Chapter 8
The offerings started on the third day. Elodie woke to find a small pile outside her chamber door. There were a handful of wildflowers, stems still damp with dew. A chunk of bread wrapped in cloth and a copper penny, green with age.
She gathered them carefully, confused, and nearly tripped over Marian—the young kitchen maid with quick eyes and a gap-toothed smile who’d been assigned to help her.
“Don’t touch those!” Marian’s face went pale.
“Not until you’ve—I mean—” She caught herself, remembering who she was speaking to, and dropped into an awkward curtsey.
“Forgive me, my lady. I only meant... it’s best to leave offerings where they lie.
Until sunset. So the giver knows their gift was accepted. ”
“Offerings?” Elodie looked down at the flowers in her hand. “Who left these?”
Marian’s eyes went very wide. “I couldn’t say, my lady. But the fair folk... they notice kindness. And they remember slights.”
The fair folk.
Of course. She’d appeared in a flash of lightning, dressed in gossamer and wings, speaking in a strange accent. What else would they think she was?
By the end of the week, the pile had grown. More flowers. A carved wooden bird. A ribbon, bright blue. Someone had left an egg, and someone else a twist of dried herbs that smelled of lavender and something bitter beneath.
“They’re protecting themselves,” Bertram explained when she asked. “Making offerings to appease you. In case you’re...” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“In case I’m actually a faerie.”
“The thought has crossed many minds.”
Elodie wanted to laugh. Or cry. Possibly both. “I’m not. I’m just—I’m just a woman. A very lost, very confused woman.”
Bertram’s expression said he believed her. But belief didn’t matter much against centuries of folklore.
The hopeful ones came first. A young mother appeared in the great hall during dinner, a feverish infant in her arms. She fell to her knees before Elodie’s chair, words tumbling out in a desperate flood.
“Please, my lady, the healer says there’s nothing more to be done, but you—you’re one of the blessed ones—if you could just touch her, just lay your hands upon her—”
Elodie didn’t know what to do. The baby was sick—she could see that much, the flush of fever, the labored breathing—but she wasn’t a doctor, she certainly wasn’t magical.
She was an archaeologist with a cursory knowledge of medieval medicine and a growing certainty that washing hands and boiling water might help more than prayers.
“I’m not—I can’t—” She reached out instinctively, brushing the baby’s forehead, and the mother sobbed with gratitude.
“Thank you, my lady. Bless you. Bless you.”
The baby survived. The fever broke two days later, and suddenly Elodie was a miracle worker.
More came after that. An old man with aching joints, wanted a charm to ease his pain. A girl barely past childhood, blushing crimson, asking for a love spell to catch the blacksmith’s apprentice. A farmer whose crops were failing, who wanted to know if the fae had cursed his fields.
“I can’t help you,” Elodie told them, over and over. “Really, I don’t have magic. I’m just a woman.”
They smiled and nodded and clearly didn’t believe her.
The fearful ones were worse.
She learned to recognize them. The servants who made signs against evil when she passed, the guards who refused to meet her eyes, the villagers who crossed themselves and hurried away when she appeared.
One of the kitchen boys ran screaming when she entered the hall, and the cook—a formidable woman named Agnes—had to drag him back by his ear.
“He’s simple,” Agnes apologized, though her own eyes slid away from Elodie’s face. “Doesn’t know better.”
“I’m not going to hurt anyone.”
“Of course not, my lady.”
But Agnes didn’t sound convinced. And that night, Elodie found salt scattered across her threshold—an old ward against supernatural creatures, she remembered from her research. Someone in the household was genuinely afraid of her.
Father Aldric cornered her in the chapel on the seventh day. She’d only gone in to admire the stonework—the chapel was small but beautifully proportioned, with carved capitals that showed real artistry—and she didn’t see him until she’d already stepped through the door.
“Aha!”
The priest emerged from behind the altar, eyes wild, a crucifix clutched in one white-knuckled hand. He was thin, nervous, with ink-stained fingers and a tonsured head, and right now he looked like a man facing down a demon.
“Father Aldric.” Elodie took a step back. “I didn’t realize anyone was—”
“Vade retro, creatura infernalis!”
Holy water splashed onto her face.
“Begone, creature of the hollow hills! You have no power here!”
“I’m not a faerie!” She stumbled backward, tripping over a prayer bench, landing hard on the stone floor. “I’m Church of England! Well, technically lapsed, but—”
“Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde!”
More Latin, more holy water. The priest advanced, crucifix thrust toward her like a weapon.
“In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti!”
“Stop it! I’m a Christian, for heaven’s sake—”
The chapel doors slammed open as Gareth filled the doorway. She looked up as he took in the scene—the terrified woman on the floor, the wild-eyed priest, the scattered holy water—and his expression went cold enough to freeze the flames of hell.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
He walked to her, helped her to her feet, and positioned himself between her and Father Aldric. The look he gave the priest needed no translation.
Touch her again, and I will end you.
“My lord.” Father Aldric’s voice shook. “She is unnatural—”
Gareth held up a hand.
Then he turned to Elodie and signed, carefully, so the priest could see each gesture.
You are safe. He will not harm you.
To Father Aldric, he made a single motion—go—that sent the man scurrying from the chapel, cassock flapping behind him.
Silence.
Elodie’s hands were shaking. Her dress was soaked with holy water, her hair plastered to her face, and the beginning of hysterical laughter was building in her chest.
“That was—” She took a breath. “That was the worst exorcism I’ve ever been subjected to.”
Gareth’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. But close. He took her hands in his, steadying her. His grip was warm, calloused, solid. An anchor in the chaos.
She signed. Thank you.
He signed back, slowly, each gesture deliberate. You are under my protection. Always.
She looked at his face—the scar, the hard lines, the eyes that somehow didn’t seem so cold anymore—and realized she believed him.
“I should probably avoid the chapel for a while,” she said.
He nodded.
“And maybe eat in my chamber until people calm down.”
Another nod.
“And perhaps you could...” She hesitated. “Could you teach me which hand gestures mean I’m not a faerie, please stop throwing holy water at me?”
This time, he did smile. Just barely. A ghost of what it might have been three years ago. But it changed his whole face, softened the severity, made him look almost young.
Elodie signed. You’re smiling.
He signed back. You bring light here.
Then he offered her his arm—old-fashioned, courtly, entirely unexpected—and escorted her from the chapel.
The servants they passed watched with wide eyes. By morning, she knew, the rumors would have spread through every corner of Greywatch. The faerie woman and the silent lord, walking arm in arm through the castle. Father Aldric would be nursing his wounded pride and plotting his next move.
But Gareth’s hand was steady beneath hers, and when they reached the corridor leading to her chamber, he paused and signed. Tomorrow. More lessons?
She nodded. “Yes. I’ll teach you more.”
His mouth curved—that ghost of a smile she was starting to treasure—and he inclined his head in farewell. As she watched him walk away, Elodie was already looking forward to morning.