Page 31 of The Wind and the Wild (The Keepers of Faerie #1)

Crouching on the outside, arms folded over my knees, chin inside them, I watch him simply gaze about.

None of the mushrooms seem disturbed, save one that’s been eaten by ants.

Not quite an actionable offense. I don’t touch the pale white caps—death’s breath, as its name suggests, could kill me within a few breaths if eaten.

Touching can make one very sick. Not all faerie circles are poisonous, but all are never to be disturbed.

“ This one looks fine,” I say when Aidyn has not spoken for a long batch of time.

“ It is quite fine,” he agrees, then suddenly plucks one of the fungi from the circle, twirling it between his fingers. I grimace, wishing he wouldn’t touch it. Perhaps his skin is tougher than ours, but the sight of it still has me squirming.

“ They say no... hounds have passed by,” he says, the same hint of amusement in his voice that I have named his strange creatures hunt hounds and kittens .

“ They? ”

He looks at me evenly, a little as if he wishes something. “ You humans see very little.”

Nothing is insulting about his tone, but I wrinkle my nose. “ I see you just fine.”

The wicked grin returns. From between the moss and mushrooms, he withdraws something I cannot make out—not until the form of a tiny creature clinging to his finger catches in my eye.

It flickers in and out of sight, nearly invisible, before Aidyn offers it to me.

Instinctively, I hold out my hands, and he deposits the creature into my palms. It more resembles a dragonfly but flickers into a little humanoid creature with arms and legs depending on how the sunlight catches it.

Sticky limbs cling to me like a lizard climbing a wall.

“ They’re quite shy,” Aidyn muses while the tiny thing peers up at me with two large eyes occupying most of its face. I want to ask if I can keep it but already know the answer. Carefully, he retrieves it from my hands and deposits it within the mushrooms.

“ Shall we look for more?” he asks, rising smoothly, the picked mushroom still in his hand.

“ Are you feeling well?”

He looks only mildly irritated by the question. “ I am perfectly fine to continue walking.”

I squint. Taking notice, he squints in return, leaning over the mushrooms until his face is barely a hand from mine. My cheeks turn hot, and I momentarily forget my suspicions. I scramble my thoughts back together enough to put my hands on my hips and maintain my stance.

“ I shall continue asking,” I declare, then attempt to leave with grace, though I’m nervous of stepping on mushrooms.

“ Evidently,” he says dryly. I glance back to ensure he is indeed following me away from the deadly circle of fungus. He’s stepping over them with ease, the picked mushroom still clasped between his fingers—

Which he promptly shoves into his mouth.

“ Aidyn! ” I smack it away before he gets it fully past his lips—his hand doesn’t move, though the mushroom flies. “ What in the stars are you doing ? Spit it out, even if it just touched your tongue! Hurry!”

The mushroom goes tumbling to the grasses in two pieces. Startled, he nearly drops his cane and stares at me, eyes wide. A moment later, it catches up to me that I made a rather violent gesture at a rather violent creature, and my face grows hot all over again.

Blinking, he glances at the fallen mushroom, then back at me.

His lips twitch, and he giggles.

“ What’s funny? ” I don’t care how ridiculous I sound, and I consider if I should grab his face and try to wipe at his mouth. “ Those are death’s breath, you oaf—”

The giggling grows into a full laugh, and he bends and scoops the mushroom back from the grasses. “ Are they poison to you?”

I pause, the panic momentarily halted. “ Yes? ”

Another chuckle has him shaking. It’s a rather beautiful noise.

“ We can eat them,” he says, still grinning. “ They’re perfectly fine for us.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I make a note never to eat anything he cooks unless the ingredient list is divulged.

He bites a bit off the top of the cap, and I restrain myself from smacking at him again.

My heartbeat is still pounding too fast against my ribs, and I watch suspiciously as he twirls the remaining piece in his hand.

After a full fifteen seconds where he hasn’t keeled over, I admit that perhaps he is correct: they have no harmful effect on his kind.

Finally, I manage to say, “ Oh.”

If possible, his grin grows, showing too much teeth. “ Though your concern is touching.”

Every bit of me is hot, embarrassed. Glowering, I head off into the thinner section of the trees, still giving him a warning glare back. “ You almost made my heart give out. Stop shoving things into your mouth. You’re like a child.”

He pops the rest of the death’s breath into his mouth.

Moon help me.

