by K. J. Sutton
Then the tears came.
It was in Laurie’s arms that I cried again. But this time, I cried how I’d been wanting to since driving away from that crossroads, feeling as if a part of me had died and I was leaving it at the base of the tree.
And the Seelie King, a faerie of bright-eyed whimsicality and a terrifying lack of morals, didn’t say a word. I sobbed against his chest, dampening what was undoubtedly an expensive shirt, and he wrapped his arms around me. As always, he smelled like sunshine and spring and everything good in the world. I felt Laurie’s chin rest against my temple. He didn’t make a joke or remark on the fact my breasts were pressed up against him. He just… held me.
“Damn it,” I whispered after a few minutes had passed.
His voice traveled through my body. “What?”
I let out another ragged breath. “I can’t stay mad at you. How do you do it?”
“I’m magic,” he whispered back. Then, as if we were stuck in a time loop, Laurie pulled me into him again. Once again, I didn’t put the distance between us I should’ve.
More time went by. Snow began to fall from the sky, and the tip of my nose was numb. I knew I needed to get through Kindreth’s journals. But as the seconds turned into minutes, I didn’t leave the circle of Laurie’s arms.
Not yet.
Laurie and I read Kindreth’s journals for the rest of the day.
We stayed in the living room. Laurie sat next to the fireplace, his back supported by the base of the couch, and I was on the loveseat.
My new pet grew more bold by the hour. Soon she was darting across the room and batting at our feet. Both Emma and Matthew squealed upon meeting her. Finn, who made an appearance in the early afternoon, was decidedly less excited. He was in his wolf form, and instead of finding him terrifying, the kitten was fascinated. She pawed his face and slept against his stomach in equal turns. Finn ignored her, and his breathing was loud and even, the sound of someone in a deep sleep.
Once she’d finished doting over the kitten, I saw Emma take note of the chest and the journals—they were impossible to miss, spread out in the busiest part of the house as they were.
Holding the corner of a page between my thumb and index finger, I told her the truth about why I had them and why Laurie was here. Emma hid her fear better than most, but I could sense it. “I thought he was in the barn,” was all she said. A frown hovered around her mouth.
After that the old woman continually brought us meals, snacks, mugs of hot coffee, and glasses of water, contributing the only way she knew how.
Throughout the evening, a fire crackled in the grate, which Laurie fed a log to every time it burned low. Stacks of journals started to appear around us, organized by those we’d read and those we hadn’t.
The books themselves were bound in various materials—leather, fabric, snakeskin—and the paper smelled different in each one. Some were as thick as a thesaurus while others contained only a few months’ worth of entries. Kindreth’s mental decline was evident in her handwriting as I moved through the years with her. She’d written everything in Enochian, of course, and my progress was slower than Laurie’s because of my fumbling translations.
I also kept a notebook on the cushion next to me, tracking any information that might be of use—and not just information pertaining to Gwyn. Kindreth had documented everything during her long life at the Unseelie Court, and even the time before that, when the fae had yet to divide into two courts. She envied the exorbitant wealth of the bloodline Ettrian—they’d invested in the petroleum industry during the 1900s—and blamed the Cralynns for The Great Depression. She resented the Tralees for their constant inbreeding, as she called it, and suspected the involvement of the Sarwraeks in the evolution of infamous serial killers like Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, and Jeffrey Dahmer.
Lyari shimmered into view during dinnertime. Matthew, Damon, and Emma were in the kitchen, dishes clinking and soft sounds emanating from the doorway. Laurie was with them; he’d been intrigued by the smells and left his spot to investigate.
“Anything?” Lyari asked, taking in the messy room. The stacks had gotten more spread out and haphazard as the day went on. There was several coffee rings on the table, along with plates of half-eaten food. The kitten, who was now a drowsy ball on the rug, had entertained herself for several hours unraveling a string dangling off the hem of my shirt.
