But I don’t think I have.
I square my shoulders. “The Dark Gibbet is mine and I need to go back.”
“This is the Underhill. Going back, even to the Night Lands, is not easy, if, indeed, it is possible.”
“I’ve never heard of the Underhill.” I glare at the Brag who is looking weirdly at home in this misty place, which is boggy underfoot.
“Not many have,” he says. “Few have visited and returned to tell any tales.”
I blow out a long breath.
“Well, we’re here now. How about you tell me what you know and perhaps we can work out together what to do about being here.”
Warden cocks his head on one side, and his gaze rakes over me. The strange light of this place reflects on his face, and while I might have consciously decided he didn’t look like a bag of spanners, here and now he is incredibly handsome. Sharp cheekbones, romanesque nose, eyes which hold so much promise, and the cute little horns peeking out from his mass of hair, presently pulled back into a low ponytail secured by a leather band and specked with both gold and straw.
“I like it,” he says, with a slow blink. “What are you, my lady? Because I’ve never met your like before.”
“I am…” No one has ever askedwhatI am.
I think everyone presumed I was a witch like Millie, Hilda, and Edith. They had no magic and I had no magic. But I’m not sure I am a witch. And if I’m not a witch, what am I?
“I am Lady Ryle,” I finish, attempting to sound confident. “Landlady of the Dark Gibbet.”
Warden slowly circles me with an almost predatory gait.
“Is that so?”
“Look, let’s cut the crap. We can’t stay here.Ican’t stay here, I’ve a tavern to run, so what do we do?”
Warden stops in front of me.
“The Underhill is a place some say doesn’t exist, but then they haven’t spent as much time with the Faerie as I have,” he says folding his arms over his massive chest. “It is the place they all hope to find the entry to because it contains magic they can only dream of.”
“So why are we here? Neither of us are Faerie, nor magical,” I demand.
“I do not know, my lady,” Warden intones. “But, like you, I have a profession waiting for me back in the Night Lands, and we should find a way out of the Underhill, preferably alive in your case.”
“What about you?” I respond. “I don’t exactly want a centaur with a death wish by my side.”
“I have no death wish as you put it,” Warden says, taking a step closer to me and making my head spin with his proximity. “Because I cannot die.”
“You can’t die?” I huff out a short bark of a laugh. “Not possible.”
“It is entirely possible, my lady.” Warden grasps my hand, the one which still has hold of the dagger.
And he plunges it into his chest.
HAZEL
“NO!” I bellow, wrenching my hand away from Warden and in the process pulling my dagger out.
Crimson blood wells from the wound.
I stare at him, then down at my hand, covered in his blood. “What did you make me do?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Warden says, pulling a red and white spotted hanky from his pocket and wiping it over the wound.
When the fabric is gone, it is as if nothing happened to him at all. No cut, no blood, nothing.
