Faith Fairchild
Rhion takes my hand as I hop down off the bridge. I’m shaking a little, but at least it was over quickly.
That awful voice rang out in my head, and for a moment I was terrified it wasn’t going to accept my button, but then I gave
it a memory of kissing Marion under the tree before the others arrived and it was satisfied.
“That was horrible,” I say to Rhion. In the branches above us, the birds sing a cheery song.
Rhion looks to the bridge anxiously, awaiting Lydia, I suspect. “The spirit is mostly harmless. Its bark is bigger than its
bite.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been coming here for many, many years. We’re practically old friends by now.”
Marion appears and I breathe a sigh of relief and extend a hand to help her down. She gives me a quick peck on the lips and
I smile. “Well, that was terrifying,” she says.
Lydia appears just a few moments after and Rhion rushes to her, but she refuses his hand, leaving him crestfallen. “I’m fine,”
she says, voice a little thin.
It’s funny; Emmett and Ivy may be skeptical of his devotion to Lydia, but I have little doubt it’s genuine. It’s hard to fake looking that forlorn. The way he yearns for her is nearly palpable.
We all face the bridge, waiting for Ivy, but minutes tick by and she doesn’t appear. Marion and I share an uncomfortable glance
but don’t voice our fears.
Finally, we hear the dull echo of footsteps, but it’s not Ivy who comes down from the bridge. It’s Emmett’s boots that step
onto the soft spring grass.
He scans the four of us, and a look of panic crosses his face. “Where is Ivy? She went through before I did.”
Rhion curses under his breath and, without hesitation, steps back onto the bridge, disappearing like vapor.
Lydia stands on her toes and strains to look after him, but he’s vanished completely.
She lets out an audible sigh of relief when he reappears, just moments later.
“I have good news and bad news,” Rhion announces. “Which would you like first?”
“The good news?” Lydia says cautiously.
“Ivy is fine.”
“What?” Emmett roars.
“I just said she’s fine.”
“Little comfort when you just said there’s also bad news.” Emmett’s brows furrow in anger.
Rhion’s dark hair is wild and tousled. “The bridge spirit didn’t accept Ivy’s button. He was very offended by the lack of
memories attached to it. He’s sent her back to the castle.”
Emmett’s shoulders drop and he exhales. “She’s safe, though?”
“As ever.” Rhion nods.
Lydia presses her lips together hard enough that the blood drains from them, then takes a sharp breath. I can tell she’s uncomfortable
with the whole purpose of this quest but is trying to be strong for Ivy. Perhaps for Emmett as well, but I can’t quite parse
the particulars of their relationship. Marion says I’m too nosy, but I prefer the term curious.
“Let’s keep going, then,” Lydia says quietly. “Where to now?”
Rhion points up ahead, to a path of pastel cobblestones that winds through the darkest part of the wood. “You must remember,
for most of Bram’s life, he was the crown prince and the castle was his parents’ home. We constructed this cottage when we
were little more than boys as a private retreat. The night Bram—” Rhion hesitates, searching for the right word. I also believe
his love for Bram is real. He and Lydia seem similarly pained at the prospect of harming him. I don’t share their reservations.
“The night Bram took the throne,” Rhion continues, “we came here, to the cottage.”
Lydia’s eyes flash, and I know she’s picturing it. Bram’s hand dripping with blood, Rhion beside him, panicked as fires burned
and chaos reigned in the castle.
It was the night Mor came to England and made the bargain with King Edward IV, the night that started everything.
“What was Bram’s dad like?” I ask.
Rhion takes a sharp breath through his nose. “A lot like Bram.”
We walk for another half hour or so, and no one seems brave enough to talk. There is an omnipresent eerie feeling that there
are many listening ears in this wood. I hold Marion’s hand and hope it communicates all I am unable to say with words: I’m here, I love you, don’t be afraid.
But I know Marion well enough by now to know she’s not afraid. Much like me, she reaches anger much quicker than she gets
to fear.
She’s been particularly outraged these last few days. At first, she wanted to wring Ivy’s and Rhion’s necks for getting us
kidnapped and stuck in the dungeons for a night. She tolerated the discomfort just fine, but she was incensed I was uncomfortable
for even a moment.
Our quarters now are much more comfortable, but we still spend most of our time talking about what we’ll do when we’re home.
Marion’s bargain with Queen Mor to make her a talented writer might have been broken, but she never needed it in the first
place. Her ability to sell her stories, to make income on her own, has opened the whole world to us.
