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

Erlking glances over at me.
    “I’d be careful of him, were I you.”
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ChapTer 7
    w e are woken by the Erlking’s pocket watch chiming
    at us.
    The Erlking looks at it and confirms. “11:15.”
    “We should get going,” says Will.
    The Erlking doesn’t reply but just walks over to the horses.
    “Here,” says Will, handing us some pieces of dried fruit.
    “If you heat it up, does it become fresh fruit?” Kelsey
    asks him.
    “Don’t be absurd,” Will replies, as if her question made no
    sense at all.
    Kelsey sighs.
    “Let’s go,” says the Erlking, swinging himself gracefully
    into his saddle.
    “How long until we get to the Unseelie Court?” I ask,
    clambering gracelessly onto the horse behind him.
    He winces as I tug accidentally on his cloak, tightening
    it around his throat, and reaches up to adjust it and give
    himself some air. He doesn’t say anything, just urges the
    horse onward.
    I cannot tell if I feel like I understand him more or less
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    Skylar DorSet
    after the conversation last night. I find the Erlking a strange
    mixture that I can’t quite read. Will appears to trust him
    implicitly, but I’m not to that point yet.
    The day is just like the previous day, darkness all around
    and unceasing forward movement, and finally I ask again,
    “How long until we get to the Unseelie Court?”
    “We’re there,” he answers me curtly.
    I blink at his back, which I can only locate in the darkness
    because I know it is right in front of me. “What? When did
    we get here?”
    “A while ago.”
    “Why didn’t you say anything?”
    “What was there to say?”
    “‘We’re entering the Unseelie Court.’ That’s what there was
    to say.”
    “I didn’t think it was important.”
    “It looks the same as everything else.”
    “That’s why I didn’t think it was important. Shh.”
    I am offended. “Don’t ‘shh’ me— ”
    “ Shh ,” he says again more firmly and draws his horse to a halt. “Will,” he calls. “What is that?”
    “Nothing good,” I hear Will’s voice answer from the dark-
    ness behind us.
    “What does that mean, ‘nothing good’?” I ask. “What can
    you hear?” I am straining very hard to hear something, any-
    thing, but all it sounds like is silence to me. Maybe, very far
    away, the sound of water dripping.
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    The Boy wiTh The hidden name
    “I think it’s a dragon,” comes Will’s voice, hushed, as if the
    dragon might hear us talking about it.
    We are all very silent. But no matter how quiet we are, I
    cannot hear anything.
    I am about to say that when, very suddenly, a stream of fire
    licks its way toward us, accompanied by a loud roar, flames
    curling through the darkness. The horse rears under us, and
    I grab at fistfuls of the Erlking’s cloak to keep from falling
    off. The flames subside, the darkness darker now, and heat
    still lingering in the air. The creature is no longer roaring, but the echo of it is ringing in my ears. The Erlking is trying to
    soothe the horse, which is now prancing sideways.
    “I thought you were going to be able to use your wiles with
    your ex- girlfriend,” I remark sarcastically.
    “I said I could use my wiles to get us in. I never said she
    wouldn’t kill us once we were here,” he retorts and then twists
    to call over his shoulder, “Everyone okay?”
    “We’re fine,” Kelsey responds, sounding a bit shaken.
    Will, by way of answer, sends a light orb shooting out in
    front of us, illuminating the landscape.
    We’re in the middle of a cavern, stalactites dripping from
    a ceiling high above our heads, through which Will’s orb is
    bobbing and weaving. Directly in front of us, the ground
    disappears into a yawning ravine, several hundred feet across.
    There is a bridge suspended across it, floating magically,