I quicken my steps until we’re walking next to each other. “She’ll be fine,” I whisper.
My words don’t seem to give him much comfort. His smile is tight and doesn’t touch his eyes. “Thank you.”
Ahead of us, Rhion slows. We’ve reached the cottage.
It sits in a circular clearing in the woods, bathed in a perfect beam of yellow sunlight. It’s constructed of the same pastel stone as the path, with an arched wooden front door and window boxes spilling over with flowers.
Marion points to the chimney, puffing smoke into the clear blue sky. “Someone is home.”
“Shit,” Rhion hisses. “I feared this might be the case.”
He marches up to the door and pulls the handle, but it doesn’t budge. “You’re trespassing!” he calls as his fists pound the door.
The door opens a crack, revealing one large green eye at the height of Rhion’s knee. “We weren’t expecting visitors,” a reedy voice answers.
Rhion puts his hands on his hips and looks down. “It’s my cottage.”
The door swings fully open and a hand with long, sharp fingers waves us in. “Come in, come in, then!”
Marion looks calculating.
“Should we stay out here?” I ask.
“I might trust the woods less than I trust the cottage. Besides, he can’t be more than four feet tall, right? We could overpower him.”
The five of us shuffle into the cottage and the door slams behind us.
I blink rapidly as my eyes adjust to the sudden low light. The creature who waved us through the door isn’t alone. I spot six others in my immediate eyeline bustling around the cottage. One has a feather duster and is climbing up the curtains; another stirs a boiling pot of soup on the hearth.
“Let us offer you something to drink,” the one from the door says. He’s got a mostly human face, but a mouth that seems slightly too full of teeth. His clothes are dark green, constructed of leaves sewn together, and on his head, he wears a top hat. In fact, they’re all wearing strange headwear. The one at the hearth is balancing a pot on his head; another wears a massive, upside-down flower.
“No,” Rhion replies with a gracious wave. “We won’t be staying long.”
“The cottage was vacant when we found it,” the creature at the hearth pipes up.
“We haven’t been here in many years,” Rhion explains. “But I fear the king may not take kindly to your presence, if it is discovered.”
“Will you tell him?” the one by the hearth asks.
“I will not,” Rhion answers. I immediately like him a little better, because I can tell he means it.
It’s strange to see such small beings in a cottage clearly meant to accommodate much larger men, like Bram and Rhion. The cottage itself is homey, if a little dark. Dust-flecked beams of light stream through star-shaped windows, and the furniture is mostly navy-blue and deep purple. In addition to the overstuffed armchairs and sofa, there is an array of carved wooden chairs. It’s hard to determine what decor was Bram and Rhion’s and what belongs to their squatters. In front of the hearth, a row of strange animal skulls are strung up, and I have to hope they’re a more recent addition.
My nose stings with the smell of firewood, herbs, and something slightly metallic.
Marion, Emmett, and I sink uneasily onto the sofa in the middle of the room, and Rhion positions himself protectively in the chair nearest Lydia.
Despite our insistence that we didn’t want anything to drink, another man appears at our feet and pushes a pewter cup into each of our hands. They’re full of a dark liquid that smells of wet dirt. Rhion shakes his head slightly, a sign not to drink, but I didn’t need his warning.
“We’re here on an errand,” Rhion explains. “I’m looking for a knife a friend of mine left here a few hundred years ago. It would probably be in the back of a wardrobe. If you’ll allow me to lookaround—” At the suggestion, every one of the cottage’s inhabitants freezes. The stirring halts. The dusting stops. A scrub brush drips water onto the floor from where it’s held in midair.
“No!” the one from the door answers. “That won’t be necessary. We’ll bring you every knife we have and you can tell us if it is the correct one.”
Before we can protest, they scurry off in a dozen different directions. Crashes and clangs come from the adjacent rooms, and soon they reappear, their arms full of items wrapped in a rainbow of fabric scraps and old rags.
“I’ll go first!” one wearing a stocking cap pipes up.
He lays an object about the size of my forearm, wrapped in a dish towel, on Rhion’s lap and then looks up at him expectantly. Rhion rolls his eyes, then reaches into his pocket and fishes out a ruby brooch.