“’ Tis fascinating, ” he says. “ I didn’t know humans were susceptible to mushrooms.”

I suppose he wouldn’t know much about how we work outside of Faerie. I shudder. “ Only some of them. We eat plenty different kinds.”

“ Hmm.”

I try to change the subject, still embarrassed I smacked his hand so hard. My fingers sting where I hit the rings decorating his fingers. “ How many faerie circles are here?”

He catches up to me with ease but only shrugs a shoulder. “ I can figure when they are close. I cannot count them all out without seeing each.”

“ Well, let’s stick to the ones near the meadows and fields, shall we?”

“ Yes, yes, no deep woods today.”

Once again, I get the distinct sensation he understands what my fears must be, for it is broad daylight and he cannot be worrying about possible hounds—I can’t decide if it’s irritating or comforting he says nothing of it.

Glancing up, I find him still smirking. He wipes a bit of mushroom stuck to the corner of his mouth and grins down at me.

Huffing, I stomp into the trees while his quiet laugh follows.

We make it all the way around the edges of the woods surrounding my little village without spotting a soul.

We don’t uncover another faerie circle either, but that only means it’s less likely that one has been crushed by a careless foot.

Aidyn and I exchange a steady stream of unimportant tidbits around whatever we pass in the woods—from me, which mushrooms we humans can eat (and are now collected into my pockets), and from Aidyn, which birdcalls belong to which set of feathers and other such things.

He glances into the woods often and asks once if we have seen signs of the fae.

I assume he means the other Gentry he called for.

When he hears my answer, his lips pinch at the corners.

Only once do I find my steps hesitating, when I glance into the trees and see the long-overgrown footpath where I once walked with Blain toward Faerie.

Aidyn’s presence along and just behind my shoulder presses against my back as if a physical weight.

There is nothing to fear in those particular bright trees, not when hounds could appear anywhere, but it slows my hiking nonetheless.

Aidyn’s finger brushes my shoulder, and I look up to realize I have paused on a patch of mushrooms covered in fallen pine needles, but no ring of them is to be seen.

I move my steps along and find relief in the way he does not push his concern into asking questions.

In the back of my mind, I plan on how to ask after more-sensitive topics surrounding his own presence here but am loath to sadden him when he is so cheerful.

Likewise, every time I ask after his walking so much and if he feels well, he gives no complaints.

Eventually, we’ve wandered so far we’re nearing the main road heading through the fields and the woods beyond.

A part of me wonders if he warps time about himself as Faerie does, for we cannot have been walking so long.

“ Where does this road lead?” he asks, leaning against a tree and pointing down the path. It’s mostly unused but worn down now with a constant parade of wagons and feet back and forth putting together the preparations for midsummer.

“ To the next few villages, then the larger city. We are the closest to Faerie on this section of the woods.”

“ Hmm.” He squints at the birds above chattering at him, and in the way the sunlight is dappled against the ground and across his hair and shoulders, he hardly seems real.

“ I don’t believe anything far away would’ve attracted them.

We’ve passed something by.” He looks at me thoughtfully, then cocks his head. “ Or something is hiding from us.”

I shiver and give up on hoping he doesn’t notice. “ You keep saying ominous things, and I think they’re much more disconcerting for me than they are for you.”

He shrugs, leaning farther over the tree. “ Where Faerie and Nevyan meet are disconcerting places, and your little village is right upon it.”

“ It is an old village.” Leaning forward, I attempt to bend over the tree and glimpse what has caused his fixation but am not tall enough. “ Who knows the thoughts of those who first settled here.”

He shrugs. “ We are drawn to our own lands. It is only natural humans would be as well. They are less capable of resisting.”

“ Why would a faerie wish to resist?”

He blinks, then glances down. “ I don’t know. Stranger things have happened.”

Perhaps he’s seen the stranger things.

“ Oh? ”

A snap of a horse hoof upon dirt draws my attention. I still can’t see over the twisted branch, so I find a foothold and boost myself up while he chuckles.

“ Again, I will have you know I’m quite tall for a woman,” I hiss, which only has him more amused.

“ A human woman, perhaps.”

I pause in my struggling, glaring over at him—we’re finally face-to-face in height. “ Are you tall or short for a faerie?”

He rolls his eyes to the treetops, considering. “ Slightly below average... for the Gentry, at least.”

I stare at him, the horse hooves forgotten.

His eyes flicker around some more. “ What is it?”

“ You are the tallest man I’ve ever met.”