My eyes spring open.
Is that what this is about? One of the faerie folk’s using my deepest desires against me? And for what? To keep me from grabbing a feather?
It’s just a freaking feather!
I shake my head. “You’re not real. And, even if you were, I won’t ever let myself be trapped again. Sorry.”
Before he can try to convince me again, I bend down, plucking the feather from the icy ground. It’s like the plum all over again. As soon as I have it, the apparition of Rys winks out of sight.
I exhale roughly, cradling the feather to my chest.
Two down, one to go.
5
I guard that freaking feather with my life. It doesn’t even matter that I rushed it back to my circle and that, once I cross the lily of the valleys, no one can take it from me. I earned it and I have to make sure that Grimly gets his grubby paws on it because I do not want to go through that again.
I barely sleep that night. As traumatic as it was at the time, being taunted by the shapeshifting faerie screwed with me long after I left its space.
When I finally calm down enough to get at least some shut-eye, I have the strangest dream. I totally blame it on what happened in that clearing. It’s pretty obvious that I’m not over it.
In my dream, I’m standing in the same shadowy woods, but I’m not by myself anymore. Jim’s there. Standing next to him, Rys’s golden shine brightens the shadows. Both guys are watching me closely as Jim asks me which one do I choose.
I feel trapped. I never thought I’d have either of them, and it’s overwhelming that I’m being forced to pick one. I stumble over my words, I stutter, and I wish that I could just vanish.
That’s when the raven appears. It’s mis-shapened, a fantastical distortion of the black bird I saw while I was still awake, and it swoops down behind Jim and Rys. In a puff of black shadow, it goes from raven to a cloaked figure; though he’s hidden by the shadows, I can sense he’s another male. Before I can get out a warning, he grabs Jim and, in the blink of an eye, they’re gone, leaving me with Rys and an unsettling feeling that the choice was never mine to make.
Talk about a nightmare. More like a mindfuck. I keep trying to wake myself up so that I don’t have to deal with the dream but, no matter how many times I come to, it’s always waiting for me. It’s like a movie on pause, only it’s determined I make it all the way to the credits.
No thanks.
Eventually, I give up on sleeping. By the time Grimly comes creeping
around the next morning, I’m already up, my hair is braided out of my face while still covering my human ears, and I’ve buried my apple core so that my bag stays a mystery.
I don’t say a damn thing when I hand him the feather. Just like with the plum, I’m positive that he knows everything I went through to get it for him. I don’t want to rehash it, and it’s not like he’d be foolish enough to thank me for it anyway.
“One more task,” I tell him, biting the words out between clenched teeth as I watch Grimly disappear my hard-earned feather into his pocket. “What do I have to do?”
“I want a strand of hair.”
I don’t even question it. Even though my hair is up, I reach to the crown of my head, ripping some of it loose.
I hold it out to Grimly. “Here you go.”
“Ah, nice try, girly. But, like my other items, it needs to be a specific hair from an Unseelie head.”
Seriously?
I’ve spent all this time trying to avoid coming into contact with any of the Dark Fae. Now I need one?
But I’ll do it because I have to.
Ugh.
“Fine.”
“It needs to be from a particular head.”