He couldn’t abide amateurs and had no intentions of doing so this night.
Keep calm. Keep control. Keep breathing.It was a chore to do so.
He’d lost his temper more in the past year than he had in the previous several decades, a sign of how near this forest had steadily crept. That, and Silva made him completely irrational, scrambling the part of his brain that controlled his baserimpulses and thirst for retribution, leaving him helpless to react when his jealousy spiked.
He shook his head roughly.
No time for that, not now. It wouldn’t do to even think of her here.
Leaving her alone in her apartment was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do, kissing her goodbye for perhaps the last time. Even so, it had to be done. There was no way around this, and keeping her safe was his only priority.And now you’re going to stop thinking of her at all.
Now the forest stretched before him, his past and his future embedded in these trees, daring him to leave once more. A sea of small red eyes peered at him from a million hidden crevices in the woods. He needed to remember what he was coming back for.
Get her coin. Kill the cunt. Find a door. It was a simple enough list. If there were no other setbacks, he could accomplish it all that night, Tate thought optimistically, snorting at his own stupidity a breath later.
It was always night here.
Already, he could tell he was nearly there.Setback number two.
This wasn’t the same hole he’d moved through at the wedding. Then, he had been on the edge of the forest. None of the landmarks of the outer edge of Autumn were present now, and he knew them all well. A lightning-struck tree, a patch of wild berries, the swift-moving brook, the ghillie-covered cottage, half collapsed.
Here, whereverherewas, the path was a straight line, marching through the center of the trees. This pathway did not wind over hills and ridges, for the closer one was to court, the more prepared one needed to be for presentation. After all, itwouldn’t do to come rolling down an embankment to the foot of the Bonfire Queen, arse over feet.
The straightness of this path and the urgency with which it wanted him to continue down it were clues that he was close to the court, far closer than he would have liked. Despite feeling that he’d been walking in place for hours, Tate knew what the unwinding pathway meant, and wondered how much time he’d lost just standing there for a moment.
He paused, holding up his wrist to his ear, letting his eyes slip closed.
The steady, mechanical ticking of the watch grounded him, one of his favorites, one his grandfather had made for Tate especially.Mind the time. Faelnor’s constant reminder to him throughout his entire childhood.Mind the time, lad.It had been written in the molten gold in his grandfather’s own handwriting, making it especially precious after, when his grandparents were gone.
It was too easy to let oneself succumb on this side of the veil. Time was meaningless in Faerie, and most especially here in Autumn. Here, everything was lost to the smoke of the fires, and time unspooled sloppily. Years could slip away in the blink of an eye, passing in mere minutes beneath that always-shining moon. The closer he was to the center of the court, the more time he would lose, and the foggier his memories of anything thatwasn’tthat endless black forest would become.
He had chosen this timepiece specifically for his task, forminding the timehad never felt more important. If he didn’t, he’d never make it back to Silva. He’d had the cogs and wheels repaired and replaced over the years, keeping it steady and precise. Mechanical, nothing digital about it, nothing the very air of Faerie would make fail. The watch had a double-wound barrel, extending the time it would run, enhancing the precision when the forest would demand inattention.Tick, tick, tick.
He was counting on that steady tick. He had already decided, at some point between the cereal and the peanut butter, that if he couldn’t make it back to her, there was no point in returning at all.
It’s night where she is as well, lad. Don’t let it slip away from you. Mind the time. You’re only going to get one shot at him. Don’t waste it on nerves. Because if you miss, he’ll make sure she bleeds for it.
He wondered, sometimes, if the watches were the reason he carried Faelnor’s voice with him everywhere. Too many episodes ofAttic Wanderers: Paranormal Mysteries, more than likely, but the voice of the elf who’d raised him was the one constant he had, and Tate couldn’t help but feel that it was an asset now.
Aye, and he’ll probably make me watch him do it.
His attention was caught by something hanging in the tree to his left, suspended from a thin line of rope, dangling down from one of the higher branches. Tate squinted. When it turned in the moonlight, he could make out the silhouette.
It was a shoe. A boot, one similar in style to the sort he himself preferred.
He scoffed, shaking his head in disgust.Fucking ridiculous.
Several of the small red eyes disappeared at the sound from his throat, tentatively blinking their way back into existence a few moments later. Everything here noticed him. Everything here paid attention. Tate knew well that the trees themselves were aware of his existence and watched his progress through the woods. The moss, the trees, the animals . . . spies, all of them. It was a vicious irony for someone who had desperately wanted to be noticed and accepted in childhood. Now, all he wanted to do was slip away unseen.
“Sulking is a very bad look for you.”
The voice melted from the trees, sliding out of the darkness as if it, too, were smoke filtering through the twisting branches.Tate mentally stiffened, forcing his form to stay slack.Don’t give them anything.
He didn’t need the queen’s consort to announce himself. The very air did it for him. Instantly, the breeze had a colder undercurrent, like a cool autumn night with the latent threat of frost. The air had the taste of apples that had sat rotting for too long on the ground, a cloying curl of smoke that clung too close to the body, and the smell of silver, edged in dried blood.
“Perhaps I’m grieving, you stupid cunt. Ilikedmy job.”
He heard the chuckle before he heard Cadoc’s footfalls, melting from the darkness and falling into step with him, matching his pace without ever quite touching the ground.
