Panic threatened to close her throat. Elodie forced herself to breathe—in through her nose, out through her mouth, just like the meditation app she’d downloaded and only used once had told her.
Facts. She needed to focus on the facts.
Fact. As far as she could tell, she was no longer at Baldridge Manor.
Fact. The necklace was gone, as was her phone.
Fact. Her faerie queen costume was soaked, plastered to her body, and she was barefoot.
Fact. It was getting dark, and she had no idea which direction to go to get back to the manor.
She’d never been good with directions. If someone asked her which way, she’d confidently say, “Turn right,” and of course it would be the wrong direction. Elodie adored the maps app on her phone and hadn’t gotten lost in years.
“Okay.” She was talking to herself. This was fine. Talking helped her think. “Okay, Elodie. You’re an academic. You solveproblems for a living. This is just... this is just a temporary problem.”
She turned in a slow circle, trying to get her bearings. The storm had come from the north—or was it the east? If she could figure out which direction she was facing, maybe she could spot that castle ruin or?—
A sound cut through the evening air. Steel on steel. The unmistakable ring of sword meeting sword. Elodie froze. Voices followed—shouts, grunts, a scream that cut off with horrible abruptness. The sounds of battle, coming from somewhere beyond the trees.
Close. Too close. Every instinct screamed at her to run, but in which direction? The fighting was ahead of her, but she didn’t know what was behind. If she ran blind in the forest, she might stumble straight into something worse. Maybe she’d fallen and hit her head and this was all a dream?
The clash of weapons intensified. She heard hoofbeats now, and what might have been orders being barked in a language that sounded almost like English, but rougher, the vowels shaped differently.
Medieval English, her brain supplied, completely unhelpfully.That sounds like Middle English. Possibly late twelfth century, based on the phonetic patterns.
Lady Baldridge had gone all out with the entertainment for the party. Or, Elodie was having a nervous breakdown. That was another explanation. The lightning strike had done something to her brain, and now she was hallucinating an elaborate medieval fantasy while she lay dying in Lady Baldridge’s garden.
Except the ground felt real beneath her bare feet. The warm evening air carried the scent of May blossoms and damp earth. The blood on her knee had started to dry, pulling at her skin. If this were a hallucination, it was the most detailed one in medicalhistory. The sounds of fighting stopped. Silence fell, broken only by the wind in the branches and Elodie’s own ragged breathing.
Then she heard the sound of heavy footsteps. Coming toward her. She looked around wildly for somewhere to hide, but the clearing offered nothing—just open grass and the ring of ancient oaks, but that’s where the sounds were coming from. No cover. No escape.
Figures emerged from the trees.
The last bandit died badly.
Gareth pulled his blade from the man’s chest and let the body drop into the bracken. Around him, his men were finishing the work—quick, efficient, the way he’d trained them. No prisoners. Bandits who preyed on travelers near Greywatch lands didn’t warrant the expense of a trial.
He cleaned his sword on the dead man’s tunic, taking stock. Five bandits. None of his own men were injured beyond scrapes and bruises. A good outcome. Sir Miles was already directing the cleanup, his gruff voice carrying through the trees as he ordered bodies dragged off the road. The air smelled of blood and churned earth. Gareth sheathed his blade and turned toward the horses?—
The sky split open. One moment, clear twilight filtered through the canopy. Next, clouds boiled from nowhere, black and swollen with unnatural speed. Lightning cracked so close Gareth felt his hair rise. His destrier screamed and reared, and around him horses bolted, men cursed—“Merde!God’s blood!”—someone cried out to the old gods for protection.
Gareth caught his mount’s reins and forced the animal steady through sheer will. His eyes swept the chaos, countinghis men, assessing threats. The storm had come out of a clear sky.Everything about it felt wrong—the copper taste in the air, the way the thunder seemed to come from the ground as much as the sky.
Then he heard it. A woman’s voice, thin against the fury of the storm. Calling out. Not screaming—calling, as if expecting an answer.
He signaled Miles.Then he moved into the trees, following the sound. The clearing opened before him like a wound in the forest. Lightning illuminated everything in stuttering flashes—ancient oaks, rain-flattened grass, and in the center, something that stopped him cold.
A woman. But not like any woman he’d ever seen.
She was made of gossamer and moonlight, or so it appeared in the storm-light. Her gown clung to her, soaked through, pale fabric that seemed to shimmer faintly. Flowers crowned her hair—bedraggled now, but unmistakably a crown of blossoms. And on her back were what looked like wings.
She was turning in circles, talking to herself in an accent he’d never heard, words tumbling out faster than rain.
“—not possible, this isn’t possible, okay, don’t panic, there has to be an explanation?—”
Behind him, Hugh’s voice cut through the thunder. “Christ’s bones. Is that?—”
“Fae.” The whisper came from another man.
