Page 2 of Of Shadows & Ash (Land of Shadows #1)

FELICITY FORREST

“Heirs of the court must claim their lineage by blood oath by their twenty-fifth season or forever be forsaken.”

Decree of the Crimson Court, Edict VII

Four Years Later

M y gaze drifts from the meandering ferry passengers to the open book as I lean against the railing: The Other Crowd Guidebook for Mortals. If anything, it reads like a diary with entries seemingly written by different authors. I run my finger over the copyright page:

Published by Those Who Remember What Humans Forgot

Tricksters, Tinkerers, Child-Stealers, Harbingers of Fortune, the God-folk, the Fair Folk, the Cunning Folk, etcetera, etcetera…

Originally Published in 1436, the sixth edition was updated whenever we felt like it. Figure it out.

Foreword by BS

‘To the foolish and fearless mortals who seek knowledge of us, beware. Curiosity and courage won’t save you. This guide may serve as a signpost, but don’t expect it to show you the way back.’

“You know what I’m saying, Flick?” My best friend Cyn’s question pauses my reading.

“Absolutely.” I have no idea what I just supported, but I’m not really needed in this part of the conversation. Cyn’s been talking about all the adventures she’s planning during this birthday celebration trip. I, uh, may have misled her about the reason we’re heading to Ireland. Yes, we’re celebrating her birthday, but I have another purpose I haven’t told her yet. I’m still trying to figure out the right time.

Flipping to a random page, I skim a passage. ‘The Shadowborn are bound by forbidden magic. It grants power but exacts a price that neither dark fae, deamhan , nor mortal can endure without consequence.’ The words blur, swimming in front of my eyes. A faint glow shimmers along the paper’s edges. It forms strange, shifting shapes. One coalesces into something almost recognisable, maybe a glyph, but it slips out of sight before I can focus on it.

Barely legible words appear as though scrawled in the margin by a ghostly hand:

A warning to humans and fae alike. ‘Beware of the hidden and the glamoured. They are not wholly of one world nor the other, but disrupt the balance of both.’ -Beatrice Blackthorn Shadowhart

I blink, shaking my head. Beatrice Blackthorn, where have I heard that name before? It doesn’t sound fae.

A wry smile tugs at my lips. If we were fae, Cyn’s birthday wouldn’t be a crisis. It’d be a full-blown ritual. And knowing her, she’d turn it into an extravaganza. Good thing we’re only human, right? Except I’ve always had this stupid, aching need for something bigger than myself—like the world has an edge I need to find, but I don’t know if I’ll fall or fly when I get there.

Cyn’s nervous voice pulls me from my thoughts. “They say it’s all downhill from here.” She never does well with change. “But you’ve still got time!”

At twenty-two, I’m a few years shy of catching up to her, but my milestone won’t be anything close to Cyn’s quarter-of-a-century “crisis.” As an international model, Cyn faces relentless pressure to stay at the pinnacle of the fashion world, but she carries it with an effortless, almost unearthly grace.

I laugh until my gaze catches a reflection in the reinforced glass panel lining the ferry’s passenger deck. A dark shape or shadow flies by, but when I blink, it’s gone. Probably a seagull. Working at the magazine, Everyday Supernatural, sharpens my senses to the unusual. I keep that under wraps, even from Cyn—especially from Cyn.

But there’s a prickling sensation. I try to shrug it off, but the itch at the base of my neck won’t stop. Not a normal itch. This is deeper. Under the skin. I shift, rubbing the spot absently, but the sensation only gets worse. Like something waiting. Watching. My fingers brush over smooth skin. No raised lines. No mark. Just an irrational sense of wrongness slithering down my spine.

I close the book, pushing down the worry it stirs up. “So, bottomline,” I interject myself back into the conversation, “we’re celebrating with copious amounts of alcohol and regrettable decisions, right?”

“Oh, you know me well, Flick.”

I force a laugh, even as part of me recoils. I’m not one for drunkenness, but I’d never ruin it for Cyn. Birthdays are the worst, and she knows it. Our history is full of university nights out and heart-to-hearts, but birthdays? They’ve never been kind to me. “I can’t wait.”

That prickle on the back of my neck won’t let up. Maybe chasing ghosts for a living is finally screwing with my head.

“I can tell you’re positively vibrating with barely-restrained glee,” Cyn teases.

Water slaps against the side of the boat.

