Page 60 of The Wind and the Wild (The Keepers of Faerie #1)

I realize I’m falling in time to roll on the forest floor.

Head spinning, I shake leaves out of my hair, getting onto my elbows before understanding what must have happened.

My breath catches, the oppressive weight of the very air of Faerie blanketing me, the reddish leaves between my fingers strangely wisped, as if I’m gazing at a smudged painting.

I blink, and the illusion does not fade. My hands are clear enough.

Raising my head, I gaze up at the faerie creature whose attention I’ve snared. Pushing onto my knees and leaning away does not help the sensation that he is much too tall, and I remember offhandedly that Aidyn mentioned himself a shorter faerie among his kin.

The little circle of leaves among the trees paints the same image, the trunks faintly out of focus, as if I should not be seeing them at all. This is not what Faerie should look like.

It is not even what Faerie looked like when I lost myself in the wrong trees.

My mouth opens, but I cannot speak.

“ Who are you?” Tynan asks, cocking his head.

The air is soaked with magic, and my lips part again to answer him; I barely stop myself from saying Niamh. I cannot imagine what he could do with my name if his mere suggestion makes me wish to answer.

I also remember Aidyn saying he is not too terribly frightening for one of his own.

“ Just a girl from the village,” I whisper. “ I-I think I know—”

His head cocks the other way, as if I am a strange thing he has nearly stepped upon.

He has many different features than Aidyn, his face holding none of the gentle slopes or kind countenance, though his ears bear the same little slits.

He is all sharp edges and strangeness, an immortal ageless face that should be dust for the number of years he’s lived—though his eyes, they are identical in every way to his son’s, enough so it is terrifying how little a change in intention can make them appear as frozen and unkind as winter ice.

“ Know? ” he coaxes, and I get the distinct impression he will not be as fascinated with me as long as Aidyn was at first meeting.

Swallowing, I say, “ I think I know... why those hounds have been attacking us. Someone... from a different village, I think... I think he’s been hunting creatures on the edges of Faerie. I saw a hound in a cage.”

Despite their battle with the creatures, I see a distinct flash of rage pass across the perfect angles of his face. His head straightens, and he gazes down at me sharply.

“ Your name?”

Again, I almost speak it. I want to speak, want this creature to look at me kindly, want him to be pleased. Pulled by the power behind his words, I realize Aidyn could’ve had me giving my name at any moment had he wished it. He could’ve done anything to me, and he did not.

I manage to shake my head. “ Please do not make me.”

“ You spoke mine.”

“ Your son told it to me.”

All expression falls out of his face. I do not dare get my feet under me. A part of me thinks I should’ve stayed on my stomach, prostrate on the leaves in the face of something so much more powerful and simply other. Now I dare not even bend lower or look away.

I am aware that if I survive this, Una may simply dispose of me herself. I bite the inside off my lip so I do not cry.

Finally, his mouth opens. “ How dare—”

Shaking the leaves off my hand, I show him the ring on my finger, staring at the ground so I can collect my thoughts enough to speak past the fear.

“ I am not lying. He showed me all his rings. He gave this one to me so I would not get lost in Faerie. He showed me the one you gave him. It is braided silver. He is in a cottage in the village. I am afraid he is going to die.”

The silence is so long and sharp I bite my lip harder, wondering if he can hear my hands shaking against the crisp, brittle leaves.

Finally, I hear a harsh let out of breath, as if in relief or a withheld sob.

Not another sound passes. Then a long pale hand encircles my wrist, set with rings of his own, and I start at the warm dry feel of his palm.

He turns my hand over, thumb pushing at the ring as if to assure himself it is real.

“ My son is dead,” he tells me, his breath ghosting over my hair, making me flinch.

“ Aidyn,” I say softly, and his breath catches again, “ is still alive. But I am afraid he will die. We do not know how to care for faerie wounds. I do not think he has told me everything. And he... I do not think the rest of my village should know he is there. He—” I swallow, some sort of bravery twining up my chest, because he obviously loves his son, and I do as well.

“ He said many kind things about you. He says you are wonderful. And his sister as well. He says no such kind things about himself.”

Finally, I manage to glance up. Perhaps I should not have said those last few sentences. But a small part of me still angry at Aidyn’s words wishes to know and know now if his own father agrees with such a sentiment.

