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like that. I—”
    â€œOf course.” I can’t help the urge to scrub myself clean. To get the scent of him off me. “It’s all right.”
    Her grip on my arm loosens. “‘No, it’s not,” she tells me. “It’s not all right. What he did to you”—she presses her fingers to my wrist, where he bit me most—“it’s not all right.”
    Since meeting Aithinne I’ve never heard her sound more serious. Like she knows . Like she’s been through it. Maybe she has.
    I almost say thank you . I’m tempted to break the rule even though the fae don’t like to be thanked. Because she might be of them , but I spent daysweeksmonthsyears with no kind words except those that existed in my memories.
    Aithinne’s eyes don’t leave mine. “I can heal you. The venom has to be purged on its own, but I can take away its effects.”
    Yes. Yes yes . To get rid of trembling limbs and short breath and something to take the pain away. Yes .
    At my nod, Aithinne places her hands over my ears. She muffles the noise until all I hear is the rushing in my ears, the wavelike sea sounds.
    Next comes the searing pain. I flinch, but I’ve become so used to it that it barely affects me anymore. My knees don’t buckle like they used to. My eyes don’t sting with tears. I use it as a gauge of I’m here and I’m alive and I still feel and you can’t take that away .
    I open my eyes just as the cut on my arm knits closed beneath the blood. The injuries along my legs vanish, perfectly smoothed over. The aching in my muscles fades and the helpless trembling weakness dissipates, and with it—all at once—the agony goes, too.
    Now only the scars remain.
    Aithinne pulls her hands away and smiles. “Better?”
    To the devil with faery conventions. I don’t care. “Thank—”
    Then I hear it. The distant sound of hooves on dirt, crossing the countryside somewhere near us. Too far for me to taste their powers, but close enough to know that there are at least a dozen of them—and they’re heading right for us.

CHAPTER 8
    A ITHINNE MUTTERS something foul. “We’ll have to use the trail.” She gestures with a nod. “It’s a passage that juts out just below the top of the crag. As long as they stay up here, they won’t see us.”
    I study the path she indicates and my stomach clenches. The cliff down to the river below is layered with perilous bends and twists in the rock that end in a steep drop right to the bottom. Like something out of the mountainous paths in the Cairngorms. They’re majestic to look at, but there’s a reason some say those blasted things are haunted, and it’s because every year some explorer goes out and doesn’t return.
    If we fall, she would survive the impact. I would—in the words of Aithinne—go splat .
    I immediately take a step back. “Oh? We can’t just—”
    â€œNo,” Aithinne says shortly, in a very Kiaran-like voice.
    I bite back a curse and follow her across the meadow. We continue down to where the narrow ridge extends just belowthe cliff edge and out of the riders’ view. The rocks there are rough as scoria, and colored a red so deep they’re almost black. They smell of ash, as if a fire had been lit recently. From here, there’s nothing directly below us—it’s a long drop all the way to the bottom, straight down.
    Unable to stop myself, I step closer to the edge and peek over. I wish to hell I hadn’t. My head spins as if I’m whirling and nausea cramps my stomach.
    I’m certainly not one to fear heights, but even I’m not mad enough to flee from the fae this high up. The trail is barely wide enough for my feet; it’s only a small lip of rock that could break off and tumble to the bottom at any moment.
    I scan the path for any branches to hold on to in case of a fall.