Page 52 of The Wind and the Wild (The Keepers of Faerie #1)

I consider making him swear it, but I suppose he already has, given their ways. Picking at the food, I find something light in texture and a little spongy, not as flavorful as it could possibly be, but he has so few ingredients out here—

“ Is the chef impressed?” He’s a tad too pleased with himself, lips pressed together. I can’t help but look at them.

“ She is.”

The sparkle in his eyes erases my annoyance at his outside venture. Nibbling on the bread, I scramble my thoughts together and set to work on my pie.

It isn’t long before I realize the brownie has taken up full residence as she slinks from her tree in an attempt to steal my ingredients.

Half my time is spent keeping an eye on the flashes of pale fur as the long-limbed creature appears from all the nooks and crannies of the kitchen.

Eventually, Aidyn catches her, mumbling in his singsong language before setting her on the counter, where she folds up and scowls at him.

She is vaguely human in shape, if no larger than a house cat, with some sort of fabric like fall leaves draped about her, and she chatters back at him in an approximation of the same words, though much less elegant and charming.

I’ve never heard one speak before. I give her a cup of cold water and two of the plums, and she quiets down, glowering at the kittens Aidyn has let loose along the floor to explore.

She keeps on chattering at him while he tries not to laugh. “ She has little ones.”

“ What?”

“ In her tree nest. She has little ones.” Before I can open my mouth to ask where, he tells me, “ No, you may not look. They are very protective. It will give her too much stress if you try.”

Disappointed, I consider if I can somehow bribe the creature with enough sugary treats for her to want to introduce me.

Aidyn smirks, and I wonder if my thoughts are obvious on my face.

He has already seated himself along the closest table, leaning against the wall in such a way it doesn’t press against his back, and nudges the stool toward me with the toe of his boot.

I sit, glad I needn’t worry about my ankle, and scheme about dancing at midsummer without hurting myself.

His eyes are still on my face.

I manage not to look at him too often as I test out every possible option for the pie filling.

A comfortable silence descends across the kitchen, interrupted only by the brownie muttering to herself, the kittens getting into the cupboards, and the soft whisper of Aidyn humming.

With no words, it feels entirely unthreatening.

When the stove has been fed enough wood and both pies are inside—two slightly different recipes, to see which Aidyn and Una and Niall like the best—I gaze at him pointedly.

He pauses with the four kittens he’s managed to balance in his hands, eyebrows going up, and asks, “ Yes? ”

“ I want to see your back.”

His nose wrinkles, a hilariously human expression. “ I—”

“ Just out of curiosity, do you think you’ll win this argument?” Taking the pot of water I’ve been boiling over the stove this time and unbundling some of the other clean bandages left over from my previous sneaking in of supplies, I wait for an argument.

I receive none.

“ You know, you’d think a terrifying faerie would be able to outwit a little human like me.”

When I glance up, I’m receiving the same even stare of mild annoyance and exhaustion. Blandly, he says, “ The tales never tell of humans so pushy as you.”

“ Thank you,” I say brightly. “ Am I going to waddle over to you, or you to me?”

His lips press into a thin line as he fights to stay severe.

Well, there’s only the one stool I’m taking up, so I maneuver onto the counter beside him.

Boosting myself alongside his hip, I feel nearly as tall as him.

Much of his height must be in those legs.

He is only wearing one of his light but finely made tunics.

Taking the hem of the pale cloth, I lift it carefully until I can hook it over his shoulder and inspect the bandages.

His back is to me, and though a rainstorm is gathering here as well as in the mortal lands, daylight drifts through the glass behind and above us, so I have a clearer view than last night.

My cheeks heat, and I’m quite glad he’s staring forward and at the floor, where the kittens are stumbling against one another.

I am no doctor, but with the poultice removed, the painful wound beside his spine appears improved.

He winces but does not object to my cleaning it with the cooled water.

Carefully replacing the bandages, I assure myself he is unlikely to get himself killed somehow while I’m home for a few days for midsummer.

“ Are you like this with all your friends?”

“ Excuse me?”

“ Are you this pushy with all your friends?” He only sounds a little exhausted.

“ Do you mean am I loving and caring to all my friends? Yes, I am. Thank you for noticing.”

He snorts, turning a bit, and suddenly his face is right there, so very close to mine as he gazes over his shoulder. His hand readjusts on the edge of the counter, fingers sliding under my knee. My skirts are thin, but it’s likely my imagination I can feel his skin against mine.

