I waited. I waited sun-high to dusk-beginning, but with no sign of Summer. I frowned, irritated. I was certainly not going to share a faerie story with her next time, I thought, before grinning. I never did. Why would I? Even she, remarkably intelligent for a human, had a hard time grasping the concept of immortality. No tragic lovers in our tales, no deaths by disease or starvation. We were fae: We are born, we live, and until the end of time or the day a fatal bit of iron is finally lodged in us, we will continue to live. Terribly unromantic, she'd told me once, to which my reply had simply been, Terribly practical.

Summer was not here, and yet it was the day after the Hunt, the day on which she had always come. I had been away for a time, true enough, but what of it? It had only been for half a year; surely human memory was not so bad.

No. Perhaps another human, like Summer's mate, could forget that quickly, but she was Tam's kin. Something, then, was wrong. The tension that had been building in my gut all day sharpened focused on that idea. Yes. Something was wrong, to have her disappear without cause. I nodded sharply, tucked the anger aside for later, when I might need it. I would go to her home and find her Queen, or her lesser Queen, or whichever of the countless human leaders it was that cared for that part of the court, and find out why she was not there.

It was not a long walk to her home—I had followed her before, studying the ruts made in the road by the carts, the ditches dug to allow rainwater to flow away, the way the houses went from being well-spaced to tightly crowded—and I was there well before dusk-ending. As I stood at the edge of the village, I looked about, wondering how I would find her in this place. All the houses looked alike, and I could not distinguish any one scent in the crowded air.

Pipers… What was it that made them different? They did not fear the fae. Which meant that she would have no need for iron in her home, just as the shift-shirt makers did not. Pleased with myself for remembering that, I set off once more, calling up the glamour of patience I had built long ago. Perhaps my limbs were a little long for a human's, or my features still a little sharp—it was hard to make out their blurred features, as though I saw them from too far away—but I thought it worked well enough. None protested my presence, or drew iron, and so I was free to pass through the village in my search for a house without iron.

After a time, I came to it. There were lights within, and voices, yet none matched Summer's, nor did a quick glance in an open window reveal her face. I sniffed the air, wondering if she had gone to another house to fetch some trivial human thing, and let out a low snarl as the anger I had shoved aside began to build again. Summer's scent was there, old and almost washed out, tinged with fury and blood.

Staring at the door, I inhaled slowly, testing the fragile hold I had on my rage. Thin, fragile, like Summer's thread before it was woven—and to weave it, oh! How deadly strong it would be then. I pushed the door open and stepped in quietly, reminding the instincts that screamed against this invasion that Summer had told me I could enter once before. With permission, I was free to do as I wished.