Page 68 of The Wind and the Wild (The Keepers of Faerie #1)

“ I think about it sometimes,” she murmurs. I don’t know what she means until she whispers, “ It could’ve been us. We could’ve knocked over a mushroom, stepped into a faerie circle without ever realizing in the dark. It could’ve been me who did it.”

I open my mouth, then close it. Such a thing has never occurred to me, and I don’t suppose it ever would have. From Una’s tone, I suppose I should feel more strongly about it, but it seems a silly sentiment after a night proving the unpredictable and wild nature of Faerie.

Eventually, a tired little giggle bubbles up.

Una glances at me, and her upset expression doesn’t help.

“ It could’ve been any of us. If we’re working on likelihood, there’s much more chance it was me accidentally stepping on one in any of the previous days and weeks and years I spent digging around for berries over here.

We’ll never truly know, and that doesn’t bother me.

It barely did then, it truly doesn’t now.

What else do we expect, living right on the edge of the Faerie trees? ”

She stares at me over the edge of her arms, eyes glossy.

I let out a long breath. “ Don’t think about it anymore. Even if it happened to be you, you’re still the best sister I could ever ask for.”

She claps her hands over her face. “ You’ re impossible. ”

“ I’m very right. I was born under moonlight—I know things.”

She makes an unhappy noise. Scooting over, I lock my arms around her shoulders and pull her over, rolling us onto the floor. She turns, hugging up against my side, quiet.

“ I love you,” I tell her, staring at the leaves and the lightening sky through the broken roof. The brownie looks down and chatters at us softly.

“ I know,” she mumbles, as if I have offended her. “ I love you too.”

When the sky is lighter, I limp downstairs on my sore ankle, Una following with one of the kittens, and nurture the stove back to life. My stomach is angry with me, and I cannot remember the last time I ate . . . perhaps at Midsummer.

Aidyn should eat something anyhow if he isn’t sleeping. I’ve heard no other sounds from his room, and neither has his father left, but I’m restraining myself from knocking.

As if hearing our movement, Tynan appears seconds later, observing the makeshift kitchen I’ve set up, and takes a pot from over the stove before disappearing around the corner.

Una gives me a mildly concerned look, and I shrug.

I was introduced to the Gentry much slower than she was, so it’s likely much more unsettling.

I still have plenty of ingredients stashed here from the last time I cooked Aidyn a meal—luckily, the brownie has only stolen some leftover pie—and I start with bread I can knead quickly and cook in a skillet.

Most everything is dry ingredients, and I riffle through for something that will make a more suitable meal without leaving the library—

Reappearing in the doorway, Tynan sets half a dozen eggs of all sizes and colors on the table, along with the pot, now full of mushrooms and blackberries.

Softly, he says, “ Aidyn has informed me you’re cooking. Would you like anything else from me?”

For no reason, embarrassment floods me. “ No, no, this is perfect. Yes... I like to cook. Thank you.”

He nods and appears to glide back up the stairs despite tiredness tugging at his shoulders.

Una and I exchange another look before I sigh and look into the pot, finding suitably edible mushrooms. I place another pot over the now-hot stove and crack the eggs into them, then set the shells aside, contentedly putting something together where everyone can have at least a little.

When I open the dusty window over the table, the world is quiet, soft birdsong floating in.

“ I never thought I’d go into Faerie,” Una murmurs, nibbling one of the berries as if it may spring alive. “ It’s not so different, but it is.”

I nod. “ Want to come back?”

Her nose wrinkles up. “ I don’t think so.”

I laugh, and several sore muscles protest. “ Even to see the kittens?”

If anything, she looks more perturbed. “ Maybe.”

By the time the sun is high and everyone has been fed, I leave a sleeping Aidyn under the watchful eye of his father—who appears as if he may doze himself, once he’s not distracted by the kittens—take Una’s hand, and lead her across the border with no troubles, both of us tripping over the roots of the hawthorn tree.

Glancing into the now-mortal trees, she shivers, though the chill of yesterday’s storm has blown out, leaving a blistering summer sun with a tad too much damp to the air.

Under the canopy of trees, the grasses are still coated in dew, and our legs and shoes are wet by the time we finally step out onto the sunny hillside.

A soft breeze has picked up, the air no less hot for it.

Despite how many have crowded into our village for midsummer, few are wandering around.

