Page 65 of The Wind and the Wild (The Keepers of Faerie #1)

T ynan opens his mouth. A sharp yip bounces off the trees. Glancing back, he springs at once to his feet, looping his arms about the two of us and nearly yanking me off the ground. I yelp, but we’re deposited by the nook in the tree where we appeared.

“ Go in,” Tynan says, unwinding me from Aidyn in order to help his son stay upon his feet.

His hand remains a ghost along my back as I pick up my skirts and stumble through the root-coated little burrow.

When it widens enough we can straighten, I hear Aidyn murmuring something to his father in that whispering language, and I glance back to see the older faerie duck and scoop his son into his arms. A weak protest follows, but I’m surprised Aidyn managed his way down here at all.

Tynan is not remotely flummoxed by his child’s strained annoyance.

“ Aidyn! ” comes Dauna’s voice as she flies through the bookshelves, pulling me through the basement door and hissing at her brother in a string of words I do not understand but is clear enough in tone.

She and Una will get along.

“ I looked into another room for a moment ,” she protests, flailing a hand in Aidyn’s direction.

He isn’t looking at her, one arm looped loosely around Tynan’s neck as he gazes at me.

I grab his other hand, feeling the dig of his rings into my palm.

I will return mine to him soon, but not before all this is over.

Tynan glances at the basement door. “ They are on this side of the border. They did not come into the tunnel.”

“ How do you know?” I squeak, to which statement I’m uncertain.

“ I hear them,” he says in that cool unassuming tone, then heads up the stairs. “ Come. ”

“ Come, come, ” Dauna says as if I did not hear, taking me under the arm and dragging me up.

Stumbling after and feeling incredibly human in comparison to her steps, I ask, “ Is there something else in the library?”

“ A brownie,” she says, which feels less than noteworthy. “ And some strange little bug creature; I’m sure Aidyn knows its origin.”

My lip curls. “ The thing with no teeth that makes your chest hurt?”

She glances back. “ Yes? ”

“ Aidyn says it drinks your emotions. It’s mostly just annoying.”

She wrinkles her nose as well. “ It ran away from me, at least.”

At the top of the stairs, Niall’s head of hair is the first thing I see, followed quickly by Una bouncing on her toes and clinging to the railing until she gets sight of me.

“ I tried to tell him he shouldn’t get up,” Niall says when Dauna deposits me near them, leaning over the railing and squinting her sharp eyes into all the corners of the library. “ Thought he might kill me for suggesting it.”

Remembering how Aidyn’s predator-bird gaze once frightened me, a strained giggle bubbles up my throat.

I clap a hand over my mouth, grabbing Una and hauling her back to Aidyn’s room.

I should not be laughing, and Dauna sends me a look from the side of her eyes confirming I sound like a crazy little human her brother has collected.

“ Look who’s brought more humans to the pretty fae...” whispers the familiar little goblin voice. Squinting into the dim shadows of the nighttime library, I spot the long limbs folded atop one of the nearest bookshelves, its two huge eyes blinking at me in the dark.

“ What in Faerie—” Niall whispers.

“ Ignore it,” I say, giving them a shove into Aidyn’s room while it crawls down to face height on the shelves. “ It can’t actually hurt you.”

In a perfect imitation of Niall’s voice, it says, “ How many—”

Grabbing the nearest book off a shelf, I brandish it in the creature’ s direction. “ Do you want to get tied up again?”

It hisses, more drool dribbling down its chin.

From the tree, the brownie shrieks at it.

Apparently, the two don’t get along. Una pokes me in the back while I continue to glare at the creature, scowling and slowly backing away until we’re all safely in Aidyn’s room.

Dauna steps inside, muttering to herself.

Poor Niall’s brow is furrowed, lips pursed.

If he wants to ask about that creature and his voice, he keeps it to himself, rubbing his throat.

“ It’s harmless,” I tell him lest his thoughts run away with the idea of faerie curses.

He looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind but nods.

Tynan is settling Aidyn back onto his bed, saying something I have no hope of understanding, smoothing his hair back. Hopefully he’s telling his son what an idiotic thing it was to leave in such a way. Aidyn’s eyes are mostly unfocused, but he gazes up at him as if clinging to the words.

To Dauna, I whisper, “ What now?”