My lips pursed as I shook my head. “Nothing relevant to Creiddylad, but Kindreth did write about Gwyn when the Wild Hunt was formed. Oh, since you’re here, will you translate something? I don’t recognize the words and I can’t find them in the Enochian Dictionary.”
I found the journal and held it up for her, pressing my finger beneath the passage I’d struggled with for nearly a half hour. Lyari’s braid fell over her shoulder as she leaned closer. I watched her eyes scan the words. “This part? Right here?” she clarified. I nodded. Her breath puffed against my cheek. “‘No weapon of man can harm her.’”
The wording piqued my interest—faeries were rarely specific unless they were being sneaky about something. I reread the sentence with a thoughtful frown. “No weapon of man… but what about a weapon of angels?” I wondered aloud.
Lyari straightened. “Or the weapon of a Nightmare.”
I knew instantly what she was suggesting; it wasn’t exactly subtle. I began to consider the possibility… but then I remembered the line of blood that come out of Collith’s nose. The light in his eyes fading. I relived the moment I had realized what I’d done, standing in that smoke-filled yard, surrounded by rage, magic, and pain. “I’ve been in her head,” I said finally. “Gwyn isn’t afraid of anything. I could try to create one, sort of… plant it there like a seed, but she’s ancient. Chances are her mind is too strong for that.”
Lyari thought about this for a moment. Firelight flickered over her face, making the hollows of her cheeks look darker. “Did you wield the full strength of the Unseelie Court during your search?”
“No,” I admitted, holding the journal tighter. “Look, even if Gwyn had fears, I don’t think I could do it again. Use my ability to murder someone, I mean.”
“How strange. You were willing to torture innocents a few hours ago.”
Her tone made me glare. “Torture. Not kill. I wasn’t exactly crazy about the idea, either.”
She glanced at the stacks of journals. “Well, let’s hope there’s something within the volumes you haven’t read yet.”
The faerie didn’t offer to help, and there was tension in the way she stood. I thought about our morning and the glimpses of vulnerability she’d shown, both below the ground and on the surface. “How is your mother?” I asked, unable to hide a hesitant note in the question.
Lyari touched her sword. In that moment, I recognized it as a tell—she was an expert at keeping reactions and emotions from her face, but she still felt them. Gripping her weapon gave my Right Hand a sense of strength and control. I was embarrassed it had taken me this long to figure it out.
“…been with her most of the day,” Lyari was saying, pulling my attention back to her. “She hasn’t been this agitated in a decade.”
We both knew the only variation in Kindreth’s routine was my conversation with her, however brief it had been. I met Lyari’s gaze and hoped she heard the sincerity in my voice. “I’m sorry.”
She acknowledged this with a slight shake of her head, as if to say, Not your fault. “I’d better get back. Mother’s nurse isn’t strong enough to restrain her during the… episodes.”
Where is Folduin during all this? I almost asked, then bit my tongue to hold the words at bay. I didn’t know enough about her family to pass judgement. It didn’t matter, anyway—Lyari had vanished without bothering to say goodbye.
“Emma made us something called a casserole,” Laurie announced, striding back into the room. He held two plates in his hands, and steam rose from the mass of cheese and potatoes. My stomach was already rumbling. Finn and the kitten both perked up, as w
ell.
“Change into your other shape, and maybe I’ll share,” I told the werewolf. He exhaled through his nose and laid his head back down, his eyes sliding shut. I tried to hide my worry by shrugging. “Suit yourself.”
We ate and continued making our way through the journals. Outside, the sky darkened to black. Music and smells drifted from the kitchen as Emma made banana bread. Despite the circumstances, and how poignantly I felt Collith’s absence, there was something… cozy about the scene. More than once, I caught myself staring at Laurie as he read, remembering a comment Collith once made about the Seelie King. Whatever he told you, Laurelis is not just here to torment me. He cares about you.
I pulled my eyes away, perturbed by Laurie’s beauty and the realization that I could stare at him all night, if we weren’t so focused on our task.
More time crawled by. I hadn’t let myself look at the time all day, but I knew it was late, because my eyelids began to feel weighted. Kindreth’s handwriting blurred in front of me.
