Page 184 of Sigils & Spells

Alice, Minho and I all watched Ruby expectantly. She didn’t seem to notice, reading over whatever was in the book one last time before shutting it with a thump. The book became little again and she put it back in her pocket.

“We need to find a town where people are.” Ruby scanned the trees around us as she spoke. “We’re more than likely dealing with a Fae from the local nobility.”

I nodded like that made any sense.

“Just remember to stick together and don’t ea–”

Ruby cut off suddenly and whirled, looking at the trees around the glade with wide, wide eyes.

“Shit.” she hissed. She looked at each of us wide eyed. “Julian, I need you to turn into a horse right now.”

“What?”

Before I could say anything in response, Ruby put out her hand “Alice, come here I need to put a protection spell on you.”

Alice put her hand in Ruby’s, her dark eyes wide, and Ruby closed her eyes and muttered a spell under her breath, quickly like she was talking too fast and waved her wand over Alice’s hand.

And Alice disappeared.

I took a step back, mouth agape. “What did you do?”

Ruby opened her eyes, and her eyes widened. She looked down at her hand, and I realized suddenly her hand wasn’t empty and Alice wasn’t gone.

“What the hell!” she cursed loudly.

In her hand, was a small fuzzy creature, like a hamster, but with a long tail. I looked from the little rodent to Ruby and back.

“Did you just turn Alice into a sugar glider?”

Ruby’s mouth was agape and the little creature in her hand squealed in shrill distress. she turned in a circle, a long fuzzy tail windmilling angrily.

“It was just supposed to be a protection spell!”

Ruby cursed again and shoved the sugar glider that was Alice into my hands. I took her gently and the sugar glider stared at me with huge eyes. She squeaked.

“I don’t know.” I responded as if I’d understood her.

“Julian!” Ruby drew my attention back to her, reaching for Minho’s hand as she did so. “Put her in your pocket and run! Right now!”

“Wh–”

“Go! I will find you later!”

I whispered an apology to the sugar glider and stuffed her squeaking into my shirt pocket and I turned, ready to run. My feet beat over the soft grass for no more than two steps before something materialized out of the darkness in front of me.

Behind me, I hear Minho growl. A growl that shifted as it rolled, until it wasn’t coming from a human throat any more. I glanced over my shoulder and for the first time I could see Minho’s werewolf form. He was a huge hulk of a creature with black fur and glowing eyes. He’d pressed his huge side into Ruby, as they both backed away from another of the creatures. I backed away, towards my friends, my hand cupped lightly over the sugar glider that was Alice in my pocket.

Ruby must have sensed them somehow in the woods.

I recognized them. But that didn’t make sense. I'd never seen them before, but as I looked at them I could tell they were familiar. The dream. The dream that was never a dream, about the people who seemed to float in their dance and the woman who’d turned into a tree. Fae Folk. They were all Fae.

I didn’t know enough about the distinctions to know if all these people were fairies specifically, or if they were all under the umbrella of Fae. The only thing that seemed to unify them in appearance were their humanoid builds.

The first to emerge from the trees had the build of a lithe grown man with long brown hair. He wore a tunic, and some kind of leather armor, but there was no mistaking him for a man. Instead of a human’s face, he had a face like a barn owl, his entire body covered in sleek feathers instead of skin, and talons in place of hands.

Beside him was a woman with skin the color of lichen. Small capped mushrooms grew from her head like hair, and sprouted along her brow bones like eyebrows.

There was a man with scaled skin and goat eyes, and a woman with the nose of a cat in an otherwise very human looking face.

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