Iron & Ember

Part 1

The ferry groaned like it didn’t want to leave, but it did. Slow, clumsy, pulling my mum further and further back until the sea made her nothing more than a red blur on the dock.

I gave her a short wave, hand tight around my suitcase handle. Being packed off to my gran’s every summer because she couldn’t make the rota work felt… disappointing

I love Mum. I do. But my friends from school have all these wild stories and I have the islands. Dull, boring islands where nothing ever happens.

Grannie Ellie was already waiting where the road curved up from the pier, arms wide and hair wild.

“You’re early,” she said, pulling me into a hug that smelled like bread and lavender.

“You’ve grown.”

“Barely.”

“Barely counts.”

She took my case in one hand and looped her other arm through mine, like she was collecting me instead of walking me home.

The cottage hadn’t changed. Crooked roof. Moss between the stones. The smell of herbs and woodsmoke.

Ellie handed me a mug of tea without asking. I didn’t pretend to like it. I drank it anyway.

She made soup, let me slice the bread, and only asked questions that didn’t need answers.

Later, we curled up by the hearth like always. One candle lit. The kind of quiet that’s soft rather than empty. My mug was warm in my hands when Ellie looked over and said,

“Storytime?” Ellie asked, face tilted toward the fire.

“Obviously,” I said, curling tighter under the old patchwork throw.

She didn’t go to the bookshelf or fetch one of the ancient storybooks. She just stared into the flame like she was reading something in it.

“Have I told you the one about the woman and the sea cave?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I mean, probably? But I don’t remember it.”

She nodded slowly. “That’s because the ending keeps changing.”

Her voice dropped a little, into that low, even rhythm she always used for stories. Like it wasn’t her speaking, just something old wearing her voice.

“A woman lived by the sea. Not far from here. One spring, her brother was lost to the tide, and she went looking in wrong places.”

A pause. The fire cracked once.

“They say she walked right into a sea cave at low tide and didn’t come out again until midsummer. When she did, her eyes were different. Softer. Sadder. And she spoke in stories that had no names.”

I blinked. “What was in the cave?”

Ellie gave the smallest shrug. “Some say it was the Queen of Elphame, holding court with the sea-selkies and the Ghillie Dhu. Others say she met the Peerie Fowk, and they spun her dreams into thread. Or maybe she just found the body, and that was enough to make anyone strange.”

I stared at the fire. “So did she ever tell the truth? About what happened?’”

“She told the truth every time,” Ellie said. “It just wasn’t always the same one.”

That night, I couldn’t sleep.

Not because of the story, not really. But something about the way she’d told it. Like it mattered more this time. Or maybe I was just imagining that.

The wind tugged gently at the window latch. I listened. I waited.

The next morning, I walked. No plan. No reason.

Ellie handed me a flask of tea and a square of gingerbread wrapped in wax paper before I even asked. “Go stretch your legs,” she said. “The thyme’ll keep.”

I headed up past the meadow, through the thin path that ribboned between the pines. The ruin pulled at me the way it always did, that odd, lopsided circle of stones that looked like they’d been dropped there by accident, even though I knew better.

It had always felt like a place that remembered things.

I stepped through the low stone gap. A few birds scattered. Something else didn’t.

A boy was already there, perched on one of the taller stones like he’d been waiting a while. Hoodie. Jeans. My age, maybe a bit older. Sharp shoulders, unreadable face.

He looked up. Not startled. Just… aware.

“Oh,” I said, because my brain had clearly decided to take the morning off.

“Hi,” he said.

“I didn’t think anyone came out here.”

He glanced around, then back at me. “Guess we were both wrong.”

I frowned, caught off guard by the rhythm of it, then added, “I’m Isla.”

A beat.

“I’m Aerin.”

“Cool ruin to hang out in.”

“Beats the high street.”

He scratched the back of his neck, like he wasn’t sure what to say next. And weirdly, I liked that. I’m used to boys who either try too hard or not at all. He seemed like he didn’t know which one he was supposed to be.

