turned back to me. “About Jon, his ancestors came from the Northland Kingdoms.”
This reminded me of Björn, the Northlander who’d found me skinny. He’d been the largest man I’d seen until now. Little Jon made him look average-sized.
“When did you meet him?” I asked.
“While guarding the border during the war. He’s had a bit of a growth spurt since.”
“A bit?”
“Believe it or not, he was your height, and much smaller than the average lad; therefore, the nickname. He kept shooting up, but Little Jon had stuck, and the bigger he got the funnier it became.”
“It’s so strange,” Agnë said. “Feeling like you’re talking to me, when I can’t hear her responses…” She swung around, eyes unseeingly searching for me. “I didn’t mean to talk about you as if you’re not here… Oh, why can’t we see you?”
Meira came up beside Robin. “Yes, how come you, of all people, can see her, and we can’t?”
Robin shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe the fairies will give us an answer.”
“If there was one, we’d know it,” Agnë blurted, and Meira leaned over past Robin and thumped her hard on the head.
“Ow! What was that for?” Agnë complained, swatting back.
“You know what that was for!” Meira smacked at her hand. “And you hit me all the time, it’s only fair.”
“I hit you because you say awful things.”
“Well, I’m hitting you because you’re saying stupid things.”
I squinted between them. What were these two even fighting about now?
“Ladies, if you’re going to be this loud and difficult, we’re going to have to lose you,” Little Jon warned, his deep voice reverberating between the surrounding trees. “And you don’t want to get lost where we’re going.”
“Where exactly are you taking us?” Meira demanded. “You can’t reach the isle of Nexia through Briarfell.”
“That’s because we’re not going to Nexia,” Will snapped at her. “Last time we tried reaching Faerie through that place, it did its best to kick us out. It even broke Rob’s arm.”
The story Leander and Bonnie had told me came back to me at once. How the isle of Nexia had all but literally thrown out anyone who’d registered even as partly human like her, due to the inhabitants’ alliance with Avongart in the war. The war that had erupted in the first place over Arbore’s rejection of magical people.
“And that’s why I’ve been searching ever since for an alternative route, and discovered this fairy path in these woods.” Robin rotated his arm, as if in remembered pain of its prior injury, before pointing ahead as a wider path appeared among the trees. It was a yellow dirt road lined by huge, glass-like, blue mushrooms that emitted an ethereal glow. “This should lead us directly into the Summer Court.”
Chapter Twelve
The path looked exactly like the one from the dream I’d had before waking up in Briarfell.
And if that wasn’t enough, I remembered another incident Bonnie had mentioned in passing about crossing one like it. She’d been attacked by vicious fairy creatures, and Leander had almost died saving her from them.
“Is crossing one of these fairy paths safe?” I asked Robin. “Don’t bloodthirsty gnomes live around here?”
Robin snorted. “Redcaps, you mean.”
Will pulled his horse into an abrupt halt, forcing us all to stop behind him. “Redcaps live here? You didn’t tell us that!”
“Those things are vicious!” Meira mirrored his alarm.
“I know all about them,” Robin assured us. “I’ve killed quite a few in Rosemead, in a wood just like this one. Besides, I found us a guide. He’ll lead us through the Faerie courts with minimal attacks.”
Will groaned. “It’s not that wacky bard with the stag, is it?”
“It’s an elk, I believe,” Robin said, eliciting a louder groan from Will. “You want to find Marian without any of us dying, right?”
“Yes, but that Allen of the Dale nutter?” Will muttered, still looking appalled.
“He’s our best option of making it through Faerie in one piece—and he’s not that weird,” Robin argued, sounding almost fond. “Fine, he is, but I quite enjoy his company. He gave us some much-needed relief in the war camps, playing the strangest music, and recounting the craziest things he’d seen across Faerie.”
Will palmed his face. “He’s a bard, Rob. He’s living in another century, wandering around singing and laughing like a demented loon. First time I saw him, I thought he was hallucinating from severe blood loss.”
“How does he travel across Faerie?” Meira asked, sounding as worried and suspicious as Will. “Is–is he from there?”
Robin nodded. “He does appear to be part fey. Centuries might