William’s morning started like any other. At eight, his alarm clock coaxed him awake, under a sky-spanning layer of clouds; at eight-fifteen, he shuffled to the washroom for a shower. He turned the temperature to the edge of searing, filling the green-tiled room with steam, and there he stayed for another fifteen minutes. His bathing was followed by a charcoal and rosewater face mask -- if he left the house with a spot, the world may as well implode -- and, finally, shaving.

Now, the Reese’s Puffs in the kitchen cabinet were calling his name. After a box of chocolate Lucky Charms, he’d sworn to stop buying so many American snacks, but they were still burning a hole in his wallet. And Ainsel was burning a hole in his mind.

William knew she’d be awake, too, and imagined that she was somehow watching him without even needing to see him. He could not be certain that it was impossible. Decades and decades of research could not tell him everything there was to know about the fae; if he wanted that much knowledge, he’d would have to earn it for himself. Which involved leaving the safety of west London.

He poured a bowl of cereal and started the kettle for English breakfast tea. That was safe: it was predictable.

Ainsel wasn’t.

While he waited for the water to boil, he found his gaze traveling to the guest room, which he also swore to never think of as “her room”; luck willing, she would not stay long enough to settle in. As for why she’d come back at all -- that mystery needed an answer sooner rather than later.

The kettle whistled, and he filled his cup; the tea bag bobbed to the surface before he poked it down with a spoon. Quickly, and making as little noise as he could, William finished his cereal; he tried to enjoy it, but the possibility of danger loomed over him.

I’m sorry, she’d said. It’s not right.

No amount of apologizing would ever alter the fundamental nature of the fae. His respect for them dipped its roots in dread; not all fae caused harmless mischief. There existed terrors like the bean sidhe -- the banshee -- and the redcap, a goblin that soaked its hat in its enemies’ blood. Every single one of them added fuel to his nightmares. He remembered, on the side, that he was out of salt. The only blood on Ainsel had been her own, of course, though he couldn’t afford to be any less careful.

He would have liked to fix a real breakfast for her. But in terms of predictability, Ainsel was a wild wolf in a dogs’ kennel: apt to snap the fingers off of anyone who offered aid, and there was no telling when or where or why.

If he wanted answers, best to get them early, before Ainsel decided to abandon the debt she owed him.

William straightened the collar of his flannel, a pleasantly plain russet brown, and the grey shirt over which he wore it open. He placed his bowl in the sink and took long drinks of tea, attempting to calm his already fraying nerves. The passing of time urged him to hurry, and he could not wait any more.

He approached and knocked once. The sound echoed; he heard it again and again, halfway wishing he wasn’t doing this.

All Ainsel said was, “What?”

There was no rescinding his actions now. He inhaled, held, exhaled. “May I come in?”

A pause -- then: “Fine.”

Tea still in hand, he entered.

With the window cracked to admit tendrils of a chill September breeze, Ainsel sat upright on the bed, her back to him and legs hanging from the edge. Over her left shoulder, she had swept her hair, against which her neck starkly contrasted. William stood distracted -- his sweater suited her, black as her raven tresses, and if she had to, she could pass well for a normal Goth girl.

“What?” she repeated. She turned, giving him an ebon-eyed stare.

“Why did you come here?”

“Why did you allow me to?”

So this is how it’s going to be, he thought. Deflecting my questions with more questions.

Aloud, he said, “I told you. It was freezing last night, and leaving you out there would have been wrong.”

“How would that be wrong?”

He hesitated, shifting his weight from foot to foot. The wrongness was obvious, but the reason, he had more trouble explaining.

“I... I used to be petrified of faeries. When I was ten... I saw one dead. It was little -- a pixie. And I thought that... if I’d gotten there sooner, I could’ve saved it.”

At her silence, he winced, ready to flee.

She let slip a quiet sound between a sigh and a laugh, and muttered something too low for him to hear.

“Pardon?”

“That’s so naive,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“It’s naive! Thinking anything good could come from saving faeries...”

That was a smack on the cheek. Baffled, he couldn’t help himself. “Something good does! I mean, you’re -- you’re alive! You’re here!”

“I don’t want to be here!”

“Is that true?”

When she looked up at him, two whole worlds of hurt swirled behind her eyes, two whole histories full of all the grief and deceit and regret that history inevitably hides.

Against common sense screaming for him to hold his tongue, he pressed on.

“If you didn’t want to, you’d have refused. Why did you not go to Ireland, or anywhere else other than here?”

“Ireland?” A clearer laugh, but a harsher one, edged in stone. “I wouldn’t last a day without being found. It’s... easier here.”

“Easier to keep being fae a secret... but by some miracle, you stumbled upon the only faerie healer in all of London.” Alarm bells began blaring inside his head, blasting warnings of how astoundingly, astronomically dangerous this was. “Why? Did you know beforehand who I am? Did you seek me out?”

Lasting a lightning-fast splinter of a second, a caught look flashed across her face. She turned away from him once more. “No.”

If this was a faerie’s legendary ability to lie, then legend was merely a disguise for ineptitude. There was a sparking charge in the atmosphere, trying to nudge him over the line. He could keep pushing. He could pry the answers from her.

But it could cost him his life. And besides that, she slouched, her eyes now cloaked in the shadow of her hair and gazing at nothing. His stomach churned, nauseous. He’d gone way too far.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, reaching for the doorknob.

He glanced back when she started to speak in muffled tones.

“I came here to... to do something bad.”

