Cover Art: UnseelieCHAPTER ONE

THE MAN SAT UP, AND AFTER one disorienting moment when he seemed to shimmer in the morning sun, I saw him clearly. He looked young, younger than me if I had to guess, and had the most unusual colored hair–it reminded me of looking at autumn leaves just as they turned from green to golden red. I couldn’t name the color of his eyes, though blue seemed to be the nearest fit. And the rest of him…

My face turned seven shades of red and I had to force myself to retain eye contact. “Get out,” I repeated, though even I didn’t believe myself then. My voice was too quiet, too cracked. “Please.”

He raised his eyebrow at me. “This would be a lot less awkward for you if I were to have some trousers on, yes?”

“How did you get here?” I demanded, hating the tremor in my voice. “I’m going to give you five seconds before I call the cops!”

“That’s hardly enough time to answer you,” he shot back, rising from the spot where I had found him, beneath my thorny, recalcitrant rose bush which refused to do more than be green and prickly, no matter how I fed, watered or neglected it. He raised a dark brow at my own state of undress and seemed somehow amused by it. “Aren’t you cold? Your sort always seems to get cold in even the mildest weather . . .”

“My sort? What’s that supposed to . . . Oh, screw it. GET OUT!” My voice echoed off the high garden walls and sent a flock of birds who couldn’t be bothered to go any further south for the season scattering skyward, their winter home disturbed by my shrill scream.

“I’m trying,” he replied calmly, easing out from the narrow space between the rose bush and the stone wall, “but you seem to be in my way. If you’d just put that cudgel down and step back, I’ll be on my way and you never have to be aware of my existence again.” He punctuated his words with a tiny half-bow that almost made me smile. Almost.

I took a few steps back towards the house, painfully aware that my bare legs were unshaven and my nightshirt had a gruesome coffee stain across Winnie the Pooh, but I didn’t lower the bat I’d grabbed from the hall closet on my way out to investigate the neighbor dog’s barking.

The naked man smiled thinly at me and extricated himself from the precarious situation without further comment, seemingly unashamed and unbothered by his lack of clothing as he walked towards my locked garden gate.

“How did you get in here?” I called after him. “It’s locked.” Way to sound like an idiot, I added for my own internal benefit. Just engage the burglar-rapist in tea time conversation at six in the morning while you freeze your bits off …

“Good day, Alfhild.” He unlocked the gate and, still naked, let himself out into the narrow alleyway between my home and my neighbor’s.

I couldn’t see him over the high stone wall surrounding my back garden but I heard him whistling as he headed down the path towards the street. It took a second for me to realize he knew my real name and a moment more to force my legs to carry me to the gate.

“HEY!” I shouted, dropping the bat as I wrestled with the rusty lock that had been in place since my great grandfather was a boy. “That’s a busy road!”

I finally yanked the damned gate open and burst out into the alley only to find myself staring at Mister Culbertson, my nearly deaf, eternally cabbage scented neighbor.

“Um…”

“Hullo, Lorelei!” He waved his news paper at me as he scooped it up from the tiny stoop before his side door. “Dressed a bit scantily for this weather, aren’t you, dear?”

A quick glance showed me that my intruder was gone, the alleyway empty save for me and Mister Culbertson. “Something new I’m trying,” I said loudly, smiling and nodding as I backed into my garden, tugging at the hem of my nightshirt to cover as much thigh as possible.

Mister Culbertson watched me with keen interest, his former remarks about liking “more meat than bone” on his women ringing in my ears as I latched the old gate firmly.

“Today,” I announced to the recalcitrant rose bush, “is going to suck.”

* * * *

“Whoa,” Jackie held up one hand to silence me as I poured more coffee for our breakfast meeting. “He knew your real name? How? You don’t even have it on your driver’s license! It’s not on any of your mail . . .” She stabbed a grape viciously with the fork from my grandmother’s silver service. “It’s Gulliver playing a prank,” she announced before I could posit my own theory. “It has to be!”

“Gulliver,” I reminded her, pouring more cream than coffee into my own cup, “isn’t smart enough for that. He couldn’t think his way out of a wet paper bag.” Gulliver, her ex-fiancé and my half brother, was the bane of both of our existences at the moment. “Besides, if he were going to pull something, it would be for his financial gain, not just to startle me and make me flash the neighbors on accident.”

The coffee was bracing, still slightly bitter despite my addition of brown sugar, and just what I needed. I had prowled the house until the sun was well up before calling on Jackie, my best friend of ten years, to come over for breakfast. I hadn’t even waited until she was properly settled at the table before blurting out everything about my morning visitor. She, true to form, had decided to approach it as a conspiracy against me.

“But he would do something that would make you give up the house. You know how bad he wants it … He’s always saying how he can sell it for a fortune and retire. That boy,” she added around a mouthful of biscuit, “ain’t right.”

I snorted involuntarily. It was nice to hear a familiar expression so far from home. It was easy to forget most days that Louisiana was so far away from my mother’s ancestral home in Scotland, especially on days when I was so busy with my work with the university. Today, though, I was already homesick and it wasn’t even lunchtime. “He’s got problems, sure, but this wasn’t his deal, Jackie. I promise you on my favorite coffee mug that Gulliver had nothing to do with this.” I glanced out the kitchen window, which afforded me an excellent view of the back garden and the offending rose bush which had harbored the intruder for who knows how long before Sophie, the neighbor’s dog, started barking and awakened me.

Following my gaze, Jackie leaned across the table conspiratorially. “Did you check to see if he dropped anything? Maybe some clue?”

“Jacks, this isn’t one of your mysteries. He was some freak intruder who was trying to hide . . . OH!” I sat up straight, an idea popping into my head that seemed as plausible as any other explanation. “I bet he was running from the cops already! That’s why he was naked!”

“Of course,” she replied slowly, pushing a long red curl out of her face. “Because he was on the run, he shed his clothes and tossed them as he fled, throwing the dogs off the scent!”

“And he somehow got over the fence and hid back here, waiting for the cops to pass before he slipped out my back gate!”
“And his calling you by your given name was an amazing streak of luck,” she added in a blatantly sarcastic tone. “Face it, dear … he was sent here for a reason. Only three people in this country know your real name and we’re two of them. That leaves one who you know would just love for you to panic and move out so he could take over this old home. He’s been drooling for it since his father married your mother, before you were born.”

I didn’t like Gulliver, but I just couldn’t believe he was in any way tied into the morning’s incident. It was too subtle for him.
“Come on,” I ordered, shoving my chair back with a loud scraping sound against the slate floors. “We’re going to go see if Mister Naked left any clues.” I ignored her muttered commentary on my fickle mind-changing and marched out the back door and into the garden, my coffee firmly in hand as I approached the rose bush.

“If he was naked, what kind of clues could he leave?” she wondered aloud as she followed me at a slower pace. “Something worth me dying of frost bite?” Winter was not Jackie’s element and any foray into the cold made her overly dramatic in her response to it.

