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It’s a question but it doesn’t count. Lost in his explanation, I know it doesn’t count. “You mentioned the Shadow before, but… not really.”
“There was a prophecy. The Shadow Prophecy. A halfling would bring about the end of the Reign of the Damned. That’s the Shadow. Because of her, Melisandre is dead. The rebellion wants her head. I went to warn her, but I couldn’t find her. So, instead, I looked for you.”
“You… you did?”
“You want to know how I found you here?” Rys reaches out, ghosting his hand over my arm. He doesn’t quite touch me, even though I feel the heat of his palm. “So long as you wear my brand, I can find you anywhere. I… I found your home. In the Iron. I followed the brand’s pull to you, but you weren’t there.”
No, I wasn’t. Because I’m still here. The fairy circle didn’t let me go home.
I wait for Rys to continue. He was at my home. My apartment. He had to have seen Jim.
He asked me about my ring. He knows what it meant, too. He asked me about it in Siúcra. And when I confessed that I had Jim waiting for me at home—even if I haven’t ended things with him yet, I knew they were over—Rys brushed it aside as if my decade-long relationship was meaningless. I guess, when it comes to the fae’s belief that their fated mate belonged to them alone, maybe it was.
You’re in Faerie now, Leannán. With me. Leave him in the Iron.
I did. At least, I thought I did.
Until the shapeshifting faerie wore his face, only to transform into Rys’s.
“I took a portal back. Time…” Rys lets out a long breath, throwing his head back to look at the purple sky for a moment before he says, “It works so differently between worlds. I’ve told you that before. I wasn’t gone more than one human day but, when I came back, I made Saxon tell me what happened. He promised he saw you through the fairy circle, but I knew you never made it across the veil. So I followed my brand and discovered you were in the Shadow Realm. You know now that I couldn’t travel all the way by portal, but I came as fast as I could. I got to the market just in time, thank Oberon. I hate to think about what might have come to pass if I hadn’t.”
You and me both, Rys. You and me both.
11
That’s the end of the question game.
I probably could’ve come up with a hundred more—Lord knows his explanation alone left me open to a ton of them—but Rys starts to pack up the tents. I’m still admittedly taken aback by everything he told me and I, well, I let him. I guess he takes it that our deal is over because he shoves everything in his satchel, pushes the satchel into a portal that’s notably smaller than the one from last night, and announces we’re off.
After that it’s two full days of travel through the Shadow Realm. Without explicitly coming out and saying it, we agree to let the tension between us stay there until we can safely arrive in the Seelie Court.
Rys tries his best to conceal it, but I can tell that the shadows are weighing on him, just like they did when he was in the oubliette.
Only now? He can’t use glamour to cover up the effects.
His tanned skin starts to fade. When it grows dark and he conjures his faerie fire to give us light, it grows weaker and weaker. He managed to pull out the satchel from his pocket last night so that we had the tents again, but he’s unable to shove it back in this morning. As we traveled, he carried it slung over his shoulder.
I’m sweating. I hate that I can feel my bare foot slick against the inside of my boot with every step
. Just like when me and Morgan were getting closer to the divide, it’s gotten hotter and hotter. I don’t offer Rys his cloak back if only because he’d probably have to carry that, too, but I shrug it off and fold it over my arm.
I don’t know what I expected to happen when we finally hit the Summerlands. Morgan referred to it as a divide for so long that, I don’t know, I think I imagined there would be, like, a dividing line separating both halves. It’s a little disappointing that it’s nothing so obvious as that. The purple sky gives way to a bright magenta, the shadows fading until the bright sun over our head banishes the last of the darkness. When the grass beneath my boots goes from that purple-y green color to an unnatural cotton candy blue, I know we’ve left the Unseelie Court behind us.
We keep walking anyway. I watch as Rys starts to regain his color. The further we go, the more bronzed his skin becomes until he gestures for me to stop.
I want to plop down on the flossy grass, I’m so tired from our quick pace. But, before I do, Rys slashes his hand into the space in front of him. Four quick lines and a push.
The rectangle he created is about seven feet tall, three feet wide. As soon as he pushes into it, it fills with a bright white light, mingling with flashes of orange, yellow, and red. Despite how steamy and hot I already was, the rush of air coming from the door reminds me of heat pouring out of an open oven.
I know what this is. It’s a Seelie portal.
“Ready, Leannán?”
I give the portal a skeptical look. I’ve been in one before. When Veron’s vassal transported me from the redcap’s tent to Veron’s palace, he took me there using one of these. Then, when Rys created one so that we could travel around Siúcra during our escape. They look scary, but they’re safe.
I nod, then hold out my free hand. “Together?”
He looks down at what I’m offering him. A fleeting frown whispers across his face and, for a heartbeat, I think he’s going to refuse me.
