Faerie Winter (10 page)

The scarf loosened as Elin turned away. She laid a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “You may play with the knife again, if you’re careful. You do know how to be careful, don’t you?”

Kyle nodded and tested the tip of the knife against his bandage. He watched with mild interest as fresh blood soaked through the blood that had clotted there. Johnny watched, too, a dreamy look on his face.

“I said it wouldn’t happen again.” Anger colored my voice.

“I am aware of that. This was just a reminder that you’d best keep your word. Enough, Kyle.” Elin laughed, but it sounded forced. “Isn’t Liza silly to fall?”

“Silly!” Kyle grinned at me as if we shared some secret. Johnny rolled his eyes, almost as he might have done without glamour, but then he laughed, too. How could Caleb have ever used magic like this on Mom?

Elin shoved me forward. “Keep walking.”

I walked, but something felt different—my sweater, where my wrists were bound, wasn’t quite as tight as before. I tugged on it, and the wool gave a little, as if some tear had weakened the fabric when I fell. It felt looser around my ribs, as well.

The rain had stopped. As the sun dipped below the horizon, I slowly worked at the weak spot in the fabric, using movements I hoped were too small to see. Fibers gave way, one by one.

I heard Johnny stumble in the fading light. Kyle complained he was tired, and Elin silenced him by telling him he wasn’t. A shadow floated across our path, brushing my leg. I shivered as I felt the longing within it, the cold desire to be called—there was nothing I could do about that now. The shadow floated on. Had it belonged to one of the children Elin had killed? I no longer doubted she’d commanded Ethan to burn them all. I wondered if he’d even understood was he was doing.
Not my fault
. He might be dying for it even now.

Another fiber gave. I uncurled my fingers, curled them again before Elin could see. Wind brushed my face and sent shivers down my spine. A faint burned scent returned to the air, though the wind didn’t come from the direction of the dead children. It came from Clayburn.

Wool tore. My wrists pulled away from each other. I pressed them together again, careful not to move too fast. I felt the skin of wrist touching wrist through the holes in the fabric, Matthew’s hair tie between them. I inched my fingers up through my sleeves, slowly widening those holes.

“Carry me,” Kyle whispered. Elin made a disdainful
sound. When I looked back, it was Johnny who carried Kyle. The younger boy leaned his head sleepily against his brother’s shoulder, clutching my knife like a toy he didn’t want to let go.

The burned smell grew stronger as we came to the ruined houses that meant we were near the edge of a town. The path continued on, toward pale bluffs that reached for the sky. We veered off it. The forest gave way to cleared land, but the ruins went on. One house’s roof had fallen in, and its walls were blackened and crumbling. The next house had burned to the ground, and the one after it, too. A man lay lifeless in the snow, arms flung open, shirt burned away.

I choked on the stench of charred flesh. This wasn’t the edge of a town. This was—this had been—Clayburn.
She didn’t only kill the children
.

“Smells bad,” Kyle muttered sleepily.

“No, it doesn’t,” Elin told him. Kyle didn’t complain again.

We passed a woman whose fingers had melted together where they were folded over her chest, a man whose frost-stiffened hair fell over the sunken sockets of eyes that had burned away. I tasted bile at the back of my throat, even as I wondered why Elin hadn’t killed the children here, too, instead of waiting to take them so far beyond the town.

The last of the light left us, and a bright moon poked through the clouds. A great horned owl hooted, a mournful sound.

“Owl’s hungry,” Kyle muttered. “Me too.” Elin didn’t bother answering him. The houses grew closer together, some piles of ruined timbers, others half standing. Their blackened beams glistened in the moonlight. More shadows drifted among them, keeping their distance from us, as if dying had taught them, too late, to be afraid.

The holes in my sweater were large enough to get my hands through now. I slowed my steps. I’d go for Elin’s eyes—that was my best chance of disabling her without weapons or magic, and it might buy Johnny and Kyle the time to escape.

The wind died. I caught a whisper of movement, and a woman silently stepped out from between two fallen houses.

