Long ago, when there were more kings in Ireland than there are counties now, there lived in the west of the country a girl called Maeve.

She was neither a king’s daughter nor a chieftain’s daughter, nor was there anything remarkable in her family that a stranger might have noticed. Her father had good cattle, a sound house, and enough land that his children did not go hungry in a lean winter. Her mother could read the Psalter and had taught Maeve her letters. They were neither rich nor poor, and if Maeve had been born like other children, she might have lived and died within ten miles of the place where she first drew breath.

But Maeve had been born with the Sight.

When she was four years old, she asked her mother why an old woman in a grey cloak stood beside their neighbour’s bed, though no one else could see her.

The neighbour died before morning.

When Maeve was seven, she saw blue lights walking in single file across a bog where no path ran and no sensible man would have gone after dark.

When she was ten, she stopped in the middle of a wood and pointed between two ash trees.

“There is a road there,” she said.

Her elder brother laughed, for there was nothing between the trees but bramble and shadow.

Maeve did not laugh.

She could see the road plainly: white and narrow, running farther than the trees themselves, though where it went she could not tell.

Her father took her by the shoulders and turned her away from it.

“Listen to me,” he said.

Her father was not a man much given to fear. He feared bad harvests, lame horses, and God. Yet that day his hands were cold.

“You may see many things in this world that other folk do not. That does not mean those things are meant for you.”

Her mother said it more simply.

“Seeing is not an invitation.”

Maeve heard some form of that warning all her life.

Do not answer a voice that calls your name from an empty field.

Do not follow music where no musicians can be found.

Do not step into a ring of mushrooms, though the grass within it is greener than any grass around it.

If you meet a stranger on the road after midnight, be courteous, but do not tell him where you are going.

And above all:

If you see the Fair Folk upon their own business, look aside and let them pass.

Maeve obeyed these rules through childhood.

She obeyed them through girlhood.

By the time she was nineteen, she was very tired of obeying them.

It was not that Maeve thought her parents foolish. She had seen enough strange things to know better than that.

But all her life the world had opened little doors before her and everyone she loved had told her not to put so much as a finger through them.

Maeve had begun to wonder what the use of having eyes was if one must always keep them shut.

And so it happened that on May Eve, when the hawthorn was white along the lanes and the last light lingered late upon the hills, Maeve made the mistake for which she would pay more dearly than she could have imagined.

That morning her mother had cut rowan and tied small sprigs above the door and stable.

All day there had been preparations for May Day. The cattle would be driven between the fires at dawn. Butter was churned before sunset, lest wandering powers spoil the milk. No flame was to be lent from the hearth that night.

Maeve knew every custom.

She also knew that nearly everyone who observed them would have laughed if asked whether they truly believed in the beings from whom the customs were supposed to protect them.

That amused her.

It was near sunset when she was sent to bring home a young heifer that had slipped through a broken place in the hedge.

Maeve found the beast grazing half a mile from home and was driving her back when she heard the first horn.

It was very faint.

One clear note, high and sweet.

The heifer stopped.

Maeve stopped with her.

A second horn answered from beyond the hill.

Then came music.

Not the rough tune of a fiddle in an alehouse, nor the harp of a travelling musician. This was music so distant and perfect that Maeve felt, for a moment, that she had remembered it rather than heard it.

The heifer gave a frightened lowing.

Maeve looked toward the road.

Riders were coming.

There were perhaps thirty of them at first, though whenever Maeve tried to count she found there were more.

They rode two abreast beneath the budding trees.

Their horses were tall and fine-limbed, black and grey and white, with manes braided in silver. Hounds ran among them, pale as winter mist. Men and women rode in bright cloaks and garments richer than any Maeve had seen, though no mud touched their hems and no dust rose beneath their horses’ feet.

Behind them came musicians.

Behind the musicians came more riders.

Some laughed. Some sang.

None looked at Maeve.

The most terrible thing about them was their beauty.

The second most terrible thing was that they were not riding upon the road.

There was another road beneath them.

Or above it.

Maeve could not have said which.

The mortal road bent around the shoulder of the hill.

Theirs went straight.

It crossed ditch and hedge without rising or falling. It passed through a stand of hazel as moonlight passes through water. White stones marked its edges, although when Maeve looked at the ground beneath them there were no stones there at all.

The Straight Track.

Her grandmother had spoken of such roads.

Maeve's mouth had gone dry.

The heifer pulled at the rope in her hand.

Every lesson of her childhood spoke at once.

Look away.

