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“And you look like a lunatic to me.” Which is hardly a productive conversation. “She won’t—”

“Yes, she will.”

“Not if we keep to ourselves,” I whisper. “She’ll collect her shoat and leave.”

“Oh? In that case, my sincerest apologies,” he concedes with feigned humility. “I didn’t realize you were an expert on boarology.”

She’s a female. Hence, it would be sowology. Anyway, I can’t believe he’s bringing this up. “For Fable’s sake, this isn’t my studious ego talking. We mean no harm. We were playing with her offspring. She’ll sense that.”

“That would be true, if she hadn’t already noticed our weapons.”

“There’s a hierarchy in the animal kingdom,” I maintain. “Of all people, you should possess that rudimentary knowledge. You rule this land.”

“Bloody good point. Thanks for reminding me,” Puck drawls. “Methinks we’re having an inconvenient debate. What say you?”

Perhaps. Nonetheless, shouldn’t Puck be able to exert power over the sow? Shouldn’t his authority tame her? Can’t she sense, smell, or detect who he is?

“Shouldn’t she listen to you?” I insist. “By nature, you’re her sovereign.”

“Everything you’ve said in the past sixty seconds?” the satyr downplays. “I’d advise you to retract it, unless you want to be very wrong. This isn’t the human realm, luv. These are Fae animals, not mortal ones.”

Meaning what? His sovereignty is moot?

The jittery male piglet must sense the tension. He caterwauls and careens between us and the spiky bushes, searching for a route to his hovering mother.

Her tusks flank us, jutting so far we wouldn’t make it twenty feet without them impaling us. Plumes of air siphon from her snout. The protective sound dislodges an adjacent mound of rocks and causes them to roll across the ground. Her grumble drills into the earth, to an unreachable place below us, perhaps to the other side of the continent.

The stressed piglet runs in circles along the border, more rusty squeals tripping from its mouth. We haven’t hurt the baby, but the guarded stance of its mother illustrates her doubts about us.

This being The Passel of Boars, there ought to be more of them nearby. And if they hear this baby’s cries…

The repetitive scrape of a hoof across the ground sends a flurry of prickles up my calves. It’s the gesture of an animal fixing to pounce. I’ve been on the receiving end of that sound before, with other mammals.

Puck’s knee nudges mine. I offer him the barest of nods and move with deliberate slowness, placing the longbow on the ground. In my periphery, I see that he does the same, disarming to show the mother all is well.

“Stay down,” he instructs me. “And for once, pretend I know more than you.”

With that, Puck rises to his hooves and shuffles in front of me, shielding my body from the sow. He levels his gaze with the animal, holding its expression. The moment trembles like a leaf clinging to its branch.

From this hunched angle, all I can make out are the massive tusks. Plus, the satyr’s leather attire, the unkempt sheets of hair flaying his shoulders, the tapered peaks of his ears, and the spokes of his antlers.

Some form of wordless communication passes between him and the female. I want to explain, to make myself useful. What if Puck’s saying the wrong thing, whereas I’ll say the right thing? But I don’t speak Faeish, and I can’t send messages through the landscape like he can.

Adrenaline pumps through my chest. My booted toes grind into the muck.

Out of nowhere, the mother wheezes and rears backward—then springs from the knoll and lands before us. The impact knocks me off balance, throwing me sideways. Puck stays put, as though he’d expected this reaction. Nevertheless, my floundering catches the sow’s attention.

She thrusts herself my way on her gargantuan hooves. Puck leaps sideways and lands in a half-kneeling crouch, blocking her from me. His right palm flattens to the ground, his thighs spread, and his head angled downward, the antlers poised like a battering ram.

The baby boar scurries behind its mother’s haunches. Puck and the sow pause. I scramble to my feet, waiting as they square off, a primitive lapse in which they sniff one another out.

Like mystical fauna. Like wild animals.

The seconds tick by, the Fae and sow corresponding.

The sow hesitates. Then she growls, the serrated noise akin to a powerful mill grinder, tearing the landscape apart.

And Puck mutters, “Shit.”