Page 27 of The Wind and the Wild (The Keepers of Faerie #1)

S pring is already falling headlong into summer; even by the next morning, the day on this side of Faerie is hotter, the world warm by the time I rise and dress.

Later, I’m positive it will be blistering.

Una wanders after me all morning, both of us in the lightest skirts we have—with Niall utterly shirtless again—as she makes offhanded comments about the hounds and nearly getting myself killed.

About how Aidyn himself could have easily gotten me killed in his attempt to impress me—not to mention that he was rather impressive, even in my retelling of the tale.

About how he obviously wished me away from him, so perhaps I should stay on this side of the border. At least for a day. Perhaps a few.

“ It’s like being pecked to death by a chicken,” I tell Niall as the three of us help Emma clear her garden of the weeds that have invaded with a vengeance now the air is hot and the night damp.

The muddy roots of a weed smack into my back.

“ I am the only one of us here thinking straight ! ” Una jabs a finger at me.

Emma pauses in the midst of eating one of her early-ripe tomatoes to stare. Hopefully she hasn’t a clue what Una’s going on about. More likely she does but already knows I’m moonlight mad, so there’s nothing to be said.

“ What have you been doing in Faerie?”

Or perhaps there is.

Wincing, I say, “ What I’ve always been doing in Faerie.”

“ Is that so?”

I glance up from the carrot I’ m checking. “ Yes? ”

Aidyn would be appalled at the lying.

“ Try to work on the blushing,” Una hisses. I step my bare foot onto hers.

Emma takes a seat on her porch, still working on the tomato. “ I haven’t seen as much of your usual cooking. You’re usually our full-time town baker by this time of the year.”

Nosy old lady—faerie knows I would be too.

“ Well, I’ll bring something over next time this one here doesn’t eat it all.” I smack Niall on the back of the thigh.

“ I need it—I’m a growing man,” Niall says, fake affronted, and turns his muscled arms toward us.

I manage, just quite, not to roll my eyes.

Emma is regarding me with such an intense gaze that I’m forced to return to my weeding lest my expression give me away.

Surely she’s realized I went searching for the library, but whether or not I found it.

.. Well, hopefully she shouldn’t know. She definitely shouldn’t realize I’ve made tentative friends with one of the noble folk.

She very well may realize.

As long as I don’t bring it up, there’s nothing to say. For all I know, she befriended one herself when she was my age. We all know she’s met a faerie, but whether or not the creature was friendly is for anyone to know.

I’d ask her myself, but then she’ll ask after the details of my own escapades to Faerie.

I yank on a particularly crabby patch of invasive grasses trying to grow between her potatoes.

“ Will you be dressing for midsummer?” Emma asks.

Why does everyone want to know so badly? “ Yes. It ’ll be nice to dance.”

“ Have you made your dress?”

I feel very certain she’s hinting at something but can’t grasp on to what. “ Partially. Una and I are working on hers first. It’s a bit more... lacy.”

Una twirls her work skirts happily.

“ Will you make your own mask?”

I glance at her. Finishing off her tomato, she levels an interested stare at me. She’s never interested in the silly little things the “ children” do, and anyone under fifty years is a child to her.

“ I’m not sure,” I hedge. “ I might just take one of the paper ones the children make.”

The masks are a midsummer tradition—dance with the fae where they cannot see your face, and never give them your name.

Though it has been ages since any true fae visited midsummer, the tradition persists.

There will be an overabundance of paper ones—the children of the villages are set to making them—but many make their own by hand.

I have in the past. Very likely I would this year as well were I not so otherwise occupied with. .. certain things.

Emma is still staring.

She knows.

Well, I’m not precisely sure that’s true.

Furthermore, I’m not precisely sure it matters .

If she does, she will not tell anyone. A part of me wonders if I should sit her down and tell her the details.

Perhaps I will—when I have all the details myself.

Another part wonders if I could simply take her to Aidyn, or bring Aidyn to her , if she would be able to aid him in any manner, and if I could trust her to do so.

But if Da and Mam were home, I’m uncertain I’d even be telling them.

