“I know where she is now. ’Tis the market that worries me. Folk there have been wanting to catch a glimpse of the Ashcombe Faery.”
Edith’s gaze sharpened, and for a moment the yard, the horse, the mist, all of it seemed to fall away beneath the force of that older woman’s stare.
“I have a title now?” Amelia shook her head. “That can’t be good.”
Thomas’s jaw tightened. A strange woman was safer inside Ashcombe’s walls, where his people had grown used to her odd words, her lists, her clean-hands tyranny, and the way she asked questions as if she’d come from some far away land. In the market, a wrong phrase or gesture, and Amelia could become a tale before they reached the road home.
Thomas swung into the saddle, settling his weight as Cygnet shifted beneath him. He reached down.
“You’ll hold on to me.”
She looked up at him with a frown. “I know how to hold on.”
“Cygnet’s smooth, but she’s quick. You fall, you’ll crack your fool head.”
“I have ridden a horse before, you know.”
She looked away.
“Once,” she added. “At a work thing in Wyoming.”
“Wyoming?” He frowned. “I know none of those words.”
“That’s probably for the best. It was a terrible weekend. There was trust-building and chili.”
Hob coughed into his fist.
Thomas leaned lower. “Take my arm.”
Her hand closed around his forearm, warm through the linen of his sleeve, and Thomas hauled her up behind him. She landed with a small breathless sound, not quite a squeak, not that he would ever tell her so if he wished to keep his head attached to his shoulders.
For one heartbeat, all he felt was movement, her weight settling behind him, the press of her knee near his thigh, the rustle of wool and linen. Then her arms came carefully around his middle.
Thomas discovered that the inside of his skull, the noisy haunted inside of his skull that had not been quiet in more than a year, went abruptly, perfectly still.
Not peaceful. Peace was too large a mercy. But still.
Amelia shifted. “I’m ready.”
Her voice was muffled near his shoulder.
“I have not ridden a horse like this before.”
“I gathered.”
“There’s no seatbelt.”
“What is a seatbelt?”
Hob coughed.
“It holds you in place as you ride. Then again, why would there be a seatbelt? This is a horse, not an Uber.”
“Uber?” Hob tilted his head. “Are you certain you’re no faery, mistress?”
She huffed out a breath. “It’s like a cart.”
Satisfied, Hob nodded.