“May I remind you that this is really your idea? I never would have thought of it if you hadn’t said anything,” I shot back in a prim tone, dropping to my knees in the moist earth around the rose bush.

It was always green. It never bloomed but it never faded to the dormant brown and gray shades of my other roses in the cold months. My grandmother swore it was because of some ancient magic but my mother told me it was just good gardening and a sheltered corner that kept it green. I was prone to believe the latter, since grandmother had tended towards flights of fancy even before the senility set in.

Jackie’s loud sigh was followed by an equally loud yawn. “It’s not even eleven o’clock, Lorelei,” she complained, using my chosen name. “I really should be back in bed right now . . .”

“Hey, you eat my grapes, you help me root around in my shrubbery,” I retorted, patting the ground beneath the thorny branches carefully. “All I’m getting is dirty,” I sighed after a moment or two of futile searching.

“Oh, bugger,” she relented, gingerly kneeling beside me. “You’re doing it wrong. You have to look at what you’re doing. As it is, you’ve likely messed up evidence with your patting and such . . .” She bent low and peered into the shadows of the shrub. “Oh . . .huh.”

“What huh?” I ducked down and tried to see what she was seeing. “I just see plant and dirt . . . Is that my clue? He’s a naked gardener, traveling the country side to check on the state of rose bushes in early winter? If so, he needs a new hobby . . .”

“No . . . I just thought I saw something. I suppose it’s nothing.” She sat back carefully, dusting garden bits from her sleeves. “I thought I saw some tinsel or something.”

“Tinsel?” I shot her what I knew to be an incredulous look from my perch nearly flat on the ground. “There’s no tinsel under here just dirt, rose bush and . . . oh!”

I almost missed it. It was dark amber, set in bronze or some other dark, rich-toned metal. It was half-buried in the soil near the base of the bush and took a bit of scrabbling to get out. Carefully, I sat up and brushed the soil from the crevices, ignoring Jackie’s chirping voice demanding to see what I held. It looked, I noticed, as if it came from a necklace. “Wow,” I finally breathed. “This is expensive!”

“That looks like amber and . . .whoa . . .emeralds! Or just very well cut glass,” she amended, reaching out a tentative finger to trace the slightly misshapen edge of the charm.

Originally round but now slightly bent and flattened from wear, the charm was a smooth metal disk, just an inch or so across, set with flower petals done in golden amber and emeralds such a dark green as to be almost black. I flipped it over, hoping it bore some inscription or clue as to ownership, but the only markings on the back were smudged, dark fingerprints from our own handling of it.

“Do you think it’s your intruder’s?” Jackie asked in a near-reverent whisper.

“I don’t know,” I replied after a moment’s hesitation. “But I know where I’ve seen this design before…” Jackie gave me a questioning look but I shook my head. “I’ll tell you tomorrow, when I’m absolutely positive that I’m right.”

Raising a brow, she nodded slowly. “Right … I’ll leave you to it then … Call me in the morning unless the dashing naked man returns and sweeps you off to parts unknown.”

I waved her off as she disappeared into the thick shadows of the sideyard, heading for her car out front. Tucking the charm into my pocket, I shoved myself to my feet and headed for the house, determined to dig out the book.

“Damn,” a soft voice muttered from the shadows of the hall.

My heart leapt to my throat and my vision narrowed to a pinpoint. It was well past midnight and I had finally started to doze off, but now I could barely breathe, much less move my fingers as I fumbled for the dial on the phone. “Hello? Emergency? There’s someone in my house . . .”

I couldn’t hear anyone moving and for one frantic moment I wondered if it were a ghost, some Victorian shade who had forgotten their manners.

“No, I don’t know who it is! That’s why I called you!” I hissed in response to the operator’s question.

A shuffling sound came from the direction from which the voice had emerged, an invisible hand pushing me against my headboard as the noise grew closer. I dropped the phone, part of my brain dimly registering the clunk of the plastic hitting the edge of the nightstand.

“I have a gun!” I cried shakily, my mouth dry as cotton wool and tasting of copper. “I’ll shoot!”

“It’s not nice to lie,” a soft voice replied from a shape barely discernable as a person in the shadows, “especially to me.” He sounded not-from-around here, British but not. His accent was soft and rolling, unlike any I had ever heard. “I won’t harm you, Alfhild.”

I couldn’t feel my body; I wondered if I had fainted or if this was just a terrible dream. Having my home broken into had long been a fear of mine and I had spent countless hours as a child making plans for escaping axe murderers and other assorted maniacs who might harm me in the night in my own bed. Now, here I was, faced with the fear and all I could do was grip my sheets and pant as my heart raced a mile a minute. “Take whatever you want,” I said, my voice still shaky.
“Just don’t hurt me!”

“You have something of mine,” the man allowed, stepping closer to my bedroom door. “But I’m willing to let you keep it if you come with me.”

A strange warm draft crept over my legs and for one horrible moment I thought I’d wet the bed in my fear. The sensation spread like light, drifting up my body and making me feel as if I were filled with a golden light. Flowers, I thought. My bedroom smelled of flowers. Not cloying like that fake perfume stuff but real flowers, roses and jasmine and honeysuckle. If moonlight had a smell, I thought, that would be it.

“Alfhild, where is my amulet?” He stepped into the light then, a thin slice of yellow glow from my nightlight bisecting his form. His eyes skimmed over me and I felt his gaze like fingers on my skin. The blush creeping into my cheeks angered me, reminded me that he was an intruder and I was alone in my house, the strange eyes of this man coveting my belongings and, I dreaded, me.

“I don’t have it. Get out! Just get out!” I ordered, sounding confident, an effect ruined, I’m sure, by the fact I was cowering in my bed.

He raised a brow, dark as a raven’s wing in the half-light of my room. He looked oddly at ease amongst my belongings, a mixture of antiques passed down from both sides of the family and thrift store finds.

Moving further into the room, he paused just inside the sphere of light from the tiny lamp on the shelf near my window. Part of me was relieved to see he had gotten dressed since last we met. A dark suit of some old fashioned design clung to his form, absorbing the light and making him seem as if he were made of the shadows themselves. What I had taken to be black was actually, when he took another step closer, revealed to be deep green, like the open ocean. He saw the amulet. I could tell by the way his eyes widened ever so slightly and his body seemed to jerk to attention.

“Alfhild, you’re a terrible liar.” He didn’t move toward it, though it seemed as if it were all he could to do force his gaze away from it and back to me. “Bring it to me.”

“No,” I spat, something in me finally snapping. Fear melted away with the smell of night flowers. I threw my sheet and blanket aside and rolled from the bed, making sure to keep it between me and him. “Get out of my house! I’ve called for the police and they’re on their way!”

