Free The Boy with the Hidden Name by Skylar Dorset Page A

Court,” I remind him.
    He shrugs. “Oh, that . You fail to comprehend: I am very, very good at seduction.”
    We fall silent for a moment. I lean my chin against my
    knees and stare into the fire. And then I venture, “I…met
    one of your people. Once.”
    “Oh,” the Erlking says. “Yes. Brody. Sorry about that. He
    was just supposed to provide us with a progress report. I was
    worried that we were running out of time, that we weren’t
    ready for this. But I suppose we would never have been ready, no matter how long it took.”
    “I…” I take a deep breath and plunge forward. “Did I
    kill him?”
    The Erlking looks at me, startled. “Kill him? What? No.”
    My relief is tempered by the Erlking starting to laugh. He
    tries to keep himself quiet, laughing into his cape, but he is
    clearly highly amused.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “You. Thinking you could have killed a goblin just like that .
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    No. We can be named like any other supernatural creature,
    but we are much harder to kill by conventional methods.”
    “I knew his name.”
    “Brody isn’t his name. We wouldn’t give you the correct
    name. The way Benedict didn’t give you his.”
    I think of Ben, who has always been Ben, because he held
    back the power of his name from me. “Yeah, well, never trust
    a faerie, right?” I say, wishing I could hold back the bitterness.
    “Never trust a Le Fay,” the Erlking corrects me. “You know
    that he might be at the Unseelie Court. You know that he
    also might not be at the Unseelie Court.”
    “I don’t care either way,” I say with a bravado that I’m not
    sure I feel.
    The Erlking rolls onto his side to face me. “It is a very dan-
    gerous thing, you know, to have lost your heart to Benedict
    Le Fay. He is an expert in enchantments . You can never know that anything about him is real.”
    “The way you are an expert in seduction?” I can’t resist saying.
    “Touché,” the Erlking laughs, and then, “You are quite
    remarkably fearless.”
    I’m really not. I’m afraid all the time. I say instead, “I’m
    not in love with Ben. I’m not falling for his enchantment
    this time. I know way too much about him. And we’ve been
    through too much. I’m kind of sick of saving his life.”
    The Erlking smiles. “Oh, the delicious things I would do
    with an indebted Le Fay. Call in your favors carefully, fay of
    the autumnal equinox.”
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    The Boy wiTh The hidden name
    “I’m not calling them in at all. I don’t want anything to do
    with him. I’m going to fulfill this prophecy, with or without
    him. This isn’t about him .” But even as I say it, I hear my mother’s voice in my head. Benedict Le Fay will betray you.
    And then he will die . This isn’t about him. But it’s not entirely not about him either.
    “When Will came to me, when he asked if I would consent
    to your being hidden at Parsymeon, if I would help him to
    protect you…I made my choice then. Not the most popular
    choice I’ve made as Erlking— prophecies are tricky things,
    and you can never be sure if you are bringing about your
    downfall or your victory— but it was the choice I made.
    Sometimes you have to gamble with the birds. Will saved us,
    offered us shelter, at a time when we needed it. How could
    I deny him the ability to do the same for you? And then it
    came complete with a traveler invasion. Travelers are hugely
    troublesome beings. Always getting into trouble; you can’t
    keep them out. They were constantly stealing jewels from our
    mines, and there was no way to stop them. Until we evolved,
    of course.”
    The Erlking rolls onto his back. “Anyway, sometimes I
    think I should have objected to Benedict’s presence. But his
    enchantment was useful, necessary. None of the rest of us are
    as skilled at hiding things. We needed him. We might need
    him still. All the same…” The