With each step Silver took, he sank into the soft, springy emerald moss beneath his feet. He glanced down and saw that both of his companions were barefoot. He suddenly felt as though his shod extremities defied the natural order of this land.

Silver paused, letting Fiona brush past him. He stooped to unravel the ties holding together his grey sneakers, pushing his right toe against the heel of his left foot to remove the shoe, then switching to step out of the right. He squatted, his knees straining against his jeans, and lifted each foot in turn to pull off the mismatched socks, tugging on the toe of the blue one and then the black. He stood and stuffed the socks into the shoes, tucking them under his left arm. He unzipped his raincoat in the balmy air.

Then he stood for a moment, his eyes closed, breathing in and out, noting once again that familiar scent. Silver took a step forward and the luxuriant carpet beneath his feet yielded. The aroma intensified, drifting upward, as though his weight had released it.

He crouched again, running a hand over the moss and then dipping to his knees, bending his body to place his face right against the verdant groundcover. He inhaled deeply and was immediately transported back to Devon’s childhood back yard, with its enormous lush garden.

His own mother had had a vegetable garden too. It was composed of four raised beds, built by his father out of two-by-fours bought from a big box hardware store. The boxes were filled with dirt and compost purchased from a garden center and seasonally planted with tidy rows of tomatoes, peppers, squash, and kale, laying empty and bare each winter.

Devon’s garden was not confined to wooden boxes; the plants grew right out of the ground. Nor were they arranged into orderly queues – there was not a spot of bare soil to be found. But it wasn’t simple chaos either. Tomatoes, peppers, squash, and kale were planted in fanciful spirals and swirls. And among these standard plants were others: herbs and flowers, berries and tubers, unfamiliar fruits and exotic vegetables.

Through it all ran the paths – wonderful, sweet-smelling avenues, planted with soft, rich, brilliant green moss. This moss.

Silver felt a hand on his shoulder and extended his senses. There was a tartness to the presence at his side and he opened his eyes, unsurprised to see Fiona’s inverted face frowning at him. Her denim-clad legs were planted firmly on the ground, her waist bent and her torso contorted to what should have been an impossible angle, so that her face was upside down right next to his. Her cropped purple-blue hair flopped toward the ground. He wondered idly if it was dyed or if the color was the result of her fae blood. He couldn’t see any other shade at the roots.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

He grinned at her, his eyes sparkling. “I remember this moss from Devon’s garden!”

Fiona pursed her lips. “Look, we need to get moving. Are you going to stop and smell everything? Believe it or not, this isn’t a pleasure excursion. Serious shit is going down, and for some reason, Gwenneth thinks you can help.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Silver nodded and climbed to his feet. “My apologies, Fiona. Let’s go. I do hope I will get a chance at some point to explore your world, though. It’s very beautiful.”

Her expression softened slightly as she flipped her upper half back to its upright position, her frown easing and her narrowed eyes relaxing. “It is, yes.” Fiona turned abruptly and set off down the path toward Devon’s waiting figure.

Following, Silver couldn’t keep a broad smile from his lips. Faerieland!

He looked around as much as he could as he hurried after the two fae. The trees extended in every direction, many of them festooned with unfamiliar lichens, vines, and fungi, populated with birds and beasts that seemed to be based on familiar animals, but had been made completely different.

While the trees looked like ordinary ashes, they were the biggest he’d ever seen, growing like the redwoods he’d seen in California when he’d driven south for the summer after high school.

Silver glanced up once to find a canopy of woven electric blue vines directly over his head, an industrious mauve squirrel-like rodent working along its edges, humming to itself as it braided vines. As he continued hiking, he craned his neck back to see another of the creatures bringing more ivy and then scampering off again.

A few minutes later, his attention was captured by a beautiful bird, like a hawk-sized sparrow, with multi-colored plumage, perched on a branch beside the trail, at eye-level. The bird cocked its head and fixed Silver in an intelligent gaze. Enchanted, he took a step toward it, only to stumble back when it opened its beak to reveal two-inch fangs.

Silver hurried to catch up with Fiona and Devon, walking just behind them and listening to their low-voiced conversation.

“They’re not going to like this, you know. If we can’t stop the disconnect, there could be war,” Fiona was murmuring.

“You think I don’t know that? We’re doing everything we can.”

“And you think this untested human, who has never even been to Faerieland before, is the way to go? We don’t have time to babysit, much less train him.”

Silver’s giddiness faded at her words. Was she right? Was his presence here worsening whatever difficulties Devon’s people were facing? No, he reminded himself. Devon had brought him here. The mysterious Gwenneth had summoned him. Was Gwenneth Devon’s mother’s name?

He turned his attention back to catch the tail end of his friend’s response “-untapped potential. His father was adopted. Who knows what his background was? He could be part fae or descended from mages. Or both, like you. Or he could be a wild talent.”

“My father was adopted? How do you know that?” Silver asked.

Devon turned. He ignored the question, clasping Silver by the elbow in a firm grip, his dark blue fingers contrasting with the human’s pale arm. “We’re almost to Harbour. It’s the city I was born in, and the place I moved back to after we finished our ambassadorship to Humanland.”

“A city?” Silver hadn’t expected cities. If he’d thought about it at all, he would have assumed that everyone in Faerieland lived in rustic villages or isolated cottages, stuck in the Middle Ages. Then again, there had been cities in medieval times. But fairy tales hadn’t taken place in metropolitan areas, had they? And wasn’t Faerieland the setting of fairy tales?

Fiona bared her teeth in a feral grin. “Like no city you’ve ever seen before.”

The path ended abruptly in a clearing, and Devon swept his arms wide. “Here we are!”

Silver took a few steps into the wide glade, turning around in a circle to examine his surroundings. The space was roughly circular, about fifty feet in diameter, carpeted with the same fragrant moss as the trail, with a scattering of small four-petaled purple flowers. It was ringed in bushes with pale green foliage, heavy with yellow berries. “Where is it? I don’t see a city.”

Fiona snorted.

Devon shot her a warning glare. He turned his attention back to Silver, his big eyes piercing, his deep voice encouraging. “Are you sure?”

Silver closed his eyes and there it was. Harbour. Fiona was right. It was like no city he’d ever seen.