“I am excited,” I say, louder than I should, but with all the conviction of a fat, domesticated cat on a windowsill trying to convince the neighbour’s dog it owns the block, even though it’s too lazy to chase mice. Meanwhile, my mind is on the fleeting shadow, on hills and hollows where nobody has the sense—or possibly the stupidity—to wander.

I hug the book tighter to my chest. A strange pull tugs at me, the thick cover almost warm beneath my touch. Protective, somehow. This so-called ‘guidebook,’ which I’m slogging through, reads like it was assembled by someone who, at no point, considered anyone might actually study it. It’s messy and rough, like private panic scrawled out in an absinthe-induced free-write, with occasional notes scribbled in the margins. Somehow, it skips the basic survival details in favour of cryptic observations and peculiar etiquette. The real fear isn’t in some polished monster but in the creeping certainty that I’ve stumbled onto something that should stay buried. Poorly edited? Absolutely, but in the same way a weathered, creaking house is poorly lit. Stupid, stupid paranoia. Stop it.

“So,” I ask, forcing the anxiety down, “how did Nathan take you turning him down to come with me instead?”

Cyn sighs, dragging a hand through her windswept hair. “Oh, about as well as you’d expect. I let him down easy, like always, but honestly, I wish he’d take a bloody hint. I wouldn’t ruin your job by sleeping with your boss any more than I’d wreck our friendship. Thai Tuesdays with you both are sacred.” She pauses, her gaze narrowing on me. “But seriously, Flick, when were you planning to tell me this trip isn’t a holiday? That it’s another one of your work adventures chasing a story?”

Dammit, Nathan . Of course he ratted me out and didn’t have the balls to warn me. His massive crush on Cyn has him talking without thinking about the repercussions. “I’m sorry, Cyn. I’m committed to celebrating you, but…we’ve got a lead on a púca on Inis Mór. A local priest is stoking the fire right alongside some hotshot developer trying to build a golf resort. Trouble is that every time they break ground, something goes wrong. The locals? They’re quick to blame a púca.”

“A púca? Sounds exotic.” One corner of her mouth twitches as though she’s trying not to laugh. “Please tell me that’s a kind of cocktail.”

A wry grin tugs at my lips. “Not a cocktail. Or maybe it is but that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s a shapeshifting fae from Irish folklore.”

She snorts, her gaze drifting out to the ocean where gulls wheel and scream. One swoops down to the ferry’s deck, snatching up a fallen sandwich with the precision of a thief, while the girl who dropped it stares after it, stunned and empty-handed. “Only you would drag me to Ireland for a mythical creature. But I’m all ears if it gets me a drink named after it.”

“That’s the spirit!” I shift the book and snag a large-ish envelope out of my pocket. “There’s a photo involved.” Sliding the image free, I slap it on top of the guidebook. “It’s a big deal, like cover-of-Vogue big, if Vogue did supernatural exposés.”

“Really? Now, that’s my language.” She studies the picture. “A photoshoot with a fairy? Ireland is sounding better by the minute.”

The glossy surface catches the light, revealing an image that practically hums with otherworldly energy. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was touched up.” Cyn wrinkles her nose, leaning in for a closer look. “I’ve seen enough photo brushing in my line of work that . Not everything is as shiny as it seems.”

But I know púcas from the stories my adopted Mum used to tell. Not the cuddly kind, but the dark ones that make you think twice about what’s hiding in the shadows. She’d talk about the fae as if they lurked just out of sight. Back then, they felt more like lessons than tales, like things I should remember for my own good. And púcas? They’re the worst kind of fae. Shapeshifters with a twisted sense of humour. They’ll mess with you for fun, but sometimes, they don’t stop at messing.

I arch a brow. The image shows a creature that might resemble a horse—if a horse were a wraith with glowing red eyes that seem to pierce straight through the shadows. “Sure, because a glamoured fairy would absolutely need Photoshop.”

“Does this fae thing also shift into something else?” Her eyes narrow, scrutinising me like she’s debating whether or not to take me seriously. “Fox? Goat? Something nastier?”

The ferry rises and dips over a small swell. “Reports vary, but the consensus leans towards a horse, black as night, with eyes that glow like coals. You know how these stories go. Half the time, they’re an excuse for something else happening, but the accidents are real enough to spook the locals.”