He opened his mouth to respond but a new voice cut him off. “Hurry, Cadfael!” A small man, barely my height and vaguely cat-like, appeared in the doorway behind my intruder. “We’ve not got long!”

I felt the scream before I heard it and it took a second or two to realize it was coming from me. The men winced. The smaller one covered his ears and shouted something I couldn’t understand. The other, my intruder, frowned and started rummaging in his pockets for something. Gun, I thought. He’s going to shoot me! Lungs burning with a need for air, my scream died and became sobs. “Don’t hurt me!”

“Oh, shut up!” A bright flash blinded me and I felt suddenly very cold, all the way into my bones.

CHAPTER TWO

IS SHE DEAD?”

“No, you dolt, you just stunned her.” A shuffling sound niggled at the corners of my thoughts, dragging me from a near-blissful sleep. The pillow under my cheek was rough, and it smelled herbal. The sound stopped, and for a moment I began to slip back into a deep sleep, but a soft whistling started up.

“Could you please be quiet?” the lower of the two voices hissed. “I need to think!”

“Mmmm…” I shifted, or tried to, and found my body held firmly in place by what felt like a silken cocoon. My eyes flew open, and, seeing only blackness, I tried to scream again but no sound came out. Something was stuffed in my mouth, blocking any sound I might make. I began to thrash in earnest then and the silken fabric surrounding me seemed to grow tighter.

A bright glow cut through the blackness and the face of my intruder, his hair pulled back from his face and his dark eyes gleaming, smiled down at me. “If you stop wiggling about, you’ll find it easier to breathe.” The glow seemed to be emanating from his skin, I noticed despite my panic. His voice was soothing as he repeated his suggestion, this time motioning to his companion, the cat-like man. “Good girl,” he breathed as my body stilled.

I felt half-asleep, drugged, and I wondered if this was some rape plot or worse; just thinking about it made me want to vomit. I could feel the bile rising in my throat and I had a sudden, horrific flash of Jackie finding my body, my face livid and dried sputum on my cheeks and chin.

“You’re not going to choke,” he said in his soothing tone. “Just lay still for now.”

“She smells panicky.”

“Wouldn’t you be?” He bent and plucked a scrap of fabric from my mouth, tossing it aside with a grimace, and dabbing his fingers on his waistcoat before returning his gaze to me, his smile not quite as warm as before but not entirely false. “But Alfhild isn’t going to panic, is she? She’s going to stay very calm and very still . . .”

“I’m not,” I managed to rasp, my throat raw from screaming and having fabric stuffed in my mouth, “a dog. Don’t talk about me like I’m some wild animal you’re trying to tame.” Even as I spoke, I wondered if talking back was going to get me killed. His face darkened for just a moment, but his smile returned before it ever even really went away. “Untie me. Take what you want from the house but don’t hurt me. If you want ransom, you’re out of luck. I don’t have liquid assets.” Not entirely true, but he didn’t need to know they were tied up in Gulliver’s scheming.

“Stupid woman,” the cat-man muttered. “Money is silly. Not useful at all. Shiny, though!” he added, almost an afterthought. He dropped to a crouch near my ribs and peered at me with gold-green eyes, his sudden smile nearly feral in its intensity.

“Hush a moment,” the other man said, and I felt rather than saw him move closer. He knelt next to me then and reached for my chin, forcing me to turn my head and look him square in the eye.

It was like looking at everything beautiful in the world at once. His eyes were like pools in a deep forest, every color reflected and absorbed to make a kaleidoscope image, shifting and turning even as I watched. I couldn’t even begin to describe him; though he was so close to me I could smell the honey-wine of his breath and feel the warmth of it on my skin.

“She’s addled.”

His words were like cold water over my head. I blinked rapidly, the last vestiges of my stupor dissolving like sugar in warm water. “Am not!”

Wincing at my petulance, I started to sit up but both men pushed me back down.

“For the love of God, let me go! Take your stupid amulet and leave!”

“No,” the cat man sighed patiently. “We can’t leave. We live here . . . you’re the one that would need to leave and you can’t.”

“Bugger all . . . she’s fainted again!”

“No, she hasn’t . . . she’s just laying there with her eyes closed . . .” I felt a claw poke at my ribs and I resisted the urge to swat at the probing foot. Just wake up, I told myself. Wake up so you stop having this screwed up dream.

“Du,” came the lower of the two voices, “stop breathing on her face. She can’t open her eyes for it.”

For some reason, the brotherly tone of his words made me want to smile. I heard the cat-man grumble and move away but I didn’t do as the other suggested I might. Instead, I squeezed my eyes more tightly shut. “No place like home,” I muttered, almost involuntarily.

“What’s she saying?”

“Du, be quiet!” The other man was close to me now . . . I could feel him. It was like a small sun moving across my skin, tracing the path of his fingers. He was feeling my arm gingerly, looking for something I didn’t understand. He didn’t check my pulse or even feel for broken bones; he just skimmed me, heat chasing along my cold skin. “Alfhild, open your eyes.”

I found myself obeying, wincing as the glow rising from his skin filled my vision. “Stop doing that!”

“Doing what?” He raised a brow, his lips curling into a semblance of a smile. “Being concerned?” His fingers left my skin and I felt suddenly bereft, and hated myself for it. “Breathing?”

“Glowing!” I snapped, the silk bonds which I still could not see tightening perceptibly as I tried to shift away from his piercing gaze, only to fetch up against the cat-man, Du I remembered him being called. “Stop glowing!” I repeated weakly, feeling color suffuse my cheeks as I realized how ridiculous that sounded.

“I’m afraid,” he said quietly, a hint of derision in his voice, “that’s impossible . . . I cannot help how I am made any more than you can.”

“I told you this was a terrible idea,” Du put in, apparently picking up the threads of an earlier argument. “She’s the last of the lot and she’s not got a clue about us or anything!” He bent low and peered at me, his pale golden eyes slit with black pupils. “Do you?”

“I know that I’ve called the police and they’ll be here any minute,” I snapped, prim anger replacing the last of my fear. Survive, I told myself, and then deal with them later, when I have help. “I don’t know what else you want from me but you know where the amulet is! Take it and go!”

The other man—Cadfael—rolled his eyes. “You honestly are the most obtuse creature I have ever met!”

With a sudden gesture, he whipped away my bonds, a flutter of movement dissolving them into thousands of tiny pieces, scattering away into the darkness like jewel-toned butterflies. It felt as if a weight had been lifted from me. I drew a deep breath, my lungs aching, as Du slid his hand behind my back and gently pushed me into a sitting position.

My room was gone, I noticed with a certain detached numbness. I was on what seemed to be a grass mat, but like no grass I had ever seen. It was a rainbow of colors, shimmering slightly in the glow rising from my kidnapper’s skin. What I had taken for a pillow was a hummock in the grass, dozens of tiny flowers sparkling like precious gems in the dimness.

“Don’t overreact,” my captor began, but I didn’t let him finish.

