Ainsel woke in the waning half of morning, when the clouds cleared and let sunlight pour down, to the feeling of something soft draped over her, pacing steps, and Liam’s voice. At first, she could not discern the words, and rubbed her eyes to try and wake up enough to listen.

“I can be ready at noon,” he was saying. He paused, then added, “I’ll check with her.”

Careful not to move too much or make any noise, she sat up; the blanket upon her slid slowly into a bundle on her lap. Had she grabbed it in the night and forgotten? She peeked over the back of the couch; Liam was turned away from her, already dressed in jeans and a burgundy button down, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, cell phone to his ear.

“Right. And remember the nickname situation. I don’t want things to be weird.”

He stood still, nodding in response to his friend, with whom he must be speaking. When he resumed his pacing, she laid down again, and made light, shifting movements as if emerging from sleep. While he was none the wiser, caution was clear in his approach; it seemed he was wary of disturbing her. As such, he stopped at the edge of the living room.

“Ainsel?”

“Hmm?” She hoped that she sounded tired.

“Do you still want to meet Tom? There’s this cafe nearby, and it’s quiet enough that we won’t get loads of attention.”

“Mhm. When?” Ainsel feigned a yawn and stretched one arm at a time.

“In two hours? I’ve showered. You can go ahead.”

The pause after his statement said more than the statement itself -- maybe he wanted to ask if she’d slept well, or to admit he’d given her the blanket, though Ainsel had probably taken it herself after all. She gave no answer other than a shuffling walk to the washroom, and for reasons she couldn’t place, avoided looking at Liam as she passed him.

Ainsel felt his eyes on her, but did not once turn, and locked the door behind her, more so an impulse than anything else.

Shedding her pajamas felt like peeling away the events of the previous day. It had been a reasonable assumption that Tom might read into her borrowing Liam’s clothes, so why did she dump it into her subconscious as soon as it came up? Because it was embarrassing?

She shook her head at her foolishness and turned the water to a median temperature. Steam gave green tiles and plastic bottles their own miniature coating of fog. Letting it soak her skin, she searched for the shampoo, which she flipped open and squeezed into a swirl in her palm. It released some sharp, fresh scent, much like mint, but earthier, chasing away the last remnants of sleep. She lathered it in, rinsed out the excess, and leaned against the halfway-cold, halfway-warm wall.

What would happen after this meeting? What came next -- filling the remaining holes in their story, decorating it with detail to make it as persuasive as possible? Though Liam was by no means poor at lying, she could tell it took a toll on him. If he had to continue, then at some point, he’d begin to crack.

She would just have to make sure that he didn’t crack.

Ainsel ended her shower with a handful of leave-in conditioner, which smelled of citrus. Once the water was off and she was dry enough to not shiver, she inspected her reflection: she was not as visibly exhausted as before. But she’d wasted time doing nothing. When she peeked into the hallway, Liam was nowhere in sight; he had left folded on the floor her trousers, a white undershirt, and the cream-colored jumper that he’d worn on the first day that she’d ever seen him. She told herself not to think on it, and changed in a hurry.

Once she rounded the corner, Liam was sitting at the kitchen island with a book on his lap and backpack slung over his shoulder. The sunlight cast his hair in liquid gold, while the crystal by the window threw sparkling shards of color across his face. He blinked as they danced over his eyes, and turned the page.

Ainsel, for whatever reason, didn’t call to him, but instead picked her boots from the shoe bench. Flecks of red trailed down their sides, and the left one was marked with a smudge just wide enough and dark enough for her to notice -- like the ghost of a stain, almost purged from the leather where Liam must have scrubbed it away. Pulling them on, she considered stealing new ones; he’d saved her life and let her hide. She didn’t need him to start buying shoes for her as well.

“I’m ready to go,” was all she said.

He startled out of his reading session, and appearing rather embarrassed himself, gave her a slight nod as he tucked the book into his bag.

“It’s a short walk.”

Liam did not look at her, stepped down from his chair, and held the door open. When she passed him, he tensed -- just the slightest bit, but combined with his saying hardly anything at all, it gave her pause. Had she done something to scare him?

