Chapter 30
W e’d arrived in the Ipsitaa Province of North Kilderoy in the early morning and hired a driver, which I hadn’t even known was an option outside of New Rothwick until I was digging through the paperwork Kaelan had given me.
Not only had he arranged for our transport to the Isles, but he had also made sure the driver would stay on call until we returned… whenever that may be.
The trip took about three hours. Mostly because I kept wanting to stop and take in this beautiful place.
The greenery of the land mixed with the rolling hills and water everywhere—it was more beautiful than I’d ever imagined in my head.
There were no major cities that compared to New Rothwick, but the small villages, filled with stone houses and slate roofs, immediately found a spot in my heart.
Something about this part of the continent spoke to me. Called to me.
But when we crossed over the monstrous wooden bridge to enter the Silke Isles, everything intensified. I noticed it in Wylen first. His color returned, the dark circles around his eyes seemed to lessen, and he wore a small smile on his face the entire time.
Tris hardly spoke. For most of the trip, he’d complained about getting sick from the motion of the car and how he’d wanted to sit up front for that very reason.
Wylen had ignored him and took the passenger seat, speaking quietly to our driver throughout the ride.
But on the Silke Isles, Tris’s whole body relaxed.
He’d rolled the window down to smell the salty air, and the bright sun blasted his face in a way that made him look the happiest I’d seen him recently.
It had a similar effect on me, too. There was just something so…
mystical and magical about this place. My heart instantly recognized the natural familiarity of the land despite never being here before.
It was strange, and when I mentioned it to Wylen, he said it was probably from his blood.
While that made sense, I also thought it was more .
By the time our driver pulled off the side of the road and told us we had arrived, I was anxious to get out of the car.
It looked like we were in the middle of nowhere, but I could see a few people in the distance, walking along the incredible landscape.
I guess this is where the city elite escaped to.
I completely understood the call and only wished this were a trip we could do every year.
We gathered our bags, and Tris collected a business card from the driver with the promise that we would contact him after our “camping” trip. I had a feeling the driver suspected we were in the Silke Isles for other reasons, but he never questioned us.
As he pulled away, we stepped off the road and followed a path that led us down into a valley too beautiful to look at.
The rock formations jetting up out of the earth looked like the drawings I used to make as a kid.
The river water twisting through the landscape was the same blue color I’d dreamed about the night before. Everything was soothing.
Everything, that is, except for the bugs.
“Are you sure these aren’t tiny biting faeries?” I asked Wylen again.
“You mean pixies?” he teased.
“Are pixies real?”
“Yes, but they can’t come here. ”
Tris smacked the side of his face. “Well, I just killed like ten of them if they did come to our side.”
We’d driven across the island to the Juniper Pools.
This was the gateway to Ashtabulah, and it was also where a handful of people were hiking.
I was surprised by this, but Wylen told me he’d read this was a popular place for humans to visit when they required healing.
The water supposedly provides mystical powers, and while I would have laughed at that a week ago, I had no doubt there was something magical going on here.
We were almost across the moors on a well-traveled path, but the land was mucky with lots of little standing puddles of water. “Are they mosquitoes?” I grumbled.
“No, I don’t think so.” Wylen didn’t seem to be getting bitten at all, which was only pissing me off. And I really didn’t want to be angry in such a beautiful place.
“No-see-ums,” Tris said between smacks. “Tiny little assholes that you can’t see until they’re biting the shit out of you.”
A mother with young children walking past us glared at Tris for his language. He muttered an apology of sorts and then started smacking at his arms again. Huffing and swearing under his breath, he almost made a song out of the slaps and the curses.
“We’re so close,” Wylen said, sucking in a deep breath of air. “Can you smell it?”
“The pools?” I asked, mimicking his behavior.
“The magic.”
“No,” Tris grumbled. “I can’t smell the magic.” Slap. Groan. Slap, slap.
But I knew what Wylen was talking about. I sensed it with every cell in my body. There was something very special about this place, and despite Wylen’s blood inside of me, I knew I had a powerful connection to the land here as well.
A larger group of people was sitting around the bottom pool. The sound of the waterfall soothed my soul, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed when Wylen kept hiking up the hill. His steps were getting quicker, and I found myself huffing a bit by the time we reached the next pool.
“This is it,” Wylen whispered.
The hills around us dipped down straight into the river that formed this magical place. Large boulders and craggy rock outcroppings contrasted sharply with the greens of the grassland, spotted with the pinks of wildflowers. Tris was looking at the mountains while I fell in love with the pool.
“Wow,” I breathed. “Is that an archway?” I couldn’t tell if my eyes were playing tricks on me or not. The water was so clear that the stone bridge crossing the top side of the pool might have been reflecting in the waters below. But then I saw Wylen’s smile.
“That is our passageway.”
“What? Under the water?” Tris took the words right out of my mouth.
“Yes.” The fae couldn’t have looked more content.
“Wylen, how are we going to do this? I don’t even have a suit.
” I was wearing a pair of leggings, my running shoes, and a lightweight pullover.
