Raze puffs out a breath, relaxing slightly. “Well—” despite his best attempt his voice is still a little ragged “—can’t say I blame them.”

We pause, letting silence seep in. Listening for a sign of anything else that might be watching in the forest.

“Seelie,” Raze says eventually, turning his knife in his hand, “are you... I don’t know how to say this.”

Is he really getting embarrassed now? Every moment he wastes could be a matter of life and death. I can’t hold back the exasperation in my tone. “Just say it.”

He shifts uncomfortably. “Are you sensitive to iron?”

I flinch, shoving back childhood memories of the other kids back home taunting me with bits of iron, chasing me up and down the river’s shore until I was too tired to run anymore. “It gives me a bit of a rash,” I say, when I finally summon my voice again.

“Then, you’ll need to be careful.” He flips the knife smoothly, offering me its hilt.

“What?”

His arms droop in disbelief. “Take the knife. You might need it to defend yourself.”

I push back, something deep within me simmering with discomfort and rage that he’d even suggest such a thing. “I have magic.”

“We’re in the Unseelie Realm, Iselia. You need iron.”

“Well, what about you?” I cross my arms, tilting my chin at a stubborn angle.

Raze sighs, finally succeeding at shoving the hilt into my hand as he reaches for something on his other side. “I have another. How about Thank you, Raze. I know you’re trying to protect me, Raze. I’m so glad you’re here in the nightmare forest with me, Raze?”

My fingers wrap around the dagger’s hilt. It’s cool to the touch, wrapped in smooth leather, heavy despite its small size. I test the unfamiliar weight in my hand, staring down at the dull glint of the iron.

It looks strangely...familiar.

“This is the same knife you held to my throat, isn’t it?”

It isn’t a question; we both know it is. Raze looks stunned as I push past him, taking the lead with my new blade held out like a warning to any faerie creature that might cross our path.

chapter thirty-five

Night doesn’t fall in the Unseelie Realm. Here, night staggers drunkenly, clawing at the blue sky with its dark fingers. Desperate and hungry.

Bright sky, dotted with puffy clouds.

Ink-black, sparkling with diamond stars.

The first time, we freeze in fright, our heads snapping up to the sky blocked out by silver leaves, but then it happens again, and again, and again. There’s no streaky pink sunset or cool indigo dusk like the Seelie forest. The sky flickers back and forth like a candle guttering out. Like day and night are fighting for control.

Finally, night triumphs. A smooth, moonless expanse stretches out above the trees, swallowing us in blue shadows.

We keep walking, determined to make it as far as we can before collapsing. Neither of us wants to sleep in the faerie forest, anyway.