If she had, then needling him with questions was not the path to take. She followed him down stone stairs, where wrought-iron railings made her hands tingle if she touched them; it echoed the sensation that came just after spilling very hot water on one’s skin, but wasn’t quite pain. The iron was not pure enough to make her sick; still, she kept well away from it.

It was a relief when Liam lead her past the rails and fences. There was no more imminent sickness pulsing at the edges of her vision, no more tension lurking in the gaps between their words to one another. Together, they wound through a realm of mist and sun, pavement and brick and rumbling, whirring, trilling city sounds.

❦❦❦

Their path ended in a sector of west London worlds away from what Ainsel had seen thus far: a gleam to every building, streets populated with sleek cars and people in even sleeker clothing. She could, with ease, imagine she’d shifted forward in time to much later than the twenty-first century -- if not for Liam.

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Head up, shoulders back, gaze ahead, his demeanor here was as natural as hers on the windswept hills and charmed forests of her home. He checked now and then over his shoulder, and Ainsel made sure to meet his calm with confidence of her own. Appearing to the local folk that she belonged there was no challenge, especially given their hurry as they vanished into many-windowed towers that scraped the sky like fingers. Not one of them even looked at Ainsel, with her jumper and cargo trousers and slate-grey knitted cap, for longer than a fractured second.

Whether Liam bought the act, she couldn’t say, and he gave her no time to guess, guiding her around one last corner. Spanning an entire block, the St. Albertus Mercy Hospital cast upon the ground a shadow made of jagged shapes and glass glints. She supposed that today must not have been busy, as despite the orderly bustle around the doorways and the ambulances rolling in at regular intervals, it didn’t scream with noise as she’d halfway expected. What she had not expected at all were the glances the staff gave Liam, lasting tiny snips of time and followed by nods just as fleeting. He returned their greetings with the same smile he gave Ainsel when he lied to her -- friendly, but lacking the intention to converse. An idea flickered to life and sat quiet, a warming coal before the fire blazed.

She kept her pace with him, approaching their destination; the cafe tucked into the ground floor suggested to Ainsel a cave in the side of a cliff. It was square and wide, extending equally far upward and inward, with two staircases branching toward the upper level. The atmosphere inside mirrored that of its outside surroundings: brushed chrome replaced wood for the furniture, National Geographic instead of tabloids filled magazine baskets, and silver chevron-striped wallpaper added a classier touch than paint. Here and there, bright splashes saved the color scheme from monotony -- red cushions on the chairs, teal frames around the menus boards. Droplet-like yellow lights, crafted from metal and glass thin as paper, hung from the ceiling above each table. Art prints and drink coasters displayed the name of the cafe in varying typographical arrangements: Angelina’s Tea & Gourmet.

It therefore was her second surprise of this outing to spot the young man, perhaps Liam’s age and looking just as out of place as she did, at an empty table in the back. But the oddity was only in his appearance. He rested comfortably in his seat while patrons in medical scrubs or trench coats or pantsuits paid no mind to his attire: a flannel open to show a World of Warcraft t-shirt, recognizable more by the logo outline than by the letters themselves. Shades completed the look, tucked atop a dark scruff of hair, which lead down into a beard trimmed and oiled. Liam waved to him in greeting, and he motioned them over. Already formulating what she would say and when, Ainsel followed.

“Name’s Tom,” he said, reaching out a heavy hand, which she grasped and shook as she joined Liam at their table. “Ainsel, right? Pleasure to meet you.”

He had a trusting face, she noted -- his expression made it so, wide-eyed and never once looking around to assess his environment. He would be easy to fool.

And so, she assumed her very best Scottish accent, which wasn’t an accent at all, but a glamour of the voice, insisting to his and Liam’s minds that what they were hearing was real. It was nothing more than a mask over how she really sounded: almost Irish, but not matching anything heard on the emerald island across the sea.

“That’s right! Been a long journey here. Liam’s said a lot about you.”

