"They're just preoccupied, is all. Eh, Banner?"

The dappled horse snorted.

"Well, what do you know about women?" Faolan replied, dragging his hand through his hair. He had spent a week moping over Saoirse's absence and worrying for Siofra, without a word from either.

So when the strange lump flew from the mirror and landed into a waterlogged pile of horse dung, Faolan pinched himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming. The mirror had sat quietly, covered with a tattered plaid for over a week. He stood in frozen shock a moment before scrambling out of Banner's stall to rescue the bundle from its soggy fate.

Peeling back its layers, the cheerful yellow weave appeared to wink at him. With the tiniest touch—to avoid streaking muck across it—a riot of golden wonder splashed across the stable walls, alive with the memory of summer. The ghost of honeysuckle on his tongue, Faolan swore he heard his mother singing.

Realization thundered. She finished the weaving. Faolan glanced at the mirror, at the bundle in his hands. But why didn't she come?

Determined to find answers, Faolan's plan fell into place. If he sent the weaving with a note, he could nip into Otherworld to check on Siofra and return well before his princess arrived. Tucked under his arm, the weaving sent a flood of encouragement. As he led Banner from his stall, it trickled cheerful confidence until Faolan was certain that his plan would not fail.

It took more time than expected, posting the package to Saoirse. He got caught promising to help with chores in the village. He couldn't refuse sympathizing with Cuinn Ó Broin's grievances. He stopped to free a fox from a snare. The gloomy day afforded him little insight in estimating the time, and the hours had passed before he'd realized.

I'll be quick, he reasoned. In and out, just to check.

Faolan stepped into Siofra's cottage to the familiar sounds of weaving. The cloud of worry he'd worn slipped from his shoulders.

"Good. You're here." The familiar rasp held its usual impatient edge.

Though still dressed in the same silvery clothes, Siofra wore a new cloak with a shadowy hood. Despite the balmy temperature, she had wrapped herself in its thick layers. Faolan thought the bulky thing looked ridiculous, but who was a stable boy to question the fashion of the fae realm?

"You're all right!" he said instead, swallowing his questions.

"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Siofra, you pushed us into the mirror so suddenly. I worried that something happened to you."

"Otherworld is dangerous for humans. I told you that."

He noticed that she had yet to turn towards him. She was locked in uncomfortable stillness, draped in shadows, a feral cat backed into a corner.

"Siofra," he began gently. "You're human too."

Laughter sharp as knives cut through the cottage.

"You need not worry, idiot boy. There's no more human left to hurt."

Just as he had tended injured animals, Faolan guessed that if he waited, Siofra would soften. She'd apologize and explain. He knew her prickly bravado was the terrified growl of a kicked dog. He couldn't force her to trust him.

"If you want to talk, I can listen," he said, keeping his voice with the same calm cadence.

For a single held breath, Faolan thought she might speak. Instead she bristled and stood taller, a strange rustling of leaves beneath the cloak.

Saoirse would have pulled the words out of Siofra, out of anyone. The princess had a talent for making conversation flow. Faolan, the horse boy, had no such gift. His talent was one of patience, gentleness.

Siofra was clearly in no mood to be softened.

"We don't have time to talk," she answered, her scratchy voice hard. In a series of stilted movements, Siofra thrust a basket into his hands. She explained in a grunt. "For the moonflowers."

As Faolan realized she was leading him towards the door, he paused and looked at the dusty mirror.

"Should we wait for Saoir—?"

Siofra growled in warning, the frosty bite of her tone silencing his near mistake. He had almost used a name, Saoirse's name, in Otherworld. Heat rushed to his cheeks and Faolan promised himself to be more careful.

"The princess, I mean."

"It's better if we go without her," Siofra answered in a clipped tone, opening the door and gesturing for him to follow.

Despite her disjointed gait, Faolan couldn't help but think she acted like royalty. The weaver lived as if nothing surprised her, as if nothing phased her, as if no one questioned her. There were times she seemed more a princess than Saoirse did.

Sometimes, that is, he reminded himself. The image of Saoirse standing in the cottage demanding justice, a flock of pixies flurrying around her, came to mind. When she proposed their marriage, it felt so easy. But she'll be a queen, and I'll just be me.

"Come along, idiot boy," she growled. The wry rasp drew him from self-pity. "There'll be time to moon over your lovely princess later."

He flashed her a smile to cover the sting of embarrassment. Faolan wasn't sure if he liked the assumption he'd been pining over Saoirse any more than he did his new insecurities. He did not want their budding friendship to grow upon his foolishness. And he seemed to only bring foolishness to Otherworld. Chasing cats and making mistakes. It was humiliating.

As Siofra led him through the wood—near dragging her left leg, snapping when he asked after her—he wondered if she felt humiliated too. He wondered if her scoffing wit and sharp remarks hid shame.

After an hour of walking, an hour of watching her pained limp, he broke their uncomfortable silence.

"You know," he said. "We could cover more ground if I carried you."

Siofra stopped to face him. Light touched under the shadowy cowl of the cloak. The curse was spreading. He hadn't noticed before now, but the bark left only a quarter moon of human features.

Instead of a sardonic reply, a harsh word, the untouched black eye filled with tears. Hot guilt flooded. He hadn't meant to upset her. Siofra was so unyielding and capable. It didn't seem possible she knew how to cry.

"I'm so sorry, Siofra."

He was sorry that she was cursed, that he'd been so thoughtless. The setting sun in Otherworld cast a bronzed glow about them, and for a moment, that crescent of a human face looked vulnerable.

"Don't be stupid," she whispered, drawing the hood to further forward. "You have nothing to apologize for."

