Summerkin Read Free Page B

forest. Arriving at a clearing at the edge of Fer’s land, he spat the shifter-tooth from his mouth and felt the blurring dizziness of the change. He caught the tooth in his hand and shoved it into his pocket. His head down, he went on. No, he wouldn’t go back to see Fer again. Fer, with her strange, human ideas about friendship. As if a puck could ever truly be friends with anyone but another puck.
    Yes, it’d be better for her if he stayed away.
    The sky, what he could see of it through the trees, grew darker, and shadows gathered in the branches overhead. He set off across a clearing gray with twilight.
    â€œHellooooo, Rook,” came a voice from behind him.
    He whirled, but nobody was there.
    He turned back, and Tatter stood before him, grinning. “Rook!” Tatter exclaimed, and pulled him into a rough hug.
    Rook grinned back at his brother-puck. Tatter was older—almost all of the other pucks were older than he was—and taller, and wore his black hair in a matted mane down his back. His skin was the red-brown color of oak leaves in the autumn; for clothes he wore a shapeless wrap made of tattered and stained yellow silk. His flame-orange eyes danced. “Haven’t seen you in ages, Rook-pup.”
    â€œI’ve been around,” Rook said.
    â€œNo you haven’t.” Tatter gave him a quick cuff on the side of the head. “You’ve been playing hard-to-find.” He looped an arm over Rook’s shoulders, then pulled him closer to kiss the spot where he’d hit him. “Come on,” he said, bringing Rook along with him. “Asher wants to see you.”
    In his chest, Rook felt a surge of longing mixed with a curl of fear. Pucks didn’t like to be alone; they tended to gather with other pucks, and wherever they gathered, that was their home. Ever since the trouble with the Mór, Rook had been keeping himself apart. He mostly wanted to see Asher and the others, but part of him wanted to run away and hide. Asher was not going to like what he’d gotten himself mixed up in. Still, if Asher called, a puck did well to answer, or his life would get very tricky.
    Tatter shifted into his dog form, and Rook did too, and they trotted through the growing night to the nearest Way. Ways that led from one land to another, like doors that led from one room to another, were kept open so that anyone—even pucks—could come and go as they wished. This Way led from the twilit clearing in Fer’s Summerlands to another Way that lay at the bottom of a steep hill crowded with brambles, then to the next Way, which waited in the shadow of a huge boulder, to a last Way that led to the Foglands, where a chilly wind whistled through the bare branches over their heads and leaves crunched under their paws. They passed over that land like two dog-shaped shadows until they came to a high cliff. Overhead, a half-moon shone down. Tatter spat out his shifter-tooth, and so did Rook.
    The chilly breeze brushed across his bare shoulders, and Rook shivered, missing his black fur, and wishing for more clothes than just his ragged shorts.
    â€œNot far now,” Tatter said, and led Rook along the cliff until they reached a path so narrow they had to go up it sideways, clinging to handholds that were bumps of shadow in the harsh moonlight.
    Rook felt the cold cliff face grating against his chest and tried not to look down at the dark ground below as they climbed higher. His fingers grew numb from gripping the knobs of rock that kept him from falling off.
    â€œJust here,” Tatter said, crouched down, and disappeared.
    Rook edged farther along until he saw a deeper shadow in the cliff face. An opening. Stooping, he crawled through, then around a corner, coming out into a cave. It was wide and high ceilinged, with smooth, sand-colored stone walls and a bright fire burning at its center. His eyes automatically searched for another way out, then found it—two openings