Chapter 9
I ’m lying on the ground, with a blue sky and blazing sun above me.
My fingers dig into the soil, and it gives with ease, almost inviting me to sink into its depths.
A deep thump, like the heart of the earth, beats at my back.
It’s comforting. Familiar. Grass shoots up between my fingers. Flowers bloom at the edge of my vision.
But I’m not scared. It’s not strange or unexpected. I want this.
I urge the ground to flourish, and I can almost feel power seeping from me like dripping honey.
Thump. Thump.
The world tilts, the vision melting away.
I crack my eyes open to the sight of soft light beginning to illuminate the grayish-brown dirt strewn with bits of dead leaves just beyond the edge of my navy blue sleeping bag.
Thump.
Awareness comes back slowly. My body is heavy, something weighing me down more than the cocoon I tucked myself into. Something moves on the portion of the sleeping bag covering my legs. Long. Slim. Slithering.
The Nageth.
A surge of panic has me wide awake. I scream, clawing at the ground, trying to pull myself up and out of the sleeping bag to get away from the creature.
There’s a flash of something pale. The crinkle of my sleeping bag. Movement in my periphery has me scrambling away on my hands and knees, uncaring of the rock that jabs painfully at my skin or the sudden shock of cool air around me.
“Aimee?” Elias calls my name, panic lacing his voice.
I whirl toward his voice. “Watch out, there’s a Nageth!”
But the sight that greets me has me rethinking everything.
Elias reclines on the ground next to my rumpled sleeping bag.
He’s pushed up on one arm. His cloak is tight around him like he used it as a blanket, and his hood is still up, hiding his face completely from view.
But he makes no move to rise, to move. There’s no urgency or sense of threat in his posture.
“I felt it,” I insist. “Something slithered across my legs, I swear.” I shiver, hugging my arms around myself as I scan the area for one of the strange creatures or anything else.
Yet my search comes up empty. Surely something so big couldn’t just disappear.
“Elias?” My voice cracks with the edge of panic.
His cloak ruffles before he pushes the hood down and turns to look at me. “I do not see or sense any Nageths.”
I blink at him in confusion. The remnants of my strange dream still cling to the edge of my consciousness. I can almost feel the warmth of the sun, smell the floral notes in the air.
“I—” I hug myself tighter, feeling suddenly foolish. “It must have been a dream.” And it was. But then I was awake, and I was sure I felt something.
Elias comes to me, concern clear in his features. “You are safe. I did not let anything get near you in the night.”
The way he says it almost makes it sound like things tried, and I don’t know what’s worse, that thought or the lingering dream that I can’t shake.
“Sorry. I’m just— Strange world and all.” I gesture around.
His face softens. “You apologize too much.”
A humorless laugh shakes my chest. “Probably.” Wouldn’t be the first time someone has told me that. I brush my hair behind my ears, feeling as rumpled as I probably look. And of course, Elias looks pristine, not a sleep-tousled lock of hair or wrinkle to his clothing.
I’m ready to leave thoughts of last night in the past, but my attention snags on my sleeping bag and the ground near it.
My hand freezes at my ear, eyes narrowing.
The leaves and debris have been swept away on one side, leaving a bare patch of ground.
I swore I felt a weight on my chest when I first woke up and then—
I stare at Elias. “Were you…” Warmth crawls up my neck. “Were you cuddling me while I slept?”
“I did not want you to be cold.”
I’m not sure what’s more shocking, the admission or the complete lack of embarrassment. He just threw it out there like it was nothing. Unconcerned. Unruffled.
I gape at him, momentarily lost for words. “Okay,” I start. “That might be normal here, but in my world, we ask permission before snuggling with someone like a teddy bear.”
His lips twitch, head tilting to the side. “I will ask your permission in the future.”
“Good,” I reply, my voice a little too high. “Just so we’re clear on that.” I turn away, unable to quite look at him. Why on earth am I the only one bothered by this situation? Weirdo.
I ignore him for a bit, tending to my personal needs behind a wide tree trunk and grabbing another nut for breakfast.
Finally, he breaks the silence. “How do you plan to get home after you acquire the things you need?”
Inwardly, I wince. I knew that question was coming sooner or later. Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t ask earlier. “I plan to go back through the door I used to come here.”
