“It’s not a very satisfying story.” Folly hugs his knees. “I grew up in a little village, and every summer night, fireflies danced in the fields. I used to sneak out to watch them, after I was supposed to be asleep.”
“I used to do the same.” The memory tugs a smile from Yarrow’s lips. “Except with pixies, not fireflies.”
Folly glances up, a question clearly on his lips. But he doesn’t ask. “I would crawl out through the window. I liked visiting the neighbor’s pasture, because it was wide open to the stars. Their guard dogs knew me and never barked.”
Yarrow leans back on his hands. “Sneaking out and trespassing. I wouldn’t have pegged you for such a disobedient child.”
“I was bolder back then. I didn’t know how many things I should be afraid of.” Folly’s smile is a little wistful. Then it vanishes. “A few nights before midsummer, when I was seven years old, I snuck out like usual. I danced with the fireflies. I got home, and everything was just like normal. Except…” His hands twist together. “Except the neighbor’s dogs barked. And my shoes were soaked through, even though I never crossed the creek. “
The story has a cadence. Like Folly has recited it again and again, even if only in his own head. Yarrow feels a pang in his heart. As if his own story echoes in the shadows between memories.
Folly’s hands twist again. “I worried my shoes wouldn’t dry out by morning, and Mother would be mad. But she never noticed my shoes. When I came into the kitchen the next morning, she took one look at me and dropped the porridge.”
“You don’t know who gave it to you?” Yarrow asks, frowning. He hadn’t expected a name, but a description, at least.
Folly shakes his head. “Nobody gave it to me. It just happened.”
Yarrow doesn’t know much about humans, but he knows the fae well. Such powers aren’t given out lightly. There’s a chance Folly acquired the eye by accident, like the curse binding them together now. But even in that case, there would be a culprit.
“Some fae gave you that eye,” Yarrow says, certain. “But it wasn’t a gift.”
“What do you mean?” Folly asks quietly. None of the angry bravado he showed on his knees. None of the storytelling cadence.
This mystery is worth Yarrow’s guidance and shelter, but it isn’t a happy discovery. “It was a trade. The fae took something of yours in exchange.”
Folly touches beneath his eye. His gaze slides away, into the deepening darkness.
Everything has a price. Anything can be traded away. Some choices are a pebble in a pond. The water ripples, then stills. Other choices are an acorn thrown into a river. The water rushes on, ever-changing and unchanged, as the acorn tumbles into the mud.
Until the acorn surfaces. Takes root.
Summerstars wreath the surrounding trees, reflecting the moonlight onto the human’s slim form. His face doesn’t shimmer. It gleams instead with a subtlety Yarrow finds captivating.
If only Yarrow was a slightly worse person. He could have let Folly repay him on his knees, and learned whether Folly’s lips are as soft as they look.
That would beggar the pleasure of wondering, though.
When Folly looks at him again, Yarrow expects a question. Or disbelief. Instead, Folly seems to see straight through him. “You talk like you aren’t one of them. One of the fae.”
Now it’s Yarrow’s turn to look away. Old rejections sting. The otherness used to bother him, though he revels in it now. “I’m fae. But I’m unfae too. That makes a difference.”
Really. It doesn’t bother him.
“I’ve never seen a fae with horns before.” Folly sounds more confident now that he isn’t talking about himself. “Is it rude to ask what you are?”
Yarrow chuckles. Rolls his head around, and touches the tip of his horn. “Being rude might do you some good, little human. My mother’s name is Crocus. She’s high fae. She used to live inHaelwen’s court, but she lives in Spiritwood now. My father’s a satyr she met one particularly exciting solstice.”
“A satyr?” Folly repeats, eyes wide. “I’ve never seen a satyr before either.”
Yarrow points. “Stop that.”
Folly tucks his hands under his knees, as if Yarrow cares about him twisting his sleeves. “Stop what?”
Yarrow wags his finger. “You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?” Folly asks. His eyes are so wide and innocent.
Yarrow knows better. This always happens. “The thing where you imagine my mother having sex with a goat-man.”
