Even after we stopped, and Ioan dismounted, I stayed astride, my hands against the horse’s quivering back. With a sigh, I slid down.

“I need to change,” he said. “It will only take a moment. Then we’ll ride again.”

I must have grinned at that, wide enough to make him chuckle.

“We’ll have to get you a horse,” he said. “It’s better from the front seat. And a hunt is better still. That’s what—” He stopped himself.

“That’s what…?” I prompted as he started walking away.

He shook his head. “I was about to start what would sound like a sales pitch, and this really isn’t the time.”

“That’s what Matilda does,” I said. “If she chooses the Cŵn Annwn. She rides with you. Like in the legend.”

“Yes.” He paused. “Which does not mean you couldn’t if you chose the fae. But I suppose I shouldn’t say that.” A shake of his head. “I’ll change. That will make it easier to get close. But it’s still me. Don’t be alarmed.”

I didn’t quite know what he meant by that until he led his horse behind an outbuilding, and when he returned, I didn’t see Ioan—I truly saw the Hunt.

I’d seen Ioan as a Huntsman in Todd’s memory. Ioan would have been the one who talked to him, but even if I’d logically made the connection, I hadn’t viscerally made it. Now Ioan rode from behind that building and I took a step back, an ancient fear igniting in my gut, one I hadn’t felt seeing Huntsmen in visions. There, I’d known they were visions. I’d known I was safe.

The beautiful roan stallion was gone. Instead, Ioan rode a creature woven from dream and nightmare, jet-black, with flame licking through its fetlocks and mane. Its eyes were red-hot coals.

Ioan himself was a hooded figure atop that creature, his polished boots gleaming in the moonlight, dark jodhpurs blending with the black of his horse. A dark green cape concealed the rest of him, even his face lost in the darkness of the hood, leaving only the glow of red eyes.

When I stepped away, he leaned over the horse’s back and reached out one gloved hand.

“It’s still me, Liv,” he said, yet his voice had changed, too, a sonorous tone that came from impossibly deep within his hood.

As I took another slow step back, I tried to stop myself, knowing I was being foolish, but everything in my gut said to run, run now—the Hunt was here, and if you saw it, you would die.

“What have you done?” he asked.

That gave me pause. “What?”

“Exactly. What? You only need fear the Hunt if you’ve done something that deserves judgment. What have you done?”