We told the townsfolk, in bits and pieces, about the crumbling we’d seen, and their interest in our travels turned to concern. By the time people began drifting away, a Council meeting had been called. Kate passed around bowls of porridge to those who lingered, cooked on more glowing stones in the hearth, and only then did I realize how late it was. I ate hungrily, balancing the bowl in the crook of my left arm as I’d learned to do.
It was even later when the last visitors went home, leaving just Mom and me and Kyle; Matthew and Kate; and Karin, Caleb, and Allie. Kyle curled on the couch with the kitten, the two of them purring at each other.
“Liza and Matthew,” Karin said. “In the morning, you must both speak to the Council. I would join you, but I’m too much of a stranger to be welcome there, and I’ll not have this danger ignored on account of that.” She left unsaid what we all knew: that while being a stranger would cause problems enough, her not being human would most trouble the Council. The townsfolk had stared at her far more openly than me, and though she could not see that, she could hear the whispers as they worked out who she was, though those who were the most uneasy hadn’t come at all. I’d see a couple of them at the Council tomorrow.
I wondered how Caleb had managed here as long as he had. How could I blame him and Mom if they were thinking of leaving? It only made sense, more sense than the anger I felt when I thought about it.
“Of course we’ll talk to the Council.” I set my empty bowl down and slipped outside. Matthew followed. We walked down the porch stairs, around beneath the eaves. The clouds had begun to thicken over the stars, and the wind was picking up, bringing the scent of rain.
Matthew wrapped his arms around me. “What’s wrong?”
I leaned my head on his shoulder. “They’re thinking of leaving. Mom and Caleb. Did you know?”
“No.” Matthew’s hold on me tightened. He no more liked Mom keeping secrets than I did. Whatever she and Caleb were thinking, they hadn’t talked about it until after he’d left. “You can stay here,” Matthew said. “With me and Gram. You know that.”
How could I not stay? I imagined the five months Matthew and I had been apart becoming normal, our visits to one another rare islands in a sea of absence. I didn’t want that. I pressed my face against his neck, inhaling his wolf-and-boy scent. I imagined my baby sister, growing up a day’s walk away, seen only a few times each year, and liked that no better. “I don’t know what to do if they go.”
I thought of Matthew out in the forest, his nose to a dead gray leaf. The world was crumbling away. Maybe it didn’t matter what I decided. I trembled in Matthew’s arms, trembled even as his lips found mine. It was a long time before we pulled apart.
I traced a finger along his jaw. The faint fuzz there was thicker than when I’d left. Matthew stroked the back of my stone hand. I wanted to feel his touch. I reached for him with my living hand, and he stroked it just as gently. A few thin strands had fallen from his ponytail. I blew them from his face, and then somehow we were kissing again, Matthew’s hands tangling in my hair as I pushed him up against the house—
A footstep creaked on the porch. Matthew and I scrambled apart to see Allie looking over the railing, watching us with open curiosity. She turned away when we saw her and headed down the stairs. The others followed, Kyle in Caleb’s arms, leaning sleepily on his shoulder. The kitten had climbed into the boy’s hair. It and Kyle batted lazily at each other.
Mom put a hand on my arm. My sweater was askew, and my face grew hot as I realized I wasn’t sure quite when that had happened. “Ready, Liza?”
Matthew squeezed my good hand. My lips brushed his, more briefly, and then I grabbed my pack from the porch and followed Mom home, Caleb and Kyle beside us. Karin and Allie were staying with Kate and Matthew, because they had an extra room and we didn’t. My room had been given over to Kyle while I was gone. We’d be sharing it now.
Inside our house, I inhaled familiar smells: fresh-ground cornmeal, the oil of uncarded wool, the faintest hint of smoke from the fire that had burned our house five months before, though all other signs of it were gone. Mom reached for a stone beside the door, hitting it against several other stones around the living room to fill the space with purple light before sinking wearily into a chair. The kitten leaped to the floor and darted up the stairs as I set my pack down beside the couch. Kyle had fallen asleep in Caleb’s arms.
“Some days a few extra naps sound pretty good to me, too,” Mom said.
“Then you should take them,” Caleb said severely. “The harvest will get brought in regardless.”
Mom shook her head, dismissing the words. “I’ll be little enough use the first few days after she’s born. I’m fine, Kaylen.”
Caleb’s fingers brushed Mom’s cheek. He looked at her, and there was something in his gaze—I turned away. My father had never looked at my mother like that.
Caleb carried Kyle up the stairs. The boy shifted in his arms. I looked back at Mom.
“Do we have to talk about it now, or can it wait until morning?” she asked me.
“Are you leaving or not?” I focused on untying my pack one-handed.
Mom took a glowing stone from the couch, set it back down. “I thought you’d be glad to leave,” she said, which was good as an answer. “You were so eager to head for Washville with Karinna. You were happy there, weren’t you?”
One of the backpack straps had gotten knotted. I took the knot in my teeth as I struggled to get it undone. “I was happy.” Karin was a kinder teacher than any I’d known before, and it was a weight lifted to live someplace my magic was fully accepted. “But I always knew I’d come home.” The knot wouldn’t give. I reached for my knife.
Mom pushed herself out of the chair and took the strap from me, undoing it easily enough with her two good hands. I grabbed it back. I could have managed on my own.
“Kyle will come to Washville, too. His mother’s already said she won’t try to stop him. This town …” Mom eased herself back into the chair. “I know things have gotten better here. But what if they don’t stay better? What if the baby …” She wrapped her arms over her stomach, leaving the thought unspoken. We both knew what had happened the last time Mom had given birth to a child with visible magic.