“Cadfael, right?” I asked, staring at him. The name seemed to fit; he seemed the type to have one of those stoic, old fashioned names which no one knew the meaning of anymore.

As if reading my mind, Du leaned close. “It means ‘battle prince’ in the tongue you lot call Welsh.” He smiled smugly at my startled expression, his broad wink and tiny snicker letting me know that he was entirely unconcerned about the present situation. To his companion, he added, “Don’t give me that look! She’d ask sooner or later. Figured I’d save time. You know she’s going to be difficult getting through the fens.”

Cadfael stood suddenly, his coat, reminiscent of the kind highwaymen once wore, swirled about his knees. “Remind me to give you that talk again about shutting up . . .”

He offered me a pained smile and held out a hand to help me up. “Please, I most humbly beg your pardon for this sudden shift in locale but I’m afraid it was necessary. The law enforcement in your . . . place . . . is rather oblivious when it comes to us.”

I found myself on my feet, my right hand in his as he bowed low over it, a ghost of a kiss skating across my knuckles.

“Okay, I figure I have about ten minutes before whatever you slipped me wears off and I start freaking out again,” I found myself saying, an eerie calm in my soul. “So while I’m all nice and not panicking, I want you to tell me why I’m here. You have the amulet . . . why do you need me? Gulliver knows he can’t get any ransom for me! There’s no one left to pay it! He can’t have the house . . . this scheme isn’t going to work!”

Cadfael rocked back on his heels and, for the first time, I noticed the space we were in. Really noticed it. Something about his motion drew my eye to the walls, which seemed to be made of stone, rough hewn and damp. A cave, I thought, my lips moving to form the word without sound. My eyes darted downward to take in the lush, varicolored grass we stood on with its multitude of sparkling flowers. Somewhere, water ran. The air was tinged with the cool, night flower scent I had smelled in my room earlier.

“How . . .” I began, but this time Du interrupted me.

“This is just the first stop on the journey. We wanted to make sure you weren’t dead.” He plucked one of the flowers from the grass at his feet and, after a momentary examination, tucked it behind my ear. My cheeks flared red as I realized I had on a Garfield nightshirt and a pair of boxer shorts that had somehow found their way into my wardrobe. I felt positively naked next to these two in their fine fabrics and intricate details. “You’re alive. Let’s go!” He bounced on his toes and I halfway expected to see a tail swish around his hips.

Cadfael merely shook his head, his eyes fixed on me. I felt his gaze move over me, not in a sensual way but more like a man looking at a car he wished to buy. I wondered if he was going to kick my ankles to see if they were sound before he spoke again. “The integrity of our portal has been compromised. For centuries, your family has protected my kind from the mortal world and we have asked only one thing in return . . . But that pact, as of today, is destroyed.” His eyes were flashing gray and black like storm clouds as they found mine. “How old are you, Alfhild?”

“Excuse me?” I sputtered, my arms folding across my chest as I desperately wished for a robe or blanket or pretty much anything to cover my bare limbs. “That’s none of your business! And why do you keep calling me Alfhild? My name is Lorelei!” Even as the words came from my lips, I knew he would accuse me of lying.

“I know Lorelei,” he sneered. “She’s not amused by your name choice. Jealous creature, that one. Alfhild is the name your mother gave you, smart woman that she was. Your abandonment of it is just one more problem the host would like to address with you.” He nodded at Du, who made a cooing noise of pure happiness, and began to trot away from me, deeper into the darkness that spread along the slight rise of the grassy expanse within the cave.

“We’ve only got an hour in their time,” Du called to us. “Then the sun will be up!”

Cadfael growled under his breath. “She won’t be missed by many. Come on then,” he said to me as if I were a simple child. “Give me your hand and I won’t have to use the lead.” He patted a pocket threateningly and I had visions of being put on a leash and dragged behind him. Hesitantly, I held out my hand to him again. This time, when he took it, there was no trace of gentle gallantry. His fingers nearly crushed mine as he dragged me to his side, setting off at a steady stride after Du, who was still within sight. Amazingly, the cavern we were in seemed to stretch forever, no end visible. “When this is all over, you won’t remember a thing. Maybe have a bit of a hangover from the dew but no clear remembrance of your night among us. But for now, stay with me. Never let me out of your sight. If you do, I will not be able to bring you back to your world at the end of the night!”

“I thought the sun was coming up!” I panted, hurrying to keep up with his long legged strides. “And what do you mean ‘my world’?” He was moving fast, his legs long enough to make me have to jog to keep up. Du stayed just out of reach but not so far as to disappear as he hummed and sang to himself, picking out a path along the grass that only he could see but Cadfael was apparently glad to follow.

“The sun is coming up in your world, not ours . . . it rarely comes up too high here,” he added, glancing aside as we passed an outcropping in the stone wall. “If you remember nothing else, Alfhild, remember that you are not to take any food, drink or gift while you are here. Not even from my own hand. Is that understood?” He paused, a ghost of a smile crossing his lips. “Unless you would like to stay . . . then freely partake of all nourishment offered.”

I tried to pull away from him but his grip was like iron. Gasping in pain I spat, “Don’t order me around! What the Hell is all this? I’m not going to let you drag me around some freaking cave and pretend it’s all okay! If you don’t tell me what you’re going to do with me, I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”

“You’ll what?” he demanded, motioning for Du to wait for us. “Scream? Throw a fit? You’re in the Unseelie Court now, Alfhild. Scream all you want and no one will care. The voice of one human, one of our oppressors, one of the ones who nearly killed us all, will go unnoticed here. I do not have the time or patience to educate you on what should be basic facts so you heed what I tell you, when I tell you. Your parents did you a disservice by not teaching you the ways of old, but that is not my problem.” He jerked on my arm once more, bringing me flush against his side. I could feel his heat through the layers of velvet and lawn that separated our skin. “Now do you understand what I have told you?”

“Yes,” I replied, feeling his grip slacken just a bit. “And I understand you’re insane!” I twisted away then, the burn of his fingers still hot on my skin as I ran for all I was worth.

CHAPTER THREE

I HAD NEVER FELT SUCH EXCRUCIATING PAIN before in my entire life; tiny, searing bites of pain blossomed on my arms and legs, darted across my neck and seemed to grow hot and inflamed as I ran, or tried to run, rather. I could hear Cadfael and Du calling my name but they drew no closer. In fact, I thought with a flare of triumph, they seemed to be letting me go. The cave was huge, bigger than any I had ever suspected to be in Great Britain, and the grass under my feet was giving way to slimy mud. The pain sliding and nipping at my skin grew more pronounced and for one horrible second, I thought I saw eyes in the darkness, towering over me, but then they were gone. Without warning, my knees buckled and I went down, my hands skidding from under me as I tried to break my fall. The searing bites on my skin ceased for the time being and I managed to catch my breath, each inhalation a little less painful, a little less burning than before. Coughing as I tried to breathe properly, I rolled onto my back, groaning as my skin and bones ached. “I’m not,” I complained to no one in particular, “that out of shape!”