"And you don't be stupid. Let me carry you," Faolan said, voice firm. "Not because I pity you, but because you're my friend, and I know it's hurting you to walk."

He watched the conflict in the corner of her mouth: the war between pain and pride.

"Fine."

Carefully, Faolan kneeled for her to climb on his back, to carry her the way his brothers used to carry him. As she settled herself, those sharp joints jabbed and prodded. Despite her willowy figure, she was as heavy as lugging firewood, as moving an oak wardrobe. The image of the vulnerable girl standing in the sunlight faded.

Falling back into old defenses, Siofra drawled into his ear, "I imagine even the capable Faolan has never had to drag half a tree through a forest."

"First time for everything," he grunted in return. "Where to?"

She pointed to continue their path, letting him carry her in silence for another stretch. The rhythmic drum of Faolan's feet on the earth echoed around them until the sun dipped lower in the sky. Though his breath shortened and his pace slowed with exertion, Siofra remained stiff as one of her looms.

As he tired, instead of stony silence, Siofra drew him into conversation. She adopted a softer tone, as if it might distract him from the burden of toting her. Though her posture never relaxed, her breath was warm at his cheek.

"Do you often act the hero for irritable maidens?"

Faolan's sight blurred with the reds and golds of the forest. Each leaf was bronze and copper and ruby—precious metals and gems caught against the sky. The wind floated through the branches, sending the colors into a melody. And yet the ethereal song of the canopy did not surprise him as much as the hint of humor in her words.

"It's boring, mostly," he teased back. "My brothers rescued all the damsels well before I had a chance."

"How many brothers?"

"Six!" He huffed, shifting her weight. His words inched out with each breath. "It's hard to do something impressive when you've had brothers do it before you."

The breeze rustled the boughs above, sending a mild shower of leaves. Siofra brushed away the few caught in his hair.

"I doubt any of them found their way to Otherworld," she countered, patting his head consolingly.

"They'd have done it better, I'm sure," Faolan returned, aiming to keep cheerful acceptance in his voice. "Bradan would have thrown you right over his shoulder and hauled you wherever we're going in an instant."

"I can't imagine I'd have let just any hulking brute drag me through an enchanted forest."

The image of Bradan, confident beyond reason, being chided by an indignant Siofra stirred him into a fit of chuckling. He realized that even clever-tongued Declan would not have been able to charm the prickly weaver. His mirth bubbled and grew.

"You must be delirious," Siofra murmured drolly. "What have I gotten myself into?"

"Ah but you're so amusing," he teased between breaths.

"Only because you're insane," she replied, her rasp deadpan. It wasn't in her tone, nor could he see her face, but Faolan was certain she was smiling.

With barely enough breath for walking, he found himself dizzy with joy. Hesitantly, her soft laughter joined his. It spiraled around them, a golden twin to the falling leaves. It gave him heart, hope.

The silly delight carried them along the winding path until golden autumn shifted into eerie violet. Oak and hazel and yew became ash and birch. The roof of garnet and gold turned to diamond and silver. The grass grew taller as the night grew deeper.

"Let me down," she commanded in her scratchy voice. "We're here!"

Muscles screaming from the afternoon's effort, Faolan kneeled to let Siofra stand.

"Where are we?" he whispered. Afternoon had faded into brisk evening, and Faolan's skin erupted in goose flesh as he shivered. Without a word, Siofra removed her heavy cloak for him.

"I don't need it," she breathed. The corner of her mouth tilted, as if the chilly air filled her with exhilaration. "Look. Make a wish."

Eyes following her hand, Faolan noticed the subtle change in the meadow. The moonrise had awakened something in the tall grass. He looked back toward Siofra. Lonely, cursed, and not quite kind, but still thoughtful enough to distract him from discomfort—a strange spindly creature who lived alone between two worlds, who was sometimes vulnerable.

"I've never known someone like you," he whispered into the last touches of dusk.

At his words, flowers shivered from their secret homes. He thought they were new irises, budding as they stretched in the cool night. They shifted and hummed, silvery petals unfurling in the starlight. Not irises, he realized, but something uncanny and lovely and fragile.

Siofra glided through them, her path sending tendrils of glowing pollen into the air. Though her left arm was stiff and wooden and her face was half-petrified into a frown, she looked ethereal, bathed in a layer of twinkling starlight.

"They're moonflowers," she explained, bending to pluck one.

Silver and crystal leaves danced in the breeze, singing like Christmas chimes. Their airy sound turned Faolan's mouth into an enchanted smile, but Siofra stiffened and froze, every line in her body vibrating as if against invisible bonds.

"Siofra?" he called, unsure if an uncanny force had descended upon them.

Faolan wasn't sure what possessed him, but the far away fear in her eye spurred him forward. For it was not magic or curse that bound her. It was fear, horrible and human.

Gently, he took her hands in his, one frozen and one with wooden fingers. As his heat crept into her skin, she turned, the crescent of her human face touched with hope and trust and wonder and something Faolan could not name.

Around them, the strange flowers pulsed with glowing heartbeats. Moonlight fell through the canopy, splaying dappled silver starlight across Siofra's features. In the soft light, even with the creeping edge of the curse, Faolan thought she might almost be beautiful.

It did not last.

The clouds pushed their way before the moon, dimming the world into inky night. Without the touch of silver, hope and wonder faded into hardness and sorrow.

Siofra withdrew her hand from his, her mouth stained with bitter melancholy. She bent again to lower her face toward the flowers and whispered to them, "It's a shame, isn't it, the darkness?"

Her words floated on the twinkling breeze.

"It's what makes the bright parts better," Faolan answered.

And he looked to the moonflower in her spindly fingers. It set her face aglow.

Word count: 22,099