I shake my head. “The circle imprinted on me,” I argue. “No one can get me while I’m inside.”
“Aye, and that’s true, girly. But you know what is also true? Without the flowers, there’s no circle.”
Then, as if to prove his point, he bends down, plucking one of the lily of the valleys right out of the ground.
I nod.
Message received.
Grimly is as good as his threat.
Dick.
The next evening, after spending another day with Morgan at her cottage and leaving empty-handed once again, I cautiously approach my circle. I can’t exactly explain it, but I can sense that something… something’s not right even before I come upon it. The night is quiet, the faerie folk hidden in the shadows though they haven’t bothered me since the whole feather incident, and I tiptoe closer, ready to book it if I have to.
Instead, when I creep up to the circle, I stare.
It’s destroyed.
The lily of the valleys have been torn from their plots, scattered and strewn at the edge of the snow. Petals are shredded, the silky white tatters matching the ground. The frost stretches past the former border of the circle, crystallizing a few blades of grass, though I do see a few stray patches of melted snow on the outside.
He did it. That scheming little gnome did it.
It had to be him. The magic of the circle kept the lesser faeries from messing with it, and I still haven’t forgotten how Grimly held its safety over my head when I failed to convince Morgan to give me her hair. Did he know that I didn’t even mention it to her today? Is this his way of making me fall in line?
All it would take is Grimly being vindictive enough to pull up the flowers and he could destroy my circle. He just about threatened to do it, too.
But how did he manage to melt the snow in such a distinct pattern like that?
Hang on—
I lower myself to a crouch, focusing on the nearest patch of melted snow. Directly to its left, there’s another one. The frozen grass beneath it is flat and, now that I’m staring at it, the shape is a little too uniform to be random melting.
These are bootprints. And, from the size of them, they belong to someone much bigger than Grimly. Someone who stood here, the very heat from their bodies melting the grass before they abandoned the circle. Maybe they destroyed it, or maybe they found it after someone else—and I’m still betting on Grimly—had, but I have a sinking suspicion I know exactly what sort of creature made these prints.
I gulp.
A member of the Summer Court.
A Light Fae.
One of the Seelie has found me.
I barely sleep a wink that night.
On the plus side, not all of the magic is gone. Because it was something to distract me, I recovered as many of the lilies as I could, carefully re-planting them. Half of them flopped right over, but the other stayed and, for the most part, they kept the chill out.
Too bad they don’t stop my shivers.
The quiet doesn’t help. Every time I hear something in the distance—a pixie’s laughter, a raven’s caw, even a whisper of the wind—I go tight, imagining it’s the Seelie returning to the circle. Returning for me.
Forget worrying about the rider. I haven’t heard a whinny or a horse galloping by since I started working toward paying off my “favor” to Grimly. Nope. It’s just the Seelie I’m obsessing over now.
I’d like to think it’s Rys. Ever since the faerie appeared first as Jim, then as Rys, I’ve tried my hardest not to think about them. I don’t want any of these mischievous and malicious creatures using my love life against me again and, well, it hurt. Seeing them, understanding that they weren’t really there, but willing to do almost anything to have them with me… it freaking hurt. Because I know, thanks to Siúcra, I’ll most likely never see either one of them again.
I gave up Jim.
Rys gave up me.