“Alfhild, do not move!” came Cadfael’s voice, sounding oddly stern. Well, I supposed it was stern seeing as how I didn’t have a great deal of experience with his moods just then. “Just . . . lay down.”

Frowning, I sat up. I didn’t want to wallow in mud, especially not when my entire body felt as if it were going into spasm. “No!”

A crackling noise made me snap my head to the right. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel that someone was looking at me, hunting me.

“Don’t move, lass,” Du called.

I couldn’t see him either but I saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye and thought it might be him. The spots on my arms and legs that had been blossoms of pain were bleeding freely, a sight which made me gasp. I thought it had been muscle fatigue or even some weird stress reaction, but tiny wounds scored my flesh, red blood welling and dripping at a disturbing rate.

“Stay very still.”

I was prone to obey at that point. The crackling noise grew louder and was accompanied by a low mutter, like an old man talking to himself. Carefully, I shifted just enough to face the direction from which the crackling noise seemed to arise. I wished I hadn’t. It looked like a wiry little man, no taller than me when I stood, was creeping towards me, his hands by his sides as he moved in a crouch. His teeth looked as if they were filed to points in his dusky face, dark rivulets running from the edge of his cap downward. It looked, I thought, like blood. His sodden cap hung limply on his head but he didn’t seem to notice. One of his hands came up and I saw what he held: a long, pointed spike. With a cackling cry in some tongue I did not know, he leapt towards me.

I shrieked and flung myself flat on the ground, waiting for the impact which never came. A yowling snarl sounded instead and a heavy thud came from my left. Hissing and spitting, the sound of flesh tearing, movement in the dimness of the cavern, then it was over. Du staggered back into my line of sight and I cried out in shock. He was ragged, a deep gash across one cheek, but he was alive.

“Damned redcap,” he said in a slightly shaken voice. “No brains, just blood.” With what sounded like a resigned sigh, he dropped to his knees next to me, and then fell over on his side. “Ow.”

“I told you,” Cadfael sighed from somewhere nearby, “to stay down. When I told you to stay by me,” he continued tightly, not looking at me as he knelt next to his companion and began tending to the wound on his cheek with a handkerchief, “I said it for a reason, not just because you’re pleasing to look upon. There are dangers here for which you are not prepared, redcaps being one of them. You’re lucky that one was relatively dull witted and slow. If Du had died, you would be forfeit.”

Du made a noise that sounded akin to a laugh but I couldn’t be sure.

Before I could ask anything else, Cadfael added, “I will tell you once more to stay by me. If you choose to flee again, I will not even do you the courtesy of calling a warning. The redcap here was tame compared to the ones that cross the veil into your world. He is the least of your worries with the host.” He looked up then, pinning me in place with a hard glare. His eyes were like black pools then, no color showing. It was like staring into nothingness and it chilled me to the bone. He rose to his full height, never breaking our gaze, and I felt like he was peeling away layers to get at my innermost core. Then, as quickly as the feeling had swept over me, it was gone. “Now, Du needs a healer and I am not permitted to exercise my skill within these walls. We can either stop at Hoelle’s or we can continue into the host itself . . .”

“Hoelle’s,” Du hissed, struggling upwards. “It’s closer.”

Cadfael shot me one last, disgruntled look and nodded to his friend. “Hoelle’s then. Maybe we can get this one some decent clothing.” His gaze flickered slightly towards the amused end of the spectrum but he didn’t add anything further. Du offered me a weak smile and an elbow. Unwittingly, I found myself accepting and even smiling a bit in return.

“Redcaps,” I began, but Du jerked on my hand slightly, silencing me. He mouthed the word ‘later’ to me and then steadfastly refused to look at me in the eye. “Ooooooookay . . .” My wounds were still seeping but not as profusely as before. “Does this Hoelle have Band-Aids?”

Cadfael muttered under his breath before replying, “No. She will heal you, though, if I ask her to. She owes me a favor and she will traffic with humans if she must.”

“Humans . . . look, buddy . . . you and I are both the same thing here . . . humans.” I glanced at Du. “I’m kind of iffy about him though . . . When I wake up and this all makes sense . . .”

“You are awake, you daft woman!” Cadfael stopped in his tracks, forcing Du and I to stop short or run into him. “All I ask is that you shut your mouth until we reach the host, then all will be revealed. Is that too difficult to comprehend?” His accent thickened as he spoke, shifting from a Northern lilt to something else, something older and more archaic. I could barely understand him as he continued. “You’ve been sorely underserved by your ancestors, Alfhild. You’re like a naked, mewling infant in our world now and I have but a handful of hours to educate you in all you need to know before facing Mabd.”

My brain decided to choose that moment to take a tiny vacation. Supposing this is real, I thought, this means I am somehow involved in the goings on of a nonhuman. Redcaps are mythological beings, I added primly to myself. They don’t exist. Mabd, queen of the faerie folk, is a legend. She doesn’t exist either. I let myself descend into a pleasant fuzz of disorientation and inward promises of a nice, stiff drink and a real vacation as Du half-dragged me along some secret path through the cavern.

I wasn’t sure how long we’d been walking before I was jostled to an abrupt halt, Du’s breath coming hard and fast yet silent beside me. Cadfael was several feet in front of us, his jacket slung over one shoulder and his arms extended upwards. It took a moment for me to realize he was feeling something, his fingers probing seemingly thin air.

“Ah,” Cadfael sighed after a moment, bending and running his fingers down thin air, tracing a large rectangle. “If I do this wrong, you’re going to be stuck here with your friend the redcap.”

I glanced at Du, who was wearing an intent look on his feline features. “Right, stuck in a cave with rainbow grass and faerie tale monsters. Got it. You know, this would’ve been easier if you’d just thrown me in the trunk of a car. I gotta tell you, whatever you doped me with…” Words literally failed me at that moment.

A rectangle of light burst into existence before us, Cadfael’s fingers brushing away darkness like so many cobwebs. Sound exploded from the light: people chattering, music playing, something breaking . . . it was as if a party were in full swing just beyond the glare of the golden light. “Whoa.”

“Cadfael,” Du said softly, “has the host moved?”

“No,” he replied just as quietly. “Seems Hoelle has visitors.”

Both men turned to look at me with similar expressions of concern and annoyance. “What?” I sighed, exasperated. “I didn’t invite ‘em!”

“You,” Cadfael said primly, “are going to be more of a problem than I’d bargained on. You were not meant to be seen so early on.” He glanced at Du. “Maybe use a charm on her? She’s close enough to being one of us anyway . . .”

Du shook his head. “If you use it now, you’ll surely miss it later. The only thing to do is go in feet first, Cadfael. You know it and I know it. Hoelle’s guests be hanged.” He sighed shakily. “Damn but that spike caught me well . . .”