Go home.

Seeing is not an invitation.

Then a rider passed Maeve on a white horse.

He wore no crown.

He needed none.

His hair was red-gold, his cloak dark as holly leaves, and a slender circlet of beaten gold lay against his brow. He was beautiful even among the beautiful company, and something in the air bent around him like grass beneath wind.

Maeve knew, though no one had ever described him to her, that she looked upon one of the great lords of the Fair Folk.

The King Under the Hill.

Aodh.

He turned his head.

For one instant his eyes met hers.

They were green.

Not the green of leaves.

The green of deep water over stone.

His expression altered by no more than the lifting of one eyebrow.

He had seen that she could see him.

Then he looked forward again.

The riders continued west.

Maeve stood beside the trembling heifer.

She could go home.

She knew that.

Years later, when she remembered that evening, this was the moment she returned to most often. Not the running, not the horns, not even the sunrise.

This quiet moment.

A rope in her hand.

The smell of crushed grass.

Her mother waiting less than half a mile away.

A road no one else could see disappearing toward the hills.

Maeve tied the heifer's rope to a hawthorn.

“I'll only see where they go,” she whispered.

And followed.

The procession travelled quickly, but the Straight Track seemed to alter distance.

Maeve walked, yet the riders never drew far ahead.

She crossed fields without climbing their walls. Once she stepped through a stream and came out with dry shoes. A wood stood before her; then the trees opened, and she found she had already crossed it.

The mortal countryside faded.

Not vanished.

Faded.

It lay beneath the other world like a painting beneath thin cloth.

At last the riders came to a green hill rising alone above the plain.

Maeve knew the hill.

Everyone did.

She had climbed it as a child.

There was nothing remarkable there but an old ring of earth and stone near its summit, and sheep that grazed upon it in summer.

Tonight, lights burned beneath the grass.

The procession ascended.

Music spilled out of the hill.

Maeve slowed.

The riders did not.

The foremost reached the bank of earth.

The hill opened.

There was no thunder, no tearing of rock.

One moment there was grass.

The next there were two tall doors standing open in the hillside, and beyond them a country under a violet sky.

The riders passed through.

Maeve stood twenty paces away.

Her heart hammered.

She should turn back.

She knew it.

She could still see the mortal fields behind her. Smoke rose from cottages. Somewhere a dog barked.

The last of the riders entered the hill.

The doors began to close.

Maeve ran.

She slipped between them.

And behind her, very softly, the hill shut.

At first Maeve forgot to be afraid.

No tale had prepared her for the beauty of Underhill.

There was no roof above her, though she knew she stood beneath a hill.

A pale evening sky stretched from horizon to horizon, holding neither sun nor stars. Trees grew beside the road, heavy at once with blossom and fruit. White flowers opened in the grass wherever feet passed.

Ahead stood a palace.

Or perhaps it was a forest.

Maeve could never afterward explain it.

There were pillars like silver birches and birches like carved pillars. Stairways rose between branches. Great rooms opened beneath trees whose leaves formed green ceilings a hundred feet above. Water ran through channels cut into floors of dark stone, and little lights drifted upon it without wick or flame.

Everywhere there was music.

A feast had been laid.

Tables shone with cups of gold and silver. There were roasted meats, red apples, white bread still steaming, berries though spring had only begun in the mortal world, and wine dark as blood in crystal vessels.

Maeve had never smelled food so sweet.

A woman passed carrying a dish of small golden cakes.

“Will you eat?”

Maeve's hand almost lifted.

Then she remembered her mother tying rowan above the door.

“No, thank you.”

The woman smiled.

Her teeth were very white.

“As you please.”

Maeve moved on.

The court seemed to take no notice of her.

Why should they?

A mortal girl among such splendour was less remarkable than a sparrow in a church.

Aodh sat beneath a flowering apple tree at the far end of the hall-that-was-not-a-hall. Men and women stood around him. Someone had placed a silver cup in his hand.

Maeve avoided looking toward him.

Instead she watched the dancers.

They moved in long chains through the trees.

Every face was beautiful.

Every step perfect.

Every cloak bright.

And then Maeve saw the young man.

She noticed him because he was ugly.

Not truly ugly.

Indeed, had she met him on any mortal road she might have called him handsome. He had dark hair, a straight nose, and the lean build of someone accustomed to horses and weapons.

But among the people Underhill he looked wrong.

Ordinary.

Human.

And beneath his feet lay a shadow.

No one else cast one.

Maeve stopped.

