Page 39 of The Wind and the Wild (The Keepers of Faerie #1)

“

A re you certain?” Una asks, following me only to the edge of the trees and no farther, pausing at the hem of shrines about the trees. “ Because it hasn’t been a week.”

I hold up the scrap of paper once more, as if she hasn’t seen it a dozen times by now.

“ Yes, but . . .”

She trails off, and I wait for a further argument. It appears she cannot come up with one. Instead, she gnaws her lips, glancing into the trees.

“ I keep wondering if it will happen again, Ve.”

Her tone takes me off guard. “ What will?”

She twines her pinkie into my weak one, holding up my hand.

“ Oh,” I say, not knowing what else to add. “ I worry about it sometimes too.”

She lets out a long breath, keeping my hand in hers.

“ I realize you would be going into Faerie even if he were not there. It’s part of us all, I suppose, even if I would never step foot in there”—she sends me a look—“but it bothers me that any little thing could make them angry. We still don’t know what caused it the first time.

It could’ve been anyone walking in the woods that disturbed them—”

“ Is this what you do all day while I’m not here? Worry through different ways I could die?” I ask, trying to tease.

“ Oh, no, I do it when you’re here too.” She waves her hand. “ You’re a wild thing, and atop it, you’re your parents’ only daughter—it is my role to be the mindful one.”

I press my lips together, trying not to laugh.

“ It’s not as if Niall’s going to be,” she adds. “ He thinks you’re mad too, he’s just not going to threaten you about it like I will.” She smiles, pleased with herself, though it’s shaky.

I take her about the shoulders and hug her, comforted as I often am by the knowledge I have her to return to on the human side of the trees. Niall and Una, her parents and sister. I have one foot in each side of the world, but never both feet in Faerie.

“ I’m being as careful as I can be,” I assure her.

She rolls her eyes, grimacing, but appears to be hiding a laugh.

“ And I don’t know if you’ve told him about us, but if you have, tell Aidyn that your friends are properly appreciative of his antics.”

I give her an even stare. Once she recovered from the idea that Aidyn can both use magic in a tangible way and that he’s evidently used it on this side of the Faerie border, she joined Niall in the laugher he’d started up as soon as the wind died.

It seems a silly thing for them to think better of the strange creature with such an act, but Una only argued a little when I told her I’ll be returning this morning.

From her, after all the drama of the other night, it’s practically an endorsement.

Niall simply did not stop grinning.

I wonder if these strange dreams of mine will cease as soon as I see Aidyn again.

“ I’ll tell him,” I say, heading into the trees.

“ Wait, you haven’t told him our names, have you?” Her voice rises a few octaves.

“ Una, I haven’t told him my name,” I toss over my shoulder dryly, hoping suddenly that he isn’t lurking behind one of the trees. Foolishly, I feel as if I’d be able to tell.

“ Niamh? ”

I glance back.

“ Careful.”

I nod. One day, I’ll get Aidyn and my two favorite people into the same room together—and laugh at the ensuing interaction.

When I’ve closed my eyes and smell honeysuckle, I linger in the flowers, peeking out at the library, half expecting something to have changed in the time I was away.

Nothing is different, the trees as still as ever in the high sunlight, undisturbed leaves about the old building.

Aidyn left the little note—which is safely tucked in my pocket and will be in my desk drawer later—so I slept better knowing he was well enough to walk to my barn.

“ Aidyn,” I call once inside. “ How did you know which house was mine?”

The same dry chuckle drifts through the old stacks of books, seeming to disturb the dust motes.

Nudging open his door, I peek inside and find him lying along his pillows and blankets by the fire—between the hot summer air and the burning hearth, I’m glad I wore a dress with no sleeves and thin fabric—one leg lounging off, whittling at a rough patch of his cane with a small blade.

“ Did you make it?” I ask.

Giving the walking stick a twirl between his fingers, he considers. “ No... I found it here. It needed a few bits of fixing, but it was quite close to perfect for me. I sometimes wonder who left it.”

His head cocks, eyes refocusing on me. Such a sight of him gives me pause. I am unaccustomed to seeing him reclined in such a way, and I cannot tell if he is feeling poorly and needs to relax or better and therefore less embarrassed by lounging.

