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He lifts his hand, flicks it, and the guards are wrenched from where they stand like they’ve been hit with a battering ram. They fly across the room and smash into the wall. There are screams as I hear bones crack, and a spray of scarlet when at least one head connects with the hard stone. I gasp, despite myself. A few minutes ago, these men were the biggest threat to my well-being, now they lie in a crumpled pile as if they were nothing more than broken toy soldiers.
Some of them could be dead, but I don’t have time to find out as a strong, surprisingly warm hand seizes my wrist. Ruskin pulls me to him, so I’m flush against his tall, hard frame, then steers us to the window.
“You can’t!” I start to protest as I realize what he’s thinking. “We’re too high.”
His eyes narrow dangerously, and I realize that the deal we’ve made might keep me alive, but it doesn’t prevent him from hurting me.
“You’re thinking only in helpless, human terms,” he says, as he lifts me into his arms and steps up onto the window frame. A moment later we’re plummeting downwards.
I scream, but the whooshing air snatches the sound away as the moat rushes up to meet us. He’s going to kill me, but I don’t think he means to, and I have just a moment to wonder if this fae monster understands how fragile humans are before I brace myself for impact.
The hard, icy water I expect to slam into my face never comes. We break the surface of the moat, but it opens up to swallow us like some gaping, bottomless mouth. There’s a moment of darkness, where my ears pop and gentle pressure squeezes me on all sides, then light spills across my vision and we’re standing at the edge of a pond, perfectly dry. I have seconds to take in our new location—a fence nearby and countryside beyond—before Ruskin’s strong grasp is pulling me down again into the blackness.
I glimpse flashes of Styrland—fields, gardens, even a busy street, each one becoming visible for a moment as we emerge out of ponds and puddles and then plunge back down again. I can’t catch my breath, and the constant carousel of locations makes me dizzy.
Until we finally come to a stop in the shadows of twisting branches and a canopy of golden leaves.
An awful, heavy feeling climbs into my gut. Those aren’t just any trees. We’re in the Kilda.
The market is the closest any sane person gets to the border between Styrland and Faerie. Everyone knows never to step into the Kilda—the dense, eternally vibrant woods beyond. It’s within the human realm technically, but dangerous things lurk here, strange magics. The gates to Faerie are said to be located somewhere within its furthest depths, ready for a human to be snatched through, or to find willingly, perhaps, if they wear the right charm and go walking among the elms at midnight on a full moon. But if things can go in, then things can come out, and though fae are only supposed to visit Styrland on sanctioned market days, that doesn’t stop the wild beasts of Faerie getting loose on any day they choose…
Or, it seems, Ruskin Blackcoat.
I stare at him now, realizing that in order to make all his deals, to respond to the call whenever a human utters it, he must break the treaty all the time. And if rules mean nothing to him, then I’m in big trouble.
“This isn’t my home,” I say, but my rising panic is having a strange effect on my voice, and the words come out slurred.
“I know,” he grunts, not even looking at me.
My head is still spinning and I’m beginning to think it’s not my fear that’s slowing down my speech or fogging my thoughts. Then my knees buckle under me and shadows dance at the edges of my vision. For a moment I think Ruskin’s pulled me back through some watery portal, but no, I realize he’s only taking hold of me now, firm hands on my elbows, catching me as I slip into the abyss.
Chapter 6
It’s warm when I wake. Not with the kind of heat offered by the red-hot fires of my workshop or the extravagant blazes in Albrecht’s halls. This is gentle, caressing my face like a soft breeze. It feels like…spring. The winters of Styrland are so long and bleak, I’d almost forgotten what it was like for the air not to have a bite to it.
I open my eyes, grogginess clouding my head at first—but it doesn’t take me long to realize that I’m not in my bed at home—or even in my bedroom at the castle. When my brain actually begins to make sense of what I’m seeing, it all comes together with a jolt. I sit up, head aching with the sudden movement, and note with surprise that the rest of me is comfortable, cushioned by the exquisitely plump futon I’m lying on.
That’s…not what I expected. Of all the whispered rumors of the dreadful things Ruskin Blackcoat has done to the humans foolish or desperate enough to seek his aid, no one ever mentioned being left to sleep in a comfortable bed.
Comfortable—and beautiful. Four walls surround me, but if it weren’t for them, I’d think I was in a garden. Whatever ceiling there might be is hidden by a sea of green vines, festooned with blousy peach flowers. They climb all the way down the stone, right to the floor, where they meet a carpet of moss. Furnishings are thrown into the mix haphazardly, like whoever put the room together saw no difference between man-made items and natural decoration. The moss gives way to silky rugs, woven in vibrant patterns that mimic the plants around them. The smell of the place is gorgeous.
Despite my disorientation I inhale deeply, the delicate floral notes enveloping me.
“Oh, good—you’re awake,” says a familiar voice, dancing across my skin like the tip of a knife.
My head snaps round. Ruskin looks different. The person I met in Albrecht’s castle seemed part-animal, part-man, but now he looks distinctly more refined. There’s no trace of the claws he threatened me with, no horns, and, most noticeably, he watches me now with eyes that have round, black pupils in the center of his yellow-green irises. Still otherworldly, but not quite as frightening.
Where before he perfectly fit the character in childhood nightmares, now he looks more like the kind of fae storytellers write epic tales about: ethereal, stunning. He’s perched on a beautifully carved high-backed chair, long legs crossed lazily, and the thin fabric of his shirt draped loosely over what I can tell is a sculpted chest and stomach. A face to inspire poets and a body to drive any artist to pick up their brush.
But I don’t let his casual pose and new face fool me; he’s still as deadly as a wolf even without his beastly features.
“Did you enchant me?” I ask. I want it to sound like a demand, but I’m too afraid of the answer and even I can hear the waver in my voice.
He grins, and though his teeth aren’t the sharp points they were before, it’s still unsettling.
“If you mean your little nap, then no. It happens sometimes, when humans first cross over to Faerie. They find our magic overwhelming.”
Something breaks inside me. Of course, I knew. Knew it from our trip to the Kilda and the strangeness of the room around me, but it’s one thing to sense it and another to accept the truth hitting you right in the face.