It’s Emmett I can’t quite read. It’s eerie to see this new, slightly older, faerie-touched version of him. The humidity is
causing his longer hair to curl around his ears and his mouth is set in a scowl. Somehow, I think he’s gotten even taller
than the last time I saw him in Kensington.
There was a time I thought I knew him better than anyone. I don’t think I know him at all anymore.
I quicken my steps until we’re walking next to each other. “She’ll be fine,” I whisper.
My words don’t seem to give him much comfort. His smile is tight and doesn’t touch his eyes. “Thank you.”
Ahead of us, Rhion slows. We’ve reached the cottage.
It sits in a circular clearing in the woods, bathed in a perfect beam of yellow sunlight. It’s constructed of the same pastel
stone as the path, with an arched wooden front door and window boxes spilling over with flowers.
Marion points to the chimney, puffing smoke into the clear blue sky. “Someone is home.”
“Shit,” Rhion hisses. “I feared this might be the case.”
He marches up to the door and pulls the handle, but it doesn’t budge. “You’re trespassing!” he calls as his fists pound the
door.
The door opens a crack, revealing one large green eye at the height of Rhion’s knee. “We weren’t expecting visitors,” a reedy
voice answers.
Rhion puts his hands on his hips and looks down. “It’s my cottage.”
The door swings fully open and a hand with long, sharp fingers waves us in. “Come in, come in, then!”
Marion looks calculating.
“Should we stay out here?” I ask.
“I might trust the woods less than I trust the cottage. Besides, he can’t be more than four feet tall, right? We could overpower
him.”
The five of us shuffle into the cottage and the door slams behind us.
I blink rapidly as my eyes adjust to the sudden low light. The creature who waved us through the door isn’t alone. I spot
six others in my immediate eyeline bustling around the cottage. One has a feather duster and is climbing up the curtains;
another stirs a boiling pot of soup on the hearth.
“Let us offer you something to drink,” the one from the door says. He’s got a mostly human face, but a mouth that seems slightly
too full of teeth. His clothes are dark green, constructed of leaves sewn together, and on his head, he wears a top hat. In
fact, they’re all wearing strange headwear. The one at the hearth is balancing a pot on his head; another wears a massive,
upside-down flower.
“No,” Rhion replies with a gracious wave. “We won’t be staying long.”
“The cottage was vacant when we found it,” the creature at the hearth pipes up.
“We haven’t been here in many years,” Rhion explains. “But I fear the king may not take kindly to your presence, if it is
discovered.”
“Will you tell him?” the one by the hearth asks.
“I will not,” Rhion answers. I immediately like him a little better, because I can tell he means it.
It’s strange to see such small beings in a cottage clearly meant to accommodate much larger men, like Bram and Rhion. The
cottage itself is homey, if a little dark. Dust-flecked beams of light stream through star-shaped windows, and the furniture
is mostly navy-blue and deep purple. In addition to the overstuffed armchairs and sofa, there is an array of carved wooden
chairs. It’s hard to determine what decor was Bram and Rhion’s and what belongs to their squatters. In front of the hearth,
a row of strange animal skulls are strung up, and I have to hope they’re a more recent addition.
My nose stings with the smell of firewood, herbs, and something slightly metallic.
Marion, Emmett, and I sink uneasily onto the sofa in the middle of the room, and Rhion positions himself protectively in the
chair nearest Lydia.
Despite our insistence that we didn’t want anything to drink, another man appears at our feet and pushes a pewter cup into
each of our hands. They’re full of a dark liquid that smells of wet dirt. Rhion shakes his head slightly, a sign not to drink,
but I didn’t need his warning.
“We’re here on an errand,” Rhion explains.
“I’m looking for a knife a friend of mine left here a few hundred years ago.
It would probably be in the back of a wardrobe.
If you’ll allow me to look around—” At the suggestion, every one of the cottage’s inhabitants freezes.
The stirring halts. The dusting stops. A scrub brush drips water onto the floor from where it’s held in midair.
“No!” the one from the door answers. “That won’t be necessary. We’ll bring you every knife we have and you can tell us if
it is the correct one.”
Before we can protest, they scurry off in a dozen different directions. Crashes and clangs come from the adjacent rooms, and
soon they reappear, their arms full of items wrapped in a rainbow of fabric scraps and old rags.
“I’ll go first!” one wearing a stocking cap pipes up.
He lays an object about the size of my forearm, wrapped in a dish towel, on Rhion’s lap and then looks up at him expectantly.
Rhion rolls his eyes, then reaches into his pocket and fishes out a ruby brooch.