The young man laughed at something a woman beside him had said.

His laughter sounded like everyone else's.

But his shadow moved half a heartbeat after he did.

Maeve went toward him.

He did not look at her.

She stepped directly into his path.

He walked around her.

“Excuse me,” Maeve said.

Nothing.

She seized his sleeve.

Her hand met cloth.

He did not react.

Maeve stared.

Maeve could see him beneath the glamour.

When at last she woke him, he drew one sharp breath, as though plunging into icy water.

His eyes flew wide.

He staggered.

The woman beside him continued laughing and walked away.

The young man stared at Maeve.

Then at the feast.

All the colour drained from his face.

“Where am I?”

“Under the hill.”

He shut his eyes.

“Oh God.”

“That was more or less my thought.”

He looked at her again.

“You can see me?”

“I have seen you all along.”

“No.” He gripped her wrist. “I mean me.”

Maeve understood.

The glamour upon him had not merely hidden him from her.

It had hidden him from himself.

“I can now.”

The young man breathed hard through his nose.

“What is your name?”

“Maeve.”

“I am Cian.”

He hesitated.

“Son of Murchad.”

Maeve knew the name.

Everyone did.

King Murchad ruled three days' hard riding east of her father's land.

She stared at him.

“Prince Cian?”

“I suppose I still am.”

“Why are you here?”

“I don't know.”

Then memory came back into his face.

“My men.”

“What happened?”

“We were riding to my uncle's lands. We heard horns in the wood.” He pressed both hands to his temples. “The horses bolted. There were riders around us. I drew my sword.”

He laughed once, bitterly.

“A great deal of good that did.”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

Maeve's fear eased a little.

“Then you have not been here long.”

Cian looked at her sharply.

“Maeve, how did you come here?”

“I followed them.”

He stared.

“You followed the Host?”

“Yes.”

“Willingly?”

“I was curious.”

For several moments Prince Cian of Murchad's kingdom simply looked at her.

“At least,” he said at last, “you'll die knowing the answer.”

Maeve's chin lifted.

“I have no intention of dying.”

“Then you should not have followed the Fair Folk into their hill on May Eve.”

“That advice would have been more useful an hour ago.”

To her surprise, he almost smiled.

His face grew serious.

“Have you eaten anything?”

“No.”

“Drunk?”

“No.”

“Has anyone given you a gift?”

“No.”

“Have you promised anything?”

“No.”

Cian seized both her hands.

“Then you can leave.”

Maeve blinked.

“What?”

“You can leave.”

He looked around quickly, lowering his voice.

“You came of your own will. You have taken nothing. Eaten nothing. Accepted nothing. Unless their law is different here from every tale my nurse ever frightened me with, they have no right to keep you.”

“What about you?”

Cian's expression changed.

“They took me.”

“That is different?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“They have a claim.”

Maeve disliked the word.

“What sort of claim?”

“The old sort.”

“That tells me nothing.”

“It tells me as much as I know.”

Music swelled around them.

Cian looked toward Aodh.

“Go, Maeve.”

“I don't know the way.”

“You saw it coming in.”

“The road has gone.”

“Then find it again.”

“Go before anyone notices what you've done.”

A voice behind them said:

“I noticed.”

Cian went still.

Maeve turned.

King Aodh stood three paces away.

No guards surrounded him.

None were needed.

Up close he seemed both younger and older than he had upon the road. His face might have belonged to a man of thirty, but his eyes made Maeve think of roots beneath mountains.

He looked at Maeve.

Then at Cian.

“You have broken my weaving.”

Maeve swallowed.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“He was a prisoner.”

Aodh glanced at Cian.

“Was he?”

Cian's jaw tightened.

“You took me.”

“I did.”

“Against my will.”

“You drew iron against my riders.”

“After you surrounded us.”

“And therefore we have both described the event accurately.”

Maeve looked from one to the other.

Aodh smiled faintly.

“You see, Maeve, how quickly mortals become tangled in words.”

The sound of her name frightened her more than anything else had.

“I never told you my name.”

“No.”

Aodh extended one hand.

The dancers passed behind him.

“You have eaten nothing.”

“No.”

“Drunk nothing.”

“No.”

“You entered freely.”

“Yes.”

“Then you are my guest, though an unexpected one, and no guest of mine is kept against her will.”

He gestured.

The world opened.

Maeve saw her own country.

Not dimly.

Not as a vision.

The hillside stood open behind Aodh, and outside lay true evening beneath a darkening blue sky.

