Page 82 of Where Broken Wings Fly

“I don’t know.”

“You’re lying—” I grinned, poking at his side, “—Your left eyebrow twitches when you lie.”

He lifted both of them, likely to stabilize them as he tried to explain. “We get many offerings from the humans. People leave their things out all the time in the hopes of a pixie collecting and offering something in return. It used to be fun, really. We’d appear, grant them something, and toss a handful of powder in their face so they were never to remember. But then I saw you…”

His face changed, no longer the charming and joyful Killian that I had come to know, but something far more serious and solemn. “I don’t think I’d ever seen someone so sad.”

“I wasn’t sad.”

“Maybe not in the way of frowning or crying, but something deep within you. And as I approached, Niamh and Shea warning me not to, I felt something within myself. Like a tug, of sorts. Before I knew it I was in front of you, and I was talking and all I remember is feeling like I just had to.”

“I do not want to leave, Killian. I cannot imagine going back and having to live with the knowledge that this — you — existed and I was a part of it, that I loved it and I can never have it again.”

Intrigued as ever, Killian nodded. He didn’t frown. Instead, he lifted his lips into a sad smile and thought that what he said next was going to make me feel better. Except it didn’t.

“I wouldn’t worry about that, Olivia. You won’t remember a minute of it.”

Horror constricted me, a snake so tight and so powerful that I was lost to the mere compaction of my body and soul as I let that fact sink into me. When I was finally ready to say something in response, my mouth opened and words did not fill the air, but a hauntingly loud horn.

Everyone halted, all heads tipping to the head of the line, to Raegan who led them.

“People of Choilltean, we are passing into the Kingdom of Uisge. You are to treat their people with nothing but respect, or suffer the consequences.”

Movement began once more, leading the line of bodies out of the forest, across the small stretch of grass, and stopping once again on the edge of the beach where Queen Tonn of Uisge awaited us.

~

I wanted to find someone to shout at. Raegan, ideally, as a memory wipe had his name written all over it. But he was busy with Queen Tonn, considering King Ronan had remained back in Choilltean to watch over the lands. So Raegan was off limits.

Killian had departed from my side the moment the army of Choilltean started to spread out, doing his duty by checking on each of the different groups and assuring everyone was up to the next stretch of the journey.

Shea and Niamh had disappeared from sight, melting themselves into the masses where there was no hope of finding them.

So it was Urram who I looked to, making him step up to my finger where I could get a better angle at him to seethe.

“They’re going to wipe my memory?”

Urram said nothing, instead just preened at some feathers that were tickling the undercarriage of his wing.

“Urram?”

He squawked, content to ignore me completely.

“You knew, didn’t you?”

His silence was so infuriating, if it hadn’t been for the tight grip his talons had around my fingers I would have left him behind. Instead, I walked down towards where Raegan and Tonn conversed, only to be interrupted by the sudden commotion in the direction of the ocean.

The Uisge host.

The pixies started moving towards the shore, their hidden tails disappearing and making way for legs as they crossed the threshold. Hair of purples and pinks and blues and greens all shimmering beneath the sun, like the reefs themselves had surfaced and not pixies. They kept coming, more and more by the second, arriving on a variety of backs. Sharks and dolphins, fish and whales, all coming to a stop near the shoreline and allowing their caraids off.

But alongside the pixies was a group of slow moving sea-turtles, all the same size as our horses with shells that had been reinforced with peeled rocks from the ocean, set upon their backs like blankets as they hoisted small wagons made of seashells.

“We’re ready to move, when you are,” Queen Tonn said, my ears picking up on their conversation as I crept closer.

“What do you think is the best way for us to cross? We could go the long way, but it would take weeks. Or…” Raegan sighed, looking out across the beach to the walkway between Marazion and St. Michael’s Mount.

“The two hosts could cross there, but when the tide gets low enough for the walkway to be used, the humans will be all over it.”