So what hindrance had befallen her tongue? 'Twas not as if she had never before stood so close to a male. So close as to once kiss, she thought wistfully.

You are exotic... A Rougethorn's wondrous declaration to love.

Yes, I can love. It is the mortal half of me who loves, I know it!

My lady, did you glimmer?

Ah! 'Twas the man's notice of her blazon that had thrown her off! That is why she had sent him away so hurriedly. She had not expected to be seen. And if so, she required time to plot how she would move about in this new and alien world.

Yet, for as strange as she suspected her surroundings, the man had made an odd remark about the sameness of the forest. Verily, in a stretched-out, horizontal manner. And yet, far removed from all she had ever called home.

Fact remained, the mortal had seen her. Mayhap they all could? Her half blood had never before been tested by unEnchanted eyes. And if all could see her then all would remark the blazon.

A disguise must be summoned to cloak her fee shimmer. Shinn had told her of those mortals who would keep fee as pets. A caged spectacle to be presented at fetes and in market squares, forced to wallow in the Disenchantment until they literally shriveled to bone.

She had not true glamour, though by merely living in Faery she had absorbed a bit of the skill. With a decisive nod, Gossamyr closed her eyes and began to concentrate, to summon her latent power of glamour. If she simply thought plain that would mask the blazon. Ho!

Drawn prematurely from her attempt, Gossamyr twisted at the waist. There he was again. The man with the eerie blue eyes and clinking silver charms about his neck. Had he traveled a circle? This forest, dense and large, would surely require any casual traveler much time to circ.u.mnavigate-even should his journey spiral. Was mortal time so spectacular then?

Time is the enemy.

"What sort of witchery be this?" the man said as he heeled his mount beside Gossamyr.

Her fingers toyed with the carvings on the staff, and one hand flattened to her throat. "You jest with me."

"I beg that I do not, my lady. I traveled straight; there was not a turn in the road. And yet-"

"No time pa.s.sed?"

"Exactly." Pressing a hand over his brows to shade his view from the setting sun, he peered at her. A flicker of ruby flashed in his ring. "I do not believe your sparkle is merely the sun-"

"Impossible you did not turn and cut back through the forest."

He shrugged, and the hood of his cloak fell to his shoulders to reveal a scatter of tangled hair and a trickle of crimson running from temple to ear. Might have been scratched by a branch, so small the cut. Yet there, to the side of his right eye, a bruise the color of crushed blackberries tormented the flesh. What had the man been to? Fighting? Defense?

"Be gone with you, stranger," Gossamyr said. She had enough to sort through without him tangling her thoughts, making her wonder when wonder was best abandoned to focused attention.

The buzz of the fetch zoomed past her face, too quick for a mortal to regard as any other than an insect. Shinn kept watch.

"Ride straight and do not look back."

With a surrendering splay of his hands, the man huffed out a grand sigh. "As the lady wishes. I've my own sorrows to keep me this day." He again heeled the mule. With a bristle of its dirty hide the beast carried its master onward.

Over the rise in the road, Gossamyr watched and listened keenly for his return, for a signal he veered from the path and into the underbrush that paralleled the pounded dirt. A bluefinch soared overhead, chirring a greeting that made her smile. Exactly as the birds in Faery. The bird verified the traveler neared the edge of the forest- "Tis a spell!"

Behind her, Jean Cesar Ulrich Villon III reined the beast to a halt and jumped to the ground. Fists planted akimbo, he looked over the mule, then up the verdant wall of the surrounding forest. Gossamyr thought she heard him mutter, "The same."

"Be you a witch?" he called.

"Most certainly not." That would imply she dabbled with forbidden magic! She stomped over to him and jabbed her staff under his chin. "Tell me true, you traveled straight?"

He nodded, raising his spread hands to his shoulders to keep them in view. Small cuts gashed his palms and wrists. Had the man battled his way out from a p.r.i.c.kle bush? Where then had he found such a nasty bruise?

Gossamyr scanned the forest, seeking a tear in the curtain to Faery where perhaps a sprite might be seen spying on his mischievous deed. Wide hornbeam leaves remained still as stone. Tree trunks gripped the earth, silent stately sentinels. Pale ivy twisted about the gra.s.ses and journeyed toward the toadstool circle. Not a dryad in the lot.

Gossamyr could not be sure if it was because she no longer stood in Faery, or simply, the Disenchantment befell more quickly than expected. She saw nothing out of sorts. Save that everything was horizontal.

"Pisky led," she decided, then snapped the staff away from the man's chin.

"What?" Ulrich followed her as she turned and stalked down the rough path away from him. "I've not seen a pixy."

"Pisky," she corrected sharply.

"Piskies, pixies, what have you!"

"They are very different. Piskies fly, pixies... they trundle. As well, pixies do not glimmer."

"Only thing I've seen that glimmers of the enchanted is you, my lady. On your neck there- Oh, Hades!" He clamped a palm to his forehead. The action resulted in a yelp, for obviously his bruised face pained him. "Not again! Pray, tell you are not a d.a.m.ned faery."

