Clara.
Where is she?
“Clara?” I croak, my voice raw and dry. Fear gives me the energy to sit up and stay that way, despite my spinning head complaining that I moved too fast. “Clara?” I call again, glancing around, but I see nothing living except a tiny mouse cringing in one of the hollows of the olive tree’s bone-white trunk.
I stare at the creature, but instead of scrambling for safety, it stares back, wringing its tiny hands like the mothers who stood on the London docks watching our ship set sail for Italy.
“Have you seen Clara?” I ask it, simply because there’s no one else to ask.
It bounces on its toes, one small paw waving toward the water, looking for all the world as if it understood me. I shake my head at my folly—and then immediately regret it as the tree, the rodent, and everything else spins around me.
I’m clearly delirious. And I can’t remember being this worried. Ever.
What if Clara’s hurt or…worse than hurt? What if she fell overboard while I was unconscious last night? What if pirates found our boat and snatched her away?
But neither of those things would explain how I came to be halfway up a mountain under a tree.
I sigh, rubbing at my aching neck as I run my dry tongue across even drier lips. “Well, whatever happened, I’m not getting any closer to answers sitting on my arse, now am I?” I mutter.
The mouse burrows its head deeper into its shoulders and covers its head with its paws.
“No, hiding isn’t the answer. Hiding is never the answer. Just puts off trouble you should deal with before it gets any bigger.”
The mouse wrinkles its nose—a little judgmentally, I think, but I don’t have any more time to waste on rodents.
I have to find Clara. Now.
I lean onto my hands, struggling to arrange my unsteady feet beneath me. But before I can put my land legs to the test, I hear voices from the bottom of the hill.
I look up too fast and the world does a jig, but it steadies quicker than before. Within a few seconds I spot two girls—one in a wrinkled yellow linen dress, with sun-streaked curly brown hair tumbling around her shoulders, and the other a willowy thing in an old gown, with hair so extraordinary it makes my jaw drop.
And then I see her face and those eyes—those ocean eyes I was afraid I might never see again—and my arse plops right back into the dirt.
It’s Clara.
But not Clara as I knew her on the island. Clara as I first saw her, when she fell from the sky, when I was sure my eyes were playing tricks. Her hair is as purple as the spring irises that bloomed outside our kitchen window back in Whitby. I have no idea what’s happened to her or why, but I’m so glad to see her alive that I push aside the fears and questions racing through my fuzzy head.
There will be time to sort this madness out later.
“Thank God,” I breathe. “You’re all right.”
And she is all right. She’s purple-haired and…different in some other way I can’t place, not with my head throbbing the way it does, but she’s whole and in one blessed piece.
“You’re awake!” Clara drops the bundle she’s carrying, lifts her skirts, and runs the last few yards separating us, looking more vibrant than she ever did during the month she spent in my father’s house. Falling to her knees, she throws her arms around my neck and hugs me tight, sending a grateful, throat-tightening feeling soaking into my aching bones.
“Guess I wasn’t the only one who was worried,” I say, overwhelmed and happy and nervous all at the same time. I fold my arms around her and try to give a squeeze, but my wobbly limbs won’t do much more than tremble against her ribs.
I’m still so blasted weak.
Good thing it doesn’t look like I’ll have to defend Clara from pirates anytime soon.
Over Clara’s shoulder, I take a closer look at her companion, the girl stepping into the shade of the olive tree. She’s an inch or two shorter than Clara, with wider shoulders and full curves beneath her dress. Her body is all woman, but her face is still young, heart-shaped, and dominated by nut-brown eyes set in tawny gold skin.
She’s beautiful. Truly lovely in every way. If I’d never met Clara, I’d say she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. But I have met Clara, and she’s the only girl who can make my stomach feel like it’s turning inside out with just a look.
Which she does now, pulling away and pinning me with her most piercing, belly-flipping gaze. “We were swept out to sea. I couldn’t wake you all morning. How do you feel now?”
“A little battered,” I confess, swiping a shaky hand across my lips as I fight to swallow. “And thirsty as the damned.”
“I brought water,” the second girl says in lightly accented English.
She settles on the grass a short distance away, plopping the bundles she carries onto the ground and prying at the strings holding the larger one together. “Clara said you’d be thirsty. Luckily, she only drank about, uh…half the well.” The girl winks at Clara before turning to me with a smile. “I’m Adrina.” She hands over a leather flask that’s deliciously heavy and cool to the touch then motions over her shoulder. “My family’s farm is at the bottom of the hill. Just below the ruins.”
“Declan,” I murmur. “Good to meet you.” I rip the plug from the flask and drink and drink and drink until I’ve drained it dry.
Between heavy breaths, I tell Adrina, “Thank you so much. You’re a life saver.” I hand back the flask, wishing there was more where that came from but trying not to show it.
“I brought orange juice, also,” she says, as if reading my thirst in my face. “But let’s wait a moment to make sure you don’t get sick, yes? Sometimes the stomach turns if you fill it up too quickly after fasting.”
“Right, thank you,” I say, feeling strong enough to return her smile.
“Save your thanks until after we take care of your hair,” Adrina says with a warm laugh. She reaches out, resting a light hand on Clara’s shoulder. “I told Clara, this is going to be very messy and you will both smell like a barn when we’re through. But the dye should cover the purple and the blue, too, I think. Though it is brighter than I thought it would be.” She cocks her head, surveying me critically. “If needed, I have some tea we can try, Declan. No worries. We will take care of this and keep you both safe.”
My brows draw together and my thoughts chug in curious circles, but I can’t seem to make sense of that last part. “On my hair?” I ask. “I don’t think we—”
“I told Adrina about our families.” Clara cuts me off with a sternness I’ve never heard before.
I shift my gaze to find her glaring at me with an unnerving intensity.
“She knows that we’ve been in hiding to escape persecution on the mainland,” she continues. “But she’s been kind enough to offer to help us conceal our differences until we can find a way back home.” Clara pulls a lock of hair over her shoulder, making it clear what differences she’s talking about, in case I’m too thick to catch her meaning. “She agrees it might not be safe for us here if we remain as we are.”
“It won’t be safe, sadly,” Adrina chimes in. “The people in my village are kind, but they fear witchcraft and fairies too greatly to welcome you to our island.”