You’re falling asleep, I realized distantly. Open your eyes and keep reading.
But the fire was too warm, the room too gently lit, and the kitten had started purring. The sound lulled me into that halfway place between awake and dreaming, and when I didn’t fight it, my mind moved deeper into the darkness.
When my eyes snapped open, I saw that Oliver had been true to his word—he was gone, along with our dreamscape.
The eternal sunshine and endless hills were replaced by night. But this was not the night I had once loved so dearly. Menace clung to the air, and the black, hulking trees that surrounded me on all sides watched with eyeless faces. It felt like they were waiting for something.
Suddenly I was nothing more than a child, lost in the dark, vulnerable to every monster or hungry thing that lived in this joyless place. And even though I knew it went against every rule of survival or intelligence, I ran.
I hadn’t gotten more than a few steps into my panicked flight when I started seeing them.
They looked out at me from behind trees or through the scraggly underbrush—every bad memory or past nightmare come to life. There was the faerie I’d killed in place of Damon, still tied to a chair even as blood flowed out of the wound in his chest. His sounds of agony were muffled by the bag over his head. Next I spotted one of goblins who had plucked me off the mountain and tried to sell me in the black market. He grinned with broken, yellow teeth and reached a single hand into my path. I recoiled, screaming, and bolted in the opposite direction. Leaves clung to my pajama pants and dirt caked my palms. I rushed past the siren, who stood between two trees, holding her naked body and shivering. Her face was blue and misshapen, like a corpse that had been submerged in water too long.
Like every bimbo in a horror movie, I didn’t see the root until it was too late. It stretched across the ground like an emaciated arm, and my foot slammed into it. There was a burst of pain before I went flying, and I landed so hard that I couldn’t breathe.
In the ensuing silence, footsteps sounded from behind. I still couldn’t move, so running was no longer an option. I found the strength to roll over, but that was all I could manage. I arched my head back with the slow, horrified resignation of someone about to die, wondering which one of my nightmares had come to take its vengeance.
Ayduin glared down at me.
The front of his shirt was drenched with blood. Faeries bled blue, but his looked black in the darkness. He moved faster than my eyes could track, reaching down and gripping my throat. Slowly, he lifted me into the air. I dangled there and grappled at his hand. A hoarse gagging sound left me. My vision started to dim.
Just as my head started feeling like a balloon—full of helium, floating away—Ayduin let go. I crashed back to the ground at the same moment my airways opened up again. I gasped, touching my throat, but Ayduin’s hand was gone. He was gone.
When I sat up, wheezing, I instantly saw why. I didn’t have a chance to run this time.
The zombies piled on me like ants. I felt their fingers scraping at my stomach and throat, trying to open me up, and all I could do was scream. I knew, in an instant of terrible clarity, that they were about to eat me alive. Hitting and kicking did nothing; there were only more zombies to take the place of the ones I managed to fight off. Within seconds, I felt dull teeth clamp down onto my shoulder. Another set of teeth tore into my calf. Agony blazed through me.
Before I could scream again, the horde of zombies vanished.
They didn’t lose interest or lumber away—they just stopped existing. For a few seconds, I stayed on my back, shaking and panting. There was a low-pitched ringing sound in my ears. Part of me wanted to stay there, frozen like a child beneath a blanket, but the other part was more afraid of what I couldn’t see. I sat up and, after a beat of shock, took in my new surroundings with wide eyes.
I was still in the forest, but it wasn’t sinister anymore. The trees were shrouded in mist and the leaves were vibrantly green, as if it were the middle of summer. Blue flowers swayed in a warm breeze, and they were so numerous the forest floor wasn’t even visible. Crickets, cicadas, and frogs crooned to stars overhead.
Everything inside me was tense, as though sitting up had sent some kind of signal, but nothing happened or appeared. After another moment, I stood. My toes curled through the damp earth. There was a sting of pain as one of them scraped against a rock. Where was I? Why did it feel so real?
