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seven

My heart tripped all over itself. My lungs squeezed and my mind screamed, emptying of all other thoughts.

There was a man standing in the foyer, just three feet away from the door.

Not only was he a stranger I had never seen before, but his ears were pointy and his eyes were made of molten gold and the coat he wore that fell down to his knees was made of green velvet and decorated with silver threads.

Every instinct in my body wanted me to run, except my muscles were locked in place, and even if they weren’t, the thought of Fiona and Dad being in here with this man stopped me all on its own.

The entire house could have caved in around me, and I still couldn’t have made myself move. I stepped inside and looked behind me—two other men dressed in green and silver were standing near my bike.

Two men with pointy ears and golden eyes and hair. Golden eyes, not yellow. The same eyes I’d seen at the cemetery.

I drew in a deep breath with the last of my strength, and I prepared to call for Dad with every bit of voice inside me, when…

“Nilah.”

My dad was right there, standing behind the man in the foyer, watching me with wide, unblinking eyes.

Fiona was there, too, right by his side. Both pale as ghosts. Both alive and well, standing on their own.

“Dad, what…” I shook my head, unsure whether this was a dream still.

“Shut the door, Nilah. Someone’s here to see you.”

Half my mind was made up to call for help, scream it at the top of my lungs. The look in Dad’s eyes, though. It was the same look he’d given me the night before— pleading with me. Begging me not to do anything rash.

“Just…just come inside,” he added because he could see the war going on inside my head.

My eyes fell on Fiona, her pale cheeks and glossy eyes, and she nodded. She didn’t want me to scream for help, either.

I leaned back, grabbed the door and swung it shut behind me.

A dream, my mind insisted. There was no way this wasn’t a dream. Yet everything felt so real—every step I took, the sound the hardwood floor made, the way the air shifted once more when the man dressed in green and silver stepped to the side to let me through to my family.

Even the prickling of tears in the back of my eyes was so very real.

My hands shook. Dad and Fiona went deeper into the hallway, toward the doorway to the left that led into the kitchen. The dining table was visible through it, the kitchen cabinets and appliances behind—and the three men standing between them, watching me.

The one on the right was smiling.

The whole world came to a sudden halt. I was picked up and thrown back in time, to a day that most of me had been convinced through the years had only happened in my imagination.

I was thrown back in that meadow and I was surrounded by trees, and I was bitten by a snake and saved by a golden-eyed boy…

Before he was called away by a grown man.

The same grown man who was standing there in my kitchen now, smiling at me.

“ You. ”

My eyes were wide open, unblinking. My heart was beating steadily, and my body was no longer shaking. The sense that this was all a dream was gone now—this was most definitely real.

The man spoke. “Nilah Dune, I am so very happy to finally make your acquaintance.”

It’s him, it’s him, it’s him! Same face, same light hair, same voice—it was the same voice! My God, he hadn’t changed a bit, hadn’t aged a day.

“Please forgive us for coming to your door like this, uninvited. Unexpected, I believe.” Something was in my head—an echo or a memory or a thought, I wasn’t sure. “Your father was kind enough to invite us in to wait for you.” He stepped forward. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Helid Sunstinne of the Seelie Court of Verenthia, and I am at your service.”

I blinked my eyes, waited a heartbeat to see if he would start laughing. Or maybe even attack me.

When he didn’t, I turned to Dad, to Fiona, but they were just as clueless as me.

“Dad?” I asked anyway because he was the adult here and he was my father and he had answers when I didn’t. He needed to have answers right now.

“He…h-he’s the uncle,” my dad said, his chin quivering like he was holding himself back from tears.

“He’s the uncle of the boy who saved you, Nilah,” Fiona said, her voice much louder, much more stable. And her eyes were becoming more alive by the second.

“I don’t…I don’t understand.” I looked at that man again, Helid something-something—of the Seelie Court?!

“And that’s to be expected. You’ve never seen me before, but—” the man started, but suddenly I found myself pointing my index finger at his face. The other two men who were in the kitchen with him moved just slightly.

