Chapter 13

The telltalefuzzy edges of a glamour, and a bad one at that, made my palms warm with a surge of magic. That was a fairy, one of the fiáin—a feral, twisted creature. Through my peripheral vision, I saw a skulking creature with needle-like teeth and milky-white eyes. Navy blue skin like worn leather draped over a skeletal frame, lank white hair brushed against its shoulders, and iridescent wings like that those of a dragonfly buzzed sporadically on its back. Something dark and crusted streaked its chin.

Dried blood.

It shuffled on hands and feet like an ape, pausing here and there to sniff and tilt its head.

It was blind?

Slowly, I removed my foot from where it propped open the door. It slammed shut with a cacophonous boom, the sound ricochetting off the brick walls of the alley. The feral fairy darted behind a dumpster at the noise, but only for a moment, quickly resuming its sniffing.

“Can’t have it getting at the people inside,” I whispered to Arthur.

He grunted his understanding.

Taking another step, this one away from Arthur, I lifted my hand. I didn’t know what this fiáin was doing here, but it didn’t belong in town, that’s for sure. It had to go, one way or another, and a magical sting across its flanks would certainly tell it to run along. The warmth in my palm increased until a green glow emanated from my skin.

The fiáin’s head jerked upright, ears pricked and nostrils flaring.

“It can smell your magic,” Arthur breathed.

Faster than thought, the fiáin lurched forward.

Yet somehow, Arthur was faster.

I blinked, finding my backside suddenly pressed against the brick wall, hands braced on Arthur’s shoulder blades as the shifter blocked my body with his. Masked my scent with his.

On the other side of the shifter, the fiáin’s needle-like teeth were just inches away from Arthur’s face. Nostrils flaring, it sucked in the air between them in rapid breaths, like a dog worrying over a scent that had eluded him.

Under my hands, Arthur felt like a coiled spring wound to the point of snapping. His fingertips pressed into the bricks on either side of me, arms caging me behind him. Legs bent, he looked like he was about to launch himself at the feral fairy, but then a growl grew in the depths of his chest.

I felt the muscles bunch, rearrange, under my palms.

By the Green Mother, he’s going to shift!

Instead, the beast inside him roared.

The fiáin’s blind eyes widened at the same time it flung itself away from the shifter, smacking into the opposite wall with the same wet slap of a fly careening to its death from a fly swatter. The creature shrieked, dropping to all fours, and sprinted down the alley, ricocheting off the dumpsters in its frantic escape.

A second or two passed as we stared down the quiet alley, Arthur panting, an amber glow to his eyes. The scent of old-growth forest was nearly overpowering now, and for a moment, I wondered if that’s what his beast smelled like, instead of the man. When his fangs retracted, I felt the breath I’d been holding release in a mighty whoosh.

That gust of air against his neck seemed to remind him that I was pinned between him and the wall. He stepped quickly away, sparing me only the briefest of glances before checking that the alley was indeed clear.

He startled a few mice, but they scurried off when he stomped his foot. “Hn,” I heard him mutter. “No faelight.”

Faelight? I wasn’t familiar with the term.

When he returned, he seemed to forget he’d been trying not to make eye contact or acknowledge my presence in any way, and his hazel eyes roved over my body from head to toe.

I felt like a winter crocus at the first warmth of the springtime sun, blossoming under his gaze. My heart thrummed, the invisible tether attached there urging me to close the distance between us. It felt so good to be seen by him—a relief so strong it frightened me—that I was tempted into turning into a bowl of pudding right there in front of him, but Grandmother hadn’t raised granddaughters with displaced priorities. Well, maybe except for Cousin Lilac. Later, I could ask why, after all these weeks of actively avoiding me, he’d thrown himself in front of me.

“Since when are there feral fairies sniffing around town?” I asked. “And that glamour? A hack job.”

No sooner did the words leave my mouth did I realize I’d seen through the glamour. By the Green Mother, that had never happened before! Normally I could only see the fuzzy edges that gave a glamour away, not what the glamour was actually hiding.

Sawyer was right. I was getting stronger.

“There was something on its mouth.” Arthur sniffed, as if the action would jog his memory. “Blood. I think it was—”

“Lamb? Or goat?”

