Faerie Winter (5 page)

She left the room before I could ask anything more.

I shelled acorns while I kept watch over Ethan. Twice more his bandages smoldered, and I doused his hands in the water. The second time the charred bandages crumbled away. I wrapped new ones loosely around his burns. I could have called Mom up to help me, but I didn’t. How much longer did I have to fear hurting her with my questions?

How could she and Caleb possibly have caused the War?

The sun grew low as I continued shelling. I heard a soft creak on the stairs. Matthew stepped into the room with another nutcracker. I gave his hand a quick
squeeze. His fingers were cold. He sat, and we shelled together.

Matthew looked toward Ethan. “How is he?”

“About the same.” I wanted to reach for Matthew’s hand again, to warm it between both of mine, but then I wouldn’t be able to work.

Matthew picked at a stubborn bit of shell. “Gram’s going to tell them about Ethan at the Council meeting tonight. She says it’s best they hear it from her.”

“Kyle probably already told his mom. She’s in a foul mood today. She’ll want to send Ethan away.”

Matthew tossed the acorn shell into the growing pile beside me. “The Council will likely be split. Gram says it’s going to be a long meeting.”

I listened to Ethan’s steady breathing as I took another acorn from the sack. If we sent him away now, he’d die in the forest and the snow.

Matthew pressed his lips together. “We won’t let them make Ethan leave. I already spoke to Hope and Seth. Charlotte, too.” Those were all the older Afters. “If this town wants to send him away, they’ll have to get past all of us first.” He looked at me, and I knew he wanted to know if I’d stand with them. He’d always stood by me, even when I’d done little to deserve it.

I hesitated, then voiced my fear aloud. “What if Ethan really is a danger to our town? We don’t even
know that Ben’s death was an accident. And even if it was, it’s an accident that could happen again.”

“We’ll deal with it.” Matthew sounded very sure.

I envied his certainty. “I won’t let you stand alone, if it comes down to that.” My fingers tightened around the acorn. The Council made the rules for Franklin Falls. What would happen if we challenged them? “It’s risky.” I was shivering. I just couldn’t seem to get warm this winter. Matthew put his arm around my shoulders, and together we watched the rise and fall of Ethan’s chest.

“Nothing’s safe,” Matthew said.

I knew that better than anyone. I turned to him. Strands of blond hair fell around Matthew’s face, and his eyes were strangely bright. I shivered harder. Then, since I was already being brave, I leaned forward and brushed my lips against his.

He didn’t pull away as I’d feared. With a soft sound he drew me closer, reaching up to run his fingers through my hair. His musky taste reminded me of the smell of his wolf’s fur. The acorn in my hand pattered to the floor.

The rustling of blankets made us pull abruptly apart. Ethan sat up in bed, staring at us.

Matthew’s ears flushed red. My face burned. I wondered if Ethan could
see
the way the taste of Matthew’s lips lingered on mine. The boy’s eyes hardened as he focused on us. He didn’t trust us.

I didn’t fully trust him, either. “How are you feeling?”

“How do you think I feel?” Ethan huddled down among the blankets. “But at least I’m still alive, right? I ought to be grateful.” His voice was bitter, as if maybe he wished we hadn’t saved him.

Why had he come to our town if he didn’t want to be saved? “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

“Looking for someplace safe.” There was a challenge in Ethan’s words.

I couldn’t promise him safety. I didn’t try. “Where are you from?”

“Clayburn.” Ethan looked down at his hands as if seeing the bandages for the first time. His breathing sped up.

I thought of the maps I’d seen. Clayburn was one of the nearer towns, about a day’s walk away. “Was Ben from Clayburn, too?”

Ethan bolted to his feet, blankets falling away, nightshirt barely covering his knees. “How do you know about that?” He backed through the doorway and into the hall.

“Ethan!”
My voice tightened around the call. I couldn’t let him go. I had to know why he was afraid, and whether his magic had truly killed, and, if it had, how likely it was to kill again.
“Ethan, stop!”