“No, but I have,” I said. The man raised a hand, so the others fell back against the kitchen isle. “I-I-I have seen you before.”

Blond brows rose to his forehead. “You have?”

“That day in the meadow.” I had promised myself that I was never going to speak about this out loud again, but how could I not say anything now? “I-I saw you. I was there when you called for him, for the boy. I saw you—you told him he should have stayed with his mother—I saw you.”

It was real, a voice in my head whispered.

My God, it had all been real.

Silence.

The man’s smile fell. He paused and it gave me a moment to assess him better—to assess them . He wore green, too, except his clothes were different, his jacket shorter, his pants visible, and they were threaded with gold. His eyes were a much brighter gold as well, and his hair longer, combed behind his head.

The two men by the isle wore the same long coat as the one in the foyer. I’d almost forgotten about him, but a look back confirmed that he was still there, standing in the hallway, eyes ahead. I’d seen two others outside, but were there more? Maybe around back?

“And where were you, if I may ask, Nilah Dune?” the man finally said.

A noise rang in my ears. I focused on his face again, reminded myself how to speak.

“I was there, sitting on the grass,” I said. “You…you looked right at me but didn’t see me because the boy did something with his hands. They glowed, and…and he did something. He hid me.”

The man closed his eyes, released a short breath, and smiled like it all made perfect sense to him now. “Of course, he did,” he said. “My nephew has always been quite the rebel since he learned how to walk. Always the rule breaker.”

I stepped to the side slowly, closer to Dad and Fiona.

“Why are you here, Mister?” I asked, feeling more and more like myself because my instincts were a bit at ease now. If he’d wanted to attack me, if he’d wanted to hurt any of us, he could have. He wouldn’t have wasted time talking.

“If we may sit down, Mr. Dune,” he said to my father, waving at the sofa in the connected living room to the right.

Except I didn’t plan to let him into the living room at all, so I said, “Right here’s fine.” And pointed at the dining table. “Right, Dad?”

The man smiled.

Dad said, “Right, right, of course. Please, have a seat.” And he let go of Fiona’s hand to go pull the chair for the stranger.

I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her to me, my heart suddenly hammering again.

“Hey, I’m okay,” Fiona whispered while Dad and the man settled at the table. She looked up at me, Fi, and she was smiling a little.

“You sure? You’re not hurt or anything?”

“I’m fine,” she told me. “It’s real, Nil. It was real!”

“Girls, sit,” Dad said, waving for the two chairs next to his, while he sat across from the stranger. The other men who seemed to be there as guards stayed where they were and didn’t move an inch. Eyes ahead, their hands folded in the front, like they were made of marble instead of flesh and bones.

Fiona and I sat down. The stranger’s eyes remained on me and I felt it even before I saw it.

“I’m all ears.” My voice shook a little, but he heard the words.

“Certainly.” The man pushed back his chair, crossed one leg over the other, and he looked around at the table, and the carpet underneath his brown leather boots like he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Or maybe he wasn’t sure if it was clean enough.

“I came here, Nilah Dune, because I and the entire Seelie Court, and especially my nephew, are in great need of your help,” he started.

My ears must have not been working right. I looked at Dad and Fi to my sides, just to make sure that they’d heard the same thing.

Dad’s face was still as expressionless, but Fiona’s smile continued to get bigger by the minute. She was afraid, yes, but she was also excited—a look I hadn’t seen on her since our very first Harry Potter movie marathon some three years ago, if I remembered correctly.

“And where is your nephew?” I asked the man, trying to keep my mind calm, my heartbeat steady. We were sitting down, and we were talking—there was no need and no time to panic.

No time to dwell on the fact that this man had pointy ears and golden eyes and Dad and Fi could actually see him. He was really there, and I was really not crazy.

No time.

“He’s back home in the Seelie Court of Verenthia.”

He’d said that name before. “I’m sorry— where? ”

“Verenthia, our great realm.”

Realm, he said, and he didn’t even bat an eye about it.

“When you say realm, do you mean something like Hogwarts?” Because that’s what I thought when I heard that word.

The man looked confused. “Beg your pardon?”