She could see the mortal road.

The hawthorn hedge.

Far away, one yellow square of lamplight shone from her family's house.

Her breath caught.

“Go home,” said Aodh.

Maeve took one step.

Then Cian followed.

The opening vanished.

Earth stood where it had been.

Cian stopped.

Aodh looked almost regretful.

“Not you.”

Maeve turned.

“You said I could leave.”

“You may.”

“With him.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you came here of your own choosing. He did not.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense. You simply dislike it.”

Cian touched Maeve's arm.

“Go.”

Maeve ignored him.

“There must be a way.”

Aodh regarded her.

“There is always a way.”

Cian's head snapped up.

Aodh's smile deepened.

“Your nurse taught you something after all, prince.”

Cian said nothing.

“What way?” Maeve demanded.

Aodh walked past them and plucked an apple from a branch.

The fruit was red on one side and white on the other.

“An unbound mortal may lead one bound mortal from my country.”

Maeve stared at him.

Cian closed his eyes.

“You knew,” she said.

“I knew a story.”

“You might have mentioned it.”

“I was trying to persuade you to escape with your life.”

Aodh bit into the apple.

“There are conditions.”

“Of course there are,” said Maeve.

His eyes glinted.

“Neither of you may eat nor drink what is mine.”

“We haven't.”

“You must lead.”

Maeve nodded.

“The prince cannot find the road that was closed to him. You can.”

“Because of the Sight.”

“Because you are troublesome.”

Maeve could not tell whether he was joking.

Aodh continued.

“He must keep hold of your hand. If my people part you, my claim upon him is restored.”

Cian stepped nearer.

“You must follow what you see rather than what your eyes tell you. Those are not always the same thing.”

“I understand.”

“No,” said Aodh. “You don't. But perhaps you will.”

He dropped the half-eaten apple into the grass.

“You must not turn toward any voice that calls from behind you.”

Maeve's skin prickled.

“Whose voice?”

“Any voice.”

“And we must leave before sunrise,” Cian said.

Aodh inclined his head.

“If the sun finds you beneath my hill, you remain until I choose otherwise.”

“How long?”

Aodh looked at him.

“Why spoil the surprise?”

Maeve felt Cian flinch.

“And if we reach the mortal world?”

“Then my claim ends.”

“Entirely?”

“Entirely.”

“You will not follow us?”

“Not beyond my door.”

“You will not send anyone after us afterward?”

Aodh's smile vanished.

It was the first moment he looked truly kingly.

“I do not bargain with crooked words, Maeve daughter of Eamon. If you cross into your world before sunrise with the prince in your keeping, he is free.”

Maeve believed him.

That was somehow worse.

Aodh turned away.

“Your road is open.”

Nothing changed.

Maeve looked around.

“Where?”

He glanced over his shoulder.

“You wished to see where hidden roads went.”

The first horn sounded.

“Find one.”

The music stopped.

Every face in the court turned toward Maeve and Cian.

The second horn sounded.

Cian seized Maeve's hand.

“Run.”

They ran.

Maeve chose the first road she could see.

It went between two apple trees and appeared to end at a wall of roses.

Behind them came laughter.

Not cruel laughter.

Joyful laughter.

The hunt had begun.

“Through there,” Maeve said.

“That's a hedge.”

“No, it isn't.”

“It has thorns.”

“Trust me.”

She plunged into the roses.

There were no roses.

They came out onto a moor.

Heather rolled beneath a sky the colour of bruised plums. Far away stood black hills.

Cian stumbled beside her.

“What do you see?”

“A road.”

“I see nothing.”

“Good. Then perhaps we're on the right one.”

Behind them a horn called.

Horsemen burst from the rose hedge.

Cian began to look back.

Maeve jerked his hand.

“No.”

“I was only—”

“One of the rules.”

“I remember.”

They ran harder.

The horsemen should have overtaken them in moments.

They did not.

Every time the hoofbeats drew near, Maeve saw something change ahead: a gap in stone, a thread of light between trees, a path through black water.

She followed.

The world folded.

The riders fell behind.

Then returned.

Underhill had no geography.

It had only choices.

They crossed a hall where hundreds of people danced though there was no music.

They ran down a staircase that became a stream.

They passed through a forest of silver trunks where every leaf whispered Maeve's name.

At the far end of the wood they found three roads.

The first was broad and golden.

Morning shone at its end.

Cian laughed with relief.

“There.”

Maeve did not move.

“What?” he asked.

“There is no road.”