My gaze latched onto a figure standing in the trees.
I should’ve been terrified, but the moment I spotted him, it felt like my heart was gripped by need. The need to speak with him, know him, see what color his eyes were. A branch stressed across the path, hiding his face, but I could see bright, golden hair gleaming in moonlight. It wasn’t as pale as Laurie’s, or dark as Oliver’s—it was the same shade of gold as the gleaming streets in Kindreth’s memories. As I watched, he stepped back, deeper into the foliage, and disappeared from sight.
Another dream, I thought. This is another dream.
Maybe that was why I followed him.
It wasn’t Oliver, I knew, but there was still part of me that hoped. The man led me through the woods for a mile, at least. Every time I thought I’d lost sight of him, he reappeared long enough to catch my notice, then he was gone again.
I only stopped when I saw the sign.
It rose out of the flowers on a wooden post. I couldn’t read it. The letters weren’t English, or Enochian, or anything else I would’ve understood. But one word stood out, both in size and color, and my gaze was drawn to it. “Hallerbos,” I murmured.
Something rustled nearby. I jerked toward it, forgetting about the sign. I caught another glimpse of that hair, lovely as a lion’s mane, just before the figure disappeared from sight again.
I didn’t catch sight of him again, but I could hear him, almost as if the man were purposely stepping on every stick. I didn't know why I felt such an urgent desire to catch up, to hear his voice, but there was no time to question it. I ran through the trees, shoving branches and leaves out of my way. I wanted to call out, but there was something strange about this dream—while I could form the words in my head, they wouldn’t come out of my mouth. As if the pathway between the two didn’t exist, and this was a world of only thoughts, trees, and impulse.
Suddenly I could hear water. It wasn’t a river, I decided as I kept moving forward. The sound of it was too gentle, too faint. Most likely it was a creek or a small trickle feeding into a pond. I didn’t think much of it, and then I forgot about it completely when I realized I’d lost track of the golden-haired figure.
A rock wall rose up. There was a deer at its base, standing directly in front of me. Its round black eyes met mine for an instant before it moved out of sight. The instant it moved, I spotted a narrow gap in the rock the deer’s body had been blocking. It was probably just a shallow cave, but something within that darkness called to me like a siren’s song. I stared at it, willing myself to turn around and walk away.
This was a dream, and Oliver was no longer here to keep the bad things away.
But when I tried to do exactly that, it felt like unseen hands pushed my feet into the ground, forcing me to stay. Panic flashed, then dimmed as my mind melted down into a single thought—I had to go inside. I had to see what was in there. It was important.
The urge became so strong that I burst into movement, hurrying toward that dark opening. The sound of rushing water got louder. I stepped into a place that felt like the set of a movie. A movie about magic or wild things. The walls glistened with water and moss grew everywhere. Like the Unseelie Court, torches burned and lit the way. That wasn’t the only similarity they shared, but I struggled to define the other one. Unnatural, I thought finally, creeping down the jagged path. That was the word my mind kept reaching for. It felt like there were a hundred spiders crawling over my skin, like the air was bloated and sentient. Everything about this place was unnatural.
There was a chamber up ahead. I stepped out of the tunnel, which was shorter than it had seemed, and stared. There was nothing else in the room save a stone slab… and the faerie lying on it. That was the moment I realized this wasn’t a cave.
It was a tomb.
My heartbeat felt like the violent vibrations of a gong. Still propelled by an inexplicable urgency, I walked toward her. The closer I got, the more I fought it. I wasn’t sure why, but every instinct I had was shrieking. You don’t want to wake her up. You don’t want to see those eyes open.
And then I was there, at her side, despite how much I didn’t want to be. She was one of the most beautiful creatures I’d ever encountered. With skin luminescent as a pearl, perfectly arched brows, and full lips, a flame of wild hair to set it all ablaze, it was no wonder someone as ancient as Gwyn hadn’t managed to forget about her. For this was, indeed, Creiddylad. I knew it with all of my being, as though someone had whispered the name in my ear.
