We stopped again, and over the many bobbing shoulders and heads before us, I tried to make out what awaited. I’d seen it before, but only from atop our apartment building. Never, ever so wonderfully close.
The horses were the first thing I glimpsed, jet black with wings and so tall their heads reached the top of the giant tent being erected. The dark material shimmered into place in slow rippling curls that could’ve been mistaken for a shudder in the night sky.
A place of feigned privacy for trade.
Just as the crowd moved forward again, a roar split through the growing chill. It seemed to crack open gaps between time to freeze us all. Awaiting Crustle citizens cried out and covered their ears, including Rolina. All those who weren’t like me.
Rolina cursed and swung her eyes up at me, a glimmer of something that looked alarmingly like fear within.
Impossible.
The creature who’d ignored me at best, belittled and abused me at worst, cared nothing for me.
I’d lost count of all the times I’d imagined what life might look like if I’d been her human daughter rather than a faerie who’d been forced to take her place. Until I’d learned there were far better things to spend my time imagining. Things that might prove achievable.
I didn’t know who I belonged to, but not a day nor night could pass without Rolina making sure I knew it wasn’t her.
My heart dipped, then began to race. After all this time, I would receive the chance to find out exactly where and to whom I did belong.
As the growling and roaring of caged beasts settled, we again pushed forward. Two flames danced to life upon steel poles, signaling the entrance to the tent. No one would ever find it otherwise. Rumor stated there was no opening in the tent. No entering without a faerie guiding the way.
Rolina’s impatience returned. Muttering to the backs of the men in front of us about the selfishness and slowness of those already paying their way into the tent to trade, she fidgeted. She scratched at her arms and attempted to look ahead, but she was too short to see much.
I pressed my lips together.
My unseemly height was one of Rolina’s favorite things to insult. At six-foot, I didn’t believe I was tall by faerie standards, but of course, I would forever be anything but seemly to her.
Closer and closer, the tent of faeries loomed.
I supposed I should have been scared, and I was. But mostly, I was just anxious. Worry of failure unfurled into worry over the outburst that awaited if we were turned away and I was left to clean up the aftermath of irate Rolina while also choking on my own crushing disappointment. A disappointment that would surely break my heart.
Three people now remained in front of us.
I felt Rolina’s desperation. If this didn’t work, then that was it. Just like every other citizen of Crustle, I was as good as stuck here. There was always talk of those risking their lives to escape, but I’d heard nothing of real use that might help me do the same.
It wasn’t that I had a death wish. I knew people lived here both out of choice and necessity, and I knew of the horrors awaiting in the faerie lands of Folkyn.
But I also knew that I’d been dumped here in Crustle for a reason.
Whether that reason be wretched or plain stupid, all I wanted was to know what it was. Perhaps then, I would learn who I was. Perhaps then, I could join my family or find a home within a community that allowed me to live a life of my own choosing.
A life that didn’t involve saving myself from all the world had to offer to appear nurtured and protected and, therefore, easier swapped with the hunt. A life that did not involve serving a woman who made a mess of our apartment just to keep me away from my few enjoyments to clean it.
A life that was a life—not a waiting game within a pretty cell.
Sacks of coin encircled the large boots of a muscular faerie taking names and payment. Silver glinted from the weapons strapped to his woven belt, in his arched ears, and from a glimpse of his large nose.
Two men remained.
People leaving the tent pocketed the coin they’d exchanged their prized possessions for, and headed quickly toward the dim glow of town.
One lone man holding an armful of books stepped forward.
Before I could get a good look at the titles or the female who exited the tent to whisper something to the coin and name collector—a sword sheathed at her back between two dark braids—Rolina latched onto my wrist and burst forward.
The man before us had yet to enter the tent, but she didn’t care.
She dragged me with her and tossed our entry fee into an open sack at the faerie’s feet.
The clink created a silence that screamed.
The female who’d been in talk with the collector froze and eyed us with glowing moss-green eyes. Laughing silently, she shook her head and patted the male’s arm. Then she rounded the tent and disappeared.
The male sighed. “Name.”
She spoke as soon as he did. “Rolina.”
“And the...” The male finally looked up from the handful of walnuts he’d retrieved from a pocket in his tight leather pants. A sharp brow rose as he chewed and stared at me. “Faerie?”
Rolina shifted her short brown hair behind her ear. “Her name is Flea.”
I nearly snorted at the way she’d casually pronounced it, as though I hadn’t been named after an insect because the woman hadn’t cared to name me at all.
The male looked back and forth between us with gold-brown eyes and dark brows. One of them was also full of silver rings. “Flea?”
“It’s short for Fleanna,” Rolina said, exasperated.
I chomped down on my lips, tempted to say she was lying. The male’s amused assessment of us told me he’d already guessed as much as he extended his hand for mine.
Certain creatures could detect age. In this case, full maturity could be confirmed by touching a faerie’s pulse. My stomach tightened, though I wasn’t sure why. I’d reached twenty years during the full moon just last month.
“Fresh,” the male confirmed, a tilt to his lips as he gave me another—far slower—once-over.
Heat rose up my neck to fill my cheeks when his thumb brushed over the sensitive skin of my inner wrist. Never had anyone touched me in such a way before, and though it was but a touch and expected, it still startled me.
I ducked my head, both ashamed and terrified and...
And something else.
Rolina snarled. “Eyes and paws off. We’ve important business to tend to.”
“I’ll bet you do,” the faerie muttered, but he released me and nodded to a bald female wearing an eye patch.
We walked toward her, and she eyed me curiously as she stepped aside to let us pass.
I felt it and almost gasped. A gap in the air right before the entry to the tent. The midnight material dissolved over our skin like water, cool and rushing.
Rolina shivered and made a low sound of disgust.
Another faerie with dark eyes stepped before us and gestured for us to wait. He then moved back to the shimmering wall of the tent.
Rolina huffed indignantly as we did as instructed.
Lining the large circular space were crates, sacks, and woven baskets, most already filled with wares. Numerous faeries sorted through them while others kept guard with weapons at their sides and backs.
It was then I began to understand why the Wild Hunt bothered with trade visits to Crustle.
At the tent’s center stood a dark metal table loaded with treasure and trinkets that glittered and gleamed. They spilled over it like stars reflected across a cloud-covered lake. As someone stepped away from the table, I glimpsed the embossed and worn spines of piles of books.