He stared at the golden path.

“I can see it.”

“So can I.”

“Then—”

“But not with the Sight.”

Maeve looked left.

A narrow track vanished beneath a black cliff.

Right was marsh.

Left was stone.

Straight ahead was sunrise.

Every ordinary sense begged her to choose straight.

Maeve shut her eyes.

Behind her lids she saw the golden road end three steps ahead in a dark emptiness without bottom.

She opened them.

“Left.”

Cian looked at the cliff.

“That is a wall.”

“I know.”

“You're certain?”

“No.”

The hoofbeats came closer.

Cian looked once at the shining road.

Then at Maeve.

“All right.”

They ran at the stone.

Cian's fingers tightened around hers.

At the last instant every instinct in Maeve screamed to stop.

She did not.

The wall passed over them like cold water.

They emerged into darkness.

Cian laughed once, breathlessly.

“I believe you now.”

“Remember that.”

They walked for a little while because neither could run.

The darkness was not complete. Small blue lights moved beneath the earth beside the path like stars drowned in deep water.

Cian's hand was still in Maeve's.

She became aware of it.

So did he.

Neither let go.

“How did you know the rule about leading someone out?” she whispered.

“My nurse was from Donegal.”

“That explains everything.”

“It usually did, according to her.”

Maeve smiled despite herself.

“She told me never to eat fairy food, never thank them for a gift, never boast of good fortune where they might hear, and never sleep beneath a hawthorn.”

“Wise woman.”

“She also told me that if I stole apples from her pantry, Saint Patrick would turn me into a goat.”

“Did you believe her?”

“I was six.”

“Did you steal the apples?”

“Of course.”

Maeve laughed.

The sound felt strange in that place.

Cian looked at her.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“I had not expected you to laugh.”

“Why?”

“You're a prince.”

“I assure you, it is permitted.”

“I meant I expected princes to be more solemn.”

“My father would be pleased to hear it.”

His face changed.

Maeve knew at once what he had thought.

His father.

Home.

Morning.

“We'll get you back,” she said.

Cian looked ahead.

“Yes.”

But he said it like a man making himself believe.

Then Maeve heard her mother scream.

“Maeve!”

She stopped dead.

It came from behind them.

“Maeve, help me!”

Every drop of blood in Maeve's body went cold.

Her mother's voice.

Not like it.

Not almost.

Her mother's voice exactly.

“Maeve!”

She began to turn.

Cian caught her face with his free hand.

“No.”

“My mother—”

“No.”

“She may have followed—”

“No.”

The voice sobbed.

Maeve had heard her mother cry only twice in her life.

This was precisely how she sounded.

“Maeve, please.”

Cian stood inches from her.

“Look at me.”

Maeve's eyes burned.

“That is not your mother.”

The voice behind them changed.

Her father began calling.

Then her brother.

Then a child Maeve had known who died when she was twelve.

One by one.

Every beloved voice.

Cian did not let her turn.

At last they stopped.

Silence returned.

Maeve realised she was gripping the front of Cian's tunic.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

His free hand fell from her face.

“Don't thank anyone Underhill.”

“You're not of Underhill.”

“Not yet.”

Maeve looked at him.

“Don't say that.”

Cian nodded.

They began walking again.

After a while he said, “You may thank me when we are outside.”

“I may decide not to.”

“That would be ungracious.”

“You're a prince. You must be accustomed to disappointment.”

“I am beginning to dislike you.”

“No, you aren't.”

To Maeve's surprise, Cian laughed again.

The passage ended.

They stepped into Maeve's kitchen.

Her mother stood at the hearth.

The fire burned red.

Her father sat in his chair mending a leather strap.

Her brother was eating bread at the table.

Maeve stopped.

No one looked at her.

Cian nearly collided with her back.

“What is it?”

Maeve could not answer.

Everything was exactly right.

The crack in the hearthstone.

Her mother's blue shawl hanging from the peg.

The clay bowl Maeve had dropped when she was fourteen and repaired badly enough that the seam still showed.

Steam rose from a pot.

Maeve smelled onions.

Her father looked up.

“Maeve?”

She gasped.

His face brightened.

“There you are.”

Her mother turned.

“Where have you been?”

Maeve took one step.

Cian tightened his grip on her hand.

“What do you see?”

“My house.”

He looked around.

“I see a field.”

Maeve stared at him.

Behind Cian stretched a grey field under moonlight.

Around Maeve was home.

Her mother smiled.

“Supper is getting cold.”

Maeve began to cry.

