Page 11 of The Girl in the Forest

When I stumbled, Aine’s eyes sharpened. I looked away and said, “I won’t impose.”

“No imposition.”

A keen impatience edged her voice, and as we passed a bush laden with red flowers, Aine swept up a handful and crushed the petals between her long fingers, then released the wreckage.

The petals floated like red snowflakes until they covered the ground.

“When Fee finds someone like you,” the nymph said, “he tries to coax her into his forests. Oh, those forests are everywhere, although not so many as before. Cycle of life. Old trees die. New ones sprout up. Sort of like you, dear. And you’re here now. So exciting. We’ve never had more than one faille in the wrinkle, not at the same time, and I’d hoped, with your mother and you… but you were so young.”

“I was here before?” I should have remembered it.

“No. Your mother refused to let you come, didn’t entirely trust us. And she wasn’t interested in staying. I let her take the book when she left. I’d hoped… but then she hid it in that ridiculous cave Metis has without even giving you a chance.”

“A chance at what?”

“Reading it with her.”

Aine’s hand swept through another bush, moving in a graceful arc and leaving shattered flowers behind. I stepped around, rather than on the broken, crushed and spiky stems.

“Fee said Andrea forgot where the passage was, the one leading back to our wrinkle, so she hid the book in the one place forbidden to me. I’m sure she didn’t know.”

The hem of Aine’s gown swished with the same susurration I’d heard when Metis walked across her platform, dressed in amethyst and starlight diamonds.

“And then you arrived. So, when your dread lord told Fee what you were looking for, I had the perfect answer. In exchange for the book, I’d offer my sister that stupid blade—I stole it from her centuries ago, just to make her crazy. And it worked. She puts such importance on rituals. Don’t get her started. It’s quite rare, you know.”

“The book, or the knife?”

“Both. Only one of each. My sister wouldn’t trade for just anything—and I doubt she knew the book was there or she would have searched for it. She wouldn’t have found it, though. Books like that aren’t found unless they want to be found.”

“Why not?”

“The blood magic.” Aine glanced back to make sure I was following. “All magic is fickle, dear. Remember that. It gives, and then it takes—oh yes, it takes, a greedy little thing.”

She pushed through overhanging branches, flicking drops of dew that moistened my face.

“I’m sure my sister’s figured out where Fee got that blade. I’m expecting her revenge any day now. Of course, time in our wrinkle acts differently than time on the outside.”

“Differently?” I glanced around, still feeling like Alice down her rabbit hole and waiting for the Mad Hatter, or maybe the smiling cat in the tree.

Surreal.

Aine was several steps ahead and I hurried to catch up, afraid of getting lost in the maze.

“What about time?” I asked because she hadn’t answered and I wanted to know.

“Fee should have told you. He’ll be along soon, a formal hello. I’ll send a nymph to remind him. He forgets where he is. Ah… here we are.”

We’d reached another garden, this one with formal clipped hedges—low hedges, I was relieved to see, surrounding beds of many-petaled flowers. A central marble fountain had the mossy patina of age—a faun cavorting with nymphs—and I guessed the statuary was centuries old. But despite the beauty in the silvery threads of water spilling into the shallow pool, I shivered.

Every inch of this garden radiated calm while anxiety crashed through me. I needed to be very careful with Aine. More so than with Metis.

I breathed in, breathed out. Chanted liar, liar, pants on fire…

“Aine. I’m very grateful for—”

“Nonsense.” She smiled with a slow guile that might have been a common trait of nymphs. “We haven’t talked. You’re quite special, you know. And to have both you and your mother—a pity she died. Oh, I’m sorry, dear.”

Her mouth tipped down with genuine concern. “I keep rattling on about her when it must be painful for you. Except there’s this rule with old books protected by blood magic. It takes two people with equal ability to read the words, and the two of you together, being failles…”

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