Page 59 of The Wind and the Wild (The Keepers of Faerie #1)

His eyes do not open when I work it gently over his knuckle and onto my thumb. I am not planning on needing it but feel safer with its pressure around my finger. I slide the quilt higher up around him and kiss him gently on the corner of his mouth. Una makes a funny noise.

When I turn, Emma is still staring out the window, but both Una and Niall are watching me.

“ I don’t think we can help him,” I say softly. Una’s eyebrows pinch, and she comes to gaze at him, head cocked.

“ The healer?” Niall asks in a tone suggesting he already knows such a thing is too dangerous.

“ I don’t know.”

Bustling over, Emma says, “ I’ll have a look at his shoulder.”

“ It’s not merely that,” I say, then briefly describe his other injuries. I know he has well and fully fallen asleep when this does not rouse any sort of reaction. Still, I stay as vague as possible, trying to give him what dignity I can.

“ I am not good for such things,” Emma says. “ Still, I will look at his shoulder.”

I stand out of the way so she can fuss over the poor creature.

Niall squeezes my arm. There is the beginning of a bruise on his cheek where Blain struck him.

I lean onto my toes to give it a kiss. He is looking at me as if he wishes to be given instructions on what to do. I understand the sentiment.

Tell me the right course of action so I may carry it out. The path feels as unclear as one through Faerie itself.

“ I’m not going outside,” I tell him, because I don’t want Una following me, then slip into Emma’s bedroom.

I’ve never been in here, but it’s much as the rest of the cottage, littered with remnants of her knitting and neatly arranged with dried flowers on the writing desk and bed carefully made.

More flowers hang in the windows, foxgloves and grass seedlings.

A small bowl of clear water joins them. For some reason, my throat tightens.

There are indeed steps to an attic, and I find my way out onto the thatching of her roof shortly enough, noting that next summer it will likely be in need of replacing.

Drizzling rain catches on my cheeks, but it has not yet returned to the hot summer downpour of this morning.

The scent of wet earth hangs in the air.

Moonlight still glances through in places, enough I see fully well the outline of the trees.

Torchlight from the dancing and festival still stands, as many people have not scattered, though the music has stopped.

Either not everyone knows the loud yips of the hunt hounds or they did not hear over the music.

It occurs to me, with a sudden discomfort, that perhaps just as Aidyn is not seen unless he wishes to be, perhaps the hounds are only heard by the ones they intend to hunt.

If such a thing is true, hopefully it means none of the villagers are in danger.

I push stray strands of hair out of my face, now plastered to my skin with the heavy mist of the night. No longer singing, the woman is nowhere to be seen. More so, I do not know what I would’ve done had I seen her.

Tried to catch her eyes again? Called across the meadow and trees that her brother is here?

I do not know if she is the sister he spoke of—also, I do not know if they are on good terms. Aidyn may be withholding much more than he lets on.

A shadow of a long shape slithers down the paths between the houses, pursued by others. All through the air, strange little fae I’ve never seen flap overhead, most leaving, others hovering. I hope the brownie in Aidyn’s library is safe.

And the kittens.

Are they hunting them?

No. It doesn’t seem correct. They fought with the wildcats on the border, but they are here for a different reason entirely. My eyes find the spot far across the meadows where there must be a wagon hiding faerie skins and one of the beasts themselves.

What must Blain have done to trap something so dangerous and otherworldly as to frighten the Gentry?

Apparently, any faerie must be swayed by sweet things.

Someone must tell the Gentry who arrived. Aidyn will not. At least, I don’t believe he will. If that tampering done to the faerie world is left unresolved, the hounds are likely to come back and back and back again.

I open my mouth, as if saying Tynan aloud from the rooftop will bring the fae directly to us. I know not if that will work and don’t think it wise I try.

Someone must tell them.

“ A few weeks ago you were terrified of Aidyn. This is not a good idea,” I tell myself. “ Not a good idea. A very, very foolish idea.”

Someone must tell them.

As of now, I don’t know where they are. Among all the shadows slipping in and about the houses and across the meadows, I can scarcely differentiate hounds from Gentry from villagers returning to their homes.

Though there were some shouts, they have mostly died down, and if someone had been attacked, panic would’ve erupted.

Down the line of cottages, I see Andrew peek his head out the glass window, then push himself and Cara back inside.

“ What do you see?” Una hisses at me where she pokes her head out from under the thatching.

“ Not much,” I admit.

A wolf howl sounds across the night, a blanket of normalcy and comfort among the strangeness. A part of me wonders if wolves go dancing with hounds during midsummer. Or perhaps they do so with wildcats and are missing them during these hot summer nights.

Across the meadow, nearest to the trees, a shape slithers into solidity, as if he grew from the shadows themselves.

Even across all the distance, the silver in his eyes is visible.

The woman dances up to him, an ethereal shape in the moonlight, and I can’t help but wonder if this is how Aidyn moves when not weighed by injury.

My breath comes out in trembling, unsteady movements.

“ Is Emma keeping the blanket on him?” I find myself asking. “ He gets cold so quickly.”

“ I think so. Come down before one of them sees you.”

Tynan’s shoulder turns to me, and he steps back in the direction of the woods.

The edge of the roof is not far from the ground, not with all the thatching easily reached just above Emma’s patch of carrots.

Careful of my ankle, I go sliding down and off the side while Una hisses after me, too frightened to actually scream.

I land none too gracefully in the vegetables, knocking aside a cabbage, but succeed in neither twisting my good ankle nor worsening my sore one.

A few people stop in the path, looking concerned and then curious about my actions.

“ Go inside!” I call, then bolt down the path before Una can scramble back downstairs and attempt to drag me in the front door.

Thanking the heavens and the fae my ankle has healed up quicker than expected, I pull up the silly pretty fabric of my dancing dress and bolt to the end of the path and into the thick grasses.

Dew drenches me, and my legs burn, and I’d think of calling out to the retreating figures if I weren’t so frightened of the hounds hearing.

The female disappears into the trees toward the dancing as more howls pierce the sky, followed swiftly by the three barking yips of the hounds, hopefully far enough away it is not me they have found in their hunting eyes.

“ Wait, wait, wait,” I whisper against my burning lungs, and then do call out, “ Wait! ”

If he hears me, he gives no indication, striding toward the edge of the trees. A long bright silver blade is balanced in his hand, point held back toward me. His clothing is barely discernible in the night, just the pale of his skin where his hair does not cover him.

“ Follow him, follow him,” I whisper, gripping the ring in case him stepping into the trees takes him immediately into Faerie. I cannot run back on my own. I cannot turn back to whatever hounds might be chasing.

And someone must tell him there are more hunting us.

I am afraid your son is going to die. I know you love him, and he is going to die.

I come to the edge of the trees, a barely familiar section I do not know, grasses smacking into my legs and a spare branch whistling past my cheek.

“ Wait!” I call. “ Tynan!”

My fingertips brush the back of his tunic, and the moonlit dark disappears.