His eyes are barely inches from mine when I raise my head, the precise same eyes as his son, too wide and owlish and not correct compared to a night of dancing with other humans.

They have much more emotion now, and now , now they look like Aidyn’s. And they distinctively say, No, no he does not agree with such a sentiment.

A soft breeze whispers through the trees, and he glances up and about, into the nearest trunks as if they are speaking to him. He sniffs, eyes wandering over my hair. Another huff of a breath pushes out his chest.

“ Take me,” he says, and he winds his hand under my arm, pulling me up as if I weigh nothing, barely remembering to set me on my feet.

“ Where are we?” I ask, torn between grabbing his sleeve for reassurance and recoiling from something I should be leaving offerings to, not touching. His hand remaining under my elbow decides it for me.

“ In between,” he says. “ How did you find your way into Faerie?”

“ I . . . close my eyes and get lost—”

He lets out a soft noise much like Aidyn’s little huffs, and his other hand briefly shadows my eyes before we’re in the mortal trees once more, moonlight shimmering down. I take a long gulp of fresher human air, feeling the stormy chill of it hit the tears on my cheeks.

A long shadow of a hound stands in the grasses between us and the village.

Tynan tenses, turning so he is positioned in front of me, an unsettling sound like a hiss coming from the back of his throat.

A whimper of a squeak comes from mine, my other hand finally grabbing his sleeve, the soft fabric strangely grounding.

There was no scent to that strange in-between place of Faerie—I notice it now that all I smell is grass and an odd sweetness from the faerie I’m clinging to.

No honeysuckle, but there is a strange familiarity to it.

I wonder if all fae smell the same, just a little, or if it is so benign as the little clan of fae sharing the same soap.

I do not know why, but I expected no fear from him. He is so much older, and Aidyn implied there are much more dangerous magics than his.

Shouldn’t one of the Gentry not be frightened of these monsters? Perhaps there is no such thing as a Gentry who does not fear an Unblessed.

The hound is not so bold as it was with Aidyn.

Its shoulders hunch, a shadow of smoky fur along its back rising, ears pinned.

It stalks to the side a few paces before stopping and growling a long low sound.

Three sharp barks follow, but it does not pounce.

Another three. Tynan does not flinch, his back straight as a needle, head low.

There is still that long blade in his other hand, and I notice offhandedly that the carvings match Aidyn’ s.

Another three barks.

I can’t help but flinch, astonished at the same time that it is not attacking. It is as afraid of Tynan as he is of it, perhaps more.

I dare not ask what it is waiting for.

A voice rises over the grasses, the familiar terror of it a strange comfort all of a sudden, as the hound jumps, attacked from both sides, and a whistle of a sword’s blade sends it dissolving into the grasses.

This time, I hear the thump of its body hitting the earth and flinch.

It’s only now I see the woman accompanying her voice as it shimmers to nothing in the drizzling night air.

Her eyes are darker, but there is something more openly familiar about them, an obvious interest and mild concern that brings her closer to human.

“ Dauna,” Tynan says, “ come. ”

Wordlessly, she drifts after, a gentle wave of movements, as if she dances upon her toes after us. We are out of the grasses and into the houses in merely a few moments, and I blink, clinging tighter to Tynan’s arm lest I topple over.

“ Where?” he asks, though there is a set to his eyes focused on Emma’s house, and he is already pointing us in that direction.

Those scampering inside or simply wandering into the safety of the village don’t appear to notice us, and those who do only squint as if in a strange dream.

Everything seems a tad too fuzzy at the edges, as if he dragged the strangeness of Faerie along with him and this is what hides us from the others.

Does he feel the presence of his child now he knows enough to believe him alive?

Still, he’s slowed his steps, and I wonder if he’s seen many more humans than his son. Pointing, I force my feet to work of their own accord and tug him toward Emma’s cottage before stopping.

“ Wait, ” I say. “ Please let me go in first, just for a moment? You’ll frighten them half to death.”

A tad ironic, considering the pounding in my chest and my shaking hands.

“ I will not harm them,” he says, releasing me beside the door.

More howls and barks pierce the sky. Tynan glances upward, then back to me. Evidently, he is more concerned with Aidyn than finding the wagon, and I cannot be unhappy with that priority.