At no point in time did Wylen hint that we needed to swim.
In fact, he told me to wear something comfortable so I could “blend in and hide in the trees” if necessary. Whatever that meant.
“You don’t need a suit. You won’t be getting wet.”
“You’re speaking in tongues,” I grumbled.
He turned to face me, eyes bright and skin looking better and better by the moment. “Do you trust me?”
“Trust is a big word, Wylen.”
“Sosie? This isn’t going to work if you don’t trust me.”
I glanced at Tris over Wylen’s shoulder, and he shrugged. Did I really have any choice? “Okay, fine. I trust you. But how are we going to disappear in front of all these people?”
“I have that under control,” he said calmly. Looking up at the sun and closing his eyes, he soaked in the rays. “We need to go soon. The gatekeepers leave at dusk.”
“Gatekeepers? ”
“In order to pass through the arch, the kelpies must approve of your presence.”
“What’s a kelpie?” Tris asked.
“Water faeries,” Wylen and I said together. I’d read about them on the train.
“Oh.” Tris set down his backpack and stretched.
“We must go, Sosie.” Wylen was surveying the crowd around us, the lines of concentration in his forehead getting deeper.
“I’ll wait here,” Tris said, but when Wylen shook his head, he frowned. “What?”
“Time moves differently in Ashtabulah. We may be gone for days.”
“That’s why Irini told me to bring a tent. I wish she had mentioned the bugs, though.” I smiled at him as he looked around the countryside. “I’ll find a place to camp where I can see you.” Tris stepped closer and kissed me. “I’ll wait as long as I need to.”
“Thank you,” I whispered to him, resting my head against his chest. It was one of my favorite spots on him. I loved listening to his heartbeat. After a few moments, I sucked in a breath and pushed down the nerves. Turning to Wylen, I said, “Okay, let’s do this.”
“I need to hide us first.”
“Hide us?”
The air around the pool popped. The shift in pressure made my ears hurt, so I squeezed my nose to release the pain. Tris must have felt the same because he was relieving the pressure, too. “What was that?” he asked.
“The humans can’t see us right now. They won’t remember seeing us, either.” He jogged toward the edge of the pool. “Come on, Sosie. I don’t have the strength to hold it very long.”
“Okay.”
I looked up at Tris, still wrapped up in his arms. “Thank you for coming with me. ”
He bent forward and brushed his lips against mine. “Please come back to me.”
I pushed my face closer to his, inviting a deeper kiss that I needed in order to make this trip. I didn’t realize until now how much I could lose if this all goes wrong. My heart clenched and tears fell from my eyes as we kissed, knowing this could be the last time we ever see each other.
“Stop, Sosie,” Tris breathed against my ear. “Twinkletoes won’t let anything happen to you.”
Huffing a laugh at the nickname and trying to push down my nerves, I squeezed him tight.
I’d always felt safe with Tris by my side, and I hated that it had taken me so long to realize just how much I loved him.
We had a whole lifetime together, should I get back here.
And the thought of all the things we could share gave me the strength I needed to let go.
With one last hug to Tris, I walked down the stones, being careful not to bump into any of the humans who couldn’t see us. With delight, I also noticed that the no-see-ums stopped biting. I guess we were hidden from them, too.
Without saying another word, Wylen dove into the pool. I watched him swim easily under the arch and disappear from my sight. The nerves came roaring back with a vengeance, making me second-guess this whole thing. So, I jumped. I stepped off the ledge and fell feet first into the ice-cold water.
“Ah,” I shouted as my head broke through the surface. “Holy shit, this is freezing!”
Tris was laughing at me from his spot up above the arch. “Don’t be a baby!” he yelled down to me.
“I don’t know if I should do this.”
“You have to, Sosie. You’ll be fine.”
“Tris…I can’t.”
“Sosie, you are the strongest person I know. Get in there, swim through the arch, and bring Gil home.” He winked and gestured for me to get moving. When I didn’t, he made a big point of tapping an invisible watch on his wrist. Blowing me a kiss, he said, “Go.”
I gave him one last wave and then dove under the surface.
The coldness seemed to disappear as I focused instead on swimming toward the arch and whatever was waiting for me under there.
The water was clear, yet the rocks were still blurry since I didn’t have the power to see underwater.
I wondered if Wylen did. Where was Wylen? Where was the arch?
As I started to panic, I noticed the bubbles.
Swirling in a circle that moved vertically instead of horizontally, like the water from the falls, I just knew that was where I needed to go.
Kicking and pulling, I swam toward the vortex.
I didn’t see Wylen. Had he gone through the bubbles? Was I supposed to do that?
The water got louder the closer I got. However, the noise from the waterfall, somewhere overhead, had a relatively calming effect on me.
Soothing my soul and encouraging me to come to them, the bubbles almost spoke a siren’s song.
Mesmerized, I swam closer. The bubbles danced around my head, wrapping me in their embrace.
Several times over, I could feel the tingling of their touch on my skin.
Every one of them welcomed me into their world.
With a smile and a new sense of peace, I gave one last kick to let the bubbles pull me under the arch.