Those who didn’t drink or dance too much are cleaning the mess made the night before, but most everyone is sitting on their porches or inside their houses, likely a great deal still in bed or taken up in the barns they’ve slept in after so much dancing.

A few days will pass before everyone makes it home to their own village.

Emma is sitting in her own front yard when we make it down the grassy slope, Una’s hand still in mine.

Tiredness hangs in her eyes, and I have a feeling she was waiting up worrying over us after we left.

I step over her carrots until I can reach over and hug her, then see Una to her parents’ cottage.

Niall wanders down the path, his father yawning and watching him blearily from their porch.

I can’t imagine what he told him. Niall’s hair is askew, and he looks as tired as us as we pause before Una’s yard.

He sighs, and none of us speak. He takes each of us under one arm and crushes us to his chest. I close my eyes and lean against him, trapped between and around the two of them.

Sometime later, he releases us and gives my hand a squeeze before taking Una up to her cottage.

Momentarily, I see Andrew and Olivia duck out of the window as if they weren’t watching.

Smiling, I return home.

Primrose is lowing at me after not being milked, and I tell her, “ I know, I know,” as I find the pail.

By sometime nearing afternoon, I take Aidyn’s bluebell from my hair and press it between the pages of a few heavy books before crawling into bed for sleep.

When I wake, darkness has fallen. Patting the desk for my pocket watch, I find early morning.

Rolling onto my back and feeling my ankle and most of my joints protesting, I stare at the wooden grains in the ceiling barely visible in the early light and let out a long breath.

It’s quiet enough that it could be Faerie, though the shapes of the familiar trees through the gossamer curtains assure me it is not.

Momentarily, I put my hand over my face and feel tears burning down my cheeks, more from relief and leftover emotion, because I am not frightened, not anymore.

Eventually, I push aside the covers and draw a long bath.

My fingers twist Aidyn’s ring around my thumb.

Wrinkling my nose at the bedding I slept in so dirty, I strip it and haul it downstairs to the washing barrel and set to work.

It is just early enough it is only warm, and I’ve found a dress I haven’t managed to soil or tear that’s thin enough to be comfortable in the summer and roll the sleeves all the way up until they’re beneath my armpits.

My shoes are inside, and the damp cold of the ground sticks between my toes.

By the time I’ve hung the sheets and wrangled the thicker blanket into the water, the sun is over the trees.

Three wagons bounce down the path, two I recognize.

From this distance, I can’t tell if Mister Haskel or Blain has decided to return—either way, they must not have stepped off the path—but they’re not the ones who make my heart leap.

Carefully, I pick my way down the path, avoiding pebbles, before breaking into a quicker trot when my parents’ wagon turns off the main road and ambles up the path to our cottage.

Blackberry snorts and comes to a halt as if my presence means she’s reached her barn and food.

I rub her velvet nose while Mam shuffles down off the wagon with a series of happy noises and lets me choke her in a hug.

Da, chuckling, clicks and flicks the reins at Blackberry until he gets the horse to haul the wagon all the way into the barn.

“ Oh, love, you look tired. Midsummer couldn’t have been so mad.” Mam laughs and runs my unbrushed hair through her fingers. I caught a look at myself in the mirror after the bath this morning, and I know I appear a little too much like a wild woman lost in Faerie.

I gnaw at the inside of my lip. “ You have no idea.”

“ We meant to be here a few days back and not miss the dancing, then the storm rolled over the city, and we didn’t want to find ourselves stuck in the mud.”

I shrug, merely happy that Dauna watched over them and that they weren’t here the other night lest the hounds have found them after knowing my smell.

“ The dancing was nice,” I say, remembering Aidyn’s arm around my waist and the silly mask he stole.

Over Mam’s shoulder, I spot both men in the other wagon and grab her hand, pulling her toward our cottage. “ Let’s go, hurry.”

Glancing back, her pretty face wrinkles up. “ Yes,” she says dully. “ We saw him. That—”

Laughing over whatever insult was on the tip of her tongue, I haul her back home. “ They might just come over here. I’ll tell you in a bit.”

“ Have they been here while we were gone?” Her voice rises in offense. “ Did he try to talk to you?”

“ Mam—”

“ He didn’t come to the dancing, did he? I’ll—”

“ Mam. Please hurry.”