Page 64 of Sharpen Your Claws

“Red caps,” Evera answered.

“Revolting and vicious, indeed.” Henry shook his head. “Aren’t they the creatures that kill anything in their path and bathe in their blood?”

“Bathe?” Charmaine coughed.

He expected nothing less of Faerie. They had been there for a few hours and faced multiple attacks on their life. Red caps would be another addition to the pile, but at least they’d be easier to handle.

“They don’t kill everything,” Evera countered, then pursed her lips. “They kill most things, but they can be bargained with. Red caps don’t call any land home for long, so if anyone knows of strange happenings, it’s them. They’re easily trackable with the bloody mess they leave.”

Nicholas pouted. “The mess is the problem. The last time I saw them, I was cleaning blood off me from crevices I didn’t know I had.”

Evera stuck out her tongue. “That was an image I could have gone through the rest of my life without.”

“Is there any chance we can rest for the day before searching for them?” William suggested, earning wide-eyed looks from the group. “Charmaine shouldn’t be traveling. She’s sick and needs rest.”

“We don’t have time to rest. Should our parents,” Evera gestured between herself and Nicholas, “learn we’re here, with humans, they will stick their nose in our business and that won’t end well for any of us. We must reach the bottom of this. Fast.”

“Charmaine shouldn’t be traveling all day. Is there a place I can stay with her?” He hated suggesting it, being left behind when this was his mission, but Charmaine could get worse if they didn’t give her what she needed. He refused to lose her here, of all places. They survived Fearworn. They would survive Faerie, no matter what.

“Absolutely not. We shouldn’t separate,” Nicholas replied, his eyes having become more violet, and yet, he spoke calmly, or William convinced himself that the fae was. “Evera and I will take turns carrying her.”

Evera agreed easier than expected. William didn’t know if this was their best plan of action, but he certainly didn’t know of any better option. Once again in a foreign land, he was left to the devices and decisions of others. He may as well have put on his military uniform and marched along.

Nicholas offered to carry Charmaine first. William and Henry eased her onto Nicholas’ back, where she went limp, but he carried her as if she weighed nothing. Evera led the group, claiming that following the red cap’s scent would be easy enough, whatever smelled bloodiest. He was grateful he didn’t have the sense to pick up on that.

They traversed the wilds of Faerie, hills of lush greenery, floating rivers, trees too thick for the entire group to wrap around. Foreign flowers blossomed, their petals larger than a grown man’s torso and fangs hidden within leaking nectar. Creatures frolicked through the branches, their silhouettes an arrangement of shapes and sizes. They bickered and laughed or dared to sit out trinkets, glass orbs, golden spoons, torn books, and sparkling wind chimes as if they thought the mortals would fall for the trap.

Evera warned them from time to time to avoid a mushroom ring, one so large that the mushrooms were as big as a coach, or treading over roots that would have smothered them from a touch. Henry muttered to himself while taking pages upon pages of notes. Regularly, William grabbed his brother to prevent him from lagging after getting lost in a notebook. If Faerie weren’t deadly, he would find the dazzling lights flickering through the forest beautiful.

“Pixies,” Nicholas explained. “They enjoy gouging out one’s eyes.”

He snorted. “How pleasant.”

Henry wrote about what he saw, drawing a thing here or there, too. William didn’t know his brother could draw. None of it was too detailed, but enough of a sketch to get an idea of what he had seen.

“You’re quite good,” he said.

“My teachers insisted I learn so we could catalogue anything we saw in the field,” Henry explained. “I hated it at first, but now I find drawing rather soothing.”

Evera led them to a river where Nicholas set Charmaine down. He and Henry stayed with her while the fae picked rocks along the riverside.

“What are you doing now?” Henry asked.

“Finding us a ride,” Evera replied.

“Is that a good idea considering what happened at the last river?”

“Sirens aren’t the only ones in the water.” Evera had a dozen smooth rocks in her palm.

Nicholas found the same. They skipped the pebbles across the water so perfectly the rocks landed on the other side. Then the river went black. The tide strengthened, pushing against the edge, and finally a steed broke forth. Black as the rapids, the stallion with seaweed as a mane and obsidian scales along its hide sputtered at Evera and Nicholas. They replied with peculiar spitting noises that had William and Henry staring at one another.

Another steed lurched from the depths, and the two settled near the edge. Evera mounted one and Nicholas shouted, “Come. They will take us to the red caps.”

“In exchange for?” William asked skeptically.

“Evera and I agreed to return in a month to clean their teeth. It’s hard to clean your teeth without thumbs.”

“Fascinating,” Henry muttered, scribbled more, then clutched Charmaine. “She will ride with me and Evera.”

---