He jerked to a stop, just as I’d commanded. I felt the cold thread of my magic stretching between us.

Fear crept into his eyes. “You did that before, too, didn’t you? Just like she did.”

“Like who did?” I walked past Ethan, putting myself between him and the stairs. Matthew followed with the water basin.

“Let me go.” Smoke rose from Ethan’s bandages. “Let me go or I’ll
kill
you, I swear it.”

“Liza.” There was a warning in Matthew’s voice.

I ignored it, keeping my gaze and my magic focused on Ethan. “Like you killed Ben?”

Flames burst through Ethan’s bandages. The magic binding him to me burned away as charred linen drifted to the floor. The boy drew his hands together, cupping a ball of fire within.

Matthew flung the water at him. The fire hissed but didn’t go out. The scent of damp coals filled the air.

Matthew held the basin in front of us like a shield. “Easy, Ethan. We won’t hurt you.”

“
You
won’t, maybe.” Ethan’s dark eyes reflected the fire he held. I felt its heat against my skin. Flames cast light onto the basin Matthew held. Brightness filled my sight—
No. Not now
. This was no time for visions. I tried to turn away, but it was too late. I had no choice but to see—

Cloaked figures following a river toward a town. One of them—a girl my age in a cloak the bright green of
mulberry leaves—hesitated a moment, drawing back her hood to reveal long clear hair and bright silver eyes. Faerie eyes, I thought, and then I saw—

Flames consuming the town’s houses. Snow sizzled as burning timbers crashed to the ground. Smoke billowed up and I saw—

Ethan watching the houses burn, the clear-haired girl’s hand on his arm. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. Neither of them moved to stop the flames. Neither did the younger children arrayed around them. Those flames burned brighter, and by their glow I saw—

Fire leaping from cupped hands to catch at a doorframe. Heat pulsed against my clothes and skin as wood burned—

Metal clattered as the basin hit the ground. Matthew grabbed my arm, and I realized these flames came from no vision. They were real, and they wreathed the doorway to Mom’s room.

E
than stood amid the flames, fire streaming from his hands to the doorway, from the doorway into the room behind him. The burned-plastic smell of melting nylon filled the air. Smoke billowed around us, clogging my throat as Matthew pulled me farther from the door.

Footsteps pounded up the stairs. Mom ran to us, her body hazy through the smoke. “Get
out
. Both of you.” She pushed past to grasp Ethan’s nightshirt. His collar burst into flame, and Mom staggered back.

I pulled free of Matthew and grabbed my mother, coughing all the while. Heat burned against my skin. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

Mom fought me. “I won’t”—she was coughing, too—“lose another firestarter.”

Ethan’s sleeves ignited, and flames raced up his
arms. He threw his head back and laughed. Mom struggled toward him, though Matthew, too, had hold of her now.

I wouldn’t lose her.
“Mom. Tara. Come here.”
Mom stiffened in my grasp.
“Come with me, Mom.”
I choked on the words, but I felt the power in them. I dragged her down stairs I could barely see through the smoke, and this time she didn’t fight me. She couldn’t fight, not while my magic held her. Matthew staggered after us as we ran through the living room and into the open air. Cold slammed into me as I stumbled outside and down a shorter set of stairs. I drew gasping breaths.

Mom fell, coughing, to her knees just a few feet from the house. I crouched beside her. Smoke billowed from our upper windows and drifted over pink clouds that streaked the twilight sky. Matthew and I helped Mom to her feet. She took a step toward the house, then stopped, trembling. My magic held her still. Her back went rigid. “Let me go.”

Through the smoke, the windows glowed with orange light. I wasn’t about to let Mom back in there.
“Stay here, Mom.”
I left her with Matthew and ran toward the open door.

“Ethan!”
My throat was raw with smoke and calling. I wasn’t sure he would hear, but I felt a cold thread of power pulsing between us once more.
“Ethan, come here!”