Gossamyr winced at the unfamiliar word. Not a favorable oath, she guessed from his tone.

"You are not? You cannot be. Dragon p.i.s.s!" He pressed beringed fingers between them in an entreaty. "Have they sent someone to bring me back? Where are they? Do they lurk? No! I will not go. I refuse!" He curled his fingers and wrung the balled fist at Gossamyr. "Your kind have done enough to foul my life."

"I am n-not a faery," Gossamyr managed. She pressed a hand to her throat where the blazon was visible, They keep them chained in cages. "No, not faery," she reiterated more confidently.

"You lie, trickster! Your sort never speak the truth, only in circles." The man drew tiny frantic rings in the air before him. "Circles, circles, circles. Oh, but those d.a.m.ned circles! It is not the same! Changed, d.a.m.n them all. It has all changed!"

"Believe me or not," Gossamyr said over his ranting. "I am m-mortal, like you." A quick twist of her fingers clasped the highest agraffe on her pourpoint, closing the vest to an uncomfortable tightness.

"Mortal?" He jerked a sneer at her. "My lady, we mortals do not have occasion to call ourselves mortals. We are men, women, coopers, bakers, fishermen-but never do we say mortal. Tavern keepers, tanners, magi and-"

"Enough! I am...a woman then." Yes, he must see that! She managed an awkward curtsy-a quick bend of one knee-and forced a smile. "Are you well pleased?"

"Pleased? To stand in the presence of a faery?"

"I am not!"

"What of your clothing?"

"What of it?"

He peered closely at her. Gossamyr controlled the urge to reach for the discoloration on his cheek. Did it feel hot? Tender? What did a mortal feel like? His face was such a display of movement and lines and sighs and outburst. So emotional!

Oblivious to Gossamyr's curiosity, Ulrich eyed the sleeveless pourpoint, slid over the applewood sigil propped on her hip, then stretched his gaze back up her neck. Stuffed with arachnagoss and sown in a fine quilting, the garment protected from sharp or slashing weapons.

He finally said, "Are those leaves sewn together?"

Clutching the rugged fabric fitted snugly to her body, Gossamyr lifted her chin. "Mayhap," she offered stubbornly, thinking a lie would be just that-so obvious. Lies served nothing but to prolong the inevitable bane. But the truth of her was a necessary misappropriation, lest she find herself in a cage rotting in a market square.

"Leaves! Marvelous!" A brilliant smile revealed white teeth and he clapped his hands together-but the smile straightened sharply, as did his mood. "Well, I am not going with you."

"I did not ask your accompaniment, mort-er, Ulrich."

"So be off then." He shooed her with a flip of his fingers. "Back to Faery where you belong."

"Do you not hear well?"

"Perfectly."

"Mayhap you are daft? I said I am n-not a faery. It is ridiculous of you to a.s.sume as much." Gossamyr crossed her arms over her chest and a.s.sumed a defiant stance.

"What then places you here in my path, charming my mule to return at your bidding? If that is not faery glamour, I don't know what is. Have not your kind toyed with me enough?"

"What torments have you suffered at the hands of Faery?"

"You don't know?" A skip to his right, his feet nimble and sure, twirled him around once and ended with a mock bow. The man changed moods so quickly he was either barmy or a lackwit.

He blew forcefully from his mouth, which fluttered his lips into a s...o...b..ry sound. "Is not a dance of the decades damage enough? Oh!" He thrust up his arms, then as quickly, snapped into a wary crouch and scanned the dense forest. "Am I in Faery now? If you mean me no harm then get me gone from here. I command it of you, wicked faery!"

Gossamyr rolled her eyes at his dramatics-then narrowed her gaze on him. The remarkable thing about the man was not the bruises and blood but that contour of hair above and below his mouth. Fee men did not sport facial hair. It wasn't necessary, for, unlike dwarves, they did not require body hair to protect from the elements. And those eyes. Blue, a color Gossamyr had never before looked into. Her mother's brown eyes were the only anomaly from the fee violet. And her own. So much color twinned on the man's face, and yet, that color drowned in a sea of white.

"We stand in the mortal realm, Jean Cesar, er-"

"Ulrich Villon. The third-h.e.l.l, what am I doing? I have just given my name complete to a faery!"

If he only knew how little glamour she could wield with that information.

A poke of her staff into the ground spoke her impatience. "Not a single faery taunts you this day." Or so he must believe. But he seemed to know about her kind. And the forest, it seemed not to want him to leave her side.

Hmm... An enchanted bane or boon? She must...test. If he could leave her, then it was mere coincidence. If he again returned to her side, then they were meant-for reasons beyond her grasp-to travel together. It is all she could figure with so little experience of this realm.

"Get back on your mule and ride off. I will follow you over that ridge in the path to ensure your success."

