“Oh, I have no doubt about that,” Phelan mused before dropping his head back to stare up at the darkening sky. “Now, go. If you hurry, you can be there and back by sunrise.”
Rourke gave a nod, and the two of us steered our horses to the gates of the castle. The guards waved us through, and soon, we were on our way. Because of the turmoil between the Courts, Rourke and I were forced to go by foot rather than simply rely on our ability to shift. When the Courts were at peace, the boundaries were open, and free access was allowed. By foot, by horse, by wings, or by magic. But those boundaries had been shut down. Now, the only way out was to go back through that archway by the tavern we’d passed on the way in.
Rourke and I were silent as we followed the long and winding path. The summer night rose up around us, just as brilliant and as vibrant as the cloudless sky days. Flora and fauna danced in the soft breeze, almost glowing underneath the light of the full moon. The gurgling stream beside the path was rushing now, and even in the dim light, I could see fish poking out their heads and darting back under the blue.
“Rourke,” I finally said, after what felt like hours upon hours of silence. “I hope you know I truly am sorry. I never should have snapped at you like that, especially not after...”
After everything he’d shared with me.
“You don’t need my forgiveness, Norah. You need a way to protect your mind from the darkness.”
“Yes, but—”
“It’s fine, Norah,” he said. “It is nothing to fret about. Focus on the task at hand. The Wilde Fae will not be easy to deal with, and we need to be on our guard.”
The Wilde Fae. The banished members of faerie society. If a changeling failed to pass at the Academy, the Wilde Fae was what they were forced to join. I’d been warned about them. Kael had told me they were violent and vicious and cruel. And now we were walking straight into one of their villages with nothing more than the weapons on our backs.
But when we arrived at the wooden gates of the village, the snarling, mangy-haired guard would not let us through with our swords.
“You want to come into Yarinya? You’re going to have to surrender your steel. No fancy fae outsiders allowed here in with weapons. We’ve made that mistake before. We won’t make it again.”
The fae guard peered through the small square hatch. He had one green eye and one blue, and his teeth were sharp and pointed. He looked nothing like any of the fae I’d met before, and there was a wildness in his eyes that unnerved me. It felt as though it was impossible to predict what he might to next. In fact, I had the strange certainty that even he didn’t know what whim might capture him.
“We mean no harm. We’re just here to visit Grim and talk to the shopkeeper there. Won’t take long.” Rourke’s voice was smooth and calm, but it didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the guard.
“The shopkeeper, huh?” The guard narrowed his mis-matched eyes. “You’re going to have to hand over your weapons then. Otherwise, you can trot back off to your fancy Autumn lands.”
Rourke frowned. Clearly, the Wilde Fae held a grudge against the Autumn fae just as much as the Summers did. We could stand here and talk all day, but this guard was never going to budge. If we wanted to get inside and search for that stone, we were going to have to lose the swords, a fact that did little to steady my unease about coming here.
“If you’d like to turn back now, Norah, then I—”
“No.” I gave a nod and pulled the sword from my back. “It’s fine. We need to speak to that shopkeeper. So, we’ll let you hang on to our swords until we leave.”
A strange smile spread across the guard’s lips. “Very well then. It’s been a long time since we’ve had visitors.”
I slid my sword and my dagger through the opening in the wooden wall, and Rourke followed suit just behind me. His expression was a mask of pure calm, but there was something in his eyes that told me he wasn’t thrilled about the situation. But neither was I. After we’d handed our weapons to the guard, the gates shuddered as he cranked them away from the ground.
Moments later, Rourke and I were inside the village. It was a small, dark, and dreary place. There were about forty buildings in total. From a quick sweep of the premises, I spotted a tavern. No, wait, that was three taverns. There was some kind of butcher shop, a place that looked as though it sold weapons and clothing, and then there was a small squat little building in the corner. Wooden blocks had been tacked to the front, spelling out the word Grim.
All the windows were lit up by torches or candles, beaming a strange orange glow into the dark of the night. It was a glow that highlighted our surroundings, almost too well. Wilde Fae milled around the dirt-packed ground, cackling and shouting and pounding their fists on their chests. There was a blur of a fight just outside the front steps of one of the taverns, and I swore I saw a trail of blood that led from right where I stood to the front doors of Grim.
“Is it always this lively at night?” I turned toward the guard, but he’d already disappeared back up his little tower overlooking the front gates.
Rourke edged closer to me and gently placed his hand on my elbow. “The Wilde Fae are awake at night. They sleep during the day.”
I stared at him blankly. “So, they’re like vampires.”
“If only.” He tightened his grip on my elbow and steered me toward the little hut in the corner of the village. For that, I was at least grateful. We wouldn’t have to stroll through the throngs of revelling fae. If we were quick enough, they might not even realize we were here.
When we reached the shop, we strode up a creaking set of stairs and reached a door that was covered in claw marks. Deep grooves had been etched into the surface, as if some wild animal had been desperate to get inside. I swallowed hard when Rourke reached out and trailed his hands down the wood, and my spine trembled at the thought of walking inside.
Something didn’t feel right. But of course this place would feel wrong. There was something twisted about the magic of the Wilde Fae, as if their power had corrupted them into what they had become.
“Stay just behind me,” Rourke muttered underneath his breath. “And if I tell you to do something, do it.”
I swallowed hard.
“Promise me, Norah. You’ll follow my commands no matter what.”
“Rourke, you’re scaring me,” I whispered.
“Does that mean you’ll do what I say?”
I nodded.
“Good.” And with that, he pressed against the door to the shop.
My breath was frozen in my lungs as my eyes swept across the interior of the shop. At once, the tension that gripped my shoulders loosened just the slightest of notches. I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d expected—blood dribbling down the walls, maybe. Skeletons waiting to drop from the ceiling. Jars of thumbs and eyeballs.
But Grim looked…surprisingly normal, as far as magical shops in the land of the fae could look normal. Homemade wooden shelves had been propped up along each wall, and they were full with a variety of trinkets, manuscripts, jewellery, and clothes. Along the furthest wall, a long skinny table separated the shop from the keeper’s tiny office. A female fae with bright golden hair sat hunched over some kind of parchment. Her face was about two inches from it, and her tongue was stuck out between her lips.
“If you’re here to cause trouble, you’ll find yourself flat on your backside within seconds.” She ripped her gaze from the parchment and stood a little straighter when she saw me and Rourke hovering by the still-open door. “Oh. Actual visitors. I’m sorry. I thought you were one of those nuisances out there. Well, go on and shut the door. Don’t want to attract their attention, now do we?”
Rourke’s movement was so smooth that I didn’t even see his hand move from the door. The cringes creaked as the heavy wood slammed behind us.