Ethan burst through the doorway and down the outside stairs, his nightshirt aflame. Matthew ran past me, threw him to the ground, and rolled him in the snow. Ethan wept as the flames went out, and the magic between us snapped so fast I stumbled.

Snow began to fall. Ethan gasped and staggered to his feet, his charred nightshirt falling away from his unburned skin. His gaze focused on the orange glow in the windows. “Not again,” he whispered, and he raised his blistered, bleeding hands to the sky.

Fire burst through the windows. It flowed, like a molten waterfall, toward Ethan’s palms, and it sank through his skin the way water soaked into dry earth. All at once, the fire went out. Ethan took a single step forward and fell, face-first, into the snow.

His back and arms, which had been unharmed moments before, were now a mess of red blisters and fire-blackened skin. Snowflakes sizzled as they hit his charred flesh. Matthew and I tried to sit him up. He groaned and curled away from us, pulling his bleeding hands over his head. Kate ran to us with a blanket.

I was suddenly aware of the townsfolk ringed around us. They carried water buckets and ladders, as if ready to try to put the fire out. A short distance away, Hope’s little sister stared at the house, hands outstretched. Hope tapped the younger girl’s shoulder, and she let her hands
drop. The snow stopped. Hope’s sister was a waterworker. She’d been trying to put the fire out, too.

Only there was no fire, not anymore. Kate looked at Ethan, frowned, and drew the blanket away, spreading it on the ground in front of him. The boy’s chest was blackened as well, and the touch of wool on his burns would hurt him more than the cold. A burned-meat smell drifted through the air, strong as the smell of charred wood from my house.

“Let me go, Liza.” Mom’s voice came from behind me. I’d forgotten she stood there, my magic yet holding her. I turned. Her hands and face were blackened with soot, and her sweater was damp with melting snow.

“Let me go so I can see to him.” Mom’s voice shook.

She was all right. I let out a long breath and felt the magic between us fall away. Mom stumbled forward; I caught her. She flinched as if she were the one who’d been burned.

“Mom?”

She backed away, eyes wide and frightened. “Not you, Lizzy. Please not you.” Her shoulders trembled as she knelt by Ethan’s side, and I knew I’d get no thanks for saving her.

“You should have let the house burn,” she whispered to the boy. “You shouldn’t have taken the fire into yourself.”

Was that what Ethan had done? He moaned. Was that why the fire he’d called out of our house had burned him, while having his clothes aflame had not?

“So this is your stranger.” Brianna’s voice was harsh. I looked up and saw that Kyle’s mother stood with the rest of the Council, watching us.

Kate stood to face them. Mom kept whispering to Ethan. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. What was wrong with her?

From among the townsfolk, others moved to stand with us, dim figures in the fading light: Hope and her husband and her little sister. Seth and his younger sister. Charlotte, who was a year older than me. Other Afters a year or two younger—all but Kyle’s brother, Johnny.

Brianna looked at our house. “I assume this fire was caused by magic?”

Mom looked to Kate. Kate nodded, and Mom got to her feet. “It was,” Mom said.

Matthew and the other Afters formed a protective ring around Ethan. I crouched by the boy’s side, whether to guard him or because I wasn’t ready to stand with them, I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t safe to keep Ethan in our town, not now that we’d seen what his fire could do. Yet if I hadn’t used my magic on him, his magic might not have slipped beyond his control. This was my fault, too.

Hope’s mother, who’d joined the Council after Father
had left, looked from Brianna to the circle of Afters. “We can’t possibly let this child stay here.” Hope’s mother had forced Hope’s little sister out of the house when she’d learned of her waterworking; the girl lived with Hope and her husband now.

“Three days,” said Charlotte’s dad, who’d been on the Council since before I was born. He was our town’s carpenter, and he hadn’t kicked Charlotte out of the house when he’d learned of her woodworking magic; he’d declared her his apprentice instead. “We agreed to let the stranger stay three days.”

Brianna made a disbelieving sound. “That was before we saw the harm he could do.”

Matthew growled softly and clenched his fists. Wind swirled the snow at Hope’s feet.