrant, reddish-brown hair, about my age?”
Their eyes, tired but instantly curious, searched me. The boy, the one with the dishwater hands, pointed a hesitant finger at me. “The rat-catcher? She was headed for the storeroom, yeah.”
“Yes!” Relief bloomed a soft, heady heat in my chest. “Which way?” I asked, my voice a breathy sound.
The young man with the mug nodded around the corner of the building. “Down the cellar stairs,” he said, the steam swirling up into his face. “Should still be open. You just missed her. She went down with a sack and a torch.”
“Thank you!” I gasped, already running, my heavy boots sliding on the worn stone. “Thank you!”
I heard the stout woman mutter, her voice a low, skeptical rumble, as I passed: “Never seen two lady rat-catchers before. Especially not one with a face like that.”
My feet slipped inside my boots as I rounded the corner of the inn, the sound of my ragged breathing loud in my ears. There was a heavy, unlit wooden door set into the stone foundation. It was slightly ajar, a sliver of darkness promising the way down. I pushed it open and stumbled into the black maw of the cellar.
The air inside was a shock: cold, damp, and thick with the smell of mold, aging wine, and—unmistakably—the musky, sharp scent of rats. My eyes, already struggling from the swelling, were useless in the dim cellar. The sounds were immediate and overwhelming: the frantic, high-pitched squeaking of terrified vermin, the soft, ceaseless scurrying of tiny claws on stone, and the distant thud of pouncing movement.
“Fia!” I shouted, my voice muted by the massive stacks of grain sacks and the squat, cool shapes of wine barrels crowding the cramped space. The faint outline of broad shapes, a glint of the metal binding wooden barrels, and twitching, hurried leaps were the only details I could make out.
A sudden, soft gasp echoed from the gloom. “Wren? What are you doing down here?” Fia’s voice, surprised but calm, materialized from the darkness.
Unhurried rustling brought the faint, familiar scent of clover—Fia’s scent—closer. I reached out blindly, my hand connecting with her warm, smooth palm. Just as our fingers laced, my eyes finally began to adjust to the deep shadows.
The silhouette of her body and the voluminous shape of her hair were a dark smudge, colorless, except for the faintly luminous glow of her dark-honey eyes, like twin embers, staring out at me from the shadows.
“Sorry, I didn’t tell you about the rats,” she said with an embarrassed, strained laugh. “I know you hate—”
“Fia, the healer,” I stammered, gripping her hand tighter, the words tumbling out. “He said to leave. Tonight. He saw Caius. He said they’re here, in Porth Sêr. Searching.”
Her grip instantly tightened, crushing my fingers. Her eyes, those glowing embers, widened. “Searching? How did he…?” Her question was cut short, a sharp, ragged inhalation.
Before she could pull me further into the musty depths of the cellar, before she could even formulate a plan, the heavy wooden door above us groaned loudly. With a definitive thud, it slammed shut, plunging us into suffocating blackness. The sound reverberated through the stones of the cellar, sealing us in.
Fia reacted instantly, shoving me roughly, yet protectively, behind her, her body a shield. My clumsy fingers grasped her sleeve, clinging to the rough wool.
Then, from the impenetrable darkness at the far end of the cellar, another pair of faintly glowing eyes materialized. Not Fia’s warm gold, but a cold, piercing azure blue.
The dim light made every color dull, but the appearance was unmistakable. It was the icy, unnerving glow of a House Edris fae, the unforgiving guards who had supervised my childhood training. As the tall figure waded through the thick, musty shadow, I saw him: wide, powerful shoulders; long, unbound hair the color of deep brown earth; and a silky blue cloak proudly bearing the green mountain and merlin crest.
My blood ran cold, turning thick and sluggish in my veins. I knew those watchful blue eyes. I recognized the subtle tilt of the head, the patient, motionless wait of a seasoned hunter.
Dermot.
My mind supplied the name instantly, pulling it from the forgotten vault of my childhood terrors. He was one of the silent guards who had followed us—the stolen children—to and from every noble house visit, every suffocating performance. He was the one who never spoke, never flinched, and never smiled. He was one of their most efficient eyes.
A memory, black and sickening, rose from the depths of my subconscious, overriding the present terror. I’d watched a boy try to run from Dermot once—an older boy, maybe twelve to my five. In the short walk from a grand manor door to a carriage, he’d taken the risk, bolting for the tall hedges. We’d all watched, some of the other children cheering silently, tasting freedom through him. But I had watched the guards. I remembered Dermot’s eyes, watching the boy run, and the slow, chilling smile that curved his lips. The boy’s red-slashed body lay face down in the courtyard seconds later.
Dermot didn’t chase. He hunted. The sheer stillness of his anticipation was a weapon.
We were trapped with Dermot.
Knees buckled. My skirt pooling out as I sank onto the cold, damp stone floor, the sudden, sharp scent of mildew assaulting my nose. Thoughts of panic, of half-formed plans of escape, flashed from Fia’s mind as my hand brushed her fingers. Jump him. Throw a barrel. Run up the stairs. None of her plans would work. She’d saved me for ten years. But this was the end. There was no way out of here.
Unless House Edris really did want me back.
“W-wait, please.” My quivering, barely audible voice drew both pairs of glowing eyes to me. The shame of my groveling request was agonizing. “P-please don’t hurt her. You c-can have m-me.” Saying it was nauseating. A lump swelled in my throat, my body rejecting my choice with a wave of sickness.
