Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

Evelyn

I CAN’T PINPOINT THE EXACT MOMENT I DECIDED TO STAY in Threshold. To stay with Bowen. Maybe it happened even before I realized I had access to a portal that would take me to a realm similar to mine. I think I started to love him when he went into the village to question the people instead of shutting me down and going after the dragon to finish the job. The feeling has only grown in the days since. Too fast. People aren’t supposed to fall in love in a matter of weeks.

The people in our family fall fast, little bird. Make sure you choose someone who’s worth it.

I’ve chosen well. I may not have known Bowen long, but I know enough to be sure of that.

I duck my head under the spray and shampoo my hair a second time. Everything about this safe house has been a surprise. After finding the magic icebox packed with food, I discovered the closets filled with clothing in a wide variety of sizes. As if they expect people coming here to show up with nothing. To be on the run. Food and clothes and shelter, just like Nox promised.

It’s a shame that the Audacity has sailed away by now. I have some questions for the quartermaster. They saved our lives, and that would’ve been enough. But directing us here? It’s another journey in waiting. Another mystery tempting me to unravel it.

This isn’t a safe house for the C?n Annwn. Which leads me to wonder if it’s a safe house from the C?n Annwn.

It makes sense. Not that Nox would be connected to it, but that there would be an underground rebellion of sorts. It’s interesting how Bowen doesn’t seem to recognize this for what it is, which means he’s never come in contact with any kind of pushback. So maybe that’s not what this rebellion is doing. Maybe they’re secreting people out of Threshold. If Bowen’s belief about the vow being linked to tracking is true—and at this point, I question everything—then the people who come through here must have been found by the resistance before the C?n Annwn got ahold of them and forced the vow.

Do they send them home? Or do they shift them to places on Threshold where they can be folded into the community without having to become monster hunters?

Too many questions, but at least these ones give me hope. It’s much easier to join with an already established resistance than it is to build one from the ground up. Infrastructure is invaluable. Based on the readiness of this safe house, Nox’s people have it.

I turn off the water and get dressed in the borrowed clothes I found in a dresser in the bedroom. They don’t fit in a particularly flattering way, but that’s just as well. The muted browns and grays and greens available suggest they were picked for their ability to blend in.

I braid my hair and return to find Bowen dozing on the couch. His big body is sprawled out, legs hanging over the edge. He’s still too pale, but the steady rise and fall of his chest is reassuring. Tenderness nearly takes me out at the knees. He’s so fucking fearsome and powerful, but right now he’s vulnerable and trusting me enough to not bother to hide it. It makes me want to wrap him up and take him somewhere safe where he doesn’t have to fight anymore. It makes me want to stand at his back and support him while he does what’s necessary to balance the scales in his head.

I clear my throat, announcing my presence. “Shower’s open. Be very careful with your neck.” He doesn’t look too good. When he stands up, he moves with the careful way of someone devastatingly injured. “If you need help—”

“If you help me in the shower, I’ll be tempted to help you out of those clothes.”

I blink. “There you go, being charming again. You have a terrible sense of timing. Don’t look at me like that. With all the blood you lost, if you get an erection right now, you’re going to die. Do you really want that on my conscience?”

He huffs out a laugh. “I wouldn’t dream of burdening you like that, Evie. Why don’t you get us some food started instead?”

“Now you have me playing little wife.” I grin, but my amusement falls away at the hungry expression on his face. Oh, yeah, he wants that. Very much. “Go shower before you get us into trouble.” To prevent myself from indulging in temptation, I head into the small kitchen.

Much like the bathroom, the more I snoop, the more questions I have about the magic required to keep this running. It’s not cheap, and it would require someone to maintain it. Which supports my suspicion that the safe house is being used regularly. I was too tired to pay much attention to the terrain we walked through to get here, but it was mostly rocks and cliffs and dirt. Nothing particularly foreign to my realm, but nothing easily identifiable, either. As a result, I can’t say much about the realm this island must have a portal to.

In the icebox, there is food in packages in neat little rows, each labeled with a painstakingly neat hand. I don’t recognize the language on sight, but the letters form into squiggles and then morph into English. Translation spell. As I found out earlier, it’s a bunch of different kinds of soup, all precooked and just needing to be heated. I grab the beef stew and find a pot to cook it in.

Then I go hunting.

I don’t expect to find much; no safe house is perfectly safe. If the C?n Annwn were to find this place, whoever owns it wouldn’t want to give them a list of clues. But people are people, and people like to leave their mark. I hit pay dirt in the second bedroom. The top drawer is empty, and when I start tapping on it, I find a false bottom. “Ha. Oldest trick in the book.”

Inside is an old, weathered book. A book filled with writing from one hundred different hands in dozens of different languages, though there must be a translation spell on this as well because they morph into English before my eyes. I carefully turn the pages. I don’t know how they mark time here in Threshold, but it’s clear that this goes back decades, at least.

I turn to the most recent entry and settle down to read.

I’ll keep this short, because the last thing I want to do is cause harm to those who have helped me. If this book is any indication, I’m not the first, and I likely won’t be the last. I knew better than to be drinking on the night of the new moon, and I was surely taught not to wander the woods. A fairy circle. What a fucking joke. I thought they were myth, and yet I ended up here. In a place where none of the rules make sense. It’s sheer dumb luck that one of them found me instead of the C?n Annwn. If it had been the latter, I don’t think I would’ve lasted the fortnight. I’m not a warrior. I have little magic to speak of.

And now I’m going home. Tomorrow, I will follow the instructions I was given, and hike to the north side of the island. There, I will hope with everything I have that I am being steered by benevolent instructions, and I will walk into the red-capped fairy circle. If everything goes as I was promised, it will take me back to my realm.

