Page 19

Summer

“ Y ou’re hurt,” is the first thing Wyn says to me, finally noticing I exist after I’ve just spent five minutes watching his body writhe and reshape in agony on a bed of purple wildflowers. Quite the eye-opening experience.

Glad to see him back in his human um… fae form, I look around, amazed to find myself alive and not dead at the bottom of Lake Grenlynn with my lungs full of weeds and about to be fish food.

We’re on a mountain in a small, sloped clearing that smells like crushed herbs and wet moss, surrounded by trees so tall they block out most of the sky. Also, it’s daylight, which is weird since the spooky Landolin chased us through the woods well after midnight, and now it’s like… daytime ?

Whatever this place is, it has no respect for circadian rhythms.

“I’m fine, thanks,” I finally reply, still in shock and already shelving it for later like a champ .

Sitting beside Wyn, I scrub the dried blood under my nose with a shaking hand and inspect the grazes on my bare feet. “Happy to be alive, actually. Now that I know every word you told me was true… I’m guessing we’re in your world? Or realm—is that what you call it?”

“Yeah. You’re in Faery. Told you I wasn’t lying.

” He clasps his hands behind his head and lies back in the grass.

“This realm is known as the Land of Five. Home of the Elemental Fae and the Seelie Court.” Squinting against the light, he rakes his gaze over me, slow and hot.

“You’re breathing and not screaming. That’s promising. ”

I sigh down at my sleep shorts and ripped T-shirt. If only I’d had the foresight to venture down to the kitchen last night wearing a pair of sturdy boots.

“So you knew that jumping into the lake would lead us here?” I ask him.

“I hoped the portal would still be connected. Took me a while to find one that spat me out close to your house. Now, it’s my favorite one in all of the realms.”

“Oh? Why’s that?” I ask.

“Because it brought me back to you and allowed me to follow you to work and observe you for days without you noticing.”

“Oh, I noticed you all right. Not too many giant black wolves hanging around Lake Grenlynn.”

He shakes his head, a faint smile tugging at his mouth as he gets to his feet. “How do you feel?”

“You asked me that already.”

“This time, I mean… in your mind. Now you’re in Faery, are any memories racing back?”

“No, why should they? ”

Wearing a miserable expression, he gives a half-hearted shrug.

“So I’m not dead or dreaming? Everything you said about being a fae prince, a wolf shifter… it’s all true?”

He nods. “Yeah. Full-blooded fae can’t lie, but my mother is human, so I’m a halfling, and it’s much easier for me to lie in Faery, but strangely not in the Earth Realm. So everything I said while we were in Lake Grenlynn was the honest truth.”

Brushing leaves off my legs, I stand up. “In other words, I can’t trust anything you say here.”

My comment wipes the dimpled smile off his face.

“Have you been trying to tell me I’ve been here before? Is Faery where I disappeared to on the night my parents died?”

“I’m afraid so. Do you… maybe remember me from your time here?”

Wait… what? He thinks we’ve met before he showed up in the Vandersons’ garden, stalking me in his wolf form?

I study his face, transformed into something otherworldly, his human glamour gone.

He looks like Wyn but turned up to eleven.

His cheekbones and ears are sharper, eyes glowing and slightly tilted at the outer edges.

The freckles dusting his nose sparkle like flecks of mica on wet stone.

The patch on the left side of his bangs glows bright silver.

“No. Should I remember you? Hey, what happened to Kurt’s jeans?”

Zylah’s brother’s clothes have disappeared, and Wyn’s now wearing leather pants, a fine black shirt under a leather-and-velvet jacket with outrageous, silver-tipped shoulder pads that resemble armor .

He grins. “It’s a glamour. I’m totally naked underneath, so don’t stare too much. You might get a surprise.”

Okay. And shame on me because I do stare. Hard .

Then a thought hits me. “But isn’t that the way clothes work, too?

” I say. “I mean, you don’t wear clothes under your clothes just to avoid being naked beneath them.

Or… wait. That’s literally the point of underwear, isn’t it?

Never mind. Don’t listen to me—my brain’s scrambled from inter-realm travel and being chased by monsters on horseback. ”

He laughs but says nothing.

“Do your clothes disappear every time you shift?” I ask.

“Basically.”

“Even the swords strapped to your hips are glamours?”

“Yeah. To scare off the feral pixies, but I can conjure a real weapon pretty easily.”

“How does that work exactly?”

Leaning close, he whispers, “Magic.” Then his head shifts back an inch, and he’s so close I can count the gold flecks in his startling eyes. “We draw on our elements, mine’s earth, and the magic around us and just… form stuff.”

“Very scientific explanation,” I tease.

“Listen, we need to get farther up the mountain—to the lake where I can recharge my power. Jumping through that portal zapped what little magic I had left after spending weeks in your realm. Pretending to be mortal is very draining.”

