In a few minutes, the sound of Skye’s car rumbled up to the cabin. Kit met Livy at the back door and let her in. She looked shaken, her lips set, cheeks flushed from the cold air. Grady and Skye came into the kitchen as well.
“Okay, so,” Livy said, “I didn’t see or hear the goblins, but I met the other fae. The ones who aren’t weeds.” She set her keys on the island counter.
“Weeds?” Kit said.
“You know. Invaders. That’s—the others kept calling the goblins weeds. I don’t know, it stuck with me.” She took a thick gold ring from her jeans pocket and rolled it between her finger and thumb. “This, too. I need to keep this.”
The other three exchanged glances. “What’s with the ring, there, Frodo?” Kit joked, examining her carefully.
Livy gave him an annoyed glance. That reassured him; she looked decidedly un-enchanted. “This was weird, all right? I’m still processing it.” She set down the ring in the middle of the counter, where they all stared at it. “They gave me this. It makes it so I can see and hear them, if I summon them and if they answer.”
“So the locals do exist. Damn.” Kit scowled at the ring. “I’ve never seen them.”
“Kind of surprising, for someone who meets with goblins every month,” she said.
“Not really. It’s because I’m meeting with the goblins. Makes the good ones stay away from me. Anyway. What did they say?”
“Well. They said there’s hope.” Livy looked across at Skye, who listened, silent but attentive. “I…apparently can’t act until the goblins make their move, though. That is, when they actually take you. When you…go to them.”
Skye’s chest lifted and fell in a tremulous breath, and she looked toward the window at the back of the house that faced the woods. Rather than seeming scared or angry, she wore a look of what Kit would have called longing, like she was already distant from the human world. Then she snapped out of it, pulled her gaze back to Livy, and nodded. But that look had worried Kit, and surely Livy too.
“I’ll go after you when that happens,” Livy went on, her voice unsteady. “They’ll help me, they said. I guess I find out the details at that point. They did say that, whatever it is I have to do, it might even take down the goblins for good.”
“Then I want to help,” Kit said. “I don’t know how much the liaison spell will let me. The rules are weird. Whatever I can do, I will. You know I want to be free of this.”
Livy nodded. “I know. But they only mentioned me. They said it had to be me.”
“Still, there ought to be something we can do. Me and Grady. Right?” Kit looked over at his cousin, who stood with his arm entwined in Skye’s. The bottom dropped out of Kit’s stomach. Grady was gazing out toward the woods with the exact same expression that Skye had worn a minute ago. “Right, Grady?” Kit said, louder.
Grady drew his attention back to Kit. He didn’t nod. He didn’t say anything. He just breathed in and out, shallowly, nostrils flaring with each breath. Kit and Livy stared at him in silent dread, but Skye only watched him sorrowfully. Finally Grady stepped away, picked up Skye’s sketchbook from the side table, and brought it to them. He set it on the counter, opened to the drawing of Redring. He looked straight at Kit.
“No,” Kit said hoarsely. “Not you too.”
Grady swallowed. A shimmer of reflected light in his eyes suggested tears.
Kit curled up his fists, wheeled away, sought something to punch, and, finding nothing suitable, settled for shoving the box of notebooks off the counter. It crashed and spilled on the kitchen floor. “How?” he shouted. “You were protected! I set it up, goddammit!”
Skye and Grady looked at each other in sadness, then looked silently at Livy and Kit again.
“I…” Livy blinked rapidly, distressed. “I could try summoning the other fae again. I could ask them. Maybe they know.”
“Oh, I am going to ask the goblins myself.” Kit stormed back and forth, kicking a notebook out of the way. “This is—no. How did they…” He pushed his hair off his face with both hands, and blew out a long breath. “God, man. I’m sorry.”
Grady gave a nod. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“No, don’t you be sorry—argh.” Kit went back to pacing. “I see. You’re echoing. Fucking great.”
No one said anything. Misery settled on the room, thick as snow.
“Well,” Livy said at last, her voice hushed, “tonight there may not be a lot we can do. It’s kind of late. We haven’t even had dinner. Have you guys eaten?”
Kit shook his head, still prowling the room, and Grady murmured, “No. We have leftovers.”
“Yeah.” Kit did an about-face and headed for the nail by the door where his keys hung. “Start heating those up. My turn to go out.” He grabbed the keys and slammed out of the cabin.
It was almost nine p.m. now, though it felt to Livy like she’d already been up all night. It had been around five when she came home and told Skye the crazy thing Kit had said. Just four hours ago, and her world had been completely changed.
Livy and Grady pulled food out of the fridge, creating a buffet on the counters. Lining it up, she realized what she should have noticed at home: over the past two weeks, his cooking had gotten less and less ambitious. Plain cooked pasta, pre-packaged shredded parmesan, unadorned green salad, bottled dressing, carrot sticks, rotisserie chicken cooked by the store, hard-boiled eggs—none of that, now that she thought about it, compared in the slightest to coconut curry soup or tandoori steak wraps with mint or any of the other wonders Grady used to make. God, how had she neglected to pick up on that? Or on the fact that she hadn’t seen him smile recently?
They were eating in near-silence when Kit returned. Livy gasped when she saw him, and leaped off her barstool.
“Jesus,” Grady said, staring at his cousin.
Kit pulled the bloodstained towel from his nose, leaving red smears all over the lower half of his face. “Looks worse than it is. It’s not broken.” He limped to the sink and started cupping water in his hands to rinse his face.
Livy darted to his side. “What did they do?”
“My fault. I have a habit of trying to attack them when they piss me off.” Kit squeezed the towel under the tap, sending rivulets of bloodstained water down the drain.
“Oh my God. Why are you limping?”
“One of them smacked me against a log. Nothing broken there either. Just a bad bruise.”
Skye and Grady came around the kitchen island to him.
Kit pulled a fresh paper towel off the roll, wiped his nose and mouth, and turned to face them, leaning against the counter. “So,” he told Grady, “what they claim is, they didn’t enchant you. She did.” He nodded toward Skye. “I gather it was because she kissed you. Chose you as her ‘mate’ somehow.”
Skye dropped her gaze as if she couldn’t bear to meet anyone’s eyes. She looked so ashamed Livy couldn’t take it. Grady didn’t seem surprised at all; he only glanced down solemnly at her, and brushed her hand with his fingers as if to forgive her.