Chapter Six
I was led away from the Carlin’s court by Belial, who held my arm in a gentle but firm grip.
As soon as we were clear of the palace’s huge front steps, I glanced over at him fearfully.
“What’s going to happen to me?”
“Nothing.” The blue-skinned fae didn’t smile as he looked back at me, but his face wasn’t cruel. “I will take you to your new home. You will get settled in and start living the ways of the Folk, until you shed your mortal skin.”
“Can you tell me what that means?” I was breathing shallowly, trying to slow my frantically beating heart. “I don’t understand. Please—I don’t want to be here. I don’t want a new home.”
“You will be comfortable,” he said instead of answering me. “The Carlin will make sure of it.”
“I don’twantto be comfortable here. I don’t want tobehere.” I shot him a glare as anger bubbled. “How long have you been watching me? Years? Waiting for the right time to poison me and snatch me up?”
“No,” he said evenly. “Iwasn’t watching you. Others did, when you were a child. When you turned twenty-one, the Carlin started preparing for you to live here. She tasked me with ensuring you made it here safely, with minimal fuss. It was a tiny dose—nothing that could have ever hurt you.”
“But why did she wait until I was twenty-one? What’s so special about me turning twenty-one?”
He didn’t answer, just shifted his electric blue gaze to me briefly before looking away again.
We were passing the edge of a small village with cobbled streets and thatched roofs. It looked deceptively normal, if archaic. Wooden seating was arranged outside of a tavern and a café, and Folk sat there with little cups, talking and laughing.
While many were humanoid, none of them looked like humans. I shuddered and started to look away, but then I saw Caom hurrying towards us, juggling a stack of clothing and a basket laden with food and bottles.
“I’ll come with you,” he said as he caught up, shooting me a brilliant smile. “Help you get settled in.”
“I’m not getting settled in anywhere,” I seethed, struggling fruitlessly to rip my arm out of Belial’s grip.
Caom foisted the basket off on Belial, who didn’t seem to mind, and chattered about the clothes he was giving me as we walked away from the weird village, across wide empty fields.
My stomach clenched with fear. Where were they taking me?
When the forest edge loomed in front of us, I stared at it. Were they… taking me back into the forest? Then I noticed the tiny, solitary cottage just in front of the treeline, sitting all alone on the very edge of the fields. It had a thatched roof and dark grey stone walls. I could see just a single window at the front, an old wooden front door and a chimney with smoke already creeping up into the sky. There were tiny fenced-off areas at its sides, one wild and overgrown with plants, the other empty except for something made of wood tucked against the wall.
Mist swirled low over the grass, seeming to creep from the forest floor like fingers trying to reach the little stone building. Even though I could see the leaves on the treetops swaying in a slight breeze, I couldn’t hear anything.
I looked at the house, then back at the forest. It loomed behind the tiny cottage like a great, impenetrable wall.
But it wasn’t impenetrable.
As I stared, wondering if I’d be able to find my way back home through there, I saw eyes.
Big green eyes, staring back at me from the darkness between the trees.
Fear froze me in place. What was out there? Was it worse than what I’d already seen? The man in the wide hat with his death hound? Those little creatures with needle teeth? The big deer-headed beast?
What would I find in the forest if I left? Would I be able to make my way back? Something told me that I wasn’t… there anymore. In that world. Somehow, I was somewhere else. Somewhere I knew I’d never have found if I hadn’t been led here by the Folk themselves.
Did that mean I wouldn’t be able to find my way back?
Those big green eyes blinked once—sideways, not like human eyes—before vanishing.
“Your new home,” Belial said solemnly as we reached the cottage, opening the door and leading me inside.
He still held onto me as he showed me round. The cottage was small, but somehow not cramped despite its low ceilings and thick walls. The hearth was lit, the central room pleasantly warm. Through a narrow archway was a tiny kitchen with a second fire that had a flat stone for frying, and a big copper cauldron hung suspended over the hearth. A dark wooden sideboard took up an entire wall, crammed with bottles and jars and bowls.
A tiny, gouged table sat under the only window with two rickety chairs. The window was deep, the stone walls a foot thick, and half-melted candles were dotted on every surface.