“Ben.” She whispered his name and the sound of it seemed to wrap about him. “I belong to you. I feel that it is so. I sense that the fates were right. I am given, as with the sylphs of old. I am given to the one who sees me thus.” Her face lifted, the perfect features radiating back the rainbow colors of the moons. “You must take me, Ben.”
He could not force his eyes away from her. “Willow.” He used her name now, desperate to turn back the emotions that raged through him. “I cannot take… what does not belong to me. I am not even from this world. Willow. I barely know…”
“Ben,” she whispered urgently, cutting short the rest of what he would say. “Nothing matters but that this has happened. I belong to you.” She came a step closer. “Touch me, Ben.”
His hand came up. Thoughts of Annie flashed with lightning clarity through his mind, and still his hand came up. The warmth of the waters of the Irrylyn and the air about him wrapped him so close that it seemed he could not breathe. The fingers of her hand touched his.
“Come away with me, Ben,” she whispered.
Fire burned through him, a white-hot heat that consumed his reason. She was the need he had never known. He could not refuse her. Colors and warmth blinded him to everything but her, and the whole of the world about him dropped away. His hand closed tightly about hers, and he felt them join.
“Come away with me, now.” Her body pressed close.
He reached for her, his arms wrapping her close, the softness of her body astonishing to him.
“High Lord!”
Everything blurred. There was a crashing of underbrush and the sound of footsteps. Rushes stirred, and the silence of the evening was shattered. Willow slipped from his arms.
“High Lord!”
Abernathy shoved his way into view at the shore’s edge, panting with near exhaustion, his glasses askew on his furry nose. Ben stared at him in stunned silence, then glanced wildly about. He stood in the tiny inlet alone, naked and shivering now. Willow was gone.
“Goodness, do not wander off like that again without one of us!” Abernathy snapped, a mix of irritation and relief in his voice. “I would have thought that your experience at Sterling Silver would have been lesson enough!”
Ben barely heard him. He was scanning the inlet waters and shoreline for Willow. The need for her still burned through him like fire, and he could think of nothing else. But she was nowhere to be found.
Abernathy sat back on his haunches, grumbling to himself. “Well, I suppose that it is not your fault. It is mostly the fault of Questor Thews. You did tell him that you wished to bathe in the lake and he should have known better than to send you off without Parsnip for company. The wizard seems incapable of understanding the risks this land poses for you.” He paused. “High Lord? Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Ben answered at once. Had Willow been some sort of bizarre hallucination? She had seemed so real…
“You appear a bit distressed,” Abernathy said.
“No, no, I’m fine…” He trailed off. “I just thought that I… saw something, I guess.”
He turned then and moved to the shoreline, stepping from the waters of the Irrylyn to dry ground. Abernathy had brought a blanket and wrapped it about him. Ben pulled the blanket close.
“Dinner is waiting, High Lord,” the dog advised, studying Ben closely over the rims of his glasses. Carefully, he straightened them. “Perhaps some soup will warm you.”
Ben gave a perfunctory nod. “Sounds good.” He hesitated. “Abernathy, do you know what a sylph is?”
The dog studied him some more. “Yes, High Lord. A sylph is a sort of woods fairy, the female offspring of sprites and nymphs, I’m told. I have never seen one, but they are supposed to be very beautiful.” His ears cocked. “Beautiful in human terms, that is. Dogs might differ.”
Ben stared off into the dark. “I suppose.” He took a deep breath. “Soup, you say? I could use a bowl.”