7
Talia
Ireally don’t like that I have to trust Ronan. He could be leading me anywhere. As much as I’d like to pretend that I’m in the park, it’s obvious that I’m not. And I’m trying hard not to gasp and be amazed and ask him questions. I don’t want to ask him anything. This is his fault, and he’s going to find a way to fix it.
But questions fill my mouth.
Where is faery, exactly?
Why is everything so big, or did we shrink?
They build until I can’t keep them in. “I’m not talking to you because I like you, but I need answers.”
He is the prettiest man I have ever seen, tall and muscular, with cheekbones I could cut myself on. He could’ve brought me here and run off or left me in the human world thinking I was losing my mind seeing monsters. How many monsters have I walked past? Have I brushed death and not realized?
I swallow hard.
“I’ll do my best,” he says.
He’d better. He owes me. “How did we get here?”
He pulls a necklace free from his shirt. There are three disks. “Metal, wood, and stone from here. I then added my blood to complete the spell.”
That makes perfect sense to him. Maybe I need to accept that magic and monsters are now part of my reality. If the fae are real, why not? “And here is?”
“Faery.”
“No, where is it? Do I need to take the interstate home, or climb a beanstalk?”
He lifts my hand, then puts both of his over the top. His touch sends a spark through me that almost makes me pull away. “If your world is your hand, the outer realms is in the middle and faery is at the top.” He releases me. “But there is more than one outer realm. There is no interstate or beanstalk, but there is a path. I do not recommend it.”
“Because of monsters.”
He nods.
“But I can get home that way.” How long is the path? Is it a brisk half a day walk or is it months of hard slog with monsters snapping at my heels?
He presses his lips together. “In theory, yes. But time moves differently between the realms. I don’t know how long I’ve been away from home for.”
“How long have you been in my world?” It sounds weird on my tongue. My world? Until today I thought it the only world.
“One hundred and ten years, or thereabouts.”
My mouth falls open. He doesn’t look old enough to drink, I’d card him if I worked in a bar.
“How old are you?”
“I’m not sure. Twenty-three fae years plus the human years?” He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter.”
But the closer we get to the trees—which are much farther away than I realized because of their size. The more tense he becomes. If he’s worried, should I be? He killed a monster with glee, and now he’s stressed.
Without me asking questions, silence stretches between us.
By the time we draw close, people, faeries I guess, notice us. We don’t look like them, dressed in our human clothes. They wear bright clothes cut in a way that reminds me of something from the past and yet totally different.
A bell rings.
“That’s our arrival announcement. The court will convene.”