I licked my dry lips. “Does realm mean that you have to…say, walk through a wall and hop on a train to get there?”

“No, no, we do not walk through walls—unless said walls are illusions, of course. And we do not have trains, either.” Again, he didn’t crack a single smile.

Not Hogwarts, which, really, after all this time shouldn’t have disappointed me the way it did.

But I was curious. “Then how do you get to, um…your realm?” Because I couldn’t remember that name he mentioned for the life of me.

“Horseback, mostly,” the man simply said.

About a dozen questions popped into my head at once—but first things first.

“Why isn’t your nephew here with you? Did he tell you about what happened in that meadow when we were kids?” That still remained the most important thing of all. That still remained the one thing that I needed to confirm to my own self.

Because this man being here with those ears and eyes, talking about courts and illusions, could mean anything at all, but there was one person who’d been there with me, who’d seen me, who knew the truth.

And that’s the only person I wanted to see.

“He didn’t, I’m afraid. He didn’t tell a soul. We only just found out a few days ago through a seer,” the man said.

“A seer ?” I’d read books, don’t get me wrong. I loved fantasy as much as the next girl, but a seer ?

“Yes, a seer,” the man said with a nod.

“Why? Why didn’t your nephew tell you? What is his name? Who is he?” My voice was rising with every word, but I didn’t think he minded.

“My nephew is Lyall Balantis Goldenbough, the prince of the Seelie Court, and I’m sure he had his reasons why he kept it to himself, Nilah Dune. But nevertheless, we now know what happened. The question is…” His voice trailed off and he came a little closer to the table. “Do you ?”

My first thought was that’s a strange ass name.

My second thought was prince? Why does that make perfect sense? That boy had actually looked like a damn prince—but then again, how in the world would I know what princes looked like?!

And third… “He saved me.” That’s what had happened. That boy had really, really saved my life.

The man offered me a smile, a different one this time, and said, “Oh, he did much more than that.”

No, he didn’t.

Except the way he was looking at me… “What’s that?” I had to ask.

“He connected your life to his. On a deeper level, a level we ourselves sometimes don’t fully understand,” he said.

I shook my head, my thoughts trying but failing to paint an accurate picture with his words. “What does that even mean?” Connected your life to his— what the hell was that?

“It means you are Lifebound, Nilah Dune.”

For the love of God, will you stop saying all of my name like that?

My eyes closed for a moment.

“Okay, you need to stop talking with those strange, senseless words, Mister, and start making some sense—can you do that? And Nilah is fine. Nobody calls anybody by their first and last name here.” My hands were fisted tightly, shaking. “Just…just Nilah.”

Why does that even matter?

I had no clue.

“Of course, Just Nilah,” the man said, unbothered by my raised voice and my demand. “And where I come from, you do not call me Mister . Simply Sire will suffice.”

Sire.

The words were at the tip of my tongue— are you fucking with me, Mister?

“Forgive me if my words don’t make sense to you, but I assure you, they do to me,” he continued. “Tell me, what don’t you understand?”

A second ticked by. “I don’t know— everything ? Especially that word—Lifebound.”

“That is what we call the people who share a life-bond, a deep magical connection of souls like the one my nephew, the Crown Prince, shares with you,” he said, and again he spoke as if that was supposed to make perfect sense to me. “Our seer can’t be certain whether he did it on purpose or if it was an accident. Magic is a very tricky thing, quite manipulative in itself. It’s the reason why we don’t allow our young ones to practice it until they’ve studied the basics thoroughly. So, it’s quite possible that it was indeed accidental, your bond.”

So many words.

My brain was threatening to malfunction any second now, but I still somehow got one question out of my lips. “Why not just ask him then?”

The man lowered his head, dragged himself closer to the table, and folded his hands over it. “Because, Nilah, he’s sick. He’s fallen into a deep sleep from a disease that is unknown to us, and we cannot heal him. We cannot wake him. He is barely hanging onto life,” the man said, his eyes wide, earnest, but I never even got the chance to process anything before he dropped the last bomb on me.

“And you’re the only one who can save him.”