His eyes flicker all down me, drifting over my lips and back up to my eyes. “ Have you satisfactorily doctored me?”

I clear my throat. “ I think so?”

Lips tugging at the corners, he slides off the edge of the counter and disappears out the door. I scowl after him, considering if he was waiting for me to kiss him and wondering all the more if there is any great difference in how fae and humans approach such things.

Am I supposed to be doing something?

Faerie only knows why I don’t simply ask him.

“ Where are you—” I clear my throat. “ Where are you going?”

Moments later, he returns with a book I vaguely recognize from the first time I was here. Scooting himself back onto the edge of the counter, he flips through with great care for the old pages.

“ Would you like me to show you the constellations of our world? I saw you left it out.”

“ I didn’t recognize any of them,” I mumble. “ I was distracted. There was a strange faerie in the library I was not expecting.”

His smirk widens.

I am aware he is attempting to distract me, either from what we went through the other day or from my comfort around him leading to questions he doesn’t wish to answer.

Right now, with the Gentry gone and the hounds with them, Aidyn on the mend as far as I can tell, and midsummer less than two days away, I don’t feel quite so desperate to rush our conversations.

Let him keep his secrets for a few days or a few weeks—he seems to have no intention of leaving, and there is nothing I am desperate to know past curiosity.

“ Yes, show me,” I say, scooting closer to his arm.

Midsummer morning falls upon us with a wash of hot summer rain. The clouds are not thick, and I remember many dances through the years where the morning was damp and drizzling and the night hot and humid. Today will be no different.

It only chases the preparations inside or under the shelter of the festival tents for the early hours of the morning. Niall doesn’t seem particularly worried about getting wet. Neither does Cara. Una glowers at the clouds and eyes both our dresses, finally finished.

“ It’ll pass,” I console her. “ There will be plenty of flowers for Niall to put in your hair.”

She bites her lip, pleased with this reminder. Her parents and Niall’s are going to have a night with this little development—unless they, like Emma, have realized yet said nothing.

I wonder how quickly Aidyn would catch on.

Immediately, if the rest of him is any indication.

My ankle is resting as I sit on the counter and bake an extra pie with the recipe we settled on, letting a few dozen more bowls of pastry dough rise.

I find myself lost in the last conversation: the careful turn of the book pages too old for a creature like me to comprehend, his fingers along the inked stars and linked constellations, the lull of his voice as he spoke for an hour with little pause until the words came together as their own song I was awash under the spell of.

After, he showed me the loose pages he’d collected into his box, dozens of drawings and lines upon lines of beautiful writings he explained in human words.

Glancing out the open window letting in the damp scent of hot dirt meeting the rain, I squint through the mist to where the trees rise over the horizon and wonder if he is looking this direction in return.

The storm does indeed pass, and the rain turns to a damp freshness in the hot air as morning fades to afternoon.

Both Una and Niall help me with the baking for this evening in between making masks for the children, who are gathered outside.

The shrines built on the edges of the trees are being set with offerings—sugary things and eggs and little pots of milk for whatever creatures leave their world for ours tonight.

Eventually, Emma joins us, depositing her grandchildren with the other little ones and their strips of paper and rolling up her sleeves, eyeing the finished baskets of steaming breads and pastries with an eyebrow raise that’s close enough to impressed.

When she pulls up the cloth over the plum pies cooling in the window, I point my dough-covered wooden spoon at her and say, “ Don’ t touch. ”

She snorts. “ What’s in it?”

“ Plums.”

“ I didn’t know there were plum trees on the border of Faerie.”

I can feel Una staring at the back of my head. “ A little ways in. Not far.”

“ Hmm.” She says nothing more on the matter.

For a while, as the festival comes together little pieces at a time, I stay in Una’s house with the others, sending Niall and some of the other men off with batches of pastries.

Music has started. Many of the children have gone scampering off with their carts of paper masks.

The sun is heading toward the horizon, reds and oranges on the clouds with a colorful early sunset.

When I step into Una’s garden, I find lines of wagons that have gathered, the field of villagers from all around spilling into the streets of our village.

In the distance, a low call like a horn over the hills drifts across the trees.

Just inside the open window, Emma looks out and says mildly, “ They’ ve arrived. ”