Page 102 of The Forever Queen

Lir pressed Aisling against his chest and closed his eyes.

The sea flipped upside down, stretching like sap between a bear’s paws. Aisling and Lir shot forward or backward; Aisling wasn’t certain. There was no up or down, left or right. Only forward and toward the destination Lir had in mind.

CHAPTER XLII

AISLING

Sapling satin curtains swayed gently in a warm, summer breeze. Aisling blinked, doing her best to focus. The room smelled of plums and sugared teas. Aisling gripped the bed on either side of her, fingers filled with sable-soft pelts.

“Ssh!” a small voice hushed. “She’s waking!”

Aisling bolted upright, hands blazing like twin comets.

“Ell—” another voice started, stopping itself short. “Aisling,” the voice finished.

Aisling turned, coming face to face with the Sidhe king of the greenwood. He bent over the bed, one arm leaning against the headboard carved from the trunk of a plum tree, its branches, leaves, and bulbs, stretching across Aisling like a canopy.

Aisling extinguished herdraiocht.

For whatever reason, the Sidhe king’s place in her memory continued to elude her now. Nevertheless, he’d aided her in her escape, lived up to his title as her knight, and that was sufficient to win him more of her trust. For now.

“Where am I?” she asked, searching the bedroom in which she lay.

Lir’s expression flickered, and had Aisling blinked, she would’ve missed it: a moment of sincere concern gone before she could make sense of it. His bitter disdain for her, returned.

The chamber was empty save for several pine martens cowering from Aisling behind the curtains. They bore a striking resemblance to Gilrel and carried trays full of tea, buttered rolls, truffle cakes, and goblets full of Leshy’s tears. But the tables at her bedside were strewn with bandages and salves.

“We’re in the Simril Glade,” Lir said, “a haven hidden in the wilds of the mortal plane for the forge-born.”

Aisling stood from the bed and approached the windows. Robes sewn with threads of unicorn hairs spilled around her bare ankles. As white as mourning and as delicate as the death that precedes it.

Aisling admired the handiwork, smiling at the martens. Surely, it’d been their gentle hands that’d cleaned, mended, and dressed her.

The martens squealed when she acknowledged them, looking to Lir for guidance.

The Sidhe king nodded his head. “Leave us.”

The little beasts scurried past, gently shutting the door behind them as they took their leave.

“Do they live here?” Aisling asked, tipping her head in the direction the martens had fled.

“In a way,” Lir said. “They’re changelings.”

“Unseelie.” Aisling knew.

Lir nodded his head. “Unseelie that aid the passage of bairns passed too soon, helping them onto the galleon that’ll sail them into the misty afterlife of the Other. So, too, do they care for them here: in the Simril Glade.”

Lir didn’t flinch, but his voice thickened. A change so subtle, Aisling was surprised she’d noticed it at all.

“A nursery,” Aisling conjectured. “But they look like common beasts.”

Lir moved his hands into his pockets.

“They slip into new forms depending on their audience. Whatever shape will bring comfort to those they wish to care for is the form they’ll inhabit.”

Aisling stared at the shut door long after the changelings left, wondering why, of all places, Lir would bring her here.

At last, she inhaled and pushed apart the curtains.

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