Page 32 of The Red Woman and the White Bear

Aisling glanced down at her wrist and a lock of her hair fell out of the loose braid that the hob had woven. Reacting almost instinctively, Kael reached out and brushed the errant strand aside. The contact was light; tender, even. A touch that felt like a whisper in the silence of the room. A touch for which he had noexplanation.

The girl’s quiet intake of breath shattered the spell they were both held under and at once a sense of normalcy returned to the chamber. Kael withdrew his hand as if the connection had been severed by an invisible blade.

He cleared his throat and his expression regained its usual calculated composure. He needed to retreat from the closeness that had just enveloped them. Quickly, he rose from the chair. “Rest,” he said. His voice betrayed none of the uncertainty that roiled within him. The softness he had allowed himself to reveal was a rare occurrence, and the action left him unsettled as he closed the chamber door behind his back.

“She won’t get better this way, languishing in that dark chamber.” Lyre’s voice came in a sing-song pitch from the alcove where he was perched, waiting for Kael to pass, robes hanging down over the rough cave wall. “She’ll atrophy, along with any power you think she might have.”

“I do not believe she has any power at all,” Kael snapped. He wanted to be alone; he needed to slow the whirlwind of thoughts crowding his mind.

“Perhaps not, but such things are unknowable without exploration,” Lyre said, too casually. “You might at the very least try.”

That unsettled feeling continued to linger long after he’d left Aisling, a haunting reminder of a connection that had felt far too potent for his liking. Kael was disquieted; he had somehow allowed himself to step outside his carefully delineated boundaries, and it left him feeling exposed in a way he was unaccustomed to. It was much the same feeling that had plagued him after Aisling, as a pixie,left him following their encounter during Nocturne. His fingers found his ear again, where the ghost of her touch persisted. Idly, he wondered whether she could still feel his touch, too.

He’d set her free.

Kael, the vicious king of the Unseelie Court, had released Aisling from that damned manacle and, in his haste to leave her chamber, had failed to lock the door. Aisling held her wrist still cradled against her chest. It ached; the bruise that had bloomed beneath the metal was dark and ugly. But the soft burning there wasn’t from the cuff. It matched the subtle trail of fire that had spread from where the tip of Kael’s finger grazed her cheek when he had brushed her hair away. She wasn’t sure what had possessed him to do so, but that moment captivated her enough that she almost hadn’t noticed when she didn’t hear the sound of the bolt sliding into place.

Almost.

If he’d gone to fetch Methild to take a look at her wrist, she wouldn’t have very much time at all before the hob turned up. If she could just get out into the hallway and find somewhere to hide, she could wait until daybreak and escape back to the Veil while the Unseelie Court slept. Heart pounding, Aisling stood up out of the bed. In the days she’d been kept in the chamber, she’d only taken a few steps to reach the waste bucket or to kneel down and wash her hair over the basin. The floor was cold under her bare feet and she had to keep one hand pressed into the mattress at her side for balance as she moved. When she reached the end of the length of the bed, she wavered. It would only be five or six more steps to the door. Once she made it to the hall, she’d be able to use the wall for balance. Aisling prayed that she wouldn’t have to go far to find a hiding place; she was too weak yet to run.

Unsteadily, she crossed the remainder of the room and all but fell against the door. Her hand hesitated on the handle. It could have been a trap—Kael could be waiting just on the other side to catch her. But she couldn’t sit idly by anymore. She was tired of feeling helpless and being tended to and lying in bed when she was meant to be gathering information. No matter what awaited her outside of that chamber, she had to at least try.The Red Woman would try.

Aisling counted down from five in a whisper before she pulled the heavy door open. The hallway beyond was quiet and dim. There was no sign of anyone passing by, but she felt compelled to hold her breath all the same as she crept out and easedthe door closed behind her.

“So you’ve gotten your freedom, after all.” A smooth voice from a shadowy alcove made Aisling jump and fall back against the stone wall. Lyre emerged from the darkness, sweeping his robes behind him dramatically. Aisling rolled her eyes at his unnecessary entrance. Despite the fact that he had gotten her moved out of the dungeon, she still wasn’t sure whether he was on her side.

She squared her shoulders and crossed her arms to hide the bruise on her wrist. “I was given half; I’m taking back the rest.”

Lyre cocked his head slightly to one side, a subtle move that betrayed a hint of amusement as he studied her. A strand of his oil-slick hair fell from where it was plastered back. “You won’t make it far before you’re caught again.”

“I might,” she responded curtly.

“May I make a suggestion?” he asked, taking one step in her direction. When Aisling only eyed him warily, he continued. “Be patient. Stay in your chamber. Let His Highness see that you can be trusted.”

“Why do you want to keep me here?” she challenged. It seemed that everyone was bound and determined to ensure that she remained trapped in the Undercastle.

He hummed. “I believe you and I can be mutually beneficial to each other.”

“I’m listening.” Aisling leaned against the wall, trying to hide from Lyre the fact that the little strength she possessed was rapidly waning. He could likely tell, though, by the way the color was draining from her cheeks.

“You have a clear effect on the king—it may be easier than you think to get the information you seek if you allow him glimpses of what he wants, as well.” A sly smirk touched his lips, but his tone remained thoughtful.

“And what is it that he wants?”

He didn’t answer, instead offering a thin smile before saying, “Stay, for the time being. I will encourage him to allow you greater freedom; soon enough, it will feel like it was his own idea all along.”

When the pair heard a distant noise further along the corridor, Lyre nodded toward the chamber. Aisling looked back at it: her prison cell. She was so close to escaping she could nearly taste the sea salt air of Brook Isle on her tongue, could nearly hear the sounds of gulls crying and waves breaking on the rocky shore. It was possible that she could make it out; she might even make it home in time for breakfast. But Lyre’s words gave her pause, as did the persistent, invisible weight that she’d carried on her shoulders since she’d met the Shadowwood Mother. She couldn’t return empty-handed, not when this war was spilling out of the Wild into her own realm. Not when the destruction she’d witnessed on the battlefield threatened her home, her friends.

Aisling took the arm Lyre offered and let him help her back to the room. Instead of climbing into the bed, she lowered herself onto Kael’s chair. It was uncomfortable, yet still a welcome change.

“Leave it unlocked,” she told Lyre as he turned to go, “so he thinks I didn’t take the first opportunity I had to run.”

He nodded in satisfaction and left her alone once more.

It would be several nights, however, until she’d see the king again. Methild’s visits, too, grew shorter and less frequent now that Aisling needed little from her. Aisling spent the time rebuilding her strength, pacing the short length of the chamber back and forth. During the day, she’d venture further down the corridor on tip-toe, hopeful that she’d find something useful in one of the rooms that branched off of it.

Where the Unseelie Court thrived on secrecy and unpredictability, the Undercastle echoed those values identically. Its hallways, winding like a labyrinth, often led to dead-ends or interconnected with each other in perplexing ways. Had she wandered too far, Aisling could have easily lost herself in the endless maze, never finding her way out. She dreamt about that some days: getting turned around and wandering through blackened corridors, chasing after the sound of Briar barking just around the next corner until her legs gave out and her body was broken by thirst.

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