“ I saw you go to the barn,” he says lazily. “ I was worried of speaking to you on your side of the border, what with all the others making their shrines. I simply wanted to leave a note.”

“ I received it, yes,” I say, setting down my basket containing, among other things, many of the eggshells I collected from the shrines once the others left. “ Though if you were going for subtle, you didn’t manage it.”

He spreads his lips in a too-wide wolfish smile. I shake my head, but after the other night, I’m ridiculously happy to see him.

He is alive.

He is well.

He is smiling at me.

Ignoring the butterflies in my chest, I plop myself down onto the side of his bed, close enough I imagine I feel his warmth. Tucking my arms around my knees, I gaze down at him.

“ Not subtle at all,” I prompt. “ How did you know you weren’t going to hit me with all that debris?”

He appears nearly offended. “ I was not going to make it so strong if you did not sit down. I am better with my magic than that. It was not difficult. I would not have wounded you.”

He appears so purely and greatly injured by the insinuation that I can’t help a smile.

Holding out my hand, I show him the tiniest of nicks a branch of oak leaf gave me.

Gasping, he grasps my wrist in both hands, pulling me forward to kiss off the unoffensive little mark.

It’s so fully unexpected that I don’t have time to appreciate it before he’s throwing one arm dramatically over his eyes, still not releasing my wrist.

“ I have been shamed,” he mumbles, his lips fighting to keep their fake sadness as I double over in laughter. Apparently, sarcasm isn’t much of a lie—unless he believes it enough.

“ You’re ridiculous,” I tell him, though I do not attempt to extract my arm. Despite his dramatics, his thumb is drifting soft circles over the scratch, which didn’t even sting past the second I received it.

“ You shouldn’t have done that, you know,” I tell him, unable to put conviction into the words.

“ I’ve no idea how the other villagers would react.

We love the fae, but we fear them in equal measure.

One solitary faerie wandering around and causing strange things with the wind might make them less friendly toward you. ”

“ Oh? ” he asks, not sounding surprised at all.

“ We are taught to fear the more solitary fae, unless they are the friendly ones we know.” I suppose we fear the Unblessed, by Aidyn’s explanation.

“ No fae are friendly,” he says, his arm still over his eyes. “ Some are simply uninterested in harm.”

“ How comfortingly morbid. So, you’re not friendly?”

Finally, he lets his arm drop from his face, but still he does not release my wrist. If I wriggled my hand a bit, I could probably move it into his. More likely, he would pull away. I don’t wish to take the chance, not with my heart beating out of my chest at the prolonged contact.

“ Are you frightened of me?” he whispers. His eyes are burning sharp, his hair slightly disheveled, as if he walked back through the woods he caused a storm in. He smells of honeysuckle and something else I cannot articulate—clean skin and magic.

“ I should be,” I tell him.

In the dim warmth of the library, on the side of Faerie I should not be in, does it not feel forbidden? Perhaps, but only in the strangest sweet way.

“ But are you?”

I take a long breath, considering, feeling the warm air fill my lungs and empty. “ No, I don’t believe so.”

His lips quirk at the corners. “ So, a little bit, then?”

I can’t help another giggle, nervous and strangely happy. “ Most likely.”

The smile stretches. “ How was your time away from Faerie?”

“ Very nice,” I say, a little bit of a lie. He did not answer my question. “ Everyone is preparing for midsummer, it’s so hot I’m constantly sweating, and it’s not as if I run out of people to cook for. But it smells like rain is coming. I love the rain.”

He continues to gaze at me, unblinking.

“ Please blink,” I tell him, and he does so several times more than necessary, chuckling. “ Thank you.”

“ Humans are funny things,” he muses, blinking thrice more. “ I see you had an unwelcome visitor.”

I wrinkle my nose. There was no use hoping he wouldn’t speak of it, but I’m about as ready to avoid the details as he is to avoid the details of his other kin should I ask.

Could he name those who came to our lands? The memory of the woman and her wild voice sticks in my mind, and I open my mouth to ask after her instead but steady myself. We are unweaving the threads about each other bit by bit—no use in tugging them apart too violently.

“ He lives the village over. We are not friends. I do not know why he keeps bothering me. He is not harmful, just vastly irritating.”

There is a narrowness to his eyes. “ He keeps visiting though you do not wish him?”

There is something dangerous in that expression, but I answer, “ Yes. Why?”