Close to what? Who the hell knows. But my instinct only pulls this hard when I’ve nearly made it to whatever I’m seeking.
I break into a jog. Still cloaked, still wary of my surroundings, but spurred on by the idea of making it out ofthese woods and out of this realm, one step closer to finding a fae queen’s heart.
Around a bend in the path I’ve been following through the woods for the last hour, a clearing comes into view.
Wide and very obviously not made by nature, it opens up before me with a small cottage set right in the center. To one side, a pond of mirror-still water; to the other, a path leading deeper into the forest.
My instinct quiets.
I’m here.
I take a few tentative steps forward, eyes darting to the forest, the cottage, the pond, and back again. Tense and waiting for an attack, a wire to be tripped, some malevolent fae to come screaming out of the cottage with teeth bared, lunging for my throat, I imagine a hundred different ways I could die in the next few seconds.
None of them come to pass.
As my eyes adjust to the bright light of the clearing out of the shadow of the woods, I suck in a surprised breath.
This place might have been beautiful once.
Unlike the queen’s horrible court and the living death of the forest, there are signs of true life here.
There are signs of beauty here.
The grounds and gardens around the little cottage have seen better days, and are strangely leached of their color—dusty shades of green and sage—but if I squint my eyes and imagine a little, I can see how beautiful it would have been in the height of whatever kind of summer they have in this realm.
A place out of a fairytale.
The sort of place I’d initially been expecting when I stepped foot in Faerie. Sun-dappled and vibrant, alive with blooms and birdsong.
Now, though, it’s a hollow echo of what it might once have been.
Quiet, but not the threatening quiet of the woods. A deep melancholy permeates this place. An aching sort of loneliness that even colors the magick in the air—heavy and oppressive just like the woods, but in a way that puts a lump in the back of my throat.
I give my head a hard shake.
Now’s not the time to dwell on it. It’s not the time to guess what sort of magick or curse might be at play here.
I’ve got a heart to find.
It only takes a minute for me to pick my way from the edge of the forest to the center of the clearing where the cottage sits short and stout and adorable. Like something you’d see in the English countryside, a children’s book illustration that might have a kindly old grandmother living in it.
It’s ringed by a fence that’s also seen better days, the gate falling right off its hinges when I swing it open. Stepping over the worn wooden planks, a sharp pulse of magick zips through me.
It steals all the air right out of my lungs.
I try to step back, and I’m pinned in place, lost in a well of power that feels like an angry swarm of bees, buzzing and stinging against my skin. I try to scream, but nothing comes out. I’m completely at its mercy, nothing to do, no way to run, stuck here until I—
Just as suddenly as the magick started, it stops.
I run my hands over my face, my body, feeling for blood or any sign of injury.
I find none.
The lingering bite of the magick recedes, and I realize.
It took my invisibility spell with it. The handful of protective wards and warning charms I cast around myself when I started my journey here are gone, too, and I feel suddenly naked withoutthem. Exposed, vulnerable, way too fucking unprotected in this cursed realm. All my nerve endings light up, only to be set even further on edge by a sharp noise cutting through the stillness of the clearing.
“Sesrena! Solhrev, sel esa!”