"She is not a mule," the man offered as he mounted. His shoes, strapped and circled in thin leather ties, grazed the gra.s.s tops.

"Fancy is a rare breed, yet while lacking in height makes up for it in endurance."

Fancy? A miserable waste of horseflesh. But Gossamyr did not speak her annoyance. Surely the only reason for the man's return to her twice over was that someone or thing in Faery saw to make mischief with her. But to speak to Faery-the trees, as the man would view it-would not put her to advantage. And where was the fetch when she needed to communicate?

Gesturing the mortal and his mule follow, Gossamyr walked up the path. At the rise, she saw the forest stretched ahead for endless lengths. Not a visible root or marsh kelpie in sight. Impossible he had traveled the distance and returned to her side in so little time.

Could Shinn be behind this? What reason had her father to place this man in her path? He had wanted her to accept a guide...

"You are a faery," Ulrich muttered, the mule ambling to make pace with Gossamyr's light-footed strides. "I know it. I am not going with you, foul one."

"Suits me fine and well. I have no need of such misery to accompany me on my travels, you barmy bit of breath. Go. Once more," she said as the man pa.s.sed her by. And then he was gone.

a.s.suming a defiant stance, shoulders back and one knee slightly bent, Gossamyr counted her breaths, waiting, wondering. A strum of her fingers across the dangling arrets produced a mult.i.tude of obsidian clicks. Deadly aim, Shinn had once remarked of her skill. She'd taken the prize in tournament three years consecutive.

With a sigh, she shook away the sudden rise of apprehension created by her encounter with the mortal. Time threatened. Her father and his troops must battle more revenants even as she stood here.

She felt a familiar presence first at the base of her skull, the prinkles of warning, of sure knowing.

Gossamyr reluctantly turned to face where she had started her adventures in the Otherside. There lumbered her pisky-led mule and rider. It was too ridiculous to wonder. And so she loosed a chuckle and splayed her arms out in surrender.

"It appears I am destined to remain at your side," Ulrich called. "Oh, to tap into the source of such magic!" Then he narrowed his blue gaze on her and muttered, "Mayhap I will, luck be with me."

"I possess no magic." And that was truth. Magic was a mortal device, forbidden in Faery. (Though there were those who dabbled.) For every use of magic, be it good or for evil, tapped Enchantment. Mortals literally stole Enchantment (most unknowing) to conjure their spells and charms and bewitchments. Should a fee be accused of dabbling, banishment was immediate.

"I do not know why you lie, faery, but I will allow you are a lone woman who must protect herself. Of course, lies be the way of the faery."

"Faeries do not appeal to you?"

"Faery circles, my lady. And we are far from- Yei-ih!" He flicked his gaze back and forth between Gossamyr and the ground. "What is that? It's...that's it. A toadstool circle?" Ulrich heeled the mule, but it remained stubbornly stationed beside the Pa.s.sage from which Gossamyr had disembarked. "Move, beast! Get thee gone!"

Gossamyr reached out. A tweetering whistle enticed the mule to wander toward her as she walked widdershins down the path. "They are merely toadstools. No harm will come to thee."

"Speaks one who has not danced!"

A Dancer? Gossamyr peered at the mortal, seeing him newly. Much as she loved her parents and her home, she had ever been curious about the mortal realm. A curiosity that had flowered since the day she'd witnessed a Dancer. So very much like herself. Wingless and clumsy, with a lumbering body that had made his dance steps wobble-almost as if the air was too heavy for him to acclimate.

Had this man really Danced? Or did he merely babble nonsensities? To make a determination proved yet difficult. Too new this mortal realm, and this man but her first mortal. Nothing to compare him to. He could be luna-touched for all she knew.

But he had returned to her side, thrice over.

"You have been placed in my path for a reason. I must accept and move on, for urgency is fore. Come!" The mule followed as she walked onward. "Do you ride to the nearest village?" she asked, her pace slowing to mirror the mule's laborious trudge.

"Mayhap I do."

"I've great need to know how far away it lies. What is the time from here to the next village? How many suns will rise before I arrive?"

The horizon held his attention. Young, he appeared, though the gashed flesh on his hands lended to hard labor, or struggle. Definitely struggle, to gauge from the condition of his face. He could well be her peer.

"Aparjon," he offered, without looking her way. "That be the next village. And following...who knows." His heavy sigh intrigued Gossamyr. "I go where I am led. Tell me true, you have not been sent to retrieve me to Faery?"

"You continue to a.s.sume I am from Faery when I tell you I am not." She winced at the lie. And she fooled herself to believe the blazon was not visible even with the highest agraffe secured. "I am on a mission."

"Ah. A woman on a mission. And she wields a big stick, so watch out world!"

Ulrich scruffed a hand through his tangles of dark hair and offered a genuine grin. A missing tooth to the side of his front teeth spoke of certain battle. "You are not like most women."

"Why say you such?"

"You are confidant and commanding."

She bristled proudly at his expert observations.

"And...well, you do twinkle."