“You mean… you’re for me?” It wouldn’t be the first time—or even the hundredth time—Ferghal had tried to bribe him. “Like a present?”
Ears back. Growl.
“But you seem to think you’re my dog. Or maybe that I’m your boy.”
The puppy’s tail wagged harder.
Kevin shook his head, baffled. “That doesn’t make any sense. How can you be mine if no one’s given you to me?”
The puppy tilted his head. Red eyes fixed on Kevin, as though waiting for something.
“Unless…” Kevin said, slowly. “Someone did give you to me. But I don’t remember now.”
The puppy’s tail whipped from side to side, so fast it was just a black blur.
Kevin gathered the dog up, feeling the little animal’s heart pounding against his chest. He buried his nose in the soft black fur, breathing in. He knew that smell, like smoke and fall leaves… had smelled it before, a long time ago…
The spark of recognition flickered out, smothered by gray fog. Kevin scrunched his eyes shut, still clinging to the puppy’s neck.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, tears leaking out despite his best efforts to hold them back. “I want to remember, I really do. But I can’t.”
The puppy pressed against him for a moment, then pulled away. Small jaws seized Kevin’s sleeve, tugging.
Kevin sniffed, wiping his face on his other arm. “What? You want me to go somewhere?”
The dog let out a muffled yap, still pulling at his wrist.
Kevin hesitated, then scrambled up. “Okay. But we’ll have to be careful. No one can see us, okay?”
The puppy must have understood, because he led him on a roundabout route through the stable yard and back into the house. Kevin still had to dart behind a tapestry or under a trophy rack a few times, holding his breath as servants clattered past. The dog, he noticed with envy, just faded out of sight, popping back into view when the coast was clear again.
“Wish I could do that,” he muttered to the dog as he reappeared at his side after the latest close call. “Don’t suppose you can teach me how to go invisible?”
The puppy trotted through the nearest wall, then back again. He looked at him expectantly, as if to say: Well?
“Guess not.” With a sigh, Kevin wriggled out from behind the spread wings of a stuffed, somewhat moth-eaten ice griffin. “Lead on, then. Where are we going, anyway?”
The answer turned out to be the library. Kevin balked at the doorway, hearing the soft sounds of someone moving around inside. He would have turned and fled, but the black dog barred his path. Big puppy eyes pleaded up at him.
Kevin bit his lip, glancing again at the closed door. It couldn’t be Ferghal, because if the knight had ever picked up a book in his entire life, it had only been to throw it at someone. The footsteps sounded too heavy to be the sorceress, and too confident to be any of the servants. Which left only…
“For Herne’s sake, you’re worse than the crow-cat, dithering on the doorstep like that,” said a testy male voice from inside. “Either come in or go away. Make up your mind.”
It wasn’t a barked command, but it definitely wasn’t a cringing, timid suggestion. He couldn’t remember anyone ever talking to him like that. No fae had ever offered him an actual choice.
That, as much as curiosity, made Kevin push open the door. Sure enough, the tall, golden-haired man who’d arrived with the sorceress was inside, sitting cross-legged on the floor behind a barricade of books. Kevin looked around cautiously, but there was no sign of the sorceress herself.
“She’s not here,” the man said, as though reading his mind. He sorted books as he spoke, assigning volumes to stacks with unerring confidence. “Assuming that’s why you’re hovering on the threshold like an uninvited vampire. I could take you to her, though, if you like.”
“No!” The word shot out with more force than he’d intended. “I don’t want to see her.”
The man slanted a brief, enigmatic glance at him. His eyes were the clear blue of a cloudless summer sky. “Is that true?”
It was… and it wasn’t. Just thinking about her made the hollow place in his chest clench tight. The sight of the sorceress had hurt, like staring into the sun. Yet just for a moment, the grey fog in his mind had wavered, light cutting through…
Once again, Kevin felt a cold sense of pressure, like cage bars tightening around his mind. He flinched.
The man nodded, though Kevin hadn’t said anything. “It hurts to think about her. I expected that would be the case. It’s why we decided it was best if I spoke to you alone at first. It’s all right, Kevin. You don’t have to face her until you’re ready.”