“What brings you to the middle of nowhere?” he asked, not unkindly.

“Summer exile,” I said. “Mum works too much. Gran lives here. So now, so do I.”

He nodded once. “Fair enough.”

“You?”

He paused. Just for a second. “Same.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You live with your gran too?”

“No,” he said. “Just… around.”

That didn’t really answer the question, but I let it slide.

We stood there in the kind of silence that’s just figuring itself out.

Then he asked, “You ever been to this ruin before?”

“Just passed by. Ellie always tries to steer me away from it.”

“Smart woman.”

“Why?”

He opened his mouth, then seemed to change his mind. “Slippery moss.”

I snorted. “Right. Dangerous moss. Got it.”

“I’m serious,” he said, but there was a twitch at the corner of his mouth now.

“You’re weird.”

“You walked into a circle of rocks in the woods alone,” he said. “And I’m the weird one?”

Okay. Fair.

Still. I wasn’t ready to leave.

So I sat.

He didn’t stop me.

Part 2

The thing about unspoken plans is they’re still plans.

I didn’t say I’d go back to the ruin. Aerin didn’t say he’d be there. But every day, I drifted that way and every day, so did he. Sometimes already sitting. Sometimes just arriving. Always like it had happened by accident.

I didn’t ask questions. Not at first.

We talked. A lot. Books we hadn’t read. Foods we’d kill for. The weirdest thing we’d ever seen.

He listened like he was pulling the words straight from me. He had this way of leaning in, one knee hooked over the edge of the stone, all calm and crooked smile. I joked about how unfair it was he didn’t have school or rules or curfews.

I told Ellie I was walking a lot. That the air made me feel settled, even if I didn’t know why. She never asked more.

Aerin always smelled a little like the woods, pine and earth and something metallic underneath. He never said much about where he slept or ate, but he didn’t look rough. He looked… misplaced.

One day I asked, “Do you ever go into the village?”

He snorted. “Do I look like the bake-sale type?”

“I don’t know. Could be your vibe.”

He grinned. “Yeah. If nosy pensioners are my thing.”

I laughed, but he didn’t. Not all the way.

There was always something about him that felt unfinished.

It started changing on the fifth or sixth day. The air felt heavier. Birds went quiet faster. Once, I thought I saw something move in the woods behind Aerin, but when I looked again, there was only shadow.

Aerin got quieter too.

“You shouldn’t come here alone,” he said suddenly, flicking a stone from the ring of the ruin.

“Why not?”

He didn’t answer.

“Aerin?”

He pulled something from his pocket. A ring, old, iron, battered. The kind of thing you’d find buried in the dirt with stories still clinging to it.

He handed it to me.

“Wear this when you’re here,” he said. “Promise.”

I turned it over. “Why?”

“Just do it.”

“Aerin…”

“Isla.”

That stopped me.

He almost never said my name.

I didn’t go the next day.

It rained anyway.

But the day after that, Ellie was off in town helping with something, and the cottage felt small, and the sun came out, and… I wanted to see if he’d be there. Simple as that.

I forgot the ring.

Halfway through the trees, I remembered. I almost turned back.

Almost.

The ruin was empty when I reached it. The same crooked spine of stone. The same cold wind in the chest-high grass. I stepped over the crumbled threshold and waited, though I didn’t know what for.

Then the air shifted.

A sound, like claws on stone.

And another, closer - like breath.

I turned. Shadows moved in the trees. Then out of them stepped figures, too thin, too sharp, too wrong.

Their eyes were wrong too. Flat, and bright, and burning.

One grinned, teeth too long. Another sniffed the air.

“She reeks of her,” one rasped.

“Of who?” I asked, though my mouth was dust.

“The one who left,” said another. “The one who hid. Her blood’s in you, girl.”

I backed away, heart hammering. “You’ve got the wrong person.”

“She’ll sit the throne or burn with it,” one hissed.