Cadfael inhaled and held as breath as he thought, assessing me with cool eyes. Finally, he exhaled in a rush. “Take off your clothing, Alfhild.”

CHAPTER FOUR

EXCUSE ME?” I GRASPED MY NIGHT-shirt tightly, pinning it to my body with my arms.

“Alfhild,” Du groaned. “Please just work with us here. We’ve seen naked women before and you’ve got nothing to surprise us . . . not even that weird birthmark on your bum.”

“How do you . . . “

“Nudity is far more excusable here than humanity,” he cut me off with a faint smirk. “Naked. Now.”

I jerked back slightly, tilting my head to give them both the benefit of my glare. “Fine … I’ll take off my shirt on one condition.”

“What?” Cadfael and Du sighed in unison. Cadfael caught on first, following the direction of my gaze. “Oh, hammers and tongs.”

“Prude,” Du whispered in my ear as I fastened the velvety coat around me.

It was a very tight fit, my body not of the same athletic build as Cadfael’s, but so long as I didn’t move too quickly or breathe too deeply, I thought, I’d be fine.

“Maybe,” I allowed, fighting the urge to smile, “but I’m a warm one.”

The jacket hit me just below my bottom, barely covering my hated jiggles. It fastened snugly across the chest and stomach but mercifully, the buttons held.

“Now we can go see your friend and get Band Aids.”

Cadfael rolled his eyes at me and stepped forward, into the rectangle of light.

Du chose that moment to whisper in my ear, his breath tickling my neck as his words hissed across my skin. “Alfhild dear . . . sometimes it’s best to just let go and roll with it.”

“Huh?”

“Come along,” Cadfael called softly, the sounds of the ruckus in the light nearly swallowing his words. “We’re already attracting too much attention with her as it is!”

Du pushed me forward as Cadfael walked confidently into the melee, his back straight and stride nearly bouncy as he plunged headfirst into it all.

“Listen,” Du added as an afterthought, his graceful gait marred by whatever the redcap had done to him, “just keep your head down and do as Cadfael says. They won’t hurt you if they think you’re his.”

“If they who what now?”

Du did not respond, just tugged me inexorably towards the heart of the crowd. Forms moved around me and spoke, sang, laughed, shouted, but I could not see them. The light blinded me, and even with my eyes closed it hurt my head to even be in the room. At least I assumed it was a room. It felt close, warm, like someone had a fire going and there were too many people in the space. Someone called my name softly and I jerked, trying to look for the source but only seeing light.

“Du?” I called shakily, no longer feeling his hand on me. More tentatively, I called “Cadfael?”

The light blinked out and silence fell. It lasted the space of a breath, then someone was touching my face. “Open your eyes, dearest,” a soft female voice. The fingers were firm and cool, skimming across my cheeks and then my eyelids. “I need to see you to heal you.”

Unwillingly, I did as I was told and found myself staring into eyes so blue they were like deep Arctic ice. I gasped to see them and their stunning sunburst clarity, feeling the cool touch of fingers still moving across my lips. It took me a moment to realize that the woman was blind, feeling her way across my features to discover my appearance. “The redcap in the outer rim found her,” I heard Cadfael murmur. “See to Du first. He’s more gravely injured.”

The woman’s fingers left my face and I was able to see the rest of the space now. Whatever party had been in full swing as we crossed into the light was gone. We were in a rough kitchen, copper pots and pans gleaming brightly from overhead beams as some unseen light source picked out the dust motes dancing around bundles of herbs and assorted plants.

“Cadfael,” I paused, waiting for some sort of response, “is this Hoelle?”

“It is,” he replied curtly. Gingerly, I shifted in my seat, a rough hewn wooden chair in the middle of the room, butted against a block style table. Hoelle was just to my right, bent over Du where he lay on a pallet. “Will he recover fully?” Cadfael demanded of the healer woman. “Is he—is he done for?”

If I had known Cadfael better, I would have said he was crying, or close to. As it was, I could only assume. “Du,” I called softly to him, “Du, I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Be quiet,” Cadfael urged before Du or Hoelle could respond to me.

“That’s no way to talk to her,” Hoelle noted dryly, pressing those long, cool fingers against a red mark in Du’s skin, running the length of his thigh. “Not if you want her to stay around.” She turned her eyes to me, blindly staring, a white, toothy smile spreading on her features. “You want to stay around, don’t you? It’s been a long while since one of your sort has come down here.”

“She’s asleep,” Cadfael replied before I could. “This is all a bad dream she’s going to wake up from in a bit and write it off to that last bit of wine before bedtime.” He slid a sideways glance my way and for a moment, I felt a frisson of some unknown feeling radiate from my belly to my spine, sending webs of electricity through my soft core. “Isn’t that right, Alfhild?” He patted the cat-man on the shoulder and brushed against Hoelle as he returned to his spot by the hearth.

The sores on my legs were long since clotted but they ached, as did the marks on my arms and neck, irritated by the velvet fabric of the borrowed coat. I felt the heaviness of the amulet in the breast pocket but I didn’t dare reach for it under Cadfael’s watchful eye.

“Alfhild-Lorelei,” he began, then paused, his eyes darting from item to item along the wall of Hoelle’s space. “You must be told something soon and there is no good way to do it. First, I believe that all news is best received on a full stomach. I’m sure Hoelle can spare us some bread and a bit of salt for a sandwich?”

I did not understand the nature of the look that passed between Du and Hoelle, then the two of them and Cadfael. I just felt the knot tighten in my belly, my senses reeling as I tried to process my entire evening. Hell, I corrected, my entire day. “I’m not hungry,” I protested, but Hoelle was already on her feet, her eyes never leaving Cadfael’s as she moved to one small, purple painted cabinet that I had not noticed before.

Quickly, she produced the loaf of homemade bread and the tiny container of salt Cadfael had suggested and deposited both in his waiting hands before trundling back to Du. She was willowy, that much I could tell despite her voluminous robes and cloaks, and she moved like her joints hurt, but she did not look old.

She looked, I thought, barely older than I, save for her long, snow-white hair. It fell past her hips in a wavy cascade, thick and shining, not yellowed with age at all. Her eyes in their blue blindness further added to her icy appearance. I was not sure but I thought her pale skin sparkled like frost as she moved through the pool of light that came from a small globe on the ceiling.

Whatever party had been here had cleared out quickly and must not have been as large as I thought. I didn’t realize I spoke that part aloud until Hoelle snorted.

“No one’s left, lass. You’re just in between. You’ve chosen to close them out now, is all.” She reached over Du and pulled a packet of something dark and earthy-smelling from a shelf along the wall, which itself appeared to be made from hard-packed dirt. “Here, lad, I’ll make your tisane and you’ll be fine in a jot.”

