Page 123 of The Mirror of Beasts

“Nope,” I said. “Same method, but different hag.”

At that, Emrys propped himself up on his elbow. “The Hag of the Bogs?”

“Moors,” I corrected. “And yes. She was very helpful. Didn’t even want our weird little offering bottle.”

He shook his head, the waves of his fair falling into his eyes. My hands tightened around one another.

Stop it, I told myself. The friendly distance of the conversation was good. The distance between our bodies was good.

“You finally make a friend,” he said in wonder, “and it happens to be an ancient monster. One with the tendency to eat any traveler she comes across.”

“I have other friends too,” I protested. “Neve and the others like me a solid sixty percent of the time.”

“You know how they ended up trapping the Hag of the Moors in that mirror?” Emrys said, settling back down. “All they had to do was let her catch a glimpse of her reflection. She was so distracted by her own face she didn’t even put up a fight.”

“Well, that was rude of them,” I said.

“You’re defending the traveler-eater,” Emrys reminded me.

“Everyone gets hungry now and then.”

He actually laughed—a real laugh that rumbled deep in his chest. I wanted to gather the sound to me, to hold it close to my heart.

I wanted to remember it.

For once, I wasn’t the one having a nightmare.

A low note of distress crept through the shadowed boundary of sleep, almost indistinguishable from the wind. If I hadn’t been so primed to danger over the last few weeks, I would have drifted right back into the drugging pull of exhaustion.

“Please … don’t …”

I sat up, the dark burrow spinning as my mind fought to grasp where I was. Who was next to me.

Emrys’s voice was agonized. “Don’t—”

His body thrashed violently, his legs colliding with mine as his torso contorted, threatening to rip open his stitches. My mind sharpened, fully awake now.

“Emrys!” I grappled with his arms, fighting to keep my grip on them as he wrested them away. His face was pinched with terror, his skin covered in a sheen of sweat despite the chill that had overtaken us.

Waking someone from a dream was like saving them from drowning. I pulled him back to me, managing to get my arms under and around him, trying to haul him up from the ground, to use the movement to wake him. “Emrys!”

His eyes fluttered open, the muscles of his chest and shoulder jerking against me as he slammed back into awareness. His gaze found mine in the dark, disoriented with fear. A feeling of almost unbearable tenderness filled me, more awful than ever now that I could name it. Now that I wanted to give in to it.

Every part of me was shaking. My throat burned as I released him. We both stayed there, suspended in darkness.

“Tamsin?” he said, his voice rough with sleep. “Is this real?”

I took his face between my hands.

“It’s real,” I told him, but the moment felt like a dream. A liminal place, where anything could happen. Where there were no consequences, no past, no future. Just …

The thought dissolved as his hand slid around my waist; the assuredness of it, the open look of wanting on his face, made me feel powerful. For once, I was in control of this—whatever this was.

I rose onto my knees, letting him draw me closer as I smoothed my fingers over his face, feeling the roughness of stubble growing in, feeling the muscles of his jaw relax. I would have been embarrassed, maybe, by how closely I was watching him, but he was watching me, too, his breath hitching as I straddled his legs.

I drew my face close to his, feeling his skin warm with my touch, smelling the earthy pine scent of him. I drew back ever so slightly, my breath mingling with his, giving him the opportunity to pull away and unravel this.

He rested his forehead against mine, his hand moving to cup the nape of my neck, his hand stroking the sweat-damp hair there.

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