Aodh stood beside the hearth.

He had not been there a moment before.

He leaned one shoulder against the wall.

“You may still go.”

Cian could not see him.

Maeve knew that somehow.

Aodh nodded toward her family.

“You owe him nothing.”

Maeve said nothing.

“You found your answer,” Aodh continued. “You know where the hidden road goes. Curiosity has a price, but yours needn't be ruinous.”

Her mother set a bowl at Maeve's place.

Aodh smiled.

“Go home.”

Maeve looked at Cian.

He stood alone in the moonlit field, holding her hand.

His face was pale with exhaustion.

“What do you see?” he asked.

Maeve looked at her mother's face.

Then at Aodh.

“Something I want.”

Aodh inclined his head.

“And?”

Maeve tightened her fingers around Cian's.

“Something that isn't mine anymore.”

Her mother's smile vanished.

The kitchen went dark.

Aodh disappeared.

The moonlit field remained.

Cian did not ask.

Maeve was grateful for that.

They ran on.

The Host came closer.

There was no more laughter now.

Only hoofbeats.

Maeve and Cian crossed a narrow bridge over black water.

A hound snapped at Cian's cloak.

Maeve dragged him forward.

A rider swept beside them and reached between them with one white hand.

Cian twisted away.

Their fingers slipped.

For an instant only the tips touched.

The rider smiled.

Maeve threw herself sideways and caught Cian's wrist.

The road vanished beneath all three of them.

Maeve and Cian struck wet grass.

The rider was gone.

“Don't let go,” Cian gasped.

“I remember.”

They scrambled up.

“Maeve!”

Cian's voice called from behind her.

She almost turned.

Almost.

Because Cian was holding her hand.

The voice called again.

“Maeve, wait!”

She looked at the man beside her.

His eyes widened.

“Oh,” he said.

“Yes.”

“My nurse neglected that one.”

They ran.

Behind them Cian's voice became desperate.

Then Maeve's own voice began calling Cian.

Neither turned.

Time passed strangely.

Maeve could not tell whether they had run for an hour or a night or a year.

But the unchanging twilight had begun to feel thinner.

She heard something.

A small sound.

Three notes.

She stopped.

Cian bent double, fighting for breath.

“What?”

“Listen.”

“I hear horses.”

“No.”

Beneath the hoofbeats came another sound.

A bird.

One small bird singing somewhere impossibly far away.

Maeve laughed.

“What is it?”

“Birdsong.”

“There are birds everywhere.”

“Not those birds.”

She pulled him forward.

The road narrowed.

Cold air touched her face.

Real cold.

Not the sweet, windless air of Underhill.

Ahead stood a bank of earth tangled with roots.

Behind them came the Host.

This time there would be no turning aside.

Maeve could feel it.

The road had become straight.

The riders filled it from edge to edge.

Aodh rode at their head on the white horse.

He carried no weapon.

He did not need one.

Cian looked at the bank.

“There is nowhere to go.”

“Yes, there is.”

“I see earth.”

“So do I.”

Maeve saw something else beneath it.

Light.

A line no wider than a knife blade.

Gold.

She heard a cock crow.

Once.

Far away.

Cian's face changed.

“Dawn.”

“Not yet.”

The riders approached.

Maeve took both his hands.

“Listen to me.”

“I am.”

“We run straight through.”

“Through the hill?”

“Yes.”

“There is no opening.”

“There is.”

“I cannot see it.”

“I know.”

The second cock-crow sounded.

Aodh was close enough that Maeve could see his green eyes.

He did not urge the horse faster.

He did not have to.

The eastern edge of the unseen world was growing bright.

Cian looked at the wall.

Then at Maeve.

“If you are wrong—”

“I know.”

The prince smiled.

It was a tired, crooked, very mortal smile.

“I believe you.”

Behind them Aodh raised one hand.

The Host thundered forward.

Maeve and Cian ran.

Ten paces.

Five.

Three.

Cian flinched as the wall rushed toward them.

Maeve did not let go.

They struck the earth—

—and fell into morning.

Maeve landed on wet grass.

For several seconds she could not breathe.

Then she heard birds.

Dozens of them.

Larks.

Thrushes.

Crows.

Ordinary, quarrelling, imperfect birds.

The sweetest sound she had ever heard.

Beside her Cian rolled onto his back and laughed.

The sky above them was pale blue.

Mist lay over the fields.

At the eastern horizon the first rim of the sun had just broken free.

Maeve sat up.

Behind them stood the green hill.

