Give Me (Wyrd and Fae #1)(25)

As he got closer, he saw it was a woman. When she turned around, he recognized her pink hat and gloves. He pulled off the road and walked over to the tree.

“Ms. Evergreen, hello.”

In this light, her eyes were bluer than before. “You can call me Lilith if it’s not against some aristocratic rule.”

“Not at all. Lilith it is. And I’m Cade. I thought you were the ghost.”

“I had hoped to see her, but no such luck. It’s all right. I mainly wanted to get away from the tour group and see things for myself today.”

“I’m intruding.”

“No, please stay. I’m glad you’re here. It’s a wonderful place to watch the ocean. I should have brought a picnic basket with me. I’m sorry I can’t offer you anything.”

“Now there you’re in luck. Wait for it.” He went back to the car and rummaged through the stuff he’d bought earlier. Sadly not much suited an impromptu picnic. He returned to Lilith less than triumphant. “A can of Hobnobs is about it.” He took off the lid and tilted the can to her. “My father adores them.”

“I appreciate his unwilling sacrifice.”

“He won’t miss them. I bought two cans.”

They ate biscuits and watched the clouds form shapes over the ocean far out past the bay. It was pleasant sitting, not talking. Easy.

“Will it rain, do you think?” she said after a while.

He hoped not. It would spoil their evening. “Weather service says not.”

“The weather here is nutso,” she said. “Everything is a little off in Tintagos, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“But in a good way.”

“Yes, absolutely. I like it here. I haven’t slept so soundly in—well, in years.”

“You have to be a little nutso to live in Dumnos. In Tintagos especially. Of course we don’t believe in fairies and wyrders. In the next sentence we blame them in all sincerity for our lack of mobile service. In Lincolnshire, people swear aliens are watching us. When I was a kid, the wyrding woman was my alien. I was often sure she was watching me.”

“That’s awful, Cade.”

Cade. It happened again. His heart leapt, as when he’d first seen her at the Halt. His every molecule shifted, reoriented to point in her direction. He could listen to her say his name all the live-long day. “It wasn’t fun. I kept hoping the fairies would send her packing like they did all the other wyrders.”

“So I take it fairies and wyrders don’t get along.”

“It all goes back to Dumnos iron,” Cade said. “Fairies notoriously hate iron. But Dumnos iron is a special species. One day, the fairy king decided he had to know how the wyrders had changed it.”

Lilith lay back and crooked her arm behind her head for support, looking up at him expectantly. It would be so natural to lean over and kiss her. Cade forced himself not to think about kisses and other things. He continued with the story told in his family for generations.

“So the fairy king sent his most charming minion to seduce the human king’s chief wyrding woman and bring her to fae. Which the minion did after some persistence. But she escaped, for she was the cleverest wyrder in all of Dumnos. When she escaped, the wyrding woman was carrying the minion fairy’s child. The fae king was furious over the double loss, and when the wyrding woman died, he sent the minion after the child. The wyrding woman had taught her daughter how to break the binding spell, and she also escaped. The enraged fae king banned the minion from visiting Dumnos ever again.”

“This is a terrible thing for fairies, to be banned from Dumnos?”

Cade feigned hurt feelings. “A terrible thing for any living creature, my sweet.” He was venturing far out on a dangerous pier. What was it Moo had warned him of? “Dumnos is the one land in the human realm where the fae aren’t harmed by iron. Everywhere else, they get headaches and excruciating pain in their joints.”

“Fairy arthritis. Very sad.”

“Quite sad. They retaliate by giving humans headaches in return, worse than migraines or so I hear. The fae king wanted to learn the spell to render iron painless. They say he still searches even now, a thousand years later, for the half-fae child.”

“Surely the child is dead by now.”

“One would think. But the fae live thousands of years at the least. Some say they are immortal. A human who was half fae might live a thousand years.”

“That’s a marvelous story.” Lilith clapped her gloved hands and the corners of her eyes crinkled.

He wanted to kiss her. Not like the other day coming down from the Halt. Then he’d wanted to drag her out of the carriage and go right at it on the side of the road. This was a far gentler inclination.

“I want to tell you something,” she said. “But I’m afraid you’ll think I’m nutso.”

“I can’t promise I won’t.” There would be kisses tonight. He vowed it. “But I do promise I’ll still like you.”

“Fair enough.” She glanced warily at Igdrasil then out to sea. “I was watching the clouds and listening to the waves break on the rocks below. It sounds pathetic, but it’s one of the most soothing experiences of my life. I don’t know if it lulled me into some kind of altered state, but all at once, and beyond any doubt whatsoever—” She inhaled deeply and let out her breath. “I became aware of a consciousness within this tree.”