“Sounds like a plan. And then what?” I ask.

“Then we’ll travel to my home, the Elemental city of Talamh Cúig, and find a way to keep you safe from Landolin and the Shade Court. ”

“But when do I get to go back to my home? Zylah’s going to be so worried. She’ll contact Detective Perez. There’ll be a search party. They’ll drag the lake again. It’ll be like history repeating itself. I can’t do this again. I can’t—”

He places both hands on my shoulders. “Breathe, Summer. Breathe. I don’t have all the answers yet, but we’ll send someone from the court to Gravenshade. We’ll work it out. All will be well. Don’t worry.”

“Okay.” I blow out a long breath. “Okay.”

He steps back, gaze sliding down my bare legs. “You cold?”

“A little,” I admit.

“Wait here.” He scans the ground and stomps off toward a leaf-filled ditch, returning moments later with a patchwork cloak in different shades of brown and dark gold. As he wraps it around my shoulders and ties it with a cord from his pocket, I shiver at his touch.

“Better?” he asks gruffly, as if embarrassed by his gift.

“You made this out of sticks and dirt?” I ask, fingering a patch that looks suspiciously like it used to be part of a nest.

“Mostly leaves.” He points at his chest. “Earth magic, remember?”

As we walk up the mountain, I yawn and blink at the silvery sun. “How close is your home?”

“Several days walk.”

I groan, and he flashes me a cocky grin.

“Once I renew my strength in the Lake of Spirits, I’ll carry you,” he says, voice solemn like he’s making some sacred vow. “That way, you can rest.” Then his gaze slides over me, slow and appraising. “You look light as a feather. I’m sure I could carry you now. ”

“No, thanks. Hard pass. My legs are working just fine.”

My heart thumps against my ribs at the idea of pressing against Wyn’s chest… or clinging to his back, legs wrapped tight around his waist, my body flush with his warmth.

I said no thanks, but mentally I’m already curled up against him like Ollie in my lap in front of the fire in Gravenshade’s library on an icy winter’s night.

Back home, I wasn’t afraid of Wyn—and even now, in Faery, I’m still not. What worries me is me . And this growing, inconvenient attraction to a supernatural being.

I guess I should be relieved that he’s fae. Could be worse. He might have been a junkie or completely unhinged, like I first assumed when I found him naked in my kitchen, making coffee.

I yawn again, basically one belly rub away from curling up on the ground and snoring.

Wyn laughs, takes my hand to help me over a moss-covered boulder, and says, “Staring at the sun in this realm will make you sleepy. Feel free to look at me instead. Less likely to lull you to sleep. Or so I’ve been told.”

“Tempting idea, but these trees are actually pretty spectacular. What are they called?”

There’s a flash of movement in the shadows, and Wyn drops into a fighting stance, the stones, rocks, and ground around us shuddering.

Satchel, the other black wolf from the Vandersons’ garden leaps through the air, jaws open and aimed at Wyn’s throat. Instead of screaming and running for his life like I’m about to, Wyn laughs and rolls over the ground in a tangle of leather-clad limbs and fur, wrestling with the gigantic beast .

Just when I think they’re about to tumble down the mountainside and leave me to get eaten by the next fae creature that wanders by, they stop and Wyn presses his forehead against the wolf’s, then looks up at me. “This is Ivor.”

I give a foolish, half-hearted wave.

“Good to see you, old friend,” Wyn says. “Have you been waiting at the Lake of Spirits for me to return?”

A happy noise rumbles from Ivor’s chest followed by a high-pitched yelp, then he trots over to sniff my knees with an enthusiasm I find uncomfortable. I reverse slowly until my spine hits a tree trunk.

“Stroke him,” says Wyn, smiling. “He knows you well and is happy to see you safe.”

He knows me well? How exactly? Losing a year of memories sure puts me at a disadvantage.

When I’m feeling settled and safer, I need Wyn to tell me everything he thinks I’ve forgotten. So far, nothing about this strange place looks or feels familiar. But after what I’ve seen in the past few hours, I’m willing to believe almost anything. Even that I’ve been here before.

I mean it makes sense. I went missing for a year and no one, not even the authorities, could find me. Being whisked away to another realm kind of sounds plausible. When it comes to my life, the most batshit theory is usually the one that sticks.

But who, I wonder, did the whisking? Was it that creep Landolin, like he claimed?

“Ivor will travel to Talamh Cúig and return with my horse, so we can ride home. In the meantime, I’ll wait here with you,” says Wyn .

My hand freezes on Ivor’s thick coat. “You could shift and go with him, get home faster,” I say.

“Sure, I could do that, but I won’t leave your side until you’re tucked away safe, where the Wild Hunt can’t find you.”

After we bid Ivor goodbye and watch him disappear into the trees, we continue following a glowing red river uphill until we reach the top of the mountain, where a lake sits in a crater surrounded by towering fir trees.