She gives a tilt of her chin, as if considering, her eyes on the two men. “ There are more of us here. We shall drive them off. We will find who has committed crimes against our folk. After, you need not fear the woods.”

I swallow thickly, keeping my arms limply around Una’s shoulders, feeling her quick breaths. I’m not certain Dauna is quite right about that and wonder suddenly if I am the first human she has truly met, as I was to Aidyn.

We will always fear the woods, even if the hounds are gone forever.

Glancing at the kittens, I count each to ensure they are all there, then cover them once more with a quilt before easing the basket into one of the nearest cabinets.

If anything dangerous, hound or otherwise, makes it in here, I do not want any chance that it might kill the helpless things when the two creatures are at such odds.

They are all asleep and in no danger of wandering out.

If some monster finds its way in here, I’m not sure what will happen to the kittens if we are all gone. I swallow painfully.

Tynan’s head lifts, and he gazes back at us, eyes drifting over the three humans in these lands he likely considers his own. My mouth clicks shut as if I’ve been caught saying something terrible. Dauna only cocks her head farther.

“ It’s terribly quiet,” he muses.

I glance about. It is always quiet in Faerie, though perhaps not for creatures with such sharp ears.

Aidyn lets out a soft breath, winding his hand under his father’s arm, but his eyes remain mostly closed.

His stubborn ability to make himself fight even near death makes me want to scream.

.. and probably his father as well, given the state of things.

Out in the library, I can hear the creature still muttering to itself.

Frowning, I release Una to step just outside the door, gazing out at the quiet vastness of the library.

A few chitters from the brownie float down, but nothing more.

When the little goblin hisses at me, I pick the book back up.

I squint out the hole in the roof where the tree grows through as it casts leaves ever so gently onto the floor. The outside world is dead quiet.

“ How did you get in here?” I ask, turning back to the leggy creature.

It cocks its head at me. I feel rather than hear Dauna step out behind me.

“ The brownie didn’t let you in,” I say, pointing back at the tree and feeling my heart thump against my ribs. “ Which way did you come in?”

“ Through the door under the plum trees, funny little human,” it spits. “ Mean human. I was stung by a bee!”

I put the book down.

“ The back door?” I ask.

It shakes its head. “ Too heavy. Tall blessed with pretty knife kept it closed.”

I glance back at Aidyn. Of course he kept all the doors closed—this strange little faerie is not even the worst thing that could make it into this sanctuary.

Dauna’s expression is pinched, hand on her chest, and I wonder if it is not causing me discomfort because it is drinking off her soul.

A moment later, she whisper-sings something back to her father and trots off down the stacks of books, disappearing into the overgrown branches of the maple tree.

A gentle rustle of leaves is the only indication she’s likely made it onto the roof.

The brownie pays her no mind but hisses again at the goblin drooling along the bookshelves.

Silence descends across the library. My breathing picks up as I squint at the wall in the direction the plum tree should rest.

The door near the plum tree.

Could its little hands open the handle on that door?

“ Tynan,” I whisper, creeping back to the door.

He spares me a glance away from his son, over his shoulder.

“ There was one time when I took the door out into Faerie to collect food for the kittens. I got lost, and Aidyn had to bring me back... We could never find the passageway back again, as if it had grown over. Aidyn could not find it again either. If that creature somehow found it and opened the door to get in here, what if one of the hounds followed?”

Tynan turns farther toward me, his hand still around Aidyn’s, and frowns. “ Perhaps they could dig it up if it grew over itself. I do not know how the goblin came in. I believe I can find the passageway and close it. It is not a terribly difficult magic when you are my age—”

He pauses, cocking his head and sitting up straighter, glancing about the room.

How much more of this place does he see than I ever will?

Aidyn murmurs something too low to catch, and Tynan’s nose wrinkles. Slowly, he stands, a long easy movement that sends Niall and Una shuffling back. He pauses beside me in the doorway, breathing in a long, deep breath. The goblin hisses at him, then shuffles away shrieking when Tynan’s lip curls.

Slowly, he shakes his head. “ I’ll go now. It is still late, and there are many hounds. I do not wish one to come in—”

Aidyn murmurs something else that has Tynan’s shoulders tightening. Looking back, I find he’s pushed himself up onto his elbows.

Catching my eye, he says, “ I smell them. They must be here.”

Tynan glances back.

“ I know their smell. Better than I can describe.”