I looked to Cadfael for some clarification but found him muttering to himself, making small gestures as if he were trying to keep a conversation hidden or subtle. “Um, Cadfael?” I hazarded, keeping my voice as neutral as possible. The wooden chair was cold against the bare backs of my legs and my rear and I was hoping to beggar a blanket while we sat in the chill home of this Hoelle person, but I was starting to worry about my captor’s mental health, of all things. “Cadfael?”

“Just a moment, dear, I’m talking to someone,” he said aside to me, returning to his muttered, fluttering conversation.

Du snorted, his eyes closed. With a rumbling sigh that resembled a purr, he informed me, “You’re not rolling with it.”

“I’m half—no, three-quarters—naked sitting in some strange woman’s home, kidnapped from my nice, warm, bed. I’ve been chased by a psycho with an iron spike, attacked by killer mosquitoes if these bites mean anything; you’re drinking a cup of dirt and he,” I jabbed a finger in Cadfael’s direction, “is talking to himself! What’s there to roll with? The insanity defense?” My voice had been steadily rising the entire time I was ranting and the temperature in the room had been dropping noticeably. My breath was visible as a thin, foggy puff with each word now. “Isn’t there a fire in here? Why is it so cold?”

Hoelle stood straight as a ramrod, her long fingers gripping her dun and gray skirts tightly. “It is cold because you’re angering them,” she said sharply, her eyes locking onto mine. “You cannot see because you are the blind one, Alfhild, or Lorelei. You are the one who has plucked your eyes from their sockets, hidden things away in dark wrappings.”
Without warning, her hands shot out and grabbed the sides of my face. Cadfael had gone very still and Du was sitting up, the mug of dirt-colored liquid gripped tightly in his hands.

“See,” she ordered me, her thumbs pressing against my now-closed eyes. “See!”

“Hoelle,” Cadfael’s warning tone insinuated itself into the moment. “We need her whole.”

“And whole she is,” the woman said with and obvious smile in her voice. “Now, at any rate. Open your eyes, girl. See.”

The feeling of her thumbs still fresh on my skin, I hesitantly opened first one eye, then the other. It looked as if the room had filled with mist and we were in the middle of a cloud. The mist was moving, throbbing almost, and Hoelle was smiling. Cadfael, for his part, looked worried, the frown on his face marring the clean line of his features and making me, irrationally, want to make him smile.

Du let out a low whistle and muttered something that I couldn’t understand. The mist was thickening, taking on shapes, and I gasped as something or someone touched my hair.

“What the Hell is this?” I demanded, standing so quickly that I overset my chair. I didn’t care what part of me was showing then, things had taken a decided turn for the weirder. The mist was now solid white, blurring my view of the others in the room. “What did you do to me?”

“She’s a talker, ain’t she?” someone asked near my ear, and then sound swelled around me. The party, it sounded like, was back in full force. The mist solidified, and then divided. Shapes became fully-defined creatures, and I saw everything.
The room was filled with things that looked like people, drinking and talking, having animated conversations, some crying and laughing, one yelling. The noise was deafening; I clapped my hands over my ears and sank down to my knees, tears springing unbidden to my eyes.

Cadfael was on his knees beside me before I could do more than keen a long, pitiful sound of frustration and fear. “It’s real, isn’t it?” I sobbed, my body shaking. “This … this freak show is real!”

He frowned at my terminology but he didn’t scold me. “Yes, Alfhild. This is all real. And we owe you an explanation. Something I was hoping to do sooner but things did not begin as I’d hoped. Now we can just hope they end as they should…”

CHAPTER FIVE

OKAY, DEEP BREATH,” I TOLD myself aloud. “This isn’t that bad…” I stood up and wrapped the blanket Hoelle had so kindly provided more tightly about my person. I couldn’t sit still. Not right then. Thankfully, at some point in my nervous breakdown the partygoers had faded away, giving me room to pace.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve been above,” Hoelle whispered too loudly to Du, “but do humans always react like that?”

“Only,” I said a bit too sharply, “when their perceptions of reality are severely fucked with!” I took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “So you’re trying to tell me that you two are faeries…”

“Sidhe,” the two males corrected automatically. Du added, “Faerie just sounds so…dainty.”

“Fine, Sidhe. You’re Sidhe.” I stopped near the hearth, pressing my forehead against the rough hewn mantle bearing oddly shaped bottles and containers, all filled with dark things and smelling of earth and herbs. “And you’ve been using some portal under my rose bush for roughly six hundred years.”

Cadfael cleared his throat gently. “Well . . . more or less.”

“More or less? Which is more and which is less?” I looked up at him wearily, tucking the blanket more tightly around me.

“I’m very tired. These bites hurt like Hell. I want my bed back. Please.”

I was bone-weary, would have seriously considered violence if I weren’t so tired, and on the verge of a nervous collapse. It had always bothered me in movies when the hero or heroine would fall into some unseen world and be just dandy about it. Nervous breakdowns seemed to be the way to go in that instance.

“It’s more like a thousand plus and . . .” he took a deep breath and glanced sideways at Du and Hoelle. “The rest has to wait. There are forces at work here that I can’t tamper with, and to tell you more now . . .”

“To tell me more now,” I snarled, feeling my lips curl over the words as I lurched towards him, grabbing the front of his shirt and shaking him as hard as I could, “would mean you don’t sing soprano in approximately two minutes.”

Hoelle reached for me and pressed a piece of bread into my hand. “Dear, you need sustenance. You haven’t eaten in so long . . . and this journey will be hard on you . . . .” She smiled at me, reminding me at once of my grandmother, and I raised the bread to my lips.

“Alfhild,” Du began, earning a sharp hiss for silence from Cadfael.

The bread smelled wonderful and for one moment, it made me feel at home, like I was cared for and nurtured and everything terrific bread symbolized in the world but a tiny worm of fear was niggling in my belly. Something was amiss. They were all three staring at me with bated breath, making me feel like some prized insect at the end of a pin.

“I thought,” I said after the briefest pause, “I shouldn’t eat anything down here.”

Hoelle frowned deeply, her face becoming momentarily ugly. “Who told you that? Was it some silly tale in the nursery?”

She stalked towards me, her blind eyes seeming to pin me to the spot. Jabbing her finger at my chest, she continued in a harsh, heavily accented tone that lacked lilt, but rolled in gutturals. “Nursery stories are lies, mostly. They add to them, change them, make them pretty and shiny or horrible and slimy. All for the entertaining of the bairn.”

“I’ve told you all I can, Alfhild,” Cadfael cut in, sounding almost sad. “I just need you to do something that seems impossible and trust me a bit. At least enough to know I won’t let harm come to you.” He smiled faintly and nodded at the bread. “Go on, eat something.”

“No,” I replied, setting the slice down on the table. “I’m not hungry.” It was a blatant lie, something revealed by the rumbling of my stomach. “I want to understand. Why is that damned amulet so important? Why not just take it and leave me alone? You’re freakin’ faeries! Can’t you be sneakier than tripping over yourselves in my hall? Or showing up naked in my garden?”