Not knowing what, if anything, he should stay, he remained still.

“I’d decided to hide in the States, but when the hounds got me, I just... lost that. I lost my plan. The portal was my only chance, and it brought me here.”

“Into my backyard...” William spoke softly himself, trying to tease the locked problem apart, to see what it contained and how it worked. His mind provided no key, and how long had he been up, anyway?

He checked his watch -- nine A.M. sharp.

“Ainsel. I have to get to class now. I’ll still be here, but... I’ll be focused.”

She didn’t reply. William felt his heartbeat in his head and heard it rushing in his ears.

“Sorry,” he said again, and in a hurry, retreated.

❦❦❦

William, despite all his ‘superstitions’ and oddities, had a lifelong knack for faking his way through most anything. Many a schoolteacher had claimed to spot rushed assignments from kilometers away, and many a student had snickered their doubt, but only a few would emerge with grades intact. William was always, no matter what, among their ranks.

Maybe, he theorized, anxiety worked its own double-edged magic; maybe the impending doom of failure whipped his productivity into a frenzy, letting him climb to levels of insight that only genius could attain. Or maybe he was simply an expert procrastinator.

The first stage of his botany assignment was his target now -- researching. Reporting. Johnny, Nathan, and Abby would be awaiting his findings on the viability of mushrooms as medicine. He rushed to pick up his laptop from its place atop the coffee table. There, he settled onto the couch, the cushions of which melted like feathers and fluff around his body, so that he was sitting more in it than on it.

He finished his Google searching with time aplenty to spare, even typing up a page of notes to supplement inevitable whim-based conclusions. His teammates had already joined the group chat when he logged in at 9:24. Class began and progressed without a hitch; Ainsel receded as near to the depths of his consciousness as possible, for such an enigma could only ever lurk, not be forgotten.

An envelope icon blinked green in the chatroom sidebar. He nudged his pointer over it and clicked.

thomas.winston: Hey Will, what’s up?

william.whiteswift: Same as usual -- nothing.

thomas.winston: You feeling alright?

William rolled his eyes.

william.whiteswift: Not a bit under the weather. Why?

He knew that he should not have asked why, for he was only feeding the conversation, but without it, Thomas’ suspicion would likely grow.

thomas.winston: Because. When we talked the other day, you were acting weird

william.whiteswift: Acting weird is pretty normal for me.

A blissful minute passed without a response from Thomas, and just when William thought he’d been persuasive enough, there came another message. Strike one.

thomas.winston: it’s not a normal weird. You seem really stressed about something

william.whiteswift: Your aversion to punctuation is stressful.

thomas.winston: mate. Come on. Is it a girl?

william.whiteswift: ???

That was all he could think to add. In honest confusion, he sat and attempted to decipher what Thomas meant. Ainsel? The room lurched. Thomas would have to be aware of her for that. And William would need a death wish.

william.whiteswift: No. I haven’t met anyone.

thomas.winston: you know I don’t mean to bother. Just, last time you were like this, you’d been having insomnia.

william.whitewift: That was, what, two years ago? I’m fine.

thomas.winston: been staying up too late reading or something?

Finally -- a good lie, and one that Thomas dropped into his lap like a gift.

william.whiteswift: I’m starting to learn Old Irish.

Little did his friend know, William already had a decent grasp of Old Irish, and of modern Irish, for that matter; both were about as useful as pig Latin in London, except in the hypothetical chance he needed to translate them for a project. Which, when taking natural science courses, was never. No, that language, its current iteration still steeped in something mystical and deliciously strange, was reserved for the other part of his life.

How shocked Ainsel would be if he tossed out a sudden Conas atá tú?, or How are you? -- he almost found the idea funny.

thomas.winston: that’s really what has you so busy?

william.whiteswift: You know how I get.

thomas.winston: okay, okay... think I could come by this week?

His surroundings dipped, spun, stilled. It left his heart beating at a nervous clip. If Thomas visited, then Ainsel would have to be gone, or hiding, and William had no idea if she’d cooperate, and asking her to journey on or hide was a gamble anyways.

thomas.winston: Will? You there?

Strike two.

william.whiteswift: I’m here. When exactly would you want to visit?

thomas.winston: could bring some crisps and dip on Friday night. That and shite reality TV sound good?

William hovered his fingers over the keyboard, sliding back from the precipice of panic. Filling their night with junk food and terribly acted television programs would keep Thomas’ attention far away from signs of Ainsel.

william.whiteswift: I’ll plan on it.

thomas.winston: think I should bring Arthur?

He shivered -- not regarding Arthur, Thomas’ lazy lump of a Rottweiler -- but at one of the very first things Ainsel had said to him.

The hounds did it.

A forty-six kilogram dog anywhere near her would end in catastrophe: William had no desire to see what she might do to defend herself.

william.whiteswift: Better not. My allergies have been acting up.

He did not await Thomas’ reply and did not check the class chatroom, for his mind raced elsewhere. There were plans to finalize, excuses to weave, attempts to make at convincing a faerie to either lay low or leave -- but that familiar sick ache grew a smidge stronger every time he considered the latter. She’d just returned, and from the state in which he’d found her on the porch, something had happened that she was too proud to admit.

Too afraid.

If he feared the fae, then the things that they feared must be a thousand times worse. A ball of ice sat in his chest, unmoving. Something within him cracked at that very moment, and against all he held sensible and right and solid, he made another promise: Learn what Ainsel was hiding. Or drive himself mad trying.