Page 4 of Beyond the Faerie Gate

Instinct takes over and I bolt, weaving through the headstones and over the low wall at the edge of the churchyard. I’m not fast, but I have the element of surprise on my side.

They don’t expect the girl with the stick to be able to run.

I make the treeline before they even know what’s hit them, dashing into the forest like a wild thing.

The branches scratch at my face and rip at my clothing, and I curse my stupid skirts as I fight through the brambles. Still, I can’t stop. My lungs burn and strain, and the itch between my shoulders grows worse until it’s agonising.

I have no idea where I’m going. It doesn’t matter. Only when I’m certain I’m not being followed do I finally slow down.

For several long seconds, all I can hear is my own heartbeat roaring in my ears. My breath comes in shallow gasps, and my mouth fills with a dry, metallic taste.

Please, God, don’t let me pass out here. I should never have left my stick…

Wherever here is. I look around at the trees, seeing only endless pines in either direction. I’ve fled without thought to where I was going, and now I’m well and truly lost.

“Mab?” I gasp. “Maeve? Titania?”

Usually, they come when I call, but now they’re silent.

Oh God.

I’m alone and lost in the woods, and apparently, the whole village believes I’m a fairy. Or they will when Clair blurts it to everyone she meets. My sister-in-law is many things—most of them good—but she doesn’t know the meaning of the word secret.

I collapse against a tree and drag in a deep, ragged breath. I keep forcing air into my lungs, digging my fingers into the rough bark like a lifeline until my breathing returns to normal and I can think straight once again.

Right now, my priority is getting home. If Tom and his family are moving in, I need to get my things out of the way. Then I’ll take my tools, my herbs, and my poultices and move to a different village. One far away. I’ll pretend to be a widow and sell my herbs for money.

Surely I can scrape by on my own? I supported my father for years after the accident without touching his savings.

I’ll need to leave my garden, but it can’t be helped.

The one thing I can’t do is stay here. Not when my two options are either to be married to a violent man or… or traded to some fanciful fairy.

I shove the ridiculousness of the second prospect aside and take a deep breath.

I need my hallucinations. They’ve never steered me wrong before—even if they are just my imagination.

“Mab, I need you.” Of the three, she’s the most level-headed, and I could really use that right now.

I almost collapse in relief as she strolls out from behind another large pine, her red braids swinging from side to side as she tosses her head this way and that, searching for me.

“What are you doing all the way out here?” she asks, cocking a questioning brow at me.

“Never mind that.” I brush her question off. “How do we get back? And where are the others?”

“I’m here!” Maeve calls.

Though they often act like quibbling sisters, the three women couldn’t be more different from one another. Mab speaks little, preferring to offer advice sparingly. Pale, polished, and poised, she accepts every piece of news with a quiet, determined stoicism that has made her my emotional bedrock.

In contrast, Maeve is a bruiser in leather armour, armed to the teeth with swords, opinions, and knives. Her skin is a beautiful gold colour, but marred by hundreds of scars, and her bronze hair is cropped to a practical shoulder length.

“Me too,” Titania adds, popping into existence beside me and threading her arm through mine.

I shiver at the cold sensation as her arm passes through my body.

If Mab is stoic and Maeve is a bruiser, then Titania is their heart. She reminds me a little of my mother, before she died, always keeping everyone in line.

All three of them are tall, graceful, and otherworldly in a way that makes me feel dumpy and plain by comparison. Everyone in the village has remarked at some point that I could be my mother’s twin, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, as a child, I often dreamed of being ethereal and strong like them.

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