Closed.

Silent.

Nothing moved upon it.

No riders emerged.

No horns sounded.

No king appeared.

There was only wind stirring the grass.

Cian looked toward the rising sun.

“We did it.”

Maeve began laughing too.

She could not stop.

Cian sat up.

“We did it.”

He seized her shoulders and laughed with her, and for one wild moment they were two foolish young people sitting in dew-soaked grass at dawn, alive when they should not have been.

Maeve threw her arms around him.

Cian held her.

Neither spoke.

At last Maeve drew back.

“My mother is going to kill me.”

Cian smiled.

“My father may get there first.”

“You are assuming royal privilege.”

“Only in matters of execution.”

Maeve stood.

The world smelled of damp earth and woodsmoke.

Home.

Cian rose beside her.

“Which way?”

Maeve turned.

Her smile faded.

Something was wrong.

The hill was familiar.

But the road below it was not.

There had been a stand of hazel near the western slope.

It was gone.

A stone wall crossed a field that had never been divided.

Maeve walked downhill.

“Maeve?”

“The road.”

“What about it?”

“It shouldn't be there.”

Cian looked around.

Perhaps because this was not his country, he saw nothing strange.

Maeve walked faster.

They found a farmhouse.

It was built where no house had stood before.

An old man came out carrying a wooden pail.

He stopped when he saw them.

Cian stepped forward.

“Good morning.”

The old man stared at their clothing.

Then at Cian's sword.

“God save you,” he said cautiously.

“And you,” Cian replied. “What place is this?”

The old man named the district.

Maeve exhaled.

At least that had not changed.

“What day is it?” she asked.

The old man frowned.

“May Day.”

Maeve laughed with relief.

Cian did too.

Then the old man gave them the year.

Neither understood at first.

Cian asked him to repeat it.

The old man did.

Maeve felt the morning tilt beneath her.

“That cannot be right.”

The old man crossed himself.

Cian's face had become very still.

“What king rules east of here?” he asked.

The old man gave a name neither of them knew.

Cian swallowed.

“And Murchad?”

The old man thought.

“Murchad? His seat was three days east of here.”

Cian nodded.

“My father's dún—”

The old man's expression changed.

“Your father's?”

That was worse than if he had known nothing.

“King Murchad's son was Cian,” the old man said. “The prince who vanished.”

Cian did not move.

“My grandmother told me that story. He rode into the woods with his men and never came home.”

Maeve looked at him.

“There was a girl, too,” the old man continued. “Maeve, daughter of Eamon. They said she followed the Fair Folk on May Eve.”

Maeve could not speak.

“What became of them?” Cian asked.

“No one knew.”

The old man looked from one to the other.

“The king's house is ruins now.”

“What ruins?”

The old man pointed east.

“The King's Walls, some call them. There hasn't been a king there in my lifetime.”

Maeve closed her eyes.

“No.”

She thought of Aodh beneath the apple tree.

If you cross into your world before sunrise with the prince in your keeping, he is free.

She had asked whether they would be free.

She had asked whether he would follow.

She had asked whether his claim would end.

She had not asked when.

Cian understood at the same moment.

“One hundred years,” he said.

The old man stared.

Maeve looked at him.

“What?”

“One hundred years.”

His voice was barely audible.

“The year he gave. It is one hundred years.”

The old man dropped his pail.

Water spilled into the road.

Maeve began to run.

Her family's house was gone.

Not ruined.

Gone.

The shape of the land remained. She found the stream. She found the old ash tree, though lightning had split it and one half was dead.

Where the house had stood there was a field.

A low ridge beneath the grass showed where one wall might once have been.

Maeve stood in the place where the kitchen should have been.

She knew exactly where the hearth had stood.

There was nothing there but daisies.

Cian waited a little distance away.

Maeve knelt.

She put her hand against the earth.

Her mother had been here.

Her father.

Her brothers.

Perhaps they had searched.

Perhaps they had waited through that first night.

Perhaps through the next.

How long had her mother left the rowan tied above the door?

How many May Eves had she watched the hill?

Maeve's fingers dug into the soil.

She thought she would cry.

She did not.

There was too much grief for tears.

Cian came quietly and stood beside her.

After a while he said, “I am sorry.”

Maeve looked up at him.

He seemed suddenly very young.

“Your father.”

He looked east.

“Yes.”

“We should go.”

“To the dún?”

“Yes.”

Cian was silent.

Maeve stood.

There was earth upon her palms.

