THE DARKENING (The Divided Realms: Book 2)

CHAPTER THREE

Long grass grazed deliciously against Willow's bare feet. She meandered along the edge of the fish pond, tucking stockings and flat satin slippers into her skirt pocket. There had been a lady-in-waiting lurking on the stone pathway, and Willow, not sure whose she was – her grandmother's, her mother's, or her own – had ducked behind a hedgerow, taking the long way around to the training grounds. Glad now for the detour, she stopped to dip her feet into the still, green waters of the fish pond.

Beneath the surface, fat fishy outlines wriggled away into the dark murk. She watched them, absorbed by their frantic escape from her toes. A frog hopped into the water, making a rippling splash. Willow's spine tingled. She saw a clear image of Nezzie as he might have been this morning, alone and unprotected, trying to catch a frog or a darting fish and falling into the pond. Her stomach clenched uneasily as she recalled a conversation she'd once had with Queen Cyrraena.

The faerie queen had told her that all fey beings, despite being immortal, could die. A sword thrust through their heart or any other type of physical trauma would kill them just as it would a human. But except for the one time Willow had magicked iron around Nezeral's wrists, no non-fey creature would ever be able to get past a full-grown faerie's magic to cause the faerie harm. And no faerie would ever physically harm another faerie. It was anathema to their nature. So they just kept living forever, their cells rejuvenating to keep their bodies youthful.

Willow thought of Cyrraena's otherworldly beauty. The faerie queen had lived for thousands of years but looked, by human standards, to be in her late twenties. She had said that from infancy to the human age of sixteen, a faerie grows just as a human would, except for a somewhat quicker mental development, but after that their aging process stops almost altogether. Changes happen in the span of centuries instead of years and are imperceptible to the human eye. Because of this, Willow and her family would be allowed to keep Nezzie until his sixteenth year, but then he would be returned to Clarion.

Keeping him safe, though, was a challenge. At least until he was older and could understand his magic better. Right now his magic put him at risk, as he could so easily use it to escape his caregivers. And since he didn't comprehend danger, he might not use his powers quickly enough or in a manner that would save him from harm. He had to be watched even more diligently than a human baby.

Willow smiled. The little guy was a holy terror without his warding shirt. She banished the thoughts of Nezzie drowning in the fish pond. Once he had those warding bands, the nurses would put a stop to his bare-butt Houdini escapes. She walked along the pond bank, chuckling over some of her adopted brother's more memorable getaways. There was that one time he'd given Nurse Minna giant butterfly wings and flown her like a kite over the moat bridge. And the time he'd turned Malvin into a monkey. She laughed out loud thinking about that one. Poor Malvin had been squeezed into silky drawers and a doll's dress before being rescued by Nurse Tibelda. The weird thing, though, was that Nezzie had never once tried to change Willow into anything. As soon as he saw her coming, he'd hide, waiting for her to discover him. It was his new favorite game. Of course, that meant that whenever he went missing now, everyone expected her to find him.

Willow headed back toward the path and peered around a thick-trunked oak tree to see if the coast was clear. No ladies-in-waiting. But just then Brand came into view, storming along the path, intent on going somewhere fast. She watched him for a moment, noting his hard-eyed glare and the determined line of his jaw. Something had ticked him off. Big time. She almost let him pass but waved him over at the last second. "Brand," she called out. "What's the hurry? The king's hunting dogs digging up Cook's herb garden again?" She'd meant the last part as a joke. Brand, though, didn't seem to take it that way. He aimed his scowl at Willow and stomped toward her.