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Just when I felt as though I could not walk any farther, I saw the selkie ahead, perched on his rock, his curls a burnished crown beneath the sun.

I made my way to the bank of the pond and sat, shoving my throbbing feet into the cool mud.

The selkie raised his brow.

“Get caught in a fairy ring?”

My lip curled at his question. “Take me to the Glass Mountains,” I said.

I saw no reason to make conversation. I had a bargain to win.

“I am afraid you will have to wait. Your escort grew hungry but will return.”

I looked away from the selkie, over my shoulder, uneasy, and quickly looked back.

“Are you lying to me?”

“Are you accusing me of lying?” His eyes darkened, hinting at his fury.

“Who is this escort?”

“A trusted friend.”

“There is no trust within these woods.”

“He owes me a favor.”

My shoulders tensed. I did not trust the selkie, and I would not trust him at all, even if his friend turned out to be real.

“Dip your feet into the water, terrible thing. It will soothe your soles…and your woes.”

Again, I felt that dreadful sloshing in my stomach. I kept my feet in the mud and my knees pressed against my chest.

“How much do you know about Casamir?”

“So you are on a first-name basis?”

“He commanded it.”

“And you listened?”

I glared at him. “You don’t know anything about him, do you?”

The selkie narrowed his eyes.

“I know about him like we all know about him,” he said. “But there is danger to speaking rumors as truth, especially in Fairyland.”

Fairyland? Was that what they called this place?

“Then speak what you know as truth,” I said.

His mouth was pressed into a hard line. “The prince is cursed like all his brothers. Some are cursed to despise, some are cursed to pine, but only one is cursed to die.”

I considered the selkie’s words and then asked, “Who cursed them?”

“Who didn’t?” he countered, and his words made me angry, but I also knew that anything could become a curse if spoken close enough to magic.

“And you? What did you do to end up in the prince’s pond?”