Page 25 of A House of Cloaks & Daggers

The sky was made of light.

Not illuminated by it, and not reflective of it.

Madeof it.

I swallowed my pride. “I guess I was expecting more,” I lied with a shrug, and took my first step deeper into Faerie.

Wren’s eyes flared with an emotion that almost looked akin to hurt or disappointment, but then he blinked, and it was gone. “We’re on the boundary line. We have a long journey ahead of us before we’re back in any form of civilisation. Normally, I’d evanesce, but—”

“Evanesce?”

He smacked his lips together. “You know,” he began, holding his hand up, palm facing outwards. “Make like the breeze and sort of—”

With a swipe of his hand through the air, Wren vanished.

My eyes barely managed to catch his movements from one place to the next. He was standing a few feet away from meat first, completely real and physical, and then he was a fluid blur of dark clothes and sunbeams, finally reappearing in his full physical form before me, his face dangerously close to mine. I could taste the sweetness of his breath as it coasted over my lips.

He grinned, but then had the nerve to look annoyed that it hadn’t spooked me.

I held my ground, though part of me wanted to collapse.

Wren had teleported like catching a ride on an invisible wind. As he conceded and took a step back, I noticed that his light hairwaswind-tousled, and his shirt was pressed against his body, the fabric hugging the curves of his athletic chest like he’d come out of a vacuum seal.

He followed my downward gaze and tugged the fabric loose, smirking.

At a loss for words, I simply nodded to convey my understanding that I could not do what he had done.

Evanesce.

Magic.

And so, we walked.

The pastel grasses parted, laying out an extensive pathway through the field for us. Wren kept his strides shorter to account for my bumbling human legs, but as we walked, the long grass lining the trail on either side tinkling softly like wind-chimes as they swayed, I found that it was easier to keep up.

It was as if gravity held less authority there.

Our silence was tense, and I highly doubted that it was due to the drawn-out physical exertion that my presence demanded of Wren. His legs were long and powerful, and he barely drew breath to spur himself on.

I, on the other hand, was panting by the time the darkness on the horizon finally took shape. My mouth was dry, and my skin was hot beneath its surface, though I could scarcelyremember the cure for that as a vast, dense forest grew into the sky before us.

The trees were enormous—tall as skyscrapers, wide as houses. Their trunks were varying shades of black and brown, shale and grey. Some were smooth, others ossified with bark and calluses, and they all drooped with tangles of branchless leaves that looked similar to the fronds of weeping willows.

Close together, the trees left very little space between them. The small gaps glowed with a subdued viridity, more like a cavity than a trail leading into the forest.

The sound of the grasses clinking together faded as we approached, and a thick quiet fell around me like a silent hush of comfort.

“First hurdle,” Wren said, his voice tight. “Get through this.” He turned to give me a loaded glare. “Don’t say too much, don’t think too much—which shouldn’t be hard for you—and don’t let too much show on your face.”

My eyebrows raised as high as my forehead would allow them to go. “Excuse me?”

He rubbed his temple. “I call this the Forest of Eyes and Ears. Itknowsthings about its travellers, and the last thing I need right now is for us to get separated or sent around in endless circles because it thinks you’re trying to find your way home.”

“I’m not,” I blurted, only half-convinced. I looked at the ground, my black boots coated in a scintillating sheen of gold, and then back to the forest. “It won’t.”

“Good.” Wren stepped over to me and curled his hand around my wrist. His touch was blooming with carnal magic, familiar and soothing, but I eyed him warily. Loosening his grip until his fingers were no longer overlapping, he slid my hand through his and left a solid bracelet of gold around my arm.

I swore at him as my eyes followed the chain attached to the manacle, all the way to his hands, where he was holding a similar circlet of gold and fastening it around his own wrist.

---