If you’re reading this, they must’ve helped you, too. I hope you’re able to return home.

Safe travels.

—Tom

“I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

I look up to find Bowen leaning against the doorframe. He seems a little better now that he’s showered, but he’s still too pale. I also highly suspect the reason he’s leaning is because he can’t stand straight on his own reliably. I pat the bed next to me. “Come look at this.”

He joins me and peers over my shoulder as I read through a few other entries. Some of them are long. Some are short. All are from people relieved to be heading through a portal and out of Threshold before the C?n Annwn can coerce them into making a vow. Considering who sent us here, I have to believe that at least a few of the C?n Annwn are part of this network. Nox is more than proof of that, but there have to be more.

Bowen trails his finger down one page. “A couple weeks ago, I would have called this treason.”

“I know.”

He’s silent for quite some time. I let him think as I continue reading through the entries. My curiosity about these people, about how they got here, about how they’re getting home … it’s like a live thing inside me. I won’t pretend that I’ve been altruistic for any part of my life. Bunny had a strange way of looking at that sort of thing. Or maybe not so strange at all. She charged through the nose for her services, but more than once, I caught her slipping spells to people who never could’ve afforded her prices. I’ve done the same.

This is different.

This is … purpose.

“As a former captain, no one helping these people will believe that I genuinely want to be part of this group out of the goodness of my soul. They’ll assume I’m a plant.”

I carefully close the book and give him my full attention. “For a lot of people, they’ll look at your actions over the last twenty years. It will take time for you to prove that you’re something more than that man.” I make a face. “Though I’m not exactly sure how to handle that without getting us both killed by the C?n Annwn.”

“Yes … that’s something I’m considering, as well.” He frowns. “But then again, Nox is part of the C?n Annwn. It appears that they’re also part of this movement. I’m not sure how they manage that while being quartermaster to Hedd. There’s no way that he’s aware of this.”

“Agreed.” I shudder. From what I know of that man, he’s more likely to behead someone seeking sanctuary than to give them the means to return to their realm. “But if Nox is managing to pull it off, then I bet there are others, too. There have to be for this to work. They can’t be operating alone. This is too organized for a single person to be behind it. Maybe there’s a way to look like we’re fulfilling our vows, but to work against the C?n Annwn.”

He stabs a single finger against the cover of the book. “Perhaps. But I find that I no longer have the stomach for monster killing. We’ll have to find another way. One that doesn’t paint a target on our backs in the process.”

I lean against his shoulder carefully. “What if we’re just very bad at what we do? We’ll try really hard, but those wily monsters will slip through our fingers again and again. Except mermaids. Fuck those mermaids.”

Bowen chuckles. “We don’t have to have all the answers right now. We’ll stay the night here and then head into the city tomorrow.”

I don’t want to go into town. I want to stay in this strange, magical place where possibilities seem endless and we don’t have to make hard decisions. It’s a silly dream. Life is full of hard decisions, and if we mean to work against the C?n Annwn, then we have to figure out how to thread the needle. But he’s right; we don’t have to figure it out tonight.

“Let’s eat.” I stand and offer my hand. It’s a testament to how shaky Bowen is that he accepts it and allows me to tug him gently to his feet. Worry is a physical thing inside me. He needs to see a healer. A proper one. The wound isn’t infected or actively bleeding, but now that he’s clean, we definitely need to bandage it at least. “But first, I’m going to play nurse.”

I lead him to the kitchen and urge him into the chair. A quick stir of the stew reveals it’s almost ready. I have just enough time to slap a bandage on this man. In my initial search, I found first aid kits—or at least Threshold’s version of them—in every single room. I can appreciate the level of preparedness, but it does make me wonder how many times people end up here while bleeding out.

It’s not a comforting thought.

Bowen holds still as I carefully apply the bandage to his neck. The only nurse I’ve ever played is the sexy kind, but it’s a fucking bandage. It’s not rocket science. Even so, I can’t help being afraid that I’m messing this up. If he dies because of my ineptitude, I don’t know how I’ll live with myself.

“Evie.” He covers my hands with his and gently guides them away from the bandage. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

I worry at my bottom lip. “All my magic did was stop the bleeding. Those mermaid teeth looked vicious. Even if they’re not poisonous, there’s no way you didn’t get some gross ocean bacteria into the wound. Maybe we should head into town tonight. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to wait.”

“Evie,” he says my name again, and I don’t think I really registered that he’d started shortening my name. It just sort of happened—kind of like falling for him.

“Bowen.” My voice is a little wobbly, but my world is a little wobbly right now. “I’m worried about you.”

“I know.” There’s so much satisfaction in his tone, my knees go a little weak. He smiles. “This is not the first mermaid bite I’ve lived through. The previous ones didn’t get infected, and I doubt this one will, either. Even so, it will hold until we go to Cato tomorrow. Ze’s good at zir job, and ze’ll put me back together again without a problem.”

The way he says that makes me think that this Cato has healed him from significantly worse, which does little to help my blood pressure. I’ve seen the map of scars across his body. I know he’s lived through a lot of horrific injuries, but that isn’t reason enough to get careless now. “It would be very foolish of you to die over something incredibly preventable.”

“I’m not going to die. At least not yet.” He turns my hands over and presses a kiss to each palm. “You saved my life, and you’ve bandaged me up. The wound is clean. Let’s eat and sleep; that will do more to help than anything else.”

I highly suspect that he’s being a bit patronizing right now, but it comforts me all the same. If he feels well enough to be high and mighty, then he’s not knocking on death’s door.

The trick is keeping him from doing something foolish.