THE FOREST LORD By Susan Krinard

“She will not. Tod, return with all speed to Hartsmere and do what you can to protect the boy. I will be right behind you.”

The hob winked out of existence. Eden fumbled with the laces on her gown, and Hartley stepped up to help. Eden trembled so badly that he was obliged to use magic to complete the task.

He could wield it now because of Eden.

“We cannot… It is days to Hartsmere,” she whispered. “Donal. Oh, Donal.”

He turned her about and brushed her tears away with his thumbs. “You think like a mortal, Eden. There is an enchantment I could not use when I was weak, but now I am strong enough for both of us.”

She opened her eyes and gazed at him with hope and devastating trust. “Take me to Donal.”

He tilted her head and kissed her brow. “Hold tight to me,” he said. In one motion, he swept her up in his arms and plunged toward the open window.

They never reached the ground. Eden had no chance to scream. In the blink of an eye she found herself grasping empty air, and then her legs were wrapped around something warm and broad and strangely familiar.

She rode on the back of a stag, and the stag was flying.

She clutched at the thick mane mantling the beast’s withers. The stag blew out a breath as if in encouragement and stretched out its body in an airborne gallop.

His body. She knew who carried her home.

The world passed by in a blur of color and formless shapes, one dissolving into another. She understood that they did not travel through space but somehow skipped over the miles like a stone upon a lake. The “time without a time” enfolded her in its enchantment, as it had done when she rode Hartley in Lady Saville’s guest chamber. Fear was left behind amid the teeming London streets.

All that mattered was Donal, and reaching him in time. She had no sooner accustomed herself to the weightless sensation of Faerie flight than she felt the jarring impact of Hartley’s hooves striking solid ground. The void resolved itself into a landscape she had grown to know well, and a great stone pile that brooded over a deep and silent lake. Snow mantled the land as it had when she had left.

Home.

All four of Hartley’s feet touched the earth, and she tried to dismount from the great height of his back. He knelt to let her down. His sides worked like bellows, but he scrambled back up and swung his head toward Hartsmere.

Only the park lay between them and the house. “Donal?” she asked.

Hartley snorted and tossed his head. She did not question but set off across the park at a run. Snow flew from her feet, numbing them a little more with every step. When she paused to catch her breath, she discovered that Hartley was not with her.

He was no fool. She prayed that he used his magic to find Donal more quickly than she could, and make him safe. She picked up her skirts and ran to the porch as if she herself wore Faerie wings.

Claudia stepped out of the door, black clad as if in deepest mourning. Donal was not with her.

“Eden?” she said, unable to disguise her consternation. She searched the drive for a carriage and stared at Eden’s wet-hemmed gown and sodden slippers. “What are you doing here? How is it—” She stopped, and her expression grew alien and remote. “Did my brother send for you?”

Eden knew then that her worst conjectures fell far short of the truth. Claudia’s face was gaunt, with deep hollows under her eyes and cheekbones. She had clearly not been sleeping. But there was a frightening air about her, a look in her eyes that spoke of triumph.

If Eden’s father was here, he had succeeded in finding Claudia. But something was very wrong.

“Where is Donal?” she demanded. “What have you done with him?”

Real pain was briefly visible in Claudia’s face before she controlled it. “He is well. No harm has come to him.” She sighed. “You should not have come here, Eden. You should have stayed in London with Rushborough.”

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