If I didn’t see them, they wouldn’t be real.
If I kept my eyes closed, I could pretend none of this was happening.
Cold, fresh air slammed into my face. My eyes flashed open. Snow blanketed the ground and clung to the barren branches the way I clung to Ruairi’s reins.
The portal Tadhg had mentioned was located inside a two-story cottage with a moldy thatched roof.
Ruairi knocked on the door. A woman with frazzled red hair answered, a small baby asleep in her arms. She didn’t say a word, just stepped aside, allowing us into her home. A man sat on a plaid armchair, reading. On a matching sofa, two red-headed children slept.
We crept past, up the stairs and into the family’s linen closet.
Traveling through the portal felt almost the same as evanescing.
Disorientation. Darkness. And falling.
Dampness and mildew replaced the comforting scents of linen and fresh laundry. We opened the door on the other side and climbed another set of stairs, emerging into a cavernous cathedral.
Morning light streamed through stained glass windows, painting the floors.
“Where are we going?” I finally managed to ask. Tadhg had mentioned Gaul, a seaside city on the west coast of Airren.
“Ye can stay at one of the inns fer now,” Ruairi said, helping me down the cathedral steps and out into the brightening day.
For now.
What then?
That couldn’t be the last time I saw Rían. It couldn’t.
Row after row of townhouses wound around skinny cobbled streets. Sunlight glittered off their frosty slate roofs. We stopped at the first inn we saw, painted a sunny yellow, next to a blue and white tea house on the river leading to the sea.
“I’ll meet ye back here tonight,” he said, handing me a purse full of coin.
“You’re not staying?”
“My kind aren’t welcome at this inn,” Ruairi said. His gaze flicked to the door at my back. And then I saw the sign.
No dogs. No creatures.
“We can stay somewhere else,” I suggested.
Ruairi shook his head. “They’ll be the first place he checks.”
The dull ache in my chest turned sharp, as if the Queen still held the dagger against my heart. “Will he be all right?” Would she leave him be now that I was gone?
Ruairi glanced at a short, squatty man waddling toward the bakery across the street behind him. “I’ll not lie to ye. That’s as bad as I’ve seen him.”
Although I appreciated his honesty, I wished his answer had been different. “I feel like a coward for leaving.” Rían never would have abandoned me. Never. And there I was, running as far away as fast as I could the minute things became dangerous.
Ruairi gave my shoulder a light pat. “Remember, yer not like the lads. If Rían has one of his episodes and accidentally kills ye, the underworld isn’t gonna spit ye back. And if something happened to ye, he’d never forgive himself.” His hand fell, and his massive shoulders sagged with his heavy sigh. “Unless he gets back his heart, this is the way it has to be. He knew it from the beginning. And now ye know it too.”
Unless he got back his heart?
Was that even possible?
“Head up, human.” Ruairi nudged my chin with his finger. “Yer going to be all right.”
I gave him my bravest smile. “I’ll see you tonight.”