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The faerie hound whines softly at the surface of the stagnant pond. The fish hasn’t emerged in a while now. Seems it’s grown bored with teasing the beast.

Kalice reclines against the curve of the tree trunk, one so clearly carved and sanded to mimic a chair, and I fleetingly wonder if she did that herself, to better enjoy the comfort of watching her fish, her faerie hound, or those pink and yellow birds tweeting in the aviary that’s tucked at the rear of her gardens.

She shakes her head, mousy strands of hair falling into her freckle-dusted face. “We only come to Kithe for the festival of the gods.”

The Sabbat.

I draw away from the fence and wander to the swing seat. I plop down with an impolite grunt, but the human doesn’t so much as blink at me for it. Her eyes linger over the faerie hound who’s now digging at a patch of dirt that looks disturbed, asthough a gnome has recently burrowed its way down there, then covered up its new den.

I lean my temple on the post. The seat rocks gently. “Do you live in Licht?”

Her voice is firm, disinterested, “Isle Barra.”

My mind flashes with maps I’ve browsed over the years of my life, maps of Licht, of Dorcha, of the Midlands, of the Wastelands, then all the little isles dotted around the seas and coasts. But the Isle Barra isn’t one I recall. Must be small.

But then, she adds, “It’s a bridge isle.”

My brow hikes.

Lips part around untethered words.

The bridge isles are lands with the most connections between the realms. The most bridges. So many that it’s almost impossible to not fall between the worlds.

I have so many questions. Kalice is wildly more interesting to me now.

But I don’t get the chance to ask anything at all.

Kalice stiffens and her gaze swerves my way, a tad wider and wilder than before.

Slowly, I look over my shoulder—and I see exactly who startled her.

My own muscles jolt in surprise at the sight of Samick, standing there on the stone trail that interrupts the wild garden, his hands in the pockets of his slacks, and his pale hair dishevelled, as though he’s just woken.

Gleaming, his gaze is homed on Kalice, and the sight of his eyes strikes an image through me, of winter frost dusted over green blades of grass. It’s enough to shudder my spine.

A blankness steals Kalice’s face as she stares over the head of her faerie hound to the newcomer.

I frown between them.

Samick dips his head at her. It’s more than I’ve ever received from him in a way of greeting, but it does nothing to soothe the tension in her stiff shoulders.

I’m a sudden statue, watching them, flicking my gaze back and forth, from the stillness of Samick in the gleam of firefly strings crisscrossed above, whose face is stone; and then to Kalice, who stays crouched beside the softly snarling faerie hound and keeps her stiff gaze on the dark male.

“She’s been asleep a while now,” I say, drawing in Samick’s gaze.

He blinks as though just realizing that I am here, that I exist, and then traces my gesture to Aleana still passed out on the bench opposite me.

If Samick understands that I’m helping him right now, swatting away the awkward tension between him and the human changeling, he doesn’t acknowledge it.

“I can’t carry her inside,” I add, yet I haven’t so much as tried to rouse her from her rest.

On the other side of the fence, Kalice pushes up to stand and cuts her gaze to the rear entrance of her home.

I can’t see beyond the trees stuffed into the gardens, but I hear the creak of the door and the thick meaning of the silence.

Kalice leaves. The hound bounds after her.

Without a word or a wave, she rushes up the path—then comes the faintclickof a door shutting. I’m not without a father, and so I can guess that it was he who came out and silently summoned her back inside.