Page 53 of Threadbound

But he didn’t fall.

Bran let out a soft squawk of distress anyway. Jamie hoped it was a sympathy-squawk, although it probably hadn’t felt great for the fae, either.

Jamie carefully slid the backpack off one shoulder and pulled it around so that he could unzip the top so that Bran could see out. “I don’t know where I’m going,” he hissed mostly under his breath, not wanting anyone to hear him and come investigating why there was a voice coming from the Kirkyard.

There was a rustle from the backpack, and a black bird head poked its way cautiously out of the open top, green eye blinking at Jamie.

Which did not entirely solve the problem, because Bran wasn’t able to actually give directions. At least not in English.

Jamie thought for a moment. “How about when I’m going the wrong direction, you caw at me? Softly?” Cawing, at least, was unlikely to get him arrested.

Bran blinked at him. Jamie took that as a yes, then headed away from the brighter windows on the populated side of the churchyard. Bran did nothing. But when Jamie reached the end of the row and went to turn left, Bran let out a soft caw, which sent Jamie turning right along the main path. Every time he tried to turn, Bran cawed, even when Jamie reached the end of the path and tried to follow it to the right.

Caw.

“You want me to go into the grass?”

Nothing.

Jamie went straight from his original path, into the grass and gravestones. His skin crawled, and he paused. “Are you sure?” he asked the raven fae.

Bran just looked at him.

So Jamie kept going, even though every instinct he had was screaming at him to stop until—it wasn’t.

Jamie sucked in a sharp breath, because there was absolutely no way the tree he’d just walked under was this massive. Its arms spread, gnarled and twisted, dripping with moss and tiny purple flowers Jamie didn’t recognize. Flowers and moss that he didn’t remember seeing as he walked the length of the path.

Bran cawed softly, rustling in the bag.

Jamie swallowed, realizing that whatever he’d just stepped into, it wasn’t something he’d ever seen before—and he definitely didn’t belong here. This was a place that wasn’t just old, it wasancient—far older than the gravestones and the church and possibly even the city of Edinburgh itself.

Jamie’s heart pounded, because this wasn’t a place that human feet were supposed to tread. It wasn’t a place for the modern or the mundane, and he was both. “I shouldn’t be here,” he breathed softly.

Bran cawed, the sound almost amused. Or ironic, maybe. Like he agreed that Jamie shouldn’t be here, but yet here they were.

Jamie’s skin felt—buzzy. Like every hair on his body was not just standing on end, but slightly electrified. Like there was more energy in the air under the massive, impossible tree than there was supposed to be.

Bran cawed again, and Jamie looked down at him. He squirmed slightly, letting out another caw.

“Sorry,” Jamie murmured, then set the bag on the ground, kneeling beneath the spreading arms of the tree in moss that was softer than he’d ever encountered without it being squishy and wet. As carefully as he could, Jamie helped ease Bran out of the backpack, wincing when his bird-feet stumbled. “Sorry,” he whispered again.

Bran cawed softly.

“Should I… take you somewhere?”

Bran looked at the tree, then back at Jamie.

“To the tree trunk?”

Caw.

As gently as he could, Jamie lifted Bran’s bird body, which felt both oddly light and surprisingly heavy. He was a massive bird, really, but at the same time, all the feathers made Jamie think that he should barely have weighed anything. Somehow, Jamie didn’t notice the weight as much on his back—although he was more used to carrying books and other heavy things in his backpack, so that probably had something to do with it.

Jamie carried Bran over to the gnarled roots of the tree and helped him hop carefully onto one of the larger ones. “Okay?” he asked.

Bran cawed softly, once. And then the air around them shifted, like a hundred thousand tiny fireflies had just swirled out of the branches of the massive tree, whirling and whorling around Bran’s bird-form, which seemed to slip and slide into the figure of the man he’d been only hours before…

And then he was gone, and Jamie was alone beneath the massive tree, its light and vibrancy somehow diminished.

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