“She’s not claimed you yet,” said the first. “But you belong.”

One lunged and something hit it.

Hard.

A blur darted past me, then slammed into it with a crunch. Aerin. He grabbed my wrist. “Redcaps. Run.”

We didn’t get far.

A second redcap leapt in front of us. Aerin skidded to a stop. His voice was tight. “You have your ring?”

“What?”

“The one I gave you-”

I shook my head. “I forgot it.”

The redcaps moved closer.

And then -

Light.

Tiny, crackling flames of it, darting out of the trees like sparks from dry grass.

They weren’t flames. They were people. No taller than my hand, wingless but flying, their glowing forms alive with motion.

Peerie Fowk?

They circled the redcaps like a net of fire. The redcaps howled, covering their faces, retreating. Smoke curled off their skin where the Peerie Fowk touched them.

“Go,” one of the tiny figures hissed to me. Its voice was the crackle of a fire in wind. “She waits.”

Then they were gone.

And so were the redcaps.

And so was whatever illusion I’d been living in.

Part 3

We didn’t speak. Not through the trees. Not across the gorse-blown track. Not when Aerin stumbled and nearly took us both down. His weight dragged at me. Smoke, blood, and something ancient lingered in the air.

The door was already open.

Ellie stood like she’d been waiting. Not surprised. Just… prepared.

We guided him to the worn armchair by the fire. Ellie disappeared for a moment, came back with a flannel, and a chipped jar of something that smelled like woodsmoke and thyme. She crouched beside him and began cleaning the blood from his leg like it was any other Tuesday.

Still silent.

I hovered by the hearth, unsure if I was meant to help or vanish, until Ellie finally nodded at the stool. I sat.

Aerin winced as she dabbed at a cut. “Still not much of a welcome party.”

“Be grateful it wasn’t worse.”

“I am.”

She didn’t look at him. “You shouldn’t be here.”

A beat passed.

I cleared my throat. “I didn’t mean to-”

Ellie held up a hand, and I stopped. She pulled a length of gauze from her pocket, began wrapping it around Aerin’s ribs.

“I forgot the ring,” I mumbled.

Aerin gave a breathless laugh. “Told you she was a terrible listener.”

She pulled the gauze tight. “You brought her into the woods knowing they were watching.”

“I didn’t bring her anywhere.”

Ellie stood and faced me. “He’s Unseelie.”

It felt like a slap. The word landed somewhere behind my ribs. Unseelie. One of them.

Aerin didn’t meet my eyes.

Ellie folded her arms. “One of theirs. Or was.”

I stared at him. “But… the redcaps were trying to kill him.”

Ellie nodded. “They were.”

My chest tightened. “So why would he save me?”

Aerin looked up then, something tired behind his eyes. “I walked away,” he said. “Not many do. But I couldn’t-” He glanced at me, then away. “There’s a cost to not belonging anywhere.”

I turned to Ellie. “Is that even allowed?”

“No,” they said in unison.

I opened my mouth, closed it again. Something was crawling up my spine, and it wasn’t just fear.

“What did they mean?” I asked. “The redcaps. They said I ‘reeked of her.’ That I belonged.”

“The Courts feel it when a space is opening,” she said. “They test the blood, even when it’s young. Especially when it’s young.”

“She’ll sit the throne or burn with it,” one had hissed.

Ellie was quiet for a long moment. Then she turned and crossed the room, opened the bottom drawer of the old writing desk, and pulled out a velvet-wrapped bundle.

She unrolled it on the table. Inside was a mirror, no frame, no glass, just polished stone, dark as stormwater.

“You’ve seen things before,” she said. “Even if you don’t remember them.”

I didn’t answer.

Ellie ran a finger along the stone. “The Courts don’t forget bloodlines. Your mother chose to walk away. But names carry weight, even when spoken soft.”

“My name?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Mine.”

I frowned. “You’re just-”

“Eleanor Nicneven.”

