Chapter 26
AS SOREN MOVED on to the next person, I licked my lips and stood. “Can I help?”
Gwen frowned from the front of the room, having just received another group of people. Soren’s burrow wasn’t small, but it also wasn’t intended to host even a quarter of the two hundred people heading this way. “We don’t have time to train her in.”
Holding up a calming hand to her, Soren told me, “I’m sure Peregrin could use help in the kitchen.”
So that was where I went.
I found him scratching the hair by his ram horns with one hand and clutching a wooden spoon in the other. After spinning around his kitchen to grab a knife, he whirled back to cut the bread like a machine, muttering to himself, “What in Samhain were we thinking? We need more food . . .”
Clearing my throat, I stepped inside. “Soren sent me to help.”
My eyes widened as I took in the rest of the room. People filled the seats on both sides of the table. The rest had found places to sit along the walls or in the middle of the floor. Once again, my eyes flew across them searching for Mom, but she wasn’t here either.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“Yes, come, take this.” I jumped a little when Peregrin shoved the knife into my hand. “Cut and butter the bread, then pass it out. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He pulled off his apron, tossed it in the direction of the hook, and was halfway down the tunnel by the time it fell in a heap on the floor.
“Where are you going?” I called after him.
“To get more food!” he yelled back, not slowing down.
And then he was gone.
I swallowed and faced the onlooking humans—people.
Wow, when had I started calling them humans like a fae?
“Um, okay . . . Who’s hungry?” I forced a grin and moved to finish cutting the bread.
One of the women with a motherly smile came to help me butter it and pass it out.
Then a little boy asked for water, and after I found the cups, we passed that out as well, and before I knew it, Peregrin had bustled back in with a whole cart of hot food and plates.
“We paid the royal kitchen to provide this earlier,” he told me quietly, after we’d passed it all out and were taking a minute to each scarf down a plate of our own. “But somehow, they kept having ‘delays’ that prevented it from coming.” He rolled his eyes.
“Ah,” I said around a mouthful of food, then frowned. “Do you think it was intentional?”
Peregrin snorted, and his exaggerated reaction made me giggle.
“There’s a strong possibility,” he finally said once we’d stopped laughing.
“Julian and I are taking the first group now,” Gwen startled us by saying from the doorway. She moved so quietly. “Can you two help Lore find the rest of them a place to sleep? And Soren’s going through the remaining contracts to request corrections, because some of them weren’t signed properly.”
“Probably also on purpose,” Peregrin muttered.
“Agreed.” Gwen sighed, then straightened. “I’ll be back for the next group in under two hours.”
Peregrin stood, picking up his empty plate, and nodded. “We’ll be ready.”
I wanted to ask where they were taking them, but with so many anxious listening ears all around, I decided to wait for a more private moment.
The rest of the night was a blur.
I gave out blankets and helped people find little nooks and crannies to rest while they waited their turn to go wherever Gwen was taking them.
When I discovered a family with four little kids, I gave them my daybed.
The mom smiled gratefully as she wearily tucked all the children into bed.
I gave her an extra blanket and tiptoed away.
What did the fae need little kids for? The more I saw, the angrier it made me.
Gwen gathered up two more groups over the next few hours. Julian shadowed her closely, helping with stragglers.
Soren’s hair was standing up a bit when I found him by the fire, making me hold back a smile. This was the first time I’d seen him disheveled. He dragged a hand across his face and leaned back on the couch.
“Did you eat any dinner?” I asked him softly, keeping my voice down since we were surrounded by sleeping people. I held up a full plate.
It was just after 2 a.m. at this point. After two soft chimes rang out through the hollow, I had checked my phone—which only had 3 percent battery left now—to confirm.
It didn’t look like we’d be getting much sleep tonight with the way the fae continued dropping off contracts and the humans who went with them.
But three groups of at least thirty people each had disappeared with Gwen already, and she seemed determined to keep going like it was a race.
Actually, they all seemed in a hurry. Probably because they were struggling to house so many people in a space clearly not designed for such large groups.
“I did not.” Soren took the offered plate. Somehow, the way he said that with a sigh and a small smile sounded like an unspoken “thank you.” He ate with manners, even though I could tell he was starving.
As he ate the last bite, Gwen and Julian returned.
Peregrin and Lore had gotten things down to a science and had the next group ready to go within minutes.
After this fourth group left, Peregrin and Lore started whispering about what to feed the remaining people for breakfast and how they should start taking shifts to sleep.
I took the opportunity to ask Soren what I’d been wondering the last few hours. “Where is Gwen taking them?”
“Across the veil.” Soren leaned forward to rest his arms on his knees, clearly exhausted. “Most of them are from surrounding cities, but she’s dropping the ones who can’t remember where they came from in strategic places, such as police stations and shelters, where other humans will help them.”
