Page 79 of In Your Light

Everyone stopped and stared. “Looking for what?” Fyn asked, but Áine went back to giggling and dancing with the shadows, and then she morphed into kitten form.

“We can drive past Cern’s place anyway,” Sawyer suggested with a shrug. He gave Fyn a gentle smile. “Come on. The sooner we leave, the sooner we’ll be back.”

Fyn was quiet on the drive to Cern’s, choosing to chew on his bottom lip and stare out the window instead. Cern’s place was empty, and the cold hearth told Sawyer he hadn’t been there for some time.

“Who the hell is he looking for?” Ciaran wondered out loud.

“No idea,” Sawyer said, looking over at Fyn, who was standing a few metres away, looking up at the mountain with his hand to his heart. Sawyer went to him, put a hand on his shoulder. “You okay?”

Fyn gave a nod. “The forest misses Cern,” he murmured.

“He’ll be back, I’m sure of it,” Sawyer said, trying to offer some hope.

Fyn’s eyes—the greenest Sawyer had ever seen— met Sawyer’s before he climbed back into the police cruiser.

He said nothing else on the drive out to where the road ended and the old bridge had been washed away. The plan was to leave the cruiser there; it made sense to drive as far as possible before setting off on foot. Across the river, there was now the beginnings of a construction hub with a portable office and big machinery all fenced off. It was too early in the day for workmen yet.

Ciaran growled in distaste. “Let’s go.”

They set off, walking through the woods, with Fyn at the front, leading the way. He was so agile and fast, even in full human form. Sawyer pushed himself to keep pace, glad he’d thought to bring a backpack with water. It was somehow bitingly cold even as he sweated beneath his coat.

After an eternity of hiking uphill through thick forests with no paths, he and Ciaran needed to rest a minute. They leaned their arses against a large fallen log and drank their water. “You especially need to stay hydrated,” Sawyer said to Ciaran.

“Do you miss the water?” Fyn asked. He hadn’t even broken a sweat. “Do you dry out or something?”

Ciaran laughed. “Yes and no. We can go without being submerged if we have to, though it’s not pleasant for us. But drinking water helps.”

Sawyer offered Fyn his bottle, but he declined. “I’m fine.”

“Are we slowing you down?”

“Yes,” Fyn said with a shrug. “I normally run.”

“You run through here? There are logs and gullies and boulders, and sooooo many trees. How can you run in here?”

He almost smiled. “I am faun.”

“If you want to morph, go right ahead,” Ciaran said. “I imagine it’d be like me being in water and swimming freestyle. I can do it, but swimming in my true form is so much easier.”

Fyn shook his head. “No. It’s okay. I don’t want Pax to use it against me. You know, morphing in front of humans. It’s not allowed.”

“Oh.” Sawyer felt bad. “I won’t tell him if you don’t.”

Fyn gave a brief smile, but it faded quickly.

Sawyer sighed. “It’ll be okay, Fyn. Everything will. You’ll see. It will all work out.”

Fyn chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment. “He’s still not waking up. I played my flute all day, all night.”

Sawyer went to him and gripped his arm. “Hey. He’ll be okay. I think it’s safe to say that time is different for him and that he’s protecting his mind. He needs to do that so he can come back and be better. For you.”

His green eyes went wide with hope. “You think so?”

Sawyer nodded. “I do.”

“I just want him to be okay,” Fyn said. “If he decides he needs to move on, or leave or whatever, that’s fine. I mean, it’s not. But at the end of the day, I just want him to be okay. If he doesn’t want me, then...,” he finished with a shrug.

“Áine said it was you, and your flute, that was bringing him back. She said he’d chosen you.”