I flung myself down on the cot which Du had recently vacated and I let out a long sigh. “I just need some sleep. It’ll be better when I wake up.” Almost immediately, I felt my eyes slide closed. My body ached with exhaustion and seemed to melt into the straw mattress beneath me. There was silence and I think I drifted off.

I know I halfway awakened when Hoelle began tending to the tiny bites on my arms and legs, dabbing them with a mint-scented salve. I could not hear what they were saying but I could discern their tones. Du sounded tired, more bored than anything. Hoelle seemed annoyed, angry even. Cadfael was . . . neutral. He wasn’t giving anything away, I thought. He’d said he had too much to lose, that things were delicate down here . . . . Why not, I thought, my mind wandering toward a deeper rest again. Why not accept that I’m not in my own world anymore? Stranger things have happened, I mused. Maybe it’s just a very vivid dream and when I wake up, I’ll laugh it off and tell Jackie to meet me for bloody marys at ten.

Cadfael’s voice was low, almost a purr like Du’s, and very close to my face. I held still, unsure of how long I had been asleep, part of me worried that I had been drooling all over his jacket as I dozed. He was speaking, but it was no language I knew. It was almost singing, the language, and it was soothing and sensual all at once. It was as if I were being caressed by the words, and I wished I knew what he was saying.

“She’s waking,” Hoelle murmured in English. Her cool fingers moved across my eyelids, barely touching me as she added, “I think I scared her earlier . . . the wraiths are much to take. I’m just happy old Herne was not visiting. He’s a sight even for the Sidhe.”

“Mabd won’t be pleased,” Cadfael said, the floorboards creaking as if he were rocking on his heels while he stood next to me. “She wanted this done cleanly. Tinker’s bells, she wanted this done when Alfhild was a bairn herself.”

Du made a noise that sounded like he was choking on something. I’m sure I frowned then, marring any semblance of deep sleep. “A bairn? It’s against our laws to take ‘em before they’re of childbearing age!”

“That would have put her at thirteen human winters,” Cadfael pointed out. “A bairn to you and I.” He pressed his fingers against my neck then, feeling my pulse. “So slow . . . I’ll never get used to that.”

Hoelle sighed. She sounded as if she were far across the room when she spoke, her voice muffled by something. “She needs to know soon. Now. Mabd can be angry if she likes but it remains that you’re the Blood. You’re the one that needs Alfhild most, no matter what the Herself says.” A sloshing sound like water being poured into a large bowl filled the room for a moment then Hoelle spoke again. “Alfhild, child, open your eyes and come to me.”

I found myself sitting up, brushing past Cadfael without even pausing, and moving towards Hoelle before I had a chance to question her. She was sitting at the rough hewn table with a large copper basin before her, the sides carved with dark symbols, worn with age and use. “Look into the waters and tell me what you see,” Hoelle said gently, shoving the basin towards me. “Just look down and relax.”

I started to take a step back but Du pushed me forward. With a resigned sigh, I bent to look into the basin and was a bit surprised to see that it was all black inside, like onyx or obsidian, something that captured the light but did not shine overtly. “What is this?”

“It’s a bowl,” Du explained. “Holding water. Look into it and see what looks back. Humor the old man,” he added, winking at Cadfael. “He’s had a rough month.”

I bit my tongue on a rude reply and bent low over the bowl. “I see my eyes,” I sighed. “And the lamp.”

As I looked at the poor reflection, it began shifting. I thought the water was moving at first, stirred by some minute movement of the bowl, but I soon realized it was the image itself that was changing. My face disappeared, dissolving into the dark waters. A tiny flicker of green swam to the surface then seemed to explode across the basin.

I was falling, but my feet never left the floor. Around me, voices called my name and I recognized none of them. The green began to form into shapes and quickly became a large hall carved from stone streaked with cupric green and adorned with bushels of growing things. Tiny pinpoints of light swarmed down from the ceiling, coursing over the walls before swooping upwards again in some wonderful choreography.

Creatures I had read about as a child populated long rows of tables set for a feast, sweets and savories vying for space on the wooden boards. It looked like Christmas, I thought, with the dark greens and reds.

Tiny beings that looked like children but played like adults darted across the foreground before sliding into seats next to each other at the far table.

The room fell silent and all eyes turned to the head table. A thick tapestry opened behind the center chair and a veiled woman stepped out. She was zaftig and graceful, her face veiled with diaphanous red material that seemed shot through with stars. A fine silver circlet bound her hair from her face and her gown concealed more than not, but seemed to me to be the finest, most sensual dress I had ever seen. Silently, she took her seat at the place of honor and took her crystal goblet up in her hand. Lifting her veil just enough to drink, she took a sip of the amber liquid in the cup.

A cheer broke loose from the crowd, rumbling like thunder and bursting into a cascade of hooting and joyous noise. The veiled woman set the goblet down and turned to the person in the chair next to her. Cadfael, I realized in an instant. Wearing pale green and brown, he looked like some forest spirit as he took her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. He stood and reached out, pulling the veil back.

“Enough,” Cadfael barked, shoving the bowl of water away, and leaving me blinking and stunned.

Letting out a breath I didn’t know I’d had been holding, I turned watering eyes up to Hoelle. “What. The. Hell. Was. That?”

“Your reason for being here,” she replied simply, taking up the copper basin and turning away from me. “That’s all you need to know.”

Du cleared his throat, interrupting whatever it was Cadfael had been about to say. “We’ve got barely two hours to find Mabd and let her know,” he said quietly. “I’m well enough for the journey. The main route is safest . . . .”

Cadfael nodded and grabbed my elbow. “We’ll dress her on the way. Destroy her human clothes, Hoelle. We don’t need any workings done this evening.”

“Wait! I’m not going out like this!” I protested, tugging at the hem of the velvet coat I still wore. “It’s cold out there!”

“Would you feel better if I took off my pants?” Du asked kindly, a wicked gleam in his eye. “I’d be happy to do it.”

“Enough,” Cadfael repeated, his eyes narrowed. “One death is enough for tonight.”

I held the blanket even more tightly around myself. “No.”

Cadfael looked, for one moment, as if he would like to just haul off and shake me. Instead, he smiled as sweetly as I’d ever seen anyone do it, and offered me his elbow. “Fine. We’ll do it your way. Du…”

“Got it,” the catlike man replied. “Claws are sharp, nose is twitchin’.” He gave Hoelle a resounding smack on the cheek, the frost-colored woman smiling at the kiss. “See you at the ball?”

“Wait,” I had a horrible vision dancing before my eyes now, nothing to do with the one in the bowl. “I’m not going to a ball in this, am I?”

“Of course not,” Cadfael replied coolly, leading me to the door of the tiny house. “You’re going naked.”