I curled up in my chair, sinking into the soft cushion and leaning my head back. “Why doesn’t she take them all at once?”
“I fear we might accidentally lose someone in the commotion. Sometimes their awareness hasn’t fully returned or they don’t entirely trust us.”
“You don’t want to risk them running off in the wrong direction?” I guessed.
He nodded. With a weary sigh, he gave in to his exhaustion, leaning back into the couch cushion like me and closing his eyes. “That’s one concern. Then there’s also the fact that large groups of humans returning to a city all at once would look suspicious.”
I frowned. “If you don’t want them to tell, you probably shouldn’t have rescued them.
” Then I winced. Why had I said that? What kind of idiot would discourage him from helping these people?
But it was the truth. People talked, and at the very least, they all would have a lot to discuss with their therapists when they got home.
More likely, a group this size would put the fae on national news.
No way was I going to tell Soren that though.
He sighed again, running a hand through his hair and messing it up further. “In the new contract they sign with us, we take some precautions.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How so?”
“It’s nothing nefarious,” he assured me.
This late at night, his blue eyes seemed more vulnerable, like he’d forgotten to keep his walls up and was giving me a glimpse into his soul.
“We include language that says they won’t be able to utter a word about our kind or tell anyone where they’ve been.
If we had more time, we would also employ a human to write tailored letters detailing stories of where they’d been and enchant them to be believable, but as it is, we don’t have time and must rely on the contract to protect us.
As they reenter their different cities across the human world, it will seem as if they had amnesia. ”
That sounded like the magic that kept me from talking about Mom. “Do they know they’re agreeing to this? Are they even reading their contracts?”
“No.” He looked down. “Better to let them get home first to see their loved ones. They’ll find out soon enough.”
“That’s . . .” I didn’t know what to call it. Horrible? Taking someone’s speech away wasn’t right. But also, I hated that I understood. Soren was trying to save these people without harming his own.
An idea slowly came to me.
“This ‘amnesia’ thing where a deal keeps someone from talking . . .” I began slowly, feeling out the words to make sure I could say them. “I have that with . . . something else. Is there a way to break it?”
“No.” His answer knocked the air out of me. If I couldn’t find a way to tell someone about Mom, how would I ever track her down?
“But you can talk around it,” he surprised me by adding, rousing himself to sit up straighter and turn toward me. “And find a way to give me hints.”
“Hints,” I repeated.
He leaned forward, tenting his hands in front of his face. “I’ll pay attention.”
I took a tense breath, nodding. Okay. Hints. What could I say that would lead him to ask the right questions? I lit up. “Do you have that logbook handy? The one where you wrote down our names and everyone else who came through here?”
His head tilted slightly. “You know someone else who came through the south entrance?” he asked as he slowly stood, moving toward his desk.
I followed.
When I didn’t speak—because I couldn’t get the words out to answer him—he turned to look back, and I was able to nod.
“Family?”
I nodded again.
His expression was grim. I’d told him about my immediate family, and there was one clear vacancy. “Your mother?”
A single nod.
I touched my wet cheek. I hadn’t even realized I was crying. But the relief of someone else knowing, someone who was capable of speaking about it, shook me. Each time I wiped my eyes, they instantly filled up again.
“I’m sorry, Brynn.”
I’d covered my face with my hands, embarrassed to break down in front of him again, but his voice sounded close. His warm hands settled gently onto my shoulders, offering tentative comfort.
Without thinking, I slowly leaned forward until my hands and face rested on his chest. His arms immediately wrapped around me.
He held me for a long time without complaint, unmoving.
When I finally pulled back, my eyes felt swollen, and I’d gotten his nice shirt wet. “I’m sorry.” I brushed a hand over it, accidentally touching the skin at his throat as well, doubling my embarrassment.
He swallowed. “Don’t be.” He lifted a hand, and his long fingers gently wiped the tears from my cheeks. “I admire your devotion to finding your family more than you know,” he murmured.
I inhaled deeply, eyes fluttering shut. Without meaning to, I leaned into his hand. It eased a tiny bit of the ache in my chest. “I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
When his hand tensed slightly and he didn’t immediately answer, I opened my eyes, frowning at the strange look on his face, which I couldn’t quite read.
Shaking his head, he hesitated and then said, “I can. I don’t know many who would search as committedly as you have despite the dangers, or even weep if someone went missing. I’m certain my own family never shed a tear for me when my contract to live in the Hollow Court ripped me from my home.”
The ache returned, but this time it was for him.
“That’s horrible,” I whispered. “You deserve more than that.”
A quiet moment passed between us as we stared at each other, though it wasn’t uncomfortable, before his hand slipped away from my cheek.
He cleared his throat, turning. “Do you still want to see my logbook?”