She wasn’t human. I knew it at once, down to my bones, would have known even without her pale hair, piled in braids atop her head and held in a net that glittered with icy green light, or her silver eyes, which shone as bright as moonlight itself. Her long brown dress was frayed at the hem and sleeves, yet she moved in it with a liquid grace that nothing human could hope for. Only her heavy black boots seemed out of place. I felt a fleeting
desire to bow before her. The leaf burned hot against my chest.

Kyle stared up at her, rapt, from within Johnny’s arms. I couldn’t attack her and Elin at the same time. Some part of me didn’t want to.

The Lady. Who else could this be? Her smile was filled with sharp edges, like broken glass from Before. She gestured with one hand.

A gray wolf trotted out of the shadows and sat by her side.

M
atthew
. The Lady stroked the top of his head, and he leaned into her touch. If he saw me, he gave no sign.

The quia leaf remained warm, but otherwise every last bit of me felt icy cold.
Not Matthew
. The Lady drew her hand away, and Matthew curled up at her feet. He was under her glamour, as surely as Kyle and Johnny were under Elin’s.
No
.

I was staring at him—I forced my gaze away. If they saw that Matthew and I knew each other, that could be used against us. I had to wait, to see what was happening here and what I could do about it. It had never been so hard not to act.

A corner of the Lady’s mouth twitched, and I knew I’d already given myself away. Johnny set Kyle down. “Matthew!” Kyle cried, and threw himself at the wolf.

Matthew snarled. Kyle skittered back, and his face scrunched up. “Matthew’s never mean.”

“He is whatever I command him to be.” The Lady reached down and stroked Matthew’s fur. “Does the scent of humans trouble you, my pet?” Matthew gave an uneasy half growl.

I pressed my feet against the snow, forcing myself not to leap at her. That would serve no one. When my chance came, though, I’d do worse than go for her eyes.
If only I knew her name
. She wouldn’t be standing there at all, then.

Elin stepped forward. “Grandmother,” she said. The woman looked no older than Caleb or Karin—but I knew that faerie folk lived longer than humans and did not age as we did.

The Lady’s gaze swept over Johnny, Kyle, and me as if we were little more than ants beneath her feet. “These are not the ones who destroyed our people.”

Elin looked swiftly down. “I found them where I found the others. It would not have done to leave them there, where they might cause trouble.”

The Lady frowned. “Since when does my granddaughter fear the trouble that humans might bring? You saw to the others readily enough, the children who escaped your control and caused such great harm. All but the fire speaker who led them and the child who escaped
with him. I trusted you to deal with them, too, else I would not have returned to this town, not even to bury our people.”

Ben
, I thought.
Ethan
. Elin hadn’t waited to kill the children—they’d escaped, and she’d pursued them. She must have caught Ethan again for long enough to make him burn the others, but he’d gotten away in the end. Was he still alive in our town, waiting for help that might never come?

“I thought you might have a use for these three.” Elin seemed young beside the Lady, for all that the Lady didn’t look old. “Just as you had a use for the shifter, when we came upon him. I have brought you a lightfoot, an animal speaker, and a summoner.”

The Lady’s hair flickered with cold green light. “What use have
I
for an animal speaker? Dispose of that one, and I will give some thought to the others.”

I edged toward Kyle. Wind tugged at Elin’s long hair. “An animal speaker would be of use to me,” she said.

“Your hesitation displeases me.” The Lady knelt in front of Kyle. “Child, I need for you to take that knife to your heart. It is not a difficult thing—you can do that for me, can you not?”

Kyle nodded, eager as a puppy chasing a pack. He lifted the knife.

I ran at him, pushing my hands through my torn
sleeves and grabbing the knife from his hand. I threw it far from us both. The Lady turned to me, her eyes glimmering in the dark, her anger pushing against me like a physical thing.

I reached beneath my sweater, grabbed the leaf from around my neck, and threw it over Kyle’s head.
“Run, Kyle! Go away! Go someplace safe!”