Neither mentioned that there was nowhere else for either of them to go.

They reached the old royal seat two days later.

They travelled slowly.

The country was familiar and strange in equal measure.

Old paths had vanished. New churches stood beside roads Maeve had never seen. Families bore names she knew, but the people who had once carried them were now grandfathers of grandfathers.

Maeve heard scraps of songs she remembered sung with different words.

That hurt more than she expected.

At sunset on the second day they reached Cian's home.

The old man's words had not prepared them.

The dún stood upon a low wooded hill.

Or what remained of it did.

Part of the outer wall still stood, grey with lichen. The great hall was gone. Trees grew where men had once feasted. One tower had collapsed into a mound of stone and ivy.

Cian stopped at the edge of the wood.

Maeve stood beside him.

“There was a gate here,” he said.

His voice was calm.

Too calm.

“My mother hated it. She said the hinges woke half the household.”

Maeve said nothing.

Cian walked forward.

“There was a stable there.”

Trees.

“My father's hall there.”

Grass.

“And my room—”

He stopped.

Maeve saw him understand that he could no longer even find the place.

He sat upon a fallen stone.

For the first time since she had woken him Underhill, Prince Cian wept.

Maeve sat beside him.

She did not tell him that kings must not cry.

She did not tell him that his father had surely died peacefully, because she could not know it.

She did not tell him that everything would be well.

Some griefs should not be lied to.

Instead she remained.

When darkness fell, neither suggested leaving.

Much later, when the moon had risen above the ruined walls, Cian spoke.

“You could have gone home.”

Maeve knew which moment he meant.

“Yes.”

“You saw it?”

“Yes.”

“Your house?”

“My mother. My father. The fire.”

Cian looked at her.

“And you stayed.”

Maeve picked at a thread on her sleeve.

“I could not leave you.”

“You did not know me.”

“I knew enough.”

“What did you know?”

Maeve thought about it.

“That you were afraid.”

Cian gave a quiet laugh.

“A heroic quality in a prince.”

“That you wanted me to go even though it meant you would remain.”

He said nothing.

“And,” Maeve continued, “I knew that if I stepped through that door, I would spend every day afterward wondering what had happened to you.”

“That seems a poor reason to lose a hundred years.”

“I did not know about the hundred years.”

“Would it have changed your mind?”

Maeve looked through the broken walls toward the moonlit trees.

“Yes.”

Cian turned.

She smiled faintly.

“I would have been much more frightened.”

He laughed.

Maeve did too.

The laughter faded.

After a moment Cian said, “I am glad you didn't know.”

Maeve looked at him.

He seemed embarrassed by the words.

She could have teased him.

She did not.

“So am I,” she said.

They sat shoulder to shoulder upon the fallen stone.

Before them lay a country that was theirs and was not theirs.

Everyone Maeve had loved was dead.

Everyone Cian had loved was dead.

His father's kingdom belonged to strangers. Maeve's home was grass. The songs had changed. The roads had changed. Even the names of kings had passed away.

They had escaped Underhill by the width of a sunrise.

They had won exactly what had been promised.

Their lives.

Nothing more.

At length Cian held out his hand.

Maeve looked at it.

“What?”

“You said you would thank me when we were safely outside.”

“I said I might.”

“For stopping you when the voices called.”

“That was some time ago.”

“A debt is a debt.”

Maeve considered.

Then she placed her hand in his.

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

Neither released the other.

She had finally learned that not everything one sees must be followed.

Beside her, Cian's hand tightened gently around hers.

Morning would come again.

They had no house.

No kin.

No kingdom that knew them.

They had only the clothes in which they had escaped and one another.

For the first time since leaving the hill, Maeve found that this did not seem like nothing.

So they remained there until dawn, among the stones of Cian's father's house, while the birds began to wake in the trees.

And when the sun rose, they rose with it.

What became of Maeve and Cian afterward, no tale agrees.

Some say they travelled north and were seen years later at the court of another king.

Some say Cian reclaimed nothing that had belonged to his father, saying that a hundred years was claim enough for any dead man.

Some say Maeve became a healer, and that people journeyed many miles to ask what she could see.

There are even those who say that on May Eve an old song may still be heard near the hill where they escaped, though no singer can be found.

But all the old tellers agree upon one thing.

If, on the eve of May Day, you hear horns upon a road where no riders pass, or see lights travelling over a hill where no houses stand, remember Maeve.

Look if you must.

Wonder if you will.

But remember what her mother told her:

Seeing is not an invitation.

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