Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 2

fear and panic seemed to bleed out of him. Enough so that Aeron found himself smiling back, if only just.
    No point being difficult. As Awela was fond of reminding him, it didn't help things get done faster. Aeron said, "I can help. We will find a way to get you out of my head, and I will go home." And maybe find out why you're in my head, while we're at it, because none of this makes a great deal of sense .
    Aeron could feel him, even with the magical scent dampened and the overpowering fug of the stew and the crackling fire and the herbs hanging in neat rows to dry from the low roof. Could it really have been an accident? Yes, his name had power, power over him, but could it give him away so haphazardly as that?
    It shouldn't be possible.
    Tammas jerked him out of his unpleasant reverie by saying, "Deal."
    Aeron smirked. "Deal."
    Tammas' shoulders shook a little again as he lifted the stew off the fire with a sturdy branch. "Not supposed to make compacts with fairies, I guess."
    Aeron shrugged. "We follow the rules. Just that mortals never understand the— the little things?"
    "Details?"
    "Yes. Details. Mortals are bad at details."
    Tammas chuckled. "Apparently."
    Aeron smirked some more.
    Still smiling, Tammas ladled some brownish stew onto a round flatbread he'd set out earlier for Aeron. "There. Something hot in your stomach will make everything seem better. And maybe we can start over, tomorrow?"
    Aeron was willing to make the most of things, but he wasn't sure he could go that far. He raised his eyebrows.
    Tammas ladled some stew for himself and sat at the bench across from him. He scooped up some stew in a bit of bread then shoved it into his mouth. "It's not bad. Try it."
    Aeron was a touch hungry, no matter what he'd said, and maybe it tasted better than it smelled. He probably just needed to get used to mortal food. He attempted this method of eating with the fingers, recognized some sweet root vegetables, carrots and potatoes and something else. The brown sauce left an offensive, oily film on his tongue. He sopped it up with more bread and tried again; this time he bit into something springy, chewy, and unpleasant. It triggered his gag reflex, but he repressed it. "What kind of mushroom is it?" Not like any kind he'd ever had, but he swallowed it anyhow. His stomach flipped over, but he took another bite of the bread— which was, at least, very good.
    Tammas was happily shoveling his own dinner down his mortal gullet. "There are no mushrooms."
    "There is a..." Aeron didn't know the word, so he mimicked chewing fiercely.
    "Oh, that's the rabbit. It's not the most tender, but—"
    Aeron froze, hand hovering in the air. "Rabbit?"
    "Yes. Rabbit. Like..." Tammas looked around helplessly, then held up two fingers and mimed a rabbit hopping across the table.
    "I know what a rabbit is, idiot ." Aeron's stomach flipped again, and this time showed no sign of stopping. Acid rose up his throat and onto the back of his tongue. "You put it in your food ?"
    Tammas' dark eyes were wide. "Is that bad?"
    "I—" How to express the sheer, unmitigated horror in this limited tongue? "I ate a rabbit?"
    "Well, not the whole—"
    Aeron knocked over the bench in his haste to reach the door, wings beating to keep him on his feet. He fell to his knees in the cool, fragrant grass, took a long draw of sweet air.
    And promptly regurgitated the contents of his stomach on the lawn. The two bites of stew were as they had been, but dyed red by the berries he'd been eating for the sevenday previous. He thought that would be the end of it, but his stomach rebelled again, pumping acid into his throat, forcing his eyes shut and contorting his entire body with the force of the expulsion.
    Tammas' footsteps thundered up behind him. "Oh gods. Oh gods, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know. Oh—"
    "Stop talking and—" But Aeron was interrupted by another mighty retch.
    He felt more than saw Tammas kneel on the grass beside him. Gentle fingers in his hair, gathering it from where it hung about his arms and shoulders and pulling it into a fist at the back of his neck, so the tail tickled between his wings. Aeron heaved again and again, too much taken by the violence of it to think. When his stomach began to calm, the idea of a furry little rabbit in his food returned full force, and he groaned with dizziness, kneeling over a puddle of his own vomit on this man's lawn.
    This man who hadn't even meant to call him. Who did not have the key to