Page 61 of Beyond the Faerie Gate

Or have I truly gone mad?

Why do I not care that a whole load of people are lying dead just inches from me? How can this deadly display make me feel safe with him?

“It’s okay,” I say, unable to look away from the trickle of blood which has just started running down the side of his face. “I had fun watching the stars with you.”

His smile returns, distorting the blood’s path. “I knew you would.”

He leans in and brushes his lips across my cheek. The contact is innocent, but electric, sparking through my body until I shiver.

I finally look away, only for my eyes to land back on the corpses… which are disappearing.

Roots are wrapping around the bodies like ropes, dragging them slowly beneath the leaf-strewn ground.

The trees are alive. They’re alive, and they eat bodies.

Do they only eat dead people? Or would they eat me if given the chance?

Lore blinks us back to my bedroom, depositing me safely amongst the covers and disappearing before I truly have a chance for anything to sink in.

For a heartbeat, I sit silently in the darkness.

Then he blinks back in front of me. Wordlessly he leans over and pops his hat—now shaped like a droopy nightcap, complete with a tassel on the end—onto my head, before kissing my forehead and disappearing once more.

I tense, fully expecting it to leak blood into my hair.

But once again, it’s completely dry. It smells of Lore, not blood, and I find that oddly comforting as I sink back into sleep.

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