Aerin inhaled sharply.

I looked at her again. Really looked. The iron-grey hair. The quiet authority. The stories she told like warnings wrapped in warmth.

“You told me stories,” I said. “Every summer.” My throat tightened. “And I believed you. But not like… this.”

“Cool,” I said flatly. “So my gran is a fantasy monarch and my summer crush is a faerie.”

Aerin coughed.

Ellie ignored us both. “I didn’t choose it, Isla. I inherited it.”

“You left,” I said. “That’s what the redcaps said. You hid.”

Her jaw clenched. “I didn’t leave. I came here. To raise your mother away from it.”

“But you’re still-?”

“I’m still Queen. I never stopped being it. Not until there’s another.”

I stared at her.

“My mum knew?” I whispered.

“She was given the choice. And she said no.”

My thoughts scattered.

“But I don’t want a crown either,” I said. “I can’t even figure out what I’m doing after school, never mind ruling over some mystical throne in…where? Fairyland?”

“Elphame,” Ellie repeated.

“This is crazy, you’re both mad,” I said.

Ellie just looked at me. “You don’t have to take it. But pretending it’s not yours to decide? That time’s gone.”

Aerin stood slowly. “I should go.”

Ellie didn’t stop him.

He paused at the door. “Thank you. For the fire.”

“It won’t keep them back long,” she said. “Not if they know she’s here.”

He looked at me. “You need to wear the ring. Always.”

I nodded, dumbly.

Then he was gone.

Part 4

I didn’t know if I was looking for him or just walking, but the woods led me to him anyway.

Not inside it, just beyond, leaning against a tree, hair wind-messed and cheeks still pale. He looked like he hadn’t slept. Like something in him had unravelled and was only now being stitched back together.

“You came back,” he said, like he wasn’t sure I would.

Silence stretched between us. But it wasn’t awkward this time. Just… full.

He looked down. “I wasn’t sure if you’d come back.”

“I wasn’t sure if I could.”

Aerin nodded. “They’ll keep looking. The Courts don’t like open doors. But the Peerie Fowk bought us time.”

“They were beautiful,” I said.

“They were brutal,” he replied.

I looked at him more closely. His jaw was tight. “You’re afraid.”

“I’m always afraid,” he said. “I just don’t always show it.”

We stood there for a while, with nothing but trees and memory around us.

Then he reached into his coat and pulled something from the inside pocket. He handed me a ring - iron, etched with curling vines like they’d grown through fire.

He held it out. “This one’s better.”

I took it gently. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s yours.”

I frowned. “Where did you even get it?”

“The Smidh-Teine made it,” he said. “The Ember-Smith.”

I looked at him. I closed my fingers around the band.

There was something written inside. Tiny, barely visible.

“Aerin-”

“I’ll be here,” he interrupted. “All summer. If you’re staying.”

I held his gaze. “I might.”

“Then I’ll be right here.”

Ellie didn’t ask where I’d been. Just glanced at the ring and said, “That’s not ordinary iron.”

Then, after a pause: “He must care for you. For what that would’ve cost.”

I dropped the ring on the counter beside her.

She picked it up and held it to the light. Her eyes sharpened.

“Smidh-Teine,” she murmured.

I nodded. “He said.”

She turned it gently in her fingers, then read the words aloud like they were old magic. “’S tu mo smuain nuair a thig an oidhche.”

I blinked. “What does it mean?”

She smiled. “You’re his thought when night falls.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“Quite the declaration,” she said, returning to her potatoes.

“I don’t think he meant it like that,” I said quickly.

“No?”

“I mean, maybe.”

She didn’t answer.

Mum came up for the weekend, bags of snacks and suncream and a comment about how wild my hair looked already.

She didn’t ask much. I didn’t offer much.

“Still want to stay the rest of the summer?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think I do.”

I didn’t know what I was choosing. Or even if I had to.

But the summer wasn’t over.

And it had already chosen me.