The two friends exchanged a look of amusement, though the quickness in Liam’s told her that he had forced it.

“Can’t imagine what there is to say beyond me being a massive nerd,” Tom replied, and laughed at his own self-deprecating quip. “Where are you from, again?”

“Edinburgh,” she said, letting her vocal veil shift closer to what it should be if that were true. “Never been to London. Couldn’t get much of a straight answer about it from...” Ainsel found herself hesitating.

Liam filled the pause before it stretched for too long. “Cecil. She always pronounces it wrong,” he added to Tom, who showed not a single sign of doubt. “I’m guessing she does it just to wind him up.”

“Haven’t heard from Cecil in forever,” Tom answered, straightening his back to peer over Ainsel and Liam’s heads at the order counter behind them. “How’s he been?”

Ainsel reaches for the most generic answer her brain can produce: detailed enough to be plausible, yet too casual to invite interest. “Says he’s been swamped with housework, I think.”

“You know, he might be in touch with my father soon,” said Liam. “Mum told me he’ll be back in London within a couple of weeks. Dad, I mean.”

“Where did he go?” She wanted immediately to smack herself for asking a question that could have poked a hole in their story.

“Leeds. Remember?”

Liam’s tone brought an easy save, as though she’d forgotten something only once or twice mentioned before. She could see no reason for him to lie about his father’s trip to Scotland, which she presumed was business-related -- something had to pay for Liam’s house and wine and car, unless that was all his own doing.

Tom responded with a comment on the city’s beauty, and their conversation wound down into one free of risk that they’d be discovered. The more it trailed on and on, the less Ainsel paid attention to timing. At some point well into it, footsteps approached as a waitress delivered a platter of three red mugs and a teapot, sugar jars and pastries on ruffle-edged doilies arranged around the center. At Liam tapping her arm under the table, she waited, sure that she should do so. Of the several seconds that passed before Tom poured them each their tea, Ainsel could not determine the significance. Yet, for the first time in a great while, she didn’t care so much about tracking every single tiny detail. Perhaps waiting was part of English etiquette, and what did it matter? This was not the disaster that she’d feared it may be.

That is, until Tom nudged Liam, hissing in his ear, “Your mum is here! At the front!”

Liam, having no other option, ducked beneath the table. Ainsel fought to stifle a bubbling mix of confusion and amusement, less it show on her face. Though there was enough furniture between here and the counter for him to hide, the students at the next table over had broken into grinning and whispering.

She paid them no mind, twisting around in her chair to scan the newest row of customers. All but one stared upwards, browsing the menus. Ice-shard eyes met hers, glinting behind glasses; Ainsel felt a flash of certainty that they would pierce through any and all dishonesty, cunning as the oldest fae. But there came no interrogation; the smartly dressed blonde woman who had to be Liam’s mother waved, smiled, and turned her attention elsewhere. Ainsel followed her every move until she disappeared through sliding doors in the back of the cafe, a brown paper bag in her grasp.

Liam took his seat again at last, the very faintest blush coloring his cheeks. He kept his gaze downcast; for reasons of which she wasn’t sure, the students’ whispers set her heart beating faster and her temper jumping.

“Don’t you all have a job to do?” she snapped. “Or are you going to gossip instead of helping people with actual problems?”

They ceased, and at his near-imperceptible nod of thanks, her heartbeat continued to race. She sipped her tea, feigning calm. Tom looked on in patient silence.

“So, Liam, what’s wrong with seeing your mum here?” she asked eventually.

“She, um... she knows that I’ve been preoccupied. But she’s so busy with work that she hasn’t a lot of time to bother me.”

“Not easy to hide from her, is it?”

Tom mumbled his agreement around a piece of biscotti.

After a slow, steady inhale and exhale, Liam said, “Are you kidding? It’s miserable. She finds out everything, given some time.”

Despite the warmth, a chill streaked across her skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Earth was not devoid of people like Liam’s mother -- direct, precise, intense people. Even with all that separated her and the Hunters, Ainsel was much closer to danger than she’d at first let herself think.