I’m too worried for Declan.
Is this my fault?
What if my magic somehow did this to him when we passed through the wards last night? What if I’ve caused more damage than I can see?
And what if I can’t undo whatever I’ve done?
A blue-haired boy will encounter as much danger in the human world as a violet-haired girl, and Declan will have no magic to keep him safe. His people will think he’s a halfling or one of the UnSeelie fairies who kidnap human women in the night.
I can’t leave him like this, no matter how a part of me longs to sprout wings and fly away from the wide, hungry ocean and his father’s island and the terrifying memory of being nearly human.
“Declan, can you hear me?” I cup his prickly cheek in my palm. He’s grown the start of whiskers overnight, but they’re a perfectly average brown. That’s encouraging—a small reason to hope what’s done can be undone. “Declan?”
He moans and smacks his dry, cracked lips, but he doesn’t awaken, even when I grip his chin and give it a cautious shake. I pet his hair and whisper assurances in his ear and jiggle his arm hard enough to make his head loll, but he remains dead to the world.
But he’s not dead. He’s breathing, and if I can get him back to his father’s medicine and magic…
I sit on my heels, blowing my hair from my forehead with a huff. “We have to take him back.”
“Back where?” Poke asks.
“To the island. To his da.” Poke cracks his beak in protest, and I hurry on, “We won’t cross the wards. We’ll get the boat within sight of the shore, wait to make sure one of the men notice it, and then—”
“Too far, too far,” Wig pipes up from near my ankle.
“The worm’s right,” Poke says. “The storm made the ocean swift and wild. We’re a day’s hard fly from that island. Or more. Who knows how far by tiny boat.” He lifts his nose, scenting the air. “Still summer in this place. Warmer, a hint of blossoms on the air and a whiff of sweaty beasts.”
“There must be land close by.” I scan the horizon, but I find nothing but gently blue waves sparkling in every direction. “Fly above the boat, Poke. See what you can spy.”
“We should all fly. Now. Nothing good to come of consorting with strange creatures.”
“Poke, please, this isn’t—”
“Wish I’d never spoken that island’s name, wish you’d never listened,” Poke moans, jumping from the edge of the boat to the planks and back again. “But listen to this Skritch one last time, Glove. Summon your magic and let’s be off.”
“I can’t.” I gentle my voice as I realize Poke blames himself for our predicament. “I wouldn’t be here without Declan. He saved my life. I have to restore him and make sure he’s safe before we go.” I stand, squinting across the water, thinking I spy a shadow beyond the tips of the waves to the south. “We need to find other people and leave him with someone who can help him get home—after we hide his hair. He’ll need a cap at least,” I muse aloud, tugging at my cracked bottom lip. “Maybe some sort of dye if we can find it?”
“Danger, danger,” Wig frets as he scampers around my feet and up the length of Declan’s limp arm to perch on his shoulder. “Wards hurt him, hurt him, bad, bad, bad.”
“The wards…” I dampen my lip with the tip of my tongue. “He was affected by the wards? Are you sure it wasn’t my magic that—”
“No, no, no. The wards, wards, wards.” Wig creeps closer to Declan’s face, stretching his mouse body long to wiggle his nose above the air escaping from Declan’s lips. “Struck down same as Glove, Glove. Poor planting.”
“He’s not a planting, you pea-brained plague bearer,” Poke huffs with a bounce that takes him several inches into the air. “Don’t you think we’d know if the mother had started growing boy children in the garden? Witches never grow sons, only daughters. That’s the way of it and always has been.”
“Poke’s right,” I say, though Declan’s pale skin and extraordinary hair make it easy to see why Wig is so certain Declan came from the garden. “There must be some other explanation. His father has magic. Not like ours, but he made the wards. Maybe he placed a spell on Declan to keep him from leaving the island?”
A spell that turns his son’s hair as blue as a summer sky? A spell that would put his beloved boy in danger from those who would think him a witch’s child or a demon fairy?
I sigh. It doesn’t make sense, but there will be time for sense later, after Declan is restored.
“We’ll sort it out. Somehow.” I rub at my temple with two fingers, my head beginning to ache from the heat. “But first we have to find land and water and a place to rest out of the sun.” I lift my other hand to point toward the shadow in the distance. “Will you scout for me, Poke? See if that is an island and if we’ll find fresh water on it?”
Poke grumbles beneath his breath, but takes to the sky only a moment later, flying hard for the blot on the horizon, apparently resigned to the fact that our party of three has become a party of four, at least for the time being.
I wait until he’s out of sight before kneeling next to Declan and reaching out to rub Wig between the ears with one finger.
“Missed you, you, you,” Wig squeaks with a shiver of pleasure.
“I missed you, too,” I whisper, gaze drifting to Declan’s sleeping face. I will miss him, as well, when it’s time for Wig and Poke and I to leave.
We only have three days before the new moon rises and we’re summoned away to perform our duties for the garden.
Hopefully that will be enough time to reconcile myself to losing my first human friend.
Chapter Eight
Declan
I wake up weak and sore with a dry throat so wicked I can’t think of anything but water.
Cool water wetting my lips, slipping over my fat, scratchy tongue, rushing down my throat and filling my belly until my stomach bulges like a melon strapped to my spine.
“Water,” I croak, my voice raspy and weak.
I smack my lips, squinting as a warm breeze rushes across my face and light pricks at my eyeballs. Above me, silvery leaves swim against a bright blue sky. I’m lying on my back beneath an olive tree, an ancient one judging by the muscles bulging beneath its gnarly trunk.
I’ve scouted all over Amaria, but I can’t remember spotting a monster olive like this during my rambles.
I have no clue where I am, or how the devil I got here.
Slowly, I roll my two-hundred-pound head to the side, struggling to sort out why I feel like I’ve been beaten within an inch of my life. My eyes focus on a sea of tall grass and a hill rolling down toward a crumbling stone amphitheater. Far beyond and below it, the sea sparkles so blue and peaceful it’s hard to believe the storm last night ever happened.
The storm.
The boat and the lightning on the water, the pain and blackness snatching me away as I fell from my seat.
I fainted, I remember that now, but what happened after? How did I get all the way up here, so far from the ocean? Clara couldn’t have carried me, so someone else must have—