1. The Artwork

Andrew Vidasche was much too nerdy to be hunting faeries in Lilydale.

What he'd have preferred to be doing was sipping tea and watching documentaries in sweatpants while he cuddled his cat. Nerds like him shouldn't be walking into faerieland. But if he wanted to keep his sanity (what was left of it), he didn't have a choice. The solitude had gotten too heavy, and with it, the weight of the rift between him and his estranged mother.

In a park overlooking downtown Saint Paul, Andrew made his way to the Brickyard Trail, the easiest place to get off the Path and into the bluffs where the Folk lived. Lilydale was untamed: steep sprawling limestone crags hung over the eastern banks of the Mississippi, haggard trees clinging desperately to the soil between the stones. Once, they'd tried to put a brickyard in the hills, but its massive kiln had exploded and killed everyone working. Not too long ago, some kids on a field trip got washed away in a mudslide while hunting for fossils, and the bluffs had been prohibited ever since. It seemed to Andrew that nature was trying to keep people out.

For as wild as it was, magic foods made by the Folk still got out of the bluffs and into the hands of humans, which Andrew never would have known about if not for how open his mum had been about her struggle with addiction. In Andrew's teens, his mum's pill addiction had culminated in such Fae-spelled foods. He remembered the foods to be unassuming: apple chunks in plastic baggies or heels of dark rye bread, once a little vial of golden liquid. But a single bite would leave his mum out of touch for days, hallucinating that she was being strangled by vines, turning on all the gas burners on the stove because she liked the smell, or convinced she was a princess on the better days. She'd be covered in sweat with a hummingbird heartbeat and blue skin around her lips.

The visions of her during and after taking those enchanted foods haunted Andrew. Using the stove made him hyperventilate. Irish brogue accents brought tears to his eyes. He wanted to both hug and slap any red-haired woman he saw. It seemed like the only way to get relief from his memories was to find her again, to rebuild their relationship. To try to reconcile.

Because his mum hadn't had a phone since he was fourteen, his first step to tracking her down was to get a hold of her oldest friend. Kate's phone number was still written on a scrap of paper buried in a box of Andrew's childhood things. When they met, she'd confirmed his suspicions that Fae-spelled foods might have been his mum's downfall. She blamed the Folk: dangerous, ambivalent faeries living in the river bluffs over the city. She tried to talk him out of going up there, but if there was some chance his mum was up there—captured by the faeries that got her addicted—then he was going to find her. So here he was. What would these supposed faeries even look like? Tinkerbell? Legolas? He wouldn't mind Legolas, if he were being honest…

Late afternoon in October was Andrew's favorite time in Minnesota. He savored the faint chill in the air and the explosion of sunset-colored leaves. They littered the black asphalt and clung stubbornly to branches, quivering in the breeze that made loose auburn hair from Andrew's ponytail tickle his cheeks. He zipped his fleece pullover higher as he stepped into cooler shadows. Packed wood chips skittered under his boots. Fearful of a magical ambush, he jumped at every snap and rustle of leaves.

Andrew peered southward through the trees. Thighs shaking, breathing shallow, he climbed off the marked path and into the underbrush. His heavy Doc Martens made him sound like he was tromping forth in a full suit of armor. Despite them, he tried to duck under branches, weave around thistles, gently bend stalks of feathery grasses out of his path. How many of the wildflowers coloring the scraggly hillside could kill him? He imagined some waist-high winged child shoving poisonous flowers down his throat, and he snorted.

Maybe there wasn't even anything out here except turkeys and deer.

West of him, far below, the dark Mississippi ran relentlessly toward the equator, yawning under the interstate bridge in the distance. There wasn't much that would protect him from tumbling headfirst into the river; the bluffs were jagged and dropped sharply into limestone cliffs with seemingly no warning. If he fell, Andrew wasn't sure anyone would notice he was gone.

"I think it's time to hire a shop assistant," he muttered.