Kyle’s eyes went wide as the glamour left him. For a moment I feared he’d burst into tears. Instead he turned and ran toward the path and the bluffs, arms swinging, feet pounding over the snow and mud.

The Lady’s cold gaze fell on Elin.

“Allow me to go after him.” There was a tremor in the girl’s voice. The butterfly in her hair flapped faster, like the trapped thing it was. “I won’t hesitate again. I’ll catch him, and I’ll kill him.”

“Oh, you will indeed.” The Lady grasped her granddaughter’s wrist. Silver light bloomed between her fingers. That light flowed up Elin’s arms, down her body—I blinked in the sudden brightness, and when my sight cleared, a red-tailed hawk perched trembling on the Lady’s fist, with sharp talons and yellow eyes. Elin’s dress and boots and butterfly clasp lay at the Lady’s feet.
The Lady can change bodies as well as minds. It’s in the nature of her magic
. Mom had told me that, too.

The butterfly half flew, half hopped across the snow.
The Lady brushed her fingers over Elin’s feathers. “Pursue the animal speaker. Destroy him, and bring the leaf he bears back to me. Do not return until you have it. We will discuss your failure to control your human captives then.”

The Lady lifted her arm. Elin launched silently into the air, brown wings and red tail spread wide. Kyle disappeared beyond the houses, and Elin followed him.

I ran after them, knowing that Kyle couldn’t possibly outrun a hawk, knowing I could do little to protect him from one. My torn sweater sleeves flapped in the wind.

I saw a blur of gray. Matthew slammed into my side, knocking me to the ground. I felt his hot breath on my face, his paws on my chest. I looked up, gasping. His teeth were bared, and his eyes held a wildness that reminded me of the crazed dogs he’d once saved me from.

“Matthew,”
I called softly. He shuddered, and for a moment his eyes were Matthew’s eyes once more. He whined and backed off me. “That’s right, Matthew.” I got to my feet, held out my hands. “It’s only me, Matthew, only Liza—”

The Lady walked up beside him and put a hand to his back. “Well done, my wolf.” All recognition left Matthew’s eyes. The Lady scratched him behind the ears, and he flopped down beside her, his tongue hanging out one corner of his mouth.

“Let him go.” I kept my voice low, controlled.

The Lady’s fingers grasped my wrist. “I don’t think so, little Summoner.” Her voice was cold, and that cold settled deep inside me. My legs trembled, weak as water, and I knew that the time for running was past.

“How did you come to possess a leaf of the First Tree and first line, Liza?”

The words burrowed down beneath my skin. My lips moved. “My mother gave it to me.”

I hadn’t meant to speak. Why had I spoken?

“Indeed?” The Lady’s fingers brushed my hair.
I have no protection now
.

I wanted no protection. I tilted my face to look into the Lady’s bright eyes. Had I noticed before how beautiful she was? Beautiful as the ice storms that coated trees in winter, bringing them down one by one. Her hair glimmered in its net. She had fireflies bound into it, alive as the butterfly Elin had worn. I couldn’t stop staring at them.
So pretty
. She smiled, and my fear shivered out of me.

“How did your mother come to possess such a thing?” The Lady’s words were sharp as ice, cutting through skin and bone and thought, digging deep inside me for answers.

Her voice
hurt
, the way a knife’s blade hurt. I longed to hear it again. “Caleb—Kaylen—gave it to her.”

The Lady went utterly still. “Indeed?”

I wanted to kneel at her feet, but she put one hand on my shoulder, fingers digging through my jacket, forcing me to stand. “So Tara yet lives?” She spoke my mother’s name as if it tasted bad. I nodded, grateful it wasn’t me who’d made the Lady unhappy.

Her fingers dug deeper, surely bruising me, but I didn’t mind. I hoped my pain pleased her. The Lady released me, and I fell to my knees. “You will take me to your mother,” she said softly. “After my granddaughter kills the boy and retrieves the leaf. We shall all visit Tara then.”

The Lady reached down and stroked my cheek, where the crow’s claws had scratched it. I shivered at her touch. “You want to see your mother, don’t you, Liza?”