Her jaw goes slack, lips parting slightly. “Accidents? The usual construction screw-ups, or are we talking something…weirder?”

I glance down at the fairy horse and exhale. Cyn always teases me for my ‘spidey senses,’ but she doesn’t know the half of it. An inexplicable pull tugs at me, like an invisible thread binding me to something, whispering in a language I can’t comprehend. A photo of a creature snapped in another photo. I squint at it. Real or not? Hell if I know, but it’s enough to pull me in. “Misplaced tools, equipment failure, or the occasional injury. Nothing fatal, but enough to grind progress to a halt and keep the rumours alive. It’s as if someone—or something —doesn’t want that resort on their land.”

She presses her fingers to her temples, a groan escaping her lips, as if the sheer ridiculousness is giving her a headache. “That’s nothing new. Isn’t there always some dubious photo that surfaces?”

“Right, but Nathan can’t prove it’s fake after examining it. It’s not the usual spectral blur or dubious shadows. There’s something about it. And the priest is quite insistent about the local legend. I can’t shake the feeling that we’re onto something real.”

I catch my reflection in the wide, salt-streaked windows encasing the cabin. Thick, dark waves are pulled into a loose ponytail and have strands of purple and silver woven through it. They’re natural, like threads of twilight in the sunlight. I’ve stopped asking myself how or why they’re there. The questions don’t have answers. And honestly? I’m not sure I’d like them if they did. The usual smudge of fatigue circles my eyes, but then…something shifts. My eyes, normally dark grey, look…lavender? My skin, familiar but somehow different, is paler, with a smooth, glassy quality. I blink, frowning at this weird, stranger me staring back.

Before I can wrap my head around it, another face looms beside mine in the glass. Pale and hollow-cheeked, with eyes that look like they’re painted with a shade called Soul-Eating Void flecked with amber. The gaze isn’t unfriendly, just…off, like it isn’t quite calibrated to normal human expectations. It tilts its head in an almost-polite angle, but it’s a little too sharp like it read some manual on how to blend in with humans once and is determined to get the basics right.

The hum of roots beneath the seafloor and the whisper of god-folk buzz through my mind. A pull to the arcane woven with shadows and starlight, binding me to something—or someone —I don’t yet understand but can’t deny the longing coursing through me.

The figure steps into the relaxed shuffle of passengers leaning against railings and staring at the waves. There’s a hesitation, a strange lag as though they’re translating it through some outdated info on human body language. I blink, and now it’s an ordinary bloke in a black jacket, scrolling his mobile with the lifeless disinterest of someone perfectly at home in the monotonous rhythm of ferry life.

I blink again, and he’s gone. The ferry continues to rise and fall against the relentless push of the ocean, but my pulse is thrumming against the current, my gaze glued to the glass as if expecting the Soul-Eating Void eyes to resurface. Nothing—except the steady hammering of my heart and the idle conversation of passengers, entirely ignorant of the reasonable assumption that I might be losing my mind. I try to dismiss it as a weird shadow, but my skin tingles like it knows better.

Nathan’s words in our last conversation skitter down my spine. “You know how some stories just…vanish? One day, they’re everywhere, and the next, it’s like they never existed. What if someone is making them disappear? A whole history, a whole world, just wiped away…” His voice had faltered then, followed by a forced chuckle. “Never mind. It’s probably stupid.”

Nathan always rambles about shadowy forces meddling with our stories, erasing truths we’re not meant to know. I used to laugh it off, but there are moments when the cracks in the world feel too real to ignore. Things happen that logic can’t explain. And as much as I want to believe the world is exactly what we see on the surface, there’s a gnawing worry that Nathan might be right. The world is full of cracks, and things slip through them all the time. Things we aren’t meant to see.

“Hey?” Cyn breaks through my haze. “You spacing out on me again?”

I wince. “What were you saying?”

“I was saying that, real or not, this adventure is the perfect excuse to unplug. We’ll have drinks, sweaty dancing, and make questionable life choices.” There’s a slight hitch, a momentary pause before she continues. “Besides, how long has it been?”

“How long has what been?”

“When’s the last time someone actually made your toes curl?” She clicks her tongue.

“Toes curl? I don’t think anyone has ever made my toes curl,” I say, rolling my eyes. “But as a matter of fact, it was just the other night.” Cyn doesn’t need to know it was by my own hands.

“Sure.” Cyn snorts.

