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Wait-no, not drifting. Following us. "We have an audience," I said to Reth, nodding at the clusters of flying insects.
"I suppose we can't make the Dark Queen any angrier with us than she already is," he said, then his perfect mouth moved, silently forming words, and he gracefully waved his hands through the air in a semicircle. The warm breeze suddenly froze, and I saw frost eat across the nearest butterflies' wings. They stopped midair, then dropped to the ground with tiny clinking noises, frozen solid.
A serene smile spread across Reth's face. "I've always disliked insects. "
"If the whole being-a-faerie thing doesn't work out for you, you definitely have a future in pest control. "
We walked for a few more minutes, the air now devoid of fluttering spies, until the trees grew thinner, revealing a light-drenched clearing. Low, murmuring voices and sweet but strange notes of music drifted back to us on the wind.
"This is bad," Reth said, frowning.
"What? What's bad?" I pulled out Tasey and hurried forward, wondering if Lend was in the clearing, wondering what was happening. My feet seemed to dance ahead of their own accord in my eagerness to find him.
Jack, too, rushed with me, reaching out and taking my arm. Then he raised our hands above my head, twirling me in a rapid circle, which made perfect sense with the music. I spun around and around, my hair whipping out, then stopped, skipping forward again with Jack.
He laughed and I laughed with him, dropping Tasey on the path as we twirled together in flawless synchronization. I wanted to be wearing something as beautiful as I felt moving to this music. I wanted a dress made of spiderwebs and butterfly wings, with dewdrops for jewels. But it didn't matter, not anymore, not when we could dance together.
We kicked off our shoes in wordless agreement, then broke through the trees and fell into line with the other dancers. I didn't know the steps, I couldn't know the steps, but the music whispered them to me, told me what to do with my feet and my hands, but most of all what to do with my heart.
I laughed again, feeling lighter and freer than I ever had, my face flushed with exertion as I took someone else's hand, and then someone else's, and then someone else's, twisting and turning, exhilarated with the pure joy of movement. We were a circle, and then two, and then three, and then one again, writing patterns and creating tales with our movement.
I closed my eyes, felt the warm light on my cheeks, felt the wind in my hair as hands grabbed mine and twirled me around and around and around again. There was nothing but this, nothing but the dance and the music and the joy. My feet moved faster and faster, tracing their song of happiness on the ground, telling a story that would never end. I never wanted it to.
Chapter Fifteen
BUNDLES OF JOY
I was laughing breathlessly-doing pretty much everything breathlessly-because I couldn't seem to stop dancing long enough to catch my breath, but I didn't want to stop, couldn't even if I wanted to, everything was twirling and laughter and motion and my feet, my feet wouldn't stop, and they hurt, but they didn't hurt, they wanted to do nothing but this forever, and the pain in my side wasn't pain, and I wasn't gasping for breath, I was laughing, because I'd never been this happy.
The faces in front of me blurred together in light and movement and sound, one indistinguishable from the next, only their hands mattering as we moved in and out and around in patterns while our feet tripped along the inevitable choreography. One of the faces looked familiar, triggered something in my brain, but then it was gone again and so was the thought, the wonder; there was only the dance.
Forever, there would only ever be the dance.
My hands met others and I prepared to spin, but these hands were wrong-they spun me the wrong way, tripping my feet that knew which way they were supposed to go. My feet kept moving, kept trying to tap out the story the music told them to, but now the hands were lifting me, and my feet kicked and turned and twirled in the air, desperate for contact with anything so they could keep dancing, because the dance was everything, I had to dance, I had to, if I didn't dance I'd fly away into pieces, everything would stop, it would be dark forever, I'd-
"Neamh," a voice like the wind through golden sheaves of wheat said in my ear. "Come back to yourself. "
The name coursed through me, lightning in my veins, pushing out the desperation of the dance. I blinked rapidly, shaking my head past the fog. "Reth?" His face was right in front of mine as he held me against his body, my feet several inches off the ground.
"There you are. "
"I-What on earth just happened?"
"Well, nothing on Earth, obviously. "
He set me down and I yelped, immediately collapsing to the ground. My muscles were trembling, my legs riddled with spasms of pain. I looked down at my feet and cried out in horror again-they were bleeding and raw, the bottoms one big mess of blister and ruined skin.
"I saw-there was someone there I knew. Is. . . oh, no, is Lend there? Is he in the dance?" I turned my face toward where I thought the dancers were, but Reth had brought me back into the trees and I could only see flashes of movement from the meadow. Now that I was out of it, the music was wrong, all wrong, all desperation and frenetic motion without any sense or beat or rhythm.
"Not Lend. Jack. Stay there," Reth said. "I'll see if I can recall him to his senses, although he never had many to begin with. "
I cried softly, lying back on the ground, every muscle in pain. Gratitude to my crazy faerie ex competed with the overwhelming pain for my attention. Pain won.
A body thudded to the ground next to me, and I heard a whimper like a hurt puppy. I opened my eyes and turned my head to see Jack lying there, his face screwed up against the agony. He was in as bad shape as I was.
"Reth. " My voice was hoarse and my throat raw from how hard I had been breathing. "How are we going to find Lend now? I don't think I can walk. "
"Yes, that wouldn't be advisable at this point. "