The shifter’s eyes narrowed. “Lamb, yes. How did you know that?”

I finally pushed away from the wall, brushing the crumbs of mortar from my hair. “Cohen told me that Mrs. Bilberry at the Candlelight Inn said she thought she heard a goat or lamb bleating in the rooms the strangers rented. Flora called them magic hunters.”

“And they have a fiáin disguised as a stray cat wandering around town to do their scouting for them,” Arthur spat. “Lamb won’t keep it sated for long, and with it off its leash, it’s only a matter of time before it attacks someone.”

“Is that why you’ve been patrolling?”

Arthur stiffened.

“I-I overheard Cody accusing Emmett of poaching you to come patrol his property too.”

His eyebrow lifted. “You could hear all that from where you were hiding in those fur coats?”

My cheeks ignited. “I thought you wouldn’t want to see me,” I murmured.

He continued as if he hadn’t heard that comment, though there was no way his shifter ears could’ve missed it. “I’ve been patrolling the Cedar Haven forest to keep anyone and anything away from the heart tree. While you and Flora tend to the flowers, I make sure nothing even knows they’re there. Or about that elm tree, either. It’s still acting like it’s in the height of spring.”

I pretended not to know anything about that, though my mind was a flurry of thoughts circling one main idea: what had I done to that elm tree?

“If Flora was right about a cache being there,” he said, “it’s a strong one. If that fiáin finds it, it’ll lead those poachers right to it. And to whoever caused its growth if it’s not because of a cache.”

He’d taken a step forward with that last sentence, maybe to cow me into revealing something with his physical presence.

Yet he said softly, “You’re being careful, aren’t you, Misty Fields?”

Not particularly. I’d adopted a werewolf and was planning to go hunt down a demon in the near future.

But his gentle tone had my gaze flying up to meet to his, hands clasping in front of my stomach so they wouldn’t reach for him. I wanted to say so many things, to ask about that Celtic pendant that still hung around his neck, to plead with him to train me, but chose: “Isn’t there anything we can do against the hunters? Get them out of here?”

He took a step back, retreating towards his truck as he replied, “Folks get twitchy when supes go on the offensive. We’ll have to hunker down and wait for them to lose interest and go elsewhere. Their obsession with magic and the Fair Folk isn’t illegal, after all.”

If Flora had been here, she would’ve immediately chimed in with a “I’ll hunker down with you!” Any mirth the thought would’ve granted me evaporated when Arthur paused at the junction between the alley and the street and said, “I can’t go without you leaving this alley first.”

He doesn’t want to leave me alone in case that fairy comes back! So even after all those weeks of ignoring me, he still cared about my safety?

He’s got a heart of gold, Meadow, I reminded myself. He’d do this for anyone.

The lumberjack shifter gestured to the sidewalk and the ray of sunshine that illuminated it. “If you don’t mind, miss. Miss Fields,” he amended quickly.

I didn’t acknowledge his slipup. A quick check of my person confirmed I had all my belongings, and a brisk walk brought me to the sunlit patch of sidewalk. Arthur fell into step behind me, casting a wary glance once or twice over his shoulder.

“What’s faelight?” I asked, wanting something else to think about other than the hulking lumberjack pacing behind me.

“It’s the blue glow to a creature’s eyes when its being controlled by fae magic. Kind of like that sheen you see when an animal’s eyes reflect light in the darkness. That fairy could have bewitched those mice to follow us.”

“I think it was too scared of you to even consider it.”

He release a noncommittal grunt in response. As we turned the corner and the Magic Brewery storefront came into view, Arthur increased his pace, dominating my right side and blocking me from returning to the coffeehouse. Herding me to my car.

“The alley door,” I began.

“I’ll handle the door. And Cohen.”

“Arthur.”

He was back to avoiding eye contact with me, of doing everything in his power not to acknowledge my presence.

“Thank you,” I told him.

He only grunted again and turned to enter the Magic Brewery.

Just like that, we were back to our new norm. And yet, I didn’t feel crestfallen as I slipped into the driver’s seat and headed home. A door, or perhaps it was just a window, had opened between us. Just a crack, but even new life—or reconciled friendship—could grow in a silver of sunlight.