“Fine. It’s been a while. Since Will and I split. Satisfied?”

“No, and neither are you. We should remedy that this weekend.”

The thought of hooking up exhausts me. My ex always tore me down to feel bigger and I needed out before I lost myself completely. Better to be alone than let someone make me feel small.

“Felicity?”

I snap back to the present. “Sorry.”

“Stop thinking about that good-for-nothing shite that broke your heart. I swear I could kick him right in the teeth.”

At the moment, I’m glad my friend lacks a filter. “Then you’d be sitting in jail for your birthday, and what would be the fun in that?”

Cyn sighs. “If I see that man again?—”

“Let’s not.” I cut her off, avoiding more pain. I tap my gloved fingertips against the book, wincing as the ache from a long night hunched over my laptop flares up. The leather fingerless gloves Cyn made offers some relief. Chic support, as she calls it, is perfect for my loosey-goosey joints. They help, but not nearly enough.

“Yeah, but I could seriously teach him some manners. I’ve got a way with wild things.” The air seems to hum with every satisfied syllable that drops from Cyn’s mouth. It leaves me wondering—not for the first time—if she’s joking, or if the next gust of wind might actually knock my ex flat on his ass if he weren’t hundreds of kilometers away in London.

My laughter fades as movement near the railing catches my attention. A black cat sits perched beside a row of bolted, plastic seating, its fur so dark it practically absorbs the light around it. Well, except for the patch of white on its chest. Its eyes flicker, glowing… lavender?

The cat doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink. It stares at me like it’s trying to look into my soul. My guidebook mentions that the cait-shìth are fierce feline-like warriors that guard the gates to the Otherworld. Am I crazy to instantly wonder if this cat is fae?

Its tail flicks lazily before it melts into the shadows.

Nope. Just nope. I imagined the feline. Nothing disappeared. I rack my brain, trying to remember what Cyn just said. Right. Teaching my ex some manners. “Impressive. Do you offer classes?”

“Look, Flick, trust isn’t built on promises. It’s built on scars. The ones they see, the ones they don’t…” She adjusts her sunglasses with a casual push. “…and the ones they swear they’ll never cause.”

Cyn gave me that nickname because I’m always moving, chasing the next lead like a flame that won’t stay still, flickering, restless, and a little hard to handle. But honestly? That’s how I think of her too. She shifts like the wind. Impossible to pin down.

She has a habit of confusing love with other things like a good laugh, a clever flirtation, or a quick fling. No matter how much Nathan worships her from the sidelines, Cyn’s never seen him as more than a friend. I’ve tried to warn him, but he’s blind to it. Blinded by her spark, her charm, the way she lights up a room and never stays long enough for anyone to catch her.

I don’t think anyone will ever get under her skin. Not after what she’s been through. It left its mark, and she’s made damn sure no one gets close enough to leave another.

I press my lips together, tuning out the raucous laughter from a group of passing teens listening to the waves crash against the ferry. She’s not wrong, but hearing it out loud stings more than I’d like to admit. “Yeah, well…what happens when the scars are all you’ve got left?”

Cyn doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she takes my hand, like she’s daring the world to break me while she’s holding on. There’s nothing soft about her touch—it’s fierce, protective, and says everything. Delicate is not her style. She’s all sharp edges and quiet loyalty, the kind of person who makes you feel safe in a way that no armour ever could.

The ferry captain’s voice crackles over the loudspeaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be docking shortly. Please gather your belongings and prepare to disembark.”

Then I hear it—soft, almost like wind chimes, but wrong. Not music, not quite. Nothing you’d hear drifting out of a pub late at night. No, this is different. It’s too perfect, almost like each note is plucked straight from some dream. It has a pull to it that digs in, raising every hair on my body.

That prickling sense of being watched is back. My hands ball into fists as my tongue presses against the metallic tang in my mouth. Eyes on me, not human. Something out of place has slipped into the ordinary.

My gaze snaps up, catching a raven perched on the ferry’s bridge roof, its dark eyes locked on mine. There’s a sense of something shared, though I can’t explain why. It’s only a bird, but its black eyes are far too knowing. Its stare feels like a challenge or maybe a warning. Geez, what is it with animals today? First a cat, now a raven. Either way, it sits wrong in my gut.

I swallow it down, trying to tell myself it’s nerves, but the chill sticks, settling into my bones. Maybe the fae are already watching.