Among the Unseen Read Online Free PDF

hands over the creature’s body, looking for some sign of injury. “You should be able to speak to me.” He had only ridden a púka once, but he’d never forget the experience. At one time the púka had been legendary in this land for offering wild late-night rides to weary travelers. If you were lucky, you stayed on the púka’s back until the end. If not…well, you never knew where you might end up. He hadn’t thought there were any more of them, and he wondered if this was the last. A chill ran up his spine. Maybe the púka was suffering from the same mysterious illness that was plaguing him and the selkies.
    “Can’t you speak to me?” he moaned. “The selkies are sick too; I’m trying to find out why. I need to get to the mainland.”
    At this, the púka raised his head a little. His body spasmed, and Irial could tell he was trying to stand. “No, stay down,” he urged. But the stallion would not obey. He lifted himself up on his front legs, and then, with a monumental effort, he got to all fours. He let out a snort through his nostrils, and a plume of smoke drifted from them. Irial approached him hesitantly, slowly reaching out a hand to grasp the wild black mane. His grip tightened automatically, and he flung himself onto the púka’s back. Then, before he could register what was happening, they were moving in a blur of sound and color, the wind rushing in his ears like the roar of the ocean. Irial could not make out where they were or where they were headed. He closed his eyes and hung on for dear life, wishing the journey would end quickly.
    And then it did.
    He landed roughly on the ground, rolling several times before coming to a stop. For a few moments he just lay there and tried to catch his breath, every bone in his body feeling as if it had been shattered. He gathered his wits and looked around, trying to figure out where the púka had left him. The black horse was nowhere in sight, which worried him. If he couldn’t find it, he couldn’t help it—even if he somehow managed to help himself.
    As he circled around in the moonlight, he started to recognize his surroundings. He had been here before. He was in a small circular meadow, just enough space to hold maybe a dozen humans…or a hundred pixies. The trees were unnaturally thick around the meadow. It was perfectly quiet, but Irial knew it was not always this way. “Faelon?” he called out into the surrounding trees. He paced around the meadow. “It’s Irial. I need your help! Faelon? Is anyone there?”
    He did not even know if Faelon was still the leader of the pixies, as he had been when Irial last visited this place. But surely one of the sentries or night-dancers would hear him. The last time he had shown up unexpected, a whole troop of pixies had surrounded him and brought him to their king for questioning. Ultimately, they had allowed him to stay, at least until that unfortunate encounter with the woman hiker. The pixies could easily hide themselves from human eyes, but Irial was like a homing beacon for human women. He shook off the unwelcome memories, but his eyes kept straying to the barely discernable mound at the edge of the meadow where they’d buried her.
    It was no use. He could not venture into the forest now; he was beyond exhausted and would only get lost in the pitch darkness beneath the trees. He would have to wait until morning…if he survived that long. He fell down onto the soft grass and was asleep within seconds.
    When he awoke, his clothes and hair were damp with dew, and for a moment he wondered if he had died and gone to the Otherworld. The dewdrops sparkled in the early morning sunlight like a generous dusting of pixie magic. But then he felt the aching in his body, the same sensation that had plagued him for the past two weeks. He sat up gingerly, and headed toward the pixies’ hidden home in the forest. But as he approached their hideout, he started to feel uneasy. They should have seen and heard him by