SNEAK PEEK - The Boy with the Hidden Name

Chapter Seven

We are woken by the Erlking’s pocket watch chiming at us.

The Erlking looks at it and confirms. “11:15.” 

“We should get going,” says Will.

The Erlking doesn’t reply but just walks over to the horses. 

“Here,” says Will, handing us some pieces of dried fruit. 

“If you heat it up, does it become fresh fruit?” Kelsey asks him.

“Don’t be absurd,” Will replies, as if her question made no sense at all.

Kelsey sighs.

“Let’s go,” says the Erlking, swinging himself gracefully into his saddle.

“How long until we get to the Unseelie Court?” I ask, clambering gracelessly onto the horse behind him.

He winces as I tug accidentally on his cloak, tightening it around his throat, and reaches up to adjust it and give himself some air. He doesn’t say anything, just urges the horse onward.

I cannot tell if I feel like I understand him more or less after the conversation last night. I find the Erlking a strange mixture that I can’t quite read. Will appears to trust him implicitly, but I’m not to that point yet.

The day is just like the previous day, darkness all around and unceasing forward movement, and finally I ask again, “How long until we get to the Unseelie Court?”

“We’re there,” he answers me curtly.

I blink at his back, which I can only locate in the darkness because I know it is right in front of me. “What? When did we get here?”

“A while ago.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” 

“What was there to say?”

“‘We’re entering the Unseelie Court.’ That’s what there was to say.”

“I didn’t think it was important.”

“It looks the same as everything else.”

“That’s why I didn’t think it was important. Shh.” 

I am offended. “Don’t ‘shh’ me—”

“Shh,” he says again more firmly and draws his horse to a halt. “Will,” he calls. “What is that?”

“Nothing good,” I hear Will’s voice answer from the darkness behind us.

“What does that mean, ‘nothing good’?” I ask. “What can you hear?” I am straining very hard to hear something, anything, but all it sounds like is silence to me. Maybe, very far away, the sound of water dripping.

“I think it’s a dragon,” comes Will’s voice, hushed, as if the dragon might hear us talking about it.

We are all very silent. But no matter how quiet we are, I cannot hear anything.

I am about to say that when, very suddenly, a stream of fire licks its way toward us, accompanied by a loud roar, flames curling through the darkness. The horse rears under us, and I grab at fistfuls of the Erlking’s cloak to keep from falling off. The flames subside, the darkness darker now and heat still lingering in the air. The creature is no longer roaring, but the echo of it is ringing in my ears. The Erlking is trying to soothe the horse, which is now prancing sideways.

“I thought you were going to be able to use your wiles with your ex-girlfriend,” I remark sarcastically.

“I said I could use my wiles to get us in. I never said she wouldn’t kill us once we were here,” he retorts and then twists to call over his shoulder, “Everyone okay?”