I can’t imagine encouraging him to interact with any other humans from our little hamlet, and so I put the thought from my mind.

Emma ’s suspicion of me is the single reason I don’t leave her garden until near midday. By now, it is entirely too hot to keep digging about under the sunlight, and I’m less suspicious in appearance when I trudge back to my cottage to find a less filthy dress.

Hopefully less suspicious.

I exchange my usual basket for a larger one reserved for harvesting fruit.

Two thick grass-twined straps hang off it for slinging it over my shoulders if I wish, but it shouldn’t be too heavy.

In goes an assortment of food and items that Niall and Una helped me scrounge the day before.

I’m unsure how Aidyn will take to such treatment, so I fold a few extra quilts over the top of the bundle. I can begin with those and reassess.

Una would be appalled to know I’m going back in directly the next day... I’ll tell her later.

I take the longer walk through the outskirts of the woods to the other side of the village where the hawthorn stands. My heart is doing its very best to throw itself against my ribs until I hear my pulse behind my ears. I pause by the wide trunk, staring into the unoffensive trees.

The moment I hear a monster, I’ll run back. It isn’t a foolproof plan, barely a plan at all, but it calms me. Besides, it is perfectly bright on the mortal side of the trees, so it shall be in Faerie.

No venturing under strange waterfalls, and pay attention out the window while I am in the library, and all shall be well.

Closing my eyes, I take a long calming breath and jog a few steps with my heavy floppy basket.

Honeysuckle and buzzing bees. I crack an eye and find the welcoming flowers with their scent that clings to Aidyn’s clothes.

Peeking my head around the edge of the vines, I see nothing but the stillness of the library.

Eyeballing it, I consider what gruesome sight might await me should I walk to the other side, where the monster was tossed through a tree and where Aidyn went with his sword.

I don’t believe I’m brave enough for that.

Creeping into the broad trees, I nearly jump from my skin at a flash of movement on the library roof.

Squinting up and ready to flee, I spot a familiar set of boots.

Aidyn leans against one of the chimneys, half hidden by the wooden shingles, and gazes down at me.

I cannot read his expression from here, and he gives no wave or welcome, but I hardly mind.

Only the moon knows what he saw yesterday, and I’m not about to leave because he is staring with some amount of chill.

I have already decided he is not a danger to me, only to other dangerous beings. I have no desire to step into the woods with him again, but I’m uncertain he would even wish to—not after yesterday.

Depositing the basket inside the door, I back up to where I can see him leaning over and gazing at me and hold my hands up.

Where did you climb up?

He points to the corner of the building just around the main door— not the back where there may or may not be the body of a hunt hound lying in pieces.

Carefully, my fingers still trembling with nerves, I creep around the side of the overgrown door.

A metal staircase winds its way to the roof.

Apparently, the fae wanted easy access. Testing my weight on the old steps, I find them mostly as solid as those we’ve taken out the back and step up and up, one foot after the other.

Aidyn did not lean over and tell me to leave, so I shouldn’t be concerned.

I feel very well as if my stomach may empty itself.

He looks perfectly calm, so there mustn’t be any danger—not in the bright of day.

The roof of the library is mostly stable, so long as I avoid the gaping hole in the middle where I’ve so often stood in the sunlight beneath the maple trees.

Their leaves are visible below, and I wonder about how the inside of the structure appears so much larger than the outside and how it compares when I can simply look down into it from above.

Aidyn is on the other side of the gap, still leaning against the chimney, cane held loosely in one hand, his other elbow rested on his drawn-up knee, expression partially covered by his hand.

His sword lies beside him, sheathed. In the broad daylight, in the dappled heat of the sun, his silver eyes appear sharper, brighter.

Perhaps midday sun should make a monster appear less a monster than when they are steeped in shadows.

No such rule in Faerie, it seems.

“ Hello, ” I say, still standing across the ragged shingles and a little too nervous to approach now I’m in his direct line of sight.

For a long few moments, he simply continues to gaze at me, his mouth hidden by his hand, until I wish to walk over and give him a tiny shake.