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“Rot,” Dugald says.
“Rot?” I ask, reaching towards the ooze.
“No!” Dugald knocks my hand down.
I cry out, rubbing my forearm where he struck me. “Why did you do that?”
“Never touch the rot. Never.”
“Fine,” I grumble. “What are you trying to show me? This isn’t home. If you can’t get me home, then you need to help me help the MacGregors. They’re going to die. I need your help to save them.”
“We can’t,” he says.
“Why not? You’ve got… magic or whatever. You’re what, fae? Like they keep accusing me of. Alesoun said I’m fae-touched. How do I help them?”
Dugald frowns and shakes his head, his face darkening. “That is not your destiny.”
“Not my destiny? I don’t believe in destiny.”
Duncan fills my thoughts. The scent of him. His smile. His easy manner. Then I think of Alesoun and how nice she has been to me. I can’t let them die. I know how bad it’s going to be for them. Worse than anything they’ve ever experienced.
“A genocide is coming, and I know it. I’m here, impossibly so. How can it be that it’s not my destiny or whatever to stop this?”
“Ask fate. I do not know,” he says. “All I can tell you is you can’t stop it.”
“Then what is my destiny, as you call it?”
“To save us,” he says.
It’s as if the entire world around us stops. All the different fae folk stare at me with eyes filled with hope, but their faces show despair. I turn in a slow circle as I choke up, my throat clenching as tight as my stomach which is queasy.
“Wh—what?” I force the single word past the lump.
He doesn’t answer but only stares at me too. I shake my head and swallow, focusing on breathing until my clenched muscles ease enough I can speak.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am not known for my sense of humor,” he says.
“Really? You’ve been such a riot.”
He moves in closer. Too close. He dominates the space, stealing the air from my lips. He leans over, forcing me to strain my neck. His face is stern, but handsome. He leans down and my lips tremble. I think, for a moment, he’s going to kiss me and oddly enough, I want him to.
“You are our only hope.” He exhales, his breath unnaturally cool, like a fresh mint.
“I’m no one.”
“Wrong.”
I tremble, stuck between an insane desire to kiss him and an urge to run. I step back but I come up against the tree, its rough bark pressing into my skin, pinning me here, in this moment, with him.
“Help me save the MacGregors.”
“No.”
“No? Why? You can?”
“We can’t. That history is written. Immutable.”
