Page 11 of Fierce Highland Magic

"Rowan."

"Just Rowan?"

"Tonight, yes."

I stared at him.

He stared back, looking entirely too comfortable beneath the strange lantern light, as though markets that offered enslaving drinks and roads that rearranged themselves were a tedious inconvenience rather than an escalation worthy of emergency services.

"You are not human," I said.

He considered that.

"Neither are half the people you have passed in the last minute."

"Are you going to answer the question?"

"Eventually."

My irritation sharpened. It was useful. Anger was useful. It had edges. You could hold it without cutting yourself open.

"I need to leave," I said.

"Of course you do."

"Where is the exit?"

"Behind you."

I turned.

The black iron gate stood at the far end of the village road, perhaps fifty yards away. Beyond it lay a wall of growing fog. I could not see my car.

Could not see anything that belonged to the world I had left.

The gate was locked.

Not with a chain or a bolt. With something that looked like a sleeping vine wound around the iron bars. White flowers opened along its length, each one no bigger than a coin.

The flowers turned toward me.

I faced Rowan again.

"The gate is shut."

"Yes."

"Open it."

"I cannot."

"Why not?"

"Because it is midnight."

A bell rang.

Once.