C. E. Murphy - Wayfinder

“Unless you got arrested and thrown in a human jail full of iron and steel,” Lara muttered.

A smile flickered over Dafydd’s mouth. “Indeed. The point, I fear, is that having been unprepared to come here, neither am I prepared to take us back. We need somewhere that we can be certain of privacy so I can gather my power and return us to the Barrow-lands.”

“Kelly’s apartment. We can go there for privacy, and you can get us all home from the …”

Home . She heard the word choice just as Dafydd did, though it garnered a slow hopeful smile from him and a gut-wrenching sense of displacement for her. “Back to the Barrow-lands,” Lara whispered. “You can bring us back to the Barrow-lands from there.”

“I believe so.” Dafydd’s voice remained steady despite the bright light of hope. “Lara, is the glamour still bothering you? You look pale.”

It was an excuse, and she knew it: a way for her to move beyond the astonishing reference to the Barrow-lands as home. Lara took it, grateful. “It’s not as bad as it was, but I wouldn’t mind getting away from it. I don’t know what to do about the horses, Dafydd. I can call Kelly—well, we can turn up on her doorstep, since I don’t have a phone or any money on me—but we can’t put two horses in her apartment.”

“I believe that will be unnecessary.” Aerin reached up to pat her horse’s nose. “They’re intelligent enough to remain hidden if we explain the need, but I can encourage them to, as well. The same sort of enchantment that keeps you in the saddle,” she explained. “A staying spell. A glamour cast over their presence should keep them comfortably out of sight until we return for them, and will allow you to escape the magic’s discomfort. Is there water nearby?”

“Nowhere as secluded as this, but there’s plenty of it. The frog pond is …” Lara glanced through the leaves like she could see the city and orient herself, then waved a hand. “That way, I think. Should we bring them there?”

“They’ll do well enough on their own, with glamours keeping them from prying eyes.” Aerin stood, dusting grass from her armor, and caught the horses’ bridles to draw the animals close and murmur to them. Lara watched a moment, then dropped her shoulders with a sigh.

“I wish I knew how much time has passed. You said it could easily be ten years here for a day there, if there was no spell worked to keep time in approximate alignment. I’d been there three days, Dafydd. My mother could be dead.”

He took her hand, fingers gentle around hers. “I don’t think so. The skyline is still familiar, isn’t it? In thirty years it would change. Even if it was still distinguishable, it would change. I think it’s been less time than that.”

“I hope so.” It didn’t matter that she’d been aware that following Merrick between worlds meant she might never return to the time and home she’d known. It was still a trepidatious thought. “You and Aerin should probably leave your armor here, too. Or glamour it into looking like normal clothes, anyway.” She winced at the idea, preparing for another headache, but Dafydd, chuckling, began to strip the metal garb away.

“I’ve been arrested once while wearing Seelie armor. I’d rather not risk it again.”

“Perhaps I should remain behind.” Aerin stood between the horses, hands on their bridles and increasing discomfort on her face. “I know nothing of your world, Truthseeker. I might be more hindrance than help.”

“And someone might accidentally stumble on you here, or get stupid out on the green and pick a fight you felt you had to stop,” Lara said. “Glamours or not, new world or not, I’d rather you were with us. Strength in numbers.”

“I would have no cause to interfere with mortal battles,” Aerin said in confusion. “Why should I do such a thing?”

“Imagine a man choosing to attack a defenseless woman, Aerin,” Dafydd said after a moment. “Would you stand aside and watch it happen?”

“Of course not, but who would do that? What woman wouldn’t fight back? Surely even mortals have some ability to defe …” Aerin let the words fade away as she tried not to scowl too obviously at Lara. “Perhaps they don’t, then. Very well. I will accompany you, but I will not leave my sword behind.”

“Well, it’s not a concealed weapon,” Lara said uncertainly. “But I’m not sure what the police would think of it. Maybe you should glamour it to look like a purse.”

“A purse.”

“A handbag. Like some of the women on the green were carrying.” Dizziness crept over Lara as Aerin begrudgingly worked the magic, sword blinking and twisting in Lara’s vision as it tried to convince her it was a leather purse, and not a weapon at all. “That’s better. As long as I don’t look at it.” She picked up her own staff and got to her feet, dismayed. “I don’t know what to do about this. I think carrying it glamoured would make me sick.”

“We’ll tell them we’re on the way to Pennsic,” Dafydd said with a grin. “Come, then. Let us find Kelly, and refuge.”

The Barrow-lands were easier to adapt to than Lara’s own world. Pastoral, forested magic and slender alien warriors were less of a shock than mid-afternoon Boston traffic, or the myriad people in all sizes and colors. Aerin, usually so confident, wedged herself between Lara and Dafydd without seeming to realize she’d done it. Her eyes were round with alarm, mouth pinched tight as people swept past them by the hundreds, and she held her purse with a white-knuckled grip on a strap that Lara knew full well was the sword’s hilt.

Dafydd was murmuring to her in their native language, narrating the brash world she was encountering: that man in the twisted hat is from a land called India , that smell is a human favorite named pizza , these noisy boxes are cars .

“I know that one,” Aerin said in a harsh voice. “Lara told Ioan of them. She did not say they were so loud. How can you live like this?” She turned accusing eyes on Lara. “So many people, so much sound.”

“I grew up around here. I’d never been anywhere as quiet as the citadel until I came to the Barrow-lands with Dafydd. It is too loud,” Lara agreed, then caught Dafydd’s arm behind Aerin’s back and pointed up the street with her free hand. “Newspaper vendor. I don’t have any money, but at least I can see what day it is before he chases me off. Don’t let Aerin panic.”

“I do not panic!”

Lara flashed a smile at the glamoured pair and darted ahead of them, stopping beneath the vendor’s canopy. He shared a stall with a hot dog seller, and her stomach rumbled as she peered at magazine covers and newspaper dates.

It was reassuringly, unexpectedly familiar. Only four days had passed in both worlds. Lara picked up one of the papers with a shaking laugh and turned it over, glancing over the lead stories while the vendor gave her a warning look. Guilty, she started to put it down, but a headline caught her eye: Extreme Surgery Troubles Doctors .

Below it was a photograph of Ioan ap Annwn.

Glamours worked even on photography: the camera’s eye didn’t see what Dafydd’s magic hid, or his career as a television weatherman would have been short-lived indeed. But Ioan was in no way glamoured. He was lying down in the photograph, eyes closed, but that did nothing to disguise their elfin slant, or the inhumanly high cheekbones that added to the angled effect. Nothing about his bone structure was human: even the comparative breadth of Unseelie jaw and cheekbone was far too delicate for even the most gracile human males. And his ears were exposed, inky hair falling back from the sharp, upswept points that marked the elfin races. For an instant she imagined the mental space that would have prompted the headline: extreme surgery, indeed. Not just extreme, but of such a quality as to be almost inconceivable. He looked sculpted, not natural, and as such was both utterly beautiful and tremendously alien.