Page 63 of Samhain

What does that mean?

“She said she knew I’d come after her,” Ivy continued, “and that she knows what I want, but she can’t give it to me. Not yet. Not until we do what we’re supposed to do.”

That didn’t make any sense. “What are we supposed to do?”

Ivy shrugged. “I don’t know, but Siobhan is scared. She’s running from someone. Or maybe…to someone.”

I took a deep breath and scratched the back of my head, trying to put this new information in place with the research we’d done up until now.

“I know Lex doesn’t want to go into the woods,” she said, “but I don’t think we have another choice. That’s where Siobhan went. That’s where Ashley is.”

I didn’t want to agree with her, but I was running out of other ideas. Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as Lex thought. Maybe my luck would protect us and make sure we returned to our realm safely.

“Siobhan told me how to get there,” she said. “I already know the way. I’ve been dreaming about it since Midsummer.”

I swallowed and sat back in my seat. Part of me wanted to go screaming for the hills. This was beyond anything I could have imagined—fairies and curses and enchanted forests—but I couldn’t deny it was, in fact, happening.

Everyone in this town believed fairies existed, and the more research I did, the more convinced I became. All cultures had some variation of a fairy myth, enough to make a credible argument that there must be a source to the archetype—an original monster that scared the humans enough to make up stories and pass them down through the generations to protect the species.

We finished our coffees and paid our tab, heading back to the B&B when we got a text from Lex that they had returned with news.

“The ring is a key,” Miri said. “We need it to get into Faerie.”

“Smythe was scared shitless,” Lex added, sucking on a cigarette.

“He kept saying they would kill him for telling us,” Miri said from her spot perched by the window. “Poor bloke nearly pissed himself.”

“We need to be careful.” Lex drew his hand back through his hair and paced, his eyes sparkling with his trepidation. “The king and queen are real, and they’re in the middle of a pissing match. If the king finds us, he’ll kill us. If the queen finds us, she might not let us go.”

Both of which terrified me. We were treading deep water here, and we were sorely unprepared.

“He mentioned something about ripping out our insides and turning them into kabobs,” Miri added with a grimace, returning her attention to the forest outside the window.

“Great,” I said as the rancid taste of dread crept up my esophagus. “Really selling me on this whole ‘Into the Woods’ plan.”

“I’m not saying that’s what we should do,” Lex said. “If it were up to me, I’d lure her out onto our playing field where we know the rules and the landscape.”

“Okay.” Ivy held her hands out to the side, clearly exasperated by the whole conversation. “And how do you propose we do that? We have nothing she wants.”

Lex sighed, conceding her point. “That doesn’t mean we should go gallivanting into Faerie like a bunch of idiots.”

“We can’t sit here and do nothing,” Ivy said.

“You’ve been doing research for the last two years. Tell me”—Lex took a deep inhale on the smoke and let it out in a puff—“did any of the humans in those not regret fucking with the fairies?”

“We don’t have to fuck with them,” Ivy explained, narrowing her steel eyes at our husband. “We can reason with them, tell them this was a misunderstanding.”

Lex snorted a cynical laugh. “Siobhan kissed you and gave you a ring, and now you can hijack anyone’s mind. What do you suppose the queen of the fairies would make of you?”

Ivy balled her hands into fists, an angry retort brewing on her lips.

“We don’t have a choice,” Miri cut in. “Everything’s been leading up to this, hasn’t it? The lust and Siobhan and the ring, it was pulling us back here.”

No one said anything because how could we argue with that? It did feel like everything that happened had been designed to bring us back to where we started.

“We should get it over with.” Miri sounded despondent and resigned, as if there were no other way out of this and she’d given into fate. “If we die, we die. If we end up in Faerie, we end up in Faerie. At least we’ll be together.”

I looked at Lex and Ivy, who both glanced at me before each other with that same furrowed worry dancing behind their eyes.

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