Despite feeling wide awake, I dozed off. I woke to Paddy standing over me, kicking my legs with his giant booted feet. “Get dressed. I’ve got something to show you.”
I sat up, blinking. “I am dressed.”
“I meant your feet. Put your boots on.”
“Safia’s boots, you mean.”
“All right, lad. Just get on with it.”
I did as I was told. Paddy was the good cop in his and Safia’s comedy double act, but he was a tenacious bastard when he had something on his mind.
Grumbling, I stamped into my borrowed boots and joined him at the door. He handed me a coat that wasn’t mine. “We’re going for a walk.”
“Where to?”
“To the solution to all your problems.”
“That’s a bold statement.”
Paddy grunted and set off towards the path that descended the mountain on the opposite side of Fen’s house. It was a steep path, rocky and rough. Paddy had built a sturdy gate at the top that he kept bolted to keep his unruly kids and wandering pigs safe. Only the goats could come and go as they pleased.
He opened it and waved me through. I preceded him along the path until we came to a high stile. Fen’s name was carved into the old wood, alongsideCherylandDaisy.
“Cheryl’s the sister, Daisy’s the dog,” Paddy said to my frown.
“I didn’t know he had a sister,” I replied absently, tracing the carving with my fingertip. I knew about the family dog, though. There were pictures in Fen’s house.
“Thought you two were friends?” Paddy hopped over the stile. “Or whatever a naughty slumber party makes you.”
I tossed him a scowl. “Shut your face. It wasn’t like that.”
Paddy smirked.
I glowered harder. “It wasn’t. We got pissed in town and he said it was safer for me to stay over than wander up the mountain and die.”
“Well, he wasn’t wrong about that. Not sure I believe you about the rest of it.”
“I don’t give a shit what you believe.”
I delivered my words with a smile for no other reason than snapping at Paddy was like kicking a Labrador—horrible. And I didn’t have the headspace for more guilt, even though his answering grin let me know I hadn’t hurt his feelings.
We traversed the mountain path into a headwind. It whipped around my ears, searing my exposed skin with cold the way it had done that fateful night I’d arrived. It was hard to believe how little time had passed since then. It felt like eons. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
Paddy pointed ahead. “Down there.”
“Hilarious. Anywhere in particular, or are you hoping to lose me in the forest?”
“As if Fen wouldn’t find you.”
“Maybe he wouldn’t want to.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Paddy’s scepticism was likely visible from the moon, but he let it pass and kept pointing forward. “We’re going to Isaac Hawthorne’s treehouse.”
He’d have surprised me less if he’d said we were visiting the queen at Balmoral. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“That doesn’t make it make sense.”