His brows rise slowly. “I thought you said it was closed behind you?”
“It was.” I watch him carefully, waiting to see his reaction to my next words. “But after some time, the gifted humans on the other side will re-open it briefly to see if I have returned and let me back through.”
Rather than the spark of hope or interest that I expect, his gaze narrows with skepticism. “You all expected the Unseelie would be happy to let a human leave?”
The comment raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
Of course they wouldn’t. I know that, and we planned for it.
But the near admission of it, from him no less, is startling.
Don’t panic. “No,” I admit. “But we hoped if I did come across any Unseelie, if you all helped me, that maybe we could help you in return. Maybe leave the door open? Invite other humans?”
Now, that sparks the interest I expected. We knew I’d need the Unseelie to agree to bring me back to the door, and what incentive could there be other than more humans? Though, the plan was to lure the Unseelie King with such a bribe, not Elias.
“You would do that, help us in such a way?” He treads closer, moving so smoothly I hardly notice it until he’s a few feet from me. Suddenly, he feels much more the predator I expected the Unseelie to be.
“That is what I agreed on with my—” friends doesn’t feel quite right “—with the members of my coven. Assuming the Unseelie help me save my brother.”
Elias pauses, thoughtful. “A most interesting proposition. I have already agreed to help you.”
“You have,” I say, though I’m not sure he hears me.
Elias is lost within his own thoughts, rubbing his thumb across his chin. Finally, he nods as if to himself and then says, “I am going to leave you here for a little while.”
That has me rearing back so fast I nearly fall. “Wait, what?”
“It will be easier for me to scout ahead on my own,” he says simply.
Damn. Way to make a girl feel like a dead weight.
“I created wards around this area while you slept.” He gestures around us. “They will keep you safe while I’m gone. Nothing that wishes you harm should be able to pass them.”
That’s nice and all, but—“I’m just supposed to sit and wait?”
Everything in me itches to move, to find what I need and get this quest done so I can get back to Matt.
Who knows how long it will take to find the potion ingredients then find the Unseelie King to enact the coven’s plan, which should get me home.
God, there are so many steps, each more daunting than the next.
Maybe I can just ditch the whole Unseelie King part and get Elias to take me back to the door himself.
If he remembers the way to where he met me and we can find it from there. If we find the rest of the ingredients.
The thought of it all has a headache building behind my eyes. Waiting around and killing time is the last thing I want to do.
“Yes,” he says.
“No,” I reply flatly.
“I thought you would prefer me to remain here while you slept rather than leaving you alone.” He gestures to where my sleeping bag still lies in a jumbled heap.
That’s true, but—
“I will be back as soon as I am able, and then we can continue to search for what you need.” He turns to leave.
“Wait!”
He stops, looking back over one shoulder.
“I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
Elias turns fully toward me again, arms crossed over his chest, and finally looking something other than completely annoyingly calm. “Your brother needs this potion urgently, yes?”
“He does.”
“Then it makes sense to let me scout ahead and determine the most direct path to what you need next.” There’s no time to argue before he continues.
“I am familiar with this land. I have lived in it my whole life. I do not wish to leave you alone, but I do believe this is for the best.” The barest hint of exasperation clings to his words, almost like he needs to be away as much as anything.
And regrettably, he does make some good points.
“Fine.” I sigh and plop myself down on a boulder.
Satisfied, he turns and heads down the hill toward where we spied the Nageth the night before.
“Be safe,” I call.
He turns once, smiling, and my chest does a weird little clench that’s oddly familiar to the way I feel when I say goodbye to my family.
I just need him, that’s all. I rub at my breastbone. Better a somewhat friendly and weird face than none at all.
Maybe I shouldn’t have snapped at him about the snuggling.
That could be the norm here. Gosh, I wish I had Matt to ask his thoughts on these things.
It’s so weird being cut off from everything.
Can’t even Google it. I kick a stone and watch it tumble away in the direction Elias went.
I rise and follow it, stopping at a curved section on the ground where the different lines and symbols have been carved into it. Did he use a stick? A rock? His…claws?
Tearing my thoughts from the wards, I glance down the slope of the hill, searching for Elias’s retreating form. But the longer I scan my surroundings, the more the hair-raising chill running down my spine increases. Somehow, impossibly, Elias is already long gone.