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“Fine, but we’re not at a fancy social banquet. We’re fleeing, and trust me, if I could pass for a pretty girl, I’d wear that dress in a heartbeat. I bet my ass will look great in that skirt.”
With a harrumph, Kiaran gives him another shove in the chest and steps back. “You lie.”
“I do not! You look great. It brings out your eyes.” Taj grins wolfishly at Kiaran. “Right, Ari?”
“It does,” I say firmly. “Shall we then?” I pat my own dress—we found plenty folded up carefully inside trunks in Kiaran’s aunt’s room, and mine is a cream-colored one, embroidered with dandelions, that flows over me like silk.
Come to think of it, it probably is silk.
Has to cost a fortune.
On top, I’ve pulled a long red woolen cloak with a hood. We all chose cloaks with big hoods to cover our hair and faces as much as possible.
We’re mostly set. Taj and Kiaran have already saddled three horses and filled their saddlebags with food and wine, water flasks hanging on either side, blankets rolled and tied behind each saddle.
“Let’s go,” Kiaran says and turns around to go. If anyone sees him swaggering past, they’ll know for sure he’s a man, and I hide a smile.
Taj sweeps on his cloak and nods. “Ready when you are.”
“Let’s go get our mate back,” I whisper.
18
KIARAN
The more time I spend among people, the more memories return. Memories, knowledge, words, information I’d buried deep because in the wilderness it was useless, needless. Painful.
Being in this house, my uncle and aunt’s house, has stirred up quite a few… remembrances.
Yeah, the words are coming back—slow and skulking like thieves in the night, often catching me unawares as they pop into my mind and it takes me some time to recognize them, place them.
I wasn’t always a savage, it seems.
And even though spending… ten, twelve years on my own in the wilderness has made me who I am, it seems there is a deeper layer to me, the crust on top flaking away as I interact with other humans.
Or Fae. Whatever it is they are.
We are.
I remember the fire. The black smoke, suffocating, poisoning when I tried to approach. I had been outside, playing… with a kitten.
A ginger kitten.
Funny how that memory is so persistent, when the moment my aunt and uncle drove me to the countryside in their carriage and left me isn’t there.
Too painful, I think. Too jagged and sharp to keep and touch.
Gone from my mind.
Though I do remember the carriage driving away as I stood under a tree, watching them go.
That memory stayed.
I put rocks under that tree. To mark it, somehow. I have often stood there, looking down at the valley, as if someone would return for me.
Nobody ever did.
I blame the crowding memories, all jumbled up and fucked up, for wandering the house like a ghost, not able to do much but stare at familiar objects and try to control my sadness and fury, trying not to open the door and punch my uncle in the face, force my aunt to her knees.