“Wren—no,” Fia whispered, her voice tight, ragged with fear. Her fingers trembled violently, matching my own.
“Wren?” A deep, smooth, mocking chuckle echoed off the wine barrels. Dermot laughed, a horrifying sound of cold amusement. His silky cloak shifted open as his hand rested over his hip, revealing the polished hilt of his sword. “You changed your name? Did you think that little trick would keep you hidden from us, Líadan?”
My hand squeezed around Fia’s fingers, desperately, soundlessly begging her not to fight. Her thoughts were a tangled mess of bitter fear and a single, glinting hope—the night she’d whispered my new name, Wren. Our first shared secret.
“She doesn’t belong to you,” Fia hissed, her voice low and dangerously protective.
With a sharp, snapping spark and a fluttering of flame, Dermot lit a crude oil lantern hanging from one of the cellar’s wooden beams. The sudden yellow light slashed through the darkness, illuminating the dusty sacks and our terrified faces.
“Of course not,” he said, his mocking look of innocence perfectly framed in the yellow light. “She belongs to House Edris. She swore to us.” His head tilted, the predatory shift of a bird of prey catching movement. “We’re the same, that little human and I. We both swore to serve House Edris until we die.” His chilling blue eyes found me, pinning me where I crouched on the cold floor. “Do you remember, Líadan?”
“Shut up, you pig!” Fia screeched, all control lost. Thoughts of clawing at him or throwing a heavy sack flashed through her mind, but her feet were stuck to the floor with terror and indecision. “Of course she doesn’t remember. You made her swear some stupid vow before she learned how to read. ‘Repeat after me’ isn’t loyalty. It’s a disgusting trick!”
How Fia knew something even I didn’t remember was a complete mystery—a mystery she’d likely solved in the fifteen years of searching before finding me.
“It’s a shame you feel that way,” he said, a feigned, sorrowful disappointment layered into his deep voice that didn’t touch his cruel smile. “I had hoped, when we finally met, we might be friends, cousin.”
Fia’s mind, through our linked hands, went utterly blank. Like the first embers of a fire, only flickers—confusion, horror, revulsion, heartbreak—but nothing bright enough to form a complete thought. The shattered hope that maybe her fae blood relatives had made her a changeling out of love, that she hadn’t truly been abandoned, disintegrated. I felt the sharp accusation in her soul, the desperate wish that Dermot was lying. But Seelie fae can’t lie.
“Why?” her hollow voice demanded, the sound thin and broken. “What’s the point? Why steal a child just to replace her with your own family?”
“Save the judgment, cousin,” Dermot said, rolling his blue eyes. “You’re not special. It’s a rite of passage. A teaching exercise. You were sent to learn about humans so you could train them better for the court.”
The nauseating image of Fia’s face among my captors, her soft hands wielding a punishing reed, played in my mind. I wasn’t sure if it was her thought or mine.
“But instead of coming home,” Dermot continued, his voice adopting a hard, grating edge, “you stole from your own family—a prize they valued.” He shook his head in exaggerated disappointment. “That kind of betrayal is not easily forgiven.” The sound of metal shrieked as he drew his sword, the polished steel reflecting the lantern’s yellow light in a blinding, terrible gleam. “You’re lucky it’s me who found you. The others might not make it quick.”
A slash of red. The cellar filled with a sudden, overwhelming coppery stench that stung the back of my throat. The movement was too fast, too liquid, to follow. Dermot hadn’t lunged; he had simply moved, the unsheathed steel glinting as if it were pulled by a magnetic force.
Fia swayed, struck by a sudden, strangled cough that sounded wet and dreadful. Her eyelids fluttered, and the faint, warm glow of her honey eyes dimmed, collapsing inward like dying stars. Dermot stood utterly still, his blue eyes empty, the sword already resting at his side, dripping softly onto the damp stone with a sound swallowed by the scurrying rats.
Her warm hand, still gripping mine a second before, went utterly limp, slipping through my fingers like water. Dark liquid—too much, too fast—pooled instantly around Fia’s feet, soaking into the thick wool of her skirt and staining the cold, grey stone floor an alarming, reflective black in the dim light. The source was a wide, jagged tear across her abdomen, just beneath her ribs—a deep, devastating wound.
“Fia!” The scream ripped from my throat, raw and hoarse, tasting of salt and metal.
Her heavy eyes searched for me, unfocused, and in that instant, I caught a single, devastating thought, clear despite the chaos and the pain: Run, Wren. Now. The urgency was a final, frantic gift.
She crumpled. Her heavy, unresponsive body struck the sacks of grain with a muffled, awful thump, knocking over the lantern, which rolled away, casting the cellar into chaotic, wildly spinning shadows.
Dermot took a deliberate, slow step closer, the cold steel of his sword scraping softly against the stone as he moved. He knelt inches from the expanding black pool, leaning in with sickening casualness to wipe the edge of his blade on the fabric of her skirt.
“A shame,” he murmured, his voice flat, turning to face me fully in the shifting light. His hand shot out, grabbing my arm just above the elbow with inhuman strength. His touch was cold and absolute, locking me to the spot instantly. “Now,” he said, his blue eyes holding mine, the cruelty amplified by the nearness of his face, “it’s time for you to come home, Líadan.”