Chapter Thirty-One
It had been roughly a month since Samhain and the start of the Bitter Months. I was getting better at tracking the passing of time with the moon’s cycles, as well as telling what time of day it was from the placement of the sun. Even though the land was covered in thick snow and icicles dripped from the trees, the sun still shone brightly, the sky’s marbled colours fainter than they had been during the summer.
I hadn’t been fully prepared for how bitterly cold it would get in a rush. The change was almost instant. I hated the cold, but I could admit that the unseelie lands looked beautiful in the winter. The snow glittered in the sun, and even from my cottage I could sometimes see the blinding gleam of it reflecting off the nearby lake.
I’d put my little warming jar in the chicken coop and covered my plants with the muslin cloth that had been soaked in protective potion. I sat under the shelter I’d made with the wolf at night once Lonan had left, wrapped up in my coat and gloves and grateful for his thick, coarse fur that kept away the chill.
Caom didn’t come by as often, saying it was hard to get here in the snow. It didn’t bother me at all. I had Lonan, and the wolf and the cat. I didn’t need anyone else.
I bumped into him in the village one day, when I’d gone there to stock up on some things on my own. I was less intimidated by the Folk now. I knew Lonan was watching, and I knew he wouldn’t let them do anything awful to me.
That was confirmed when Caom asked me if I wanted to go to the café, which had drawn my eyes towards its windows. Lonan had given me more coffee when I’d run out, so I still hadn’t set foot in there.
I stilled when I realised the fae working behind the counter wasn’t the same one who’d spat at me before. This one was a short, stubby female with grey skin and beady black eyes and thin, needle-like teeth.
“Where’s the owner?” I asked Caom.
“Oh.” He glanced back briefly at the café, mouth twisting. “Gone. He’s been gone for ages.”
“Gone?” I tore my eyes from the café to Caom. “Where did he go?”
He grimaced. “No,gone. He must have displeased the Carlin somehow.”
Maybe I was more like the Folk than I realised, because I felt only fierce, vicious satisfaction that the creature who had spat at me wasgone. I knew what that meant. I knew what Lonan had done.
And I knew he’d done it for me.
Despite the café being under new ownership, I didn’t take Caom up on his offer. I said I had some shopping to do and left him, ignoring his parting words about how I never came out for drinks with them anymore.
Why would I? I’d only done it because I’d been hoping to see Lonan, and now I saw him every night. I hadn’t enjoyed myself, ignoring Caom’s sultry glances the drunker he’d got, sitting there painfully aware that Idony despised me for no reason at all. I hadn’t minded speaking to Belial, but he wasn’t my friend.
I made my purchases in the village. Ink, yeast from the baker to make bread, the chocolate almonds Lonan liked, some vegetables, and bath oil. We were getting through the oil at an almost alarming rate, fucking as often as my body allowed it.
The intense craving for each other hadn’t faded at all, even though we were intimately comfortable with one another now. It had taken time, but Lonan now treated the cottage like it was both of ours, which made me unspeakably happy. He’d stretch and kiss me before slipping out of bed to make us tea or get something to eat, sometimes remaining naked, other times pulling on my old shorts like they were his.
He started sleeping with me in my bed more and more, though he always rose before it got light to leave, no doubt still wary after the near miss with the kelpie. He’d wake me briefly with soft, murmured words and kisses over my face or shoulders, telling me he’d see me that night.
I’d never been so in tune with another person. I’d never wanted someone so much. I was in love with him. I knew that without a doubt.
The urge to tell him was growing more overwhelming, but the thought of doing so terrified me. He’d opened up to me, but he was still fae. Could they even love? I liked to think so—Eowan’s message to Briordan in theNovice Drachmsmithbook made me think they could.
But Lonan was the Carlin’s son. I was fairly sure that he had never experienced love. He probably wouldn’t even know how to recognise it.
But I did love him. So much it was like an ache in my chest. And when he looked down at me, flushed and trembling and breathless, or kissed the back of my neck while walking past me in the kitchen, or reached for me in his sleep, it felt like he loved me too.
Even though it scared me, I wanted to tell him. I wanted him to know that someone loved him.
When I got home from the village, the cat greeted me with a soft meow as he stretched in the doorway to the kitchen. I still left the window open in there for him to come in, though it was getting cold enough that I’d probably have to stop soon.
After putting everything away and making some tea, I settled on the sofa to give the cat a fuss before I started making dinner. As he padded onto my lap, purring loudly and kneading my thighs before he settled down, my eyes landed on theSpellsmithsbook resting on the top of the stack I’d left out of the bookcase.
I’d read the entire thing already, and it hadn’t helped. Most of it meant nothing to me—just long passages about Folk whose names I didn’t know and stories I didn’t recognise.
I’d been lying on the sofa with the cat when I reached the last chapter. I hadn’t realised the cat had been reading with me—which was a weird thought on its own—but he suddenly straightened and rested a gentle paw over a passage, gazing up at me with big black eyes.
Lady Brid, the Seelie Ruler, is the strongest spellsmith ever known, hence being honoured with the title the Wielder of Words. Her carefully crafted oaths and vows can trap Folk in unwanted promises for eternity. Her voice controls all snakes and boars and cattle. The beauty of her song can make flowers bloom to life and vines creep for miles.
I looked at the cat after reading it. Why was he bringing my attention to this passage, about the Seelie Queen? Lonan had mentioned her before. How would knowing that she was a spellsmith—the most powerful one to ever exist—help me?