“Did you… Can you compel someone like that?”
Though it was tempting to terrorize the wide-eyed human into keeping her distance, he needed her to trust him. So he went with the truth. “I can mindspeak with my blood kin and, in this realm at least, I can compel most females when I’m touching them.” Seeing her expression go blank and scared, he said quietly, “Reda. Look at me.” He waited until she focused, waited until her eyes truly met his, before he said, “I swear on my honor that I haven’t mindspoken you. Though, honestly, not for lack of trying. Maybe it’s a realm thing, maybe something to do with my father’s spell, but I don’t seem to have any effect on you.”
He hadn’t meant it to come out that way, but a faint rueful spark lit in her shimmering eyes and she unknotted her hands from his sweater and smoothed the wool with her palms. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly. But about what happened back there.”
“It won’t happen again. I didn’t even realize I had my secondaries down—it’s been a long time since I’ve been around another blood drinker, never mind one who was feeding like that.” He swallowed. “I overloaded on her magic for a few seconds there, and you caught the edge of it. Like I said, it won’t happen again, I promise.” He paused. “But I want you to promise me something, too. I need to know that you’re not going to take off on me again like that. You need to stick with me, and if I say something’s dangerous, I need you to believe me. Because the dreams say that we’re in this together. And whether or not you believe in all this, I do. And from my perspective—” he nodded to the ragged hole “—you almost just became plant food. So promise me that you’ll stick with me and let me do my best to keep you safe.”
“I promise,” she said immediately, somewhat to his surprise. And then her eyes filled in earnest, welling up and spilling over. Voice quivering, she said, “This is real, isn’t it?”
His heart twisted for her, but there was nothing to be gained by lying, so he nodded slowly. She nodded in return, then leaned her forehead against his throat. And burst into tears.
REDA HATED CRYING. It only ever made her feel stupid and sore afterward, not better. And if there was anything she hated more than crying, it was crying in front of someone else.
Now, though, she didn’t have a choice. The emotions were too huge and overwhelming, the situation too strange, for her to hold in the tears. They erupted from her in racking, tearing sobs that hurt her throat, burned her eyes and left her helpless to do anything but hang on to the nearest solid object.
She cried over the memories she had turned away from, the beliefs she had lost. Because if this was real, if she was really here, really in another realm where magic worked and werewolves and vampires existed, then her father and the others had been wrong, her maman, right. She sobbed for herself, in fear and reaction. And she wept in anticipation of failure, because she didn’t know what to do, how to help Dayn or even if she was really supposed to. She heard the whispered words: “To my sweet Alfreda on her eighth birthday, with the rest of the story to come when you turn sixteen.” Maybe she would have known what to do if she had gotten the rest of the story. Now, though, she was lost, adrift.
Not entirely, though. Because she was anchored to a big, solid object.
Dayn was the one with the bigger problems, yet he didn’t protest her tears or tell her they needed to hurry. Instead, he molded her against the strong warmth of his body, stroked her hair and was just there, in a way nobody had been for her in a long, long time. And when the tears finally subsided, leaving an achy hollowness behind, he waited another minute before he eased away from her. “I’m sorry you got dragged into this. We’ll go to Candida—she’s the wolfyn’s wisewoman—and see if she knows of a way to unlock the standing stones. The witch can’t be the only one who knows that trick.”
Candida. The wolfyn. “The little man said something about finding the pack.”
“They’re more than a match for one gnome.” But he moved a few steps away, to where the intertwined roots formed a path of sorts. Then he turned back and held out a hand. “Come on. Let’s go see the wisewolfyn. She’s a friend. She’ll help.”
Understanding shimmered through Reda on a surge of cold, numbing nerves. Because standing there on the pathway with his hand outstretched, painted monochromatic by the moonlight, he suddenly became one of the last woodcuttings from her book. The scene came after the woodsman had killed the wolf and saved the girl, and brought her back to the edge of the village where she lived. Then, instead of walking away, he held out his hand and asked her to come with him.
In the book, it was the beginning of a new life. Here, it was a moment of truth. A choice between conscience and cowardice.
She took a deep breath. “Do you know the story of Rutakoppchen?” When he nodded, she continued, “I had a copy when I was a little girl. My mother told me it was the only one in the world….” She told him the story of her book from her eighth birthday to that afternoon in MacEvoy’s shop. And her inner wimp made every word an effort. He had seemed ready to send her home, and now she was buying in deeper.
What the hell was she doing?
When she finished, Dayn cleared his throat. “Thank. The. Gods.” His voice was rough with emotion. “The magic brought you and the book back together after all those years because it was time.” But then he paused, the light of hope that had taken up residence in his eyes dimming somewhat. “Without you knowing everything your mother would have told you, though, or even how she was related to the realm, it may not be enough.”
He’s right, wimpy logic said. You should go home, leave him to his quest. You’re not prepared for this place, and you’re not a save-the-world kind of girl.
Instead, she said, “There’s more. In my book, you’re the woodsman.”
She hadn’t seen him truly surprised before, she realized. “Me?”
“Your perfect likeness, even down to the pattern on your shirt. And you’re not the only thing I recognize here—your cabin, this forest, it’s all in there…but the standing stones aren’t.”
He went suddenly fierce. Intent. “There are rumors of vortices showing up in other places. Nothing confirmed, though.”
Taking a deep breath, she said in a rush, “The inner back cover was carved with a picture of a huge natural stone archway between two cliffs. There was a river at the base, trees all around it and a waterfall coming down from one side.” She was simultaneously terrified and relieved by the look on his face. “You know where it is, don’t you?”
He nodded, shoulders easing. “About a day and a half away. Two days, tops. It’s called the Meriden Arch.” His breath left him in a rush and he closed the distance between them. “Thank the gods.” He took her hand, lifted it and kissed her knuckles. “And thank you, for remembering.”
But he wasn’t really thanking her for remembering, was he? He was acknowledging that she could have held on to her ignorance, refusing to recognize that she knew more than she thought.
She glanced down at their linked hands. “I’m not brave.”
“Being brave isn’t about being unafraid. It’s about functioning through the fear.”
“Like I said—not brave. I freeze. I don’t mean to, but things happen and I just…stand there.”
“If Candida knows the spell to unseal the standing stones, you don’t have to come with me. You can go home from here, your duty fulfilled.”
It was oh, so tempting. But at what cost? If this was all real, then so was the threat to his homeland and siblings…and to Dayn himself. And although rationality screeched at the thought, she was still drawn to him, even knowing he was a vampire. If there was a chance she could help him, she wanted to try. So she forced the words past logic and reason, saying, “Along the bottom of the picture was carved words that translated to ‘Here they can part, each to their own.’ Even my maman said it was an odd ending for the story, since the woodcutter and the girl go off together.”