Wiping sweat from his brow, he blinked away a flash of panic. It was going to be just as much work to get back to the park. The kind of hiking the Brickyard trail demanded was much different than his usual tame running routine. He wasn't sure on his feet. Maybe if he lost his footing, he'd be impaled on a branch before he hit the river.

Andrew paused at a fallen tree obscured beneath scaly moss, leaning his palm against the flaky bark of an oak while anxiety needled his spine. He scanned the way forward again, but nothing looked like it would house mythical little faeries. It would be easier to just go home, take a bath, get drunk on whiskey.

But he was stubborn, and more than a little curious. Climbing onto the decaying log, he allowed stubbornness to guide him further into danger. He hauled his leg over, boot scraping off dry bark and crusty white moss.

Then he froze, sucking in a sharp gasp. His boot was a sliver away from stepping on a body.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, Andrew pulled his foot back and planted it in the loose dirt. Heart in his throat, he leaned down toward the body, which was pallid enough to be a corpse. Pillowed in silky grasses with a halo of tiny white wildflowers was a woman more art than human. Sharp in the manner of an uncut diamond, she was a specimen that even Andrew recognized as beautiful. Her complexion was snow-white with arched brows, long lashes, and deep red lips. She had shining burgundy curls falling back from her forehead. With long, elegant fingers, she clutched a clay pitcher in the crook of her elbow, which sloshed softly with her every breath.

Ah…breath. Not dead then, so that was good.

As Andrew tried to figure out what to do, her eyes snapped open.

They were blood red.

The woman moved with alarming speed, and her beauty was replaced with a silent snarl and fire in her eyes. She was above him before his back even slammed into the ground. As she lunged at him, Andrew fumbled for his pocket knife, flipped up the blade, and thrust his arm out.

The woman's weight bore down on the knife. She dropped her pitcher, where it shattered on the log as she spun away with a cry.

Andrew scrambled to his feet, patting himself over and checking he still had all he needed on him. "Oh my god! I'm sorry!" He pulled out a folded canvas first aid kit from his back pocket. Extending it to her, he said, "Here, please! That looks…smokey? Why are you smoking?"

The cut on her sternum oozed blood—and smoke, as if the wound were made of tinder. She wiped at the blood and hissed, looking down, baring wolf-sharp teeth.

He dropped the kit onto the log between them. "I didn't mean to hurt you. You scared me," Andrew said, closing his blade and pocketing it before holding his hands up, palms out. "I…I'm looking for someone."

The woman's head flicked to the side. Her sharp profile caught a streak of afternoon sun, silver-bright. She swayed as she clenched her fists and panted.

"Wow. You can't be human," he breathed. "I must be near Lilydale. You…you must be a faerie."

"Go away," the woman growled, still not looking at him.

Remembering his purpose, he went on quickly, "I have concerns about these Fae-spelled foods, you see, and I'm afraid that my mum—"

"I don't care," the woman interrupted, "about your concerns or your fears."

"Do you have human prisoners?" Andrew demanded, indignant over the woman's apathy. "Are you wrangling humans that eat your foods and—"

"No!" Swallowing visibly, she shook herself like a dog and stepped toward him. Though Andrew's height was substantial, this woman saw him eye-to-eye. "You know nothing of me, but I will tell you this. Human affairs are no concern of mine. I do not take prisoners. But if humans seek food from my people, I do not get in their way."

"You ruined my mother's life," Andrew said, a tremble in his voice. "I—I know," he added quickly, when the faerie opened her perfect crimson lips, "you don't care. But I can't be the only one in the city whose loved ones are hurt by your ambivalence. One of these days, someone's going to make you pay for that."

"Ah, yes?" Her eyes glinted with a hard light. She wiped the fresh blood off her chest. Andrew stiffened. Reaching a stained hand toward him, the woman smudged her thumb over Andrew's forehead and said softly, "I will make you pay for drawing my blood."

Then she pulled on a shadow and vanished.