A/N: So… I checked Valiant out of the library. Didn't like it. It lay under my bed for a few weeks, and then it was overdue and now I have a library fine. Not cool. So basically, I still have not read it. So if this isn't parallel with that, it's because I'm too lazy to do my fanfiction homework. And I'm a full time volunteer and therefore don't have enough money to pay 50 cent library fines.

I apologize if there's some typos. Or if this chapter just sucks. I was so tired when proofreading this that I was seeing double.

CHAPTER 5

"Wait!" The word was out of Corny's mouth before he had a chance to think about it. It hung there, a desperate cry that all of this would not be for nothing, evidence that he was terrified that all of this would slip away Corny would be lost with no leads yet again. The only thing he could think of was keeping this creature here with him.

"What?" The faerie—Ryne—turned to look at him and Corny forgot what to say for a breathless moment when those eyes met his and froze his breath in his lungs, froze his thoughts halfway from his brain to his mouth. The eyes fixed him to the wall and examined him as easily as if he were cut open and lying on the operation table, lesuraly those eyes analyzed him for only a few moments that stretched on like they were lifetimes where he couldn't breathe or think or speak or move.

Then it all came back in an instant and the words that he'd been try to say fell from his mouth like shards of ice, crashing noisily and clumsily into the silence.

"Wait… I have… I would like to ask a favor."

Ryne looked at him, considering, then nodded. "It is fair. You have saved my life. If it is within my power to grant, consider your wish done."

Corny swallowed, nodded, tried to get the words out. "Take me with you. To the faeries."

Elisabet's eyes widened, she looked at Corny, then back to her brother. The faerie's eyebrows were pulled tightly into a frown as he stared down Corny. The eyes underneath had turned fierce. The stare lasted a few breathes and Corny thought he could hear the ice shards tinkling to the ground and smashing there.

Finally the faerie sighed. "It is done. I would not refuse to do what I had promised. But hear this, human, and listen well: I guarantee you no safety. I offer no protection. I will take you with me and there I will leave you. Expect nothing else."

Corny nodded. The shards of ice in his lungs were on the floor in front of him and he couldn't get his breath back. Ryne turned and started for the door, Elisabet following. Corny stood watching them for a moment before stumbling after.

Ryne was striding down the sidewalk with his head up proudly, looking unnaturally healthy for someone who had been unresponsive just a few minutes before. Corny was teetering on the threshold of the door, heart pounding, completely terrified that the thing he'd wanted had come true, when a door opened down the hall.

Surprised, Corny turned to see a confused and sleepy looking David standing in the doorway frowning at Corny.

"I heard voices," he said. "Did my roommate come back?"

"Ryne is leaving." Corny explained hurriedly, try to keep one eye on the street. "Your faerie. I am going with him."

"What?"

Corny stole another glance out the door. The faeries were getting farther away, almost a block down the street. "I can't explain," he said desperately. "I'm following the faerie."

"You're following him?" David was awake now, staring at Corny. "Well, fuck, I want to come."

Corny shrugged, already starting down the steps and sprinting down the street. "You'll have to catch up," he tossed over his shoulder.

When he caught up with the pair, Elisabet gave him another worried glance and Ryne ignored him altogether. A moment later David had joined them, wearing only a pair of flannel pajama pants and some dirty sneakers with no socks. Ryne didn't acknowledge him, either, although when he'd jogged up behind the trio, Corny had seen the faerie's shoulder muscles visibly tense in irritation.

The four settled into a brisk walk through the darkness, passing dark houses like shadowy boxes and welcoming ones with yellow light pouring out into the night. The sound of their shoes on the pavement was the loudest noise, and Corny noticed that Ryne and Elisabet passed over the ground almost soundlessly, so graceful and light on their feet they were.

Corny didn't know how long they walked. They'd long ago left the outskirts of town and were now winding their way through trees and carefully picking their way through the damp muddy leaves that blanketed the ground. The moon had come up, glowing with a light that made the leaves on the trees look silver but leaving the bark an impenetrable black.

Ryne still hadn't acknowledged the two boys' presence, although Elisabet kept casting worried glances over her shoulder, her even features pulling to the center of her small face in a frown.

The sun had started to come up, illuminating everything in a muddy gray light, as though they were in an old movie. Finally they stopped in front of a tree that seemed to Corny to look like the hundreds of other trees they'd passed.

It was large—an old beech tree, it's ghostly white limbs branching crazily above their heads. In it's trunk were carved three symbols that Corny did not recognize. They'd been there for quite a while—the scars were so thick with age that the shapes were barely discernable.

Without hesitating or even seeming to have to think about it at all, Ryne reached out and pushed firmly on a section of the tree that looked to Corny no different than any other section. The bark seemed to shimmer, and then a piece as large as a person simply wasn't there any longer. For a moment, Corny felt like he could see the whole tree—see the sap running up to the leaves like the blood ran through the arteries in his own arm. Then the feeling passed, and he was left looking into the perfectly hollowed out center of the tree with a tightly winding spiral staircase descending into the gloom.

For the first time since they'd left the house, Ryne looked back at him again. "You'd do well to remember what I warned you, human," he said, before taking a few steps forward and starting down the steps.

"What did he warn you?" David asked.

"That we'd better not expect him to protect us," Corny said grimly. Elisabet's blonde head disappeared down into the earth. "C'mon. Let's go."

He took a deep breath, trying to calm that heart that was always too noisy for it's own good, beating this is a mistake, this is a mistake.

But when his foot hit the first step, he suddenly felt completely and surprisingly calm. His muscles, which had been aching from the hike, loosened and relaxed. His heart quieted and slowed. The shards of ice that had been stuck in his throat since he'd first asked the favor of Ryne melted and the smooth cool seemed to slide down his throat. For the first time in his life he felt like what he was doing was totally, completely, purely right.

He floated down the stairs as though he belonged there just as much as any faerie.