“How would I know?” Raze says, confusion edging into irritation.

“The Queen’s Court,” Gossamer responds easily. “You’ve dropped us in the middle of nowhere, but if you can manage to survive until we reach civilization, I’m sure you could find yourself a portal back to your quaint little mortal world. Ideally, without me.”

We’ll head east, then. At least until we figure out a better way. Until I manage to get rid of Gossamer. The last thing I want is to visit a faerie court, but I’m running low on options.

“Seelie?” Raze has the nerve to look concerned. “What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” I say, turning from him. “I just feel like we should head east. It’s strange being here. The magic feels...different.”

It’s a pitiful excuse, but he seems to buy it. At least, for now. If I tell Raze the truth, I’m terrified that he won’t trust me anymore. That he won’t want to travel with me any longer, and we’ll both die alone in the faerie world. I won’t be able to keep my unwelcome faerie guest a secret for much longer if Gossamer keeps going on like this.

But I’m nothing if not stubborn.

So I stubbornly clench my hands into fists and ignore the faerie until our clothes dry in the sun.

I stubbornly walk for miles and miles at Raze’s side on a narrow, worn path that cuts through the ever-changing faerie landscape.

I stubbornly brush off his concern.

And I stubbornly tell myself, over and over again, that I’m going to see my sister again. No matter what it takes.

At first, the forest seems to go on forever. My freshly dried clothes don’t feel clean, exactly. They’re still stiff, crumpling under my arms and sitting wrong on my legs. They don’t stay that way for long with all the mist hanging in the air, and soon I’m chilled and damp. Again.

This. This is what I expected of the Unseelie Realm: a ghostly forest of aspenlike trees with pale bark and silver leaves, rustling like whispers overhead, half-sunken into a thick, white fog. There’s something about this place that feels wrong, but I can’t quite place it. Maybe it’s the smell, magic seeping from the trees and the mist and the earth, fresh and sharp as pine sap. Maybe it’s the tingle on my skin, like I’m being watched—

Something catches my eye. I am being watched.

I gasp and spin on my heel, hands outstretched. As soon as I notice them, all the eyes that had popped open in one of the tree’s trunks—eerily human, but not quite—seal shut again.

“What?” Raze turns, too, unsheathing a knife in one fluid motion. “What is it?”

I stop, forcing my breathing to slow.

He doesn’t lower his blade.

I check again, but nothing in the forest stirs except the slow swirl of fog. Hesitantly, I turn away from the tree that had been staring at me. “The trees. They...they’re watching us.”