Page 27 of Duncan

Where abides the child, Halfling? An imp that he and Nyall had recently captured had demanded that, and when he’d tried to question it, it had become furious. The child doesnae belong here.She carries my mistress’s magic. ’Twill end all you foolish halflings.

He didn’t want to alarm Fletcher’s wife, so he offered her his arm. “Come and permit me treat your wounds, my lady.”

Chapter Seven

“See you, Caro.” Julianne waved at the diver before she dove from the islet’s dock into the shallows, where she began a slow, lazy side stroke toward Caladh.

The impulse came over her to go back and ask the diver to swim with her back to the island, which was silly. Few things gave her more happiness than being in the water, but lately swimming alone had been making her tight. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t tell what. The Finfolk king had warned his guys to steer clear of her, so she was sure they weren’t checking her out from behind the reefs or planning anything. Maybe some of the little Finfolk dudes might have before, but none had tried since Shaw had told everyone they were an OTP. No, this was so much creepier, but it only happened now and then. Maybe she should tell Shaw when she got back to the castle.

Should she say something about the way she’d become forgetful again? The holes in her memory always made her uneasy.

When Julianne reached the shallows she saw the new girl walking along the beach. She could not remember her name—Nina? Carole?—but then she’d have to hear it a bunch of times before she could. She couldn’t do anything about her brain; the new girl would just have to remind her until the name stuck.

“Hey, hi, wait up,” she called out, waving at her as she ran the rest of the way through the waves.

The woman turned to watch her, and just at that moment the afternoon sun peeked through the trees on the west side of the island and covered her with its lemony light. Her hair burst with glints and glitter and other sparkly stuff, like rose gold tinsel under a floodlight, and her skin took on a beautiful peachy glow. She was so pretty it almost hurt to look at her, and when she smiled, Julianne’s jaw dropped.

“Whoa.” She blinked a few times, but it wasn’t a trick of the light.

“What’s wrong?” the new girl asked, frowning as she hurried toward her.

“You’re so beautiful. Like Christmas morning and fireworks at midnight and those really good dark chocolates with cherries in them.” Julianne knew she probably wouldn’t understand but had no other way to relate her admiration. “I mean, I knew you were totes amazing when I hugged you before, but in the light you diamond shine, girl. Like that vampire guy from that movie with the swol werewolves, only without the red eyes. The sun totes loves you, ah, sorry, I forgot your name.”

“My skin doesn’t love the sun.” She gave her a polite smile. “My name is Nicole Fairburn.”

“I’m Julianne Scott, soon to be MacMar. You should check with V—ah, Lady Valerie—to see if she has any sunscreen. She brought back a lot of stuff from our time with her in this bag she was carrying.” She knew she’d upset her, she just wasn’t sure why. “Sorry if I said something wrong, Nick. I’m like a ginormous fail at adulting and remembering names and what not to spill. Can I call you Nick? I can probably remember that.”

She nodded, making her shiny hair glitter even more. “Do you have time to take a walk with me?”

“Sure.” She retrieved her shoes from the dune where she’d left them, and then accompanied Nick up the shoreline to the path that led into the forest. “Do you want to check out the village? They do all kinds of neat stuff there, like forging and weaving and even making cheese. Last week I got to help do that with these uber sweet milkmaids. They let you try the curd stuff and everything.” The memory of one taste made her shudder a little. “Just skip the whey. That’s totes gross, like drinking puddle water. You shouldn’t drink from puddles, either.”

“I won’t. Chieftain Shaw told me that you were raised in the forest world by an immortal,” Nick said. “Where is that place?”

From her expression she wasn’t judging Julianne for how she babbled on and on, which was nice. Sometimes even Lady V got a little impatient with her.

Remembering she’d asked a question, Julianne thought for a moment.

“I’m pretty sure it’s inside special trees, or maybe on the other side of them. The forest is kind of like full of doorways, but also walls and traps and little things that will eat your insides. Only the forest world people can go in and out of it, too.” She tried to recall what her Aunt Klee had told her. “Time isn’t the same there, you know? That’s one thing the fairy stories always get right. It’s like there is no time. I lived in the forest world for almost a thousand years in this world’s time, but I never got old. I just grew up.” She patted her head. “Like, a whole lot.”

“That’s why you’re so tall?” As soon as she nodded Nick’s expression grew troubled. “Aren’t you upset over being trapped in that place for so long?”

“I don’t get salty much,” Julianne admitted, glad that she didn’t have to cope with anger all the time like Caroline did. “Happiness is so much easier and nicer. And I’m glad Aunt Klee took me in, because if she hadn’t these slaver guys? They would have totes killed me like they did my birth mom. Plus after that I got to spend some time in the future with my other mom and dad there, and trained to be a lifeguard, which was p fab.” She didn’t want to even think about her ex Mitchell, or what he’d done to her and her parents, so she stopped there.

“None of that was your choice, Ms. Scott,” the other girl said.

“Bet, only I don’t mind—and hey, call me Julianne, please. If it were up to me, I probably would have picked the wrong things to do.” She had married Mitchell, after all. “Besides, I like being beautiful and tall and saving people, even if I’m not all that smart.” She glanced down at her. “You’re even prettier than me, so you must be okay with yourself.”

“I try to be.” Nick smiled sadly. “Most people wouldn’t be as forgiving as you are.”

“My bae back in our time, Eva? Always said that me being kind was better than her being an Einstein. I think it was true, too. Kids in school got so jealous of her for having the best GPA in our class. Nobody ever hated me for being nice and helping them. Well, this one girl hated me no matter what I did, but you know, some people are always ratchet.” She noticed Nick didn’t seem to mind her babbling. “I bet a lot of people hated you in the future, right?”

That seemed to startle her. “Why would you think that?”

“You’re like super careful around me, so you’re probably like that with everyone else. I bet you think about everything and maybe even try it in your head a couple times before you do the real deal. Also, you watch me really close, so you’re afraid of me, but I’m not scary at all.” She stopped and faced her. “It’s okay, you know. You don’t have to be careful around me. And I won’t tell anyone what we talk about, ever. Like, not even Shaw.”

Nick looked even sadder. “It’s lovely that you want to be nice to me, Julianne, but in this situation I have to be smart rather than kind.”

“Then hanging with you will be like in high school with Eva.” She linked arms with her. “Come on, I bet they’re going to milk the cows in the village one more time before dark. You would not believe how cool that is. You don’t pull on the long dangly things under them, you squeeze them nice and easy, and then milk squirts out, just like that.”