The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge [136]
I pulled back, suddenly mindful of Tremaine’s tales of places outside the Thorn Land, places that spawned things like the mist, the corpse-drinkers. “I don’t understand.”
“She was an Erlkin,” Dean said. “No word for it in English. The People of the Mists, they’re called, ruled by the Wytch King. The shadow-mirror of the Folk.”
In the new light of his words, Dean’s elfin ways and his peculiar skills with direction and finding, his miles-deep eyes came together, and when I looked again, the boy I’d hired in the Rustworks stared back at me, changed into something otherworldly. He didn’t frighten me, though. If anything, I wanted to kiss him again even more badly.
“Please, Aoife,” he whispered. “Don’t you bolt on me. When my old man kicked, I decided I’d rather be a heretic than a—a half-breed. And I’ve been living underground ever since. You’re the first person I’ve told.”
“Are there many of you?” I said. It was the only question that came to mind. “Have the Folk been coming here all this time and having children like you?”
“I am not from the Thorn Land,” Dean snarled. “The Folk enslaved the Erlkin at the start of everything. We may have bowed to them, but we ain’t broken.”
“Tremaine called you something,” I remembered. “ ‘Greaseblood.’ ”
“That’s their word.” Dean’s eyes were darker than I’d ever seen them, thunderheads and lightning in his gaze. “Not ours. It’s what they call us when we work in their silver mines and their foundries. I’m an Erlkin, and I’m not shamed by it.”
He stood with his fists curled, like he expected someone to challenge him on the point. I waited for a horrid transformation, for the noxious mist to curl in around us and steal me away, but Dean just stayed where he was, looking like he wanted to pick a fight with the shadows.
“I wish you’d told me,” I said. “At least after we saw Tremaine. He made me think that everything outside the Thorn Land, in the mist, was vile, and I”—I swallowed down the lump of shame—“I was scared of you for a moment.”
“I guess I handled that like a rat,” Dean said. “And I’m sorry. You and me … we’re new. The truth is new.”
“I guess you won’t be coming back with me,” I said. “Seeing how you feel about the Folk, and me being bound with them.”
Dean started to speak, but I held up a hand. “I understand, Dean. It’s too much to ask.” I got my carpetbag and stepped out of the shelter. The fog was ready to welcome me, as it always was.
“Aoife.” Dean ran to catch up with me. “You really think after what I just told you, I’m going to walk away?”
“I would,” I admitted, “if I were you. I wouldn’t do a thing for the people that hurt my mother. She’s my mother. I have to look out for her.”
“Our mothers are real different, then,” Dean muttered. “Mine was no prize. I’m proud to be Erlkin, but I ain’t proud to be her son. No”—he shook his head—“I’m going with you, because I know that you can never trust the Folk. A bargain with them is a glove full of thorns. No way you go alone.”
“And the geas?” I was still holding the knot of paper. It still prickled and crackled in my palm.
“That geas binds the recipient to the truth,” Dean said. “I was thinking you could use it on Tremaine.” He folded my fingers around the enchantment. “He’ll call you back after the bargain is done. Probably to gloat. Set a flame to that slip of paper, and a lie couldn’t crawl past his lips if it had turbines and a tailwind.”
“I know you think it’s a bad idea,” I said, secreting the geas in my coat pocket, “but honestly, the Folk haven’t had a good turn either. Someone cursed them, killed their entire world.”
“You’re sure?” Dean’s mouth flattened to a thin line of skepticism. “The Folk have a slippery grip on the truth, at best. I wouldn’t be sorry if their whole land of oak, ash and thorn crumbled up into nothing and blew away.”
I patted the journal, inside the carpetbag. “I’m sure.” Even as I half-lied, my father’s words came back to me. But maybe he hadn’t listened to the truth. My father was hard and certain of everything. And