I push the bowl away, half-finished.
What could you possibly help with?
That’s the question, isn’t it? Everything I’ve been taught my whole life is useless here. I’m nothing. What is the word Cairn calls me?Moirthalen. Pampered princess.
He’s right about that too. But I’mnotgoing back.
I leave the bowl and pitcher on the table and walk outside. The village looks different in full daylight, and I’m shocked at how openly the fae seem to be here.
A fae woman is hanging laundry outside a small cottage. Her ears come to delicate points, visible with the way her hair has been styled, and her skin carries a faint silver sheen in the sunlight. Across the street, a human man calls out something about the weather, and she laughs, waving back at him.
Two fae sit on a bench near the well, moving carved pieces across a wooden board in a game I don’t know. An old human woman walks past them, and stops to chat. The air fills with their voices and laughter.
This shouldn’t exist.
Everything I was taught says this isn’t possible. Fae and humans can’t live together, or exist side by side.
Fae are dangerous. Fae are animals. Fae must be controlled, or they’ll enslave us all.
These fae aren’t enslaving anyone. They’re living alongside humans like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
No one pays me any attention as I wander through thevillage, so I walk until my feet ache, and I’ve seen every street twice over. And while I walk, I think.
About Nella, my father, Merina, and the life I’ll never go back to.
And I think about Cairn.
Luchairn Vaedráfn. I say it in my head, careful not to let it pass my lips.
The Hell-Thorn. The Lord of the Wild Hunt. The monster in old childhood tales.
The fae male who knows my body in ways no one else does.
As if I’ve conjured him out of my thoughts, I see him. He’s coming from the direction of the forge, alone, head lowered, hands shoved deep into his pockets as he walks. I must make a sound because his head lifts, and our eyes meet. He gives me a small nod, and keeps walking toward the inn.
“Are you serious?” I snap the words out before I can stop myself.
He stops.
“You’re just going to walk past me? After everything?”
He turns slowly. “What would you have me do?”
“I don’t know!” I close the distance between us. “Something.Anything. You told me to go inside, and then you vanished.”
“I had things to do.”
“Things to do.” I stop a few feet away from him, close enough to see the gold of his eyes but far enough that I don’t have to tilt my head back to look into his face. “Right. Too busy to even—” My face turns hot. The words I want to say are stuck somewhere between my chest and my throat, tangled up with shame and anger.
“To even what?” His voice is quiet.
“To evenlookat me. I gave myself to you last night. I let you do things to me I’ve never let anyone do. And now you won’t even look at me!”
Something flares in his eyes, there and gone before I can read it. “That was the bargain. You held up your end. I held up mine.”
“Is that all it was?”
Silence.
