He stumbled behind the hut to the animal shelter, desperate for any sign of his daughter. The goats lay undisturbed beneath the stable’s roof, and the four horses shared by theclachanstood quietly in their stalls.
Not a single beast stirred with unease. Strange. These creatures would be skittish from both the thunder and a wandering child, yet they rested as if the night had passed without incident.
No toddler had crossed their path.
A chill traveled up his spine. One that brought words to him from his sire’s deathbed.
“The faeries will get you.”
“Never return to Islay.”
“The fae are evil.”
He shook his head to rid his mind of his father’s rantings. This had nothing to do with the fae.
“Heilyn?”
Naught.
There were four more cottages to search. His sister Catrina lived in one with her husband Arne and their young son Milo. His brother Roger and wife Gormela lived in the next hut with their two young sons. The other two cottages held Edan’s two friends and their families.
Who to awaken first?
As he strode toward his brother’s place, his gaze searched the area, the sunrise bringing a bit of light to the area, but he saw nothing unusual. They’d built thisclachanfive years ago after coming to Islay. He, his brother, and his sister had lived in a small hut with their father on Jura until he died, and they’d agreed to move to Islay and build their own homes near Finlaggan.
His father had warned him about Islay with his dying breath. Clutching Edan’s hand, he’d whispered secrets about the isle, the kind of dark, unsettling tales that no lad could stomach. At nine and ten, Edan had dismissed them as the fevered ramblings of a fading mind. Faery stories, he’d thought. Nothing but old legends meant to frighten children. So he’d buried thosewarnings deep and fled Jura as soon as he could, determined to leave his father’s superstitions behind.
Was there such a thing as a spell to send the faeries away?
He stopped walking.
The beasts. The silence. The lightning with no rain to follow it. All wrong, in ways his warrior’s instincts recognized even as his reasoning fought them. The kind of wrongness that didn’t come from weather or wandering bairns. His father’s voice rose up from wherever he’d buried it:They take what they are owed, son. And sometimes what they are not.He’d called the old man mad. Yet every tale his father had told had begun with the same warning, that the fae did not take kindly to those who forgot them.
He was no longer so certain.
Nay. He’d find her. All he had to do was be thorough. His daughter had shown how clever she was, climbed up to unlatch the door, and made her way outside. The lass could be sleeping in Auntie Catrina’s arms right now. His daughter adored both of her aunts.
That was it. She’d found a way in and was sleeping with either Aunt Catrina or Aunt Gormela. She had to be. He shook his head at all the foolishness filling his mind, chastising himself for his silly thoughts.
Faeries. Tales. Islay having a thin shield that was easy for the faeries to cross.
Heilyn was a curious child. That was it. He stood in front of Roger’s cottage, his hand readying to knock on the door when he heard a sound from behind him. The door to his sister’s cottage was flung open.
A scream rent the air.
He whirled around, looked at the expression on his sister’s face after her gaze searched the area, and knew that their world was about to turn upside-down.
She held something tight in her fist. She waved it in the air, and shouted, “Milo! He’s gone!”
“Curse it.”
Heilyn and Milo had disappeared.
Chapter Two
Ailith
Ailith Grant crept across the moor in the dark of the night, moving from tree to tree, hiding behind the wide trunks along the way. Reaching into the fold in her gown, she pulled out three of her favorite stones, the ones she used years ago to weave stories that Grandda would pass on to Grandmama Maddie. She dropped two back into the fold and gripped her favorite one, the one of the princess on a boat, her thumb rubbing across the coolness of the rock, soothing her instantly.