“Hope’s baby lives,” I said. “Caleb’s spent five months here in peace, too.”
“Ethan nearly burned the woodshed with his magic last week, after he’d been doing so well at learning control. Did you know that? That spooked lots of folks. There’ll always be something to spook someone,” Mom said. “I thought I could do this, but it just isn’t safe for her here.”
The baby’s shadow was curled in on itself now, as if asleep. I pulled bags from my pack, setting them out to air. I’d suffered enough for living in this town, and Mom had never tried to find somewhere safer for me.
She let her hands fall to the arms of the chair. “Kaylen’s presence here makes folks uncomfortable enough, but he’s willing to endure their mistrust for my sake. The baby, though—if things got ugly again, if we failed to protect her—I can’t do this anymore, Liza. Five months ago I told myself I could handle it, but I can’t.”
She struggled back out of the chair. I reached out, too late, to help her. “We won’t go anywhere until the baby’s born,” she said. “You have some time yet.”
“I didn’t say I was going with you,” I told her.
“We’ll talk about it.” Mom started for the stairs.
I followed her up. There was nothing to talk about. The time when my mother could make my decisions for me was long past.
In my room—what had been my room—Caleb was tucking the blankets in around Kyle. Mom and I watched from the hall.
“How are your nightmares?” she asked me.
“Not so bad.” During my months in Washville, they’d grown rarer. Maybe I should be glad to go back.
Caleb joined us in the hall. “Kyle, at least, knows when he needs to rest,” he said.
Mom kissed the t
op of my head, as she hadn’t since I was small. “See you in the morning, Lizzy?”
I just nodded. Mom’s hand slid into Caleb’s, and I watched as they walked down the hall and into Mom’s room, feeling strange, though it was no secret they were sharing a bed. They were having a child together, after all. As the door closed, I went into my own room. One leg of my dresser had been gnawed halfway through, by the kitten or by some other wild creature of Kyle’s, I didn’t know. Kyle had sprawled out in sleep, tossing aside the blankets Caleb had so carefully arranged, but there was space enough beside him on the feather mattress. I stepped toward it. The boy opened his eyes, looked up at me, and rolled firmly away. The kitten snuggled in beside him. He gave the kitten a sleepy kiss—or was it a lick?—on top of his head.
“Kyle?”
The boy scooted farther from me, holding the kitten close.
I knew well enough when I wasn’t wanted. I sighed and headed back downstairs. Time enough to try to talk to Kyle tomorrow. I pulled off my boots and my socks and my knife in its sheath and curled up, still dressed, in an old comforter on the couch. I was so, so tired, and tomorrow there was the Council to speak to, and the crumbling to think about, and always, the harvest to bring in.
I shut my eyes, but my thoughts jumbled one over another. It took me a long time to find sleep.
What seemed moments later, I woke to a voice I hadn’t heard in five months, whispering, “Liza. Come here.”
Chapter 3
I knew that voice. Elin, Karin’s daughter. Eyes still closed, I reached for my knife. She would not have come, in secret and in the dark, if she did not mean harm.
“Take no weapons, Liza.” Her voice remained soft, like silk from Before. My fingers brushed the sheath but did not grasp it. “Make no sound. Stand.”
The words shuddered through me. Faerie glamour. I had an instant to feel fear—to open my eyes, to reach for words with which to command Elin away—and then I pressed my lips back together. Elin had said to make no sound. I didn’t want to make any sound. I didn’t want to do anything to displease her. Silently I stood, leaving the knife behind. I couldn’t remember quite why I’d wanted it.
“Very good.” Elin was little more than a shadow in the dark. Beneath her cloak her shoulders relaxed, as if she’d been afraid but was no longer. “Come with me. Remember, no noise. You are good at being quiet, aren’t you?”
I was good at that. Suddenly I wanted, more than anything, to show Elin just how good. I padded across the room and out the door in my bare feet, carefully placing each foot before I lifted the next. Outside, wind blew splatters of cold rain into my face. I walked down the outside stairs, and Elin followed, leaving the door open. Up above, a half-moon struggled to poke through the clouds. I walked by Elin’s side, dirt damp beneath my bare toes, hoping my silence pleased her.
Elin stopped at an empty space between two houses. A man I didn’t know joined us there. The moon caught the clear thin braids that framed half his delicate face, the fall of loose hair that obscured the other. His tunic was belted with links of dark stone shot through with lighter streaks, and his silver eyes regarded me coldly as he reached for my stone hand. A shiver rippled through it as his living fingers wrapped around my dead ones. My eyes went wide. I’d felt nothing in that hand since the Lady had changed it.
“You may recall,” Elin said softly, “that I have vowed not to harm you or anyone else from your town. Fortunately, Nys here has made no such promises. Should our control over you slip, you might remember that.”
Why would I want their control over me to slip? We kept walking, past Kate’s house and to the shed behind it with its recently repaired roof. I focused on keeping my steps quiet, on the way Nys’s fingers wrapped around mine, though my hand was dead once more. Something leaned against the shed, glinting in the moonlight. Kate’s mirror, the one she kept inside that shed so no one could use it. I wondered if Nys and Elin had moved it, and how they’d gotten past the guards my town now set at its borders, but those were distant thoughts, of less interest than the way Nys put his free hand to the glass and the way the glass parted at his touch. Faerie folk were hard enough for humans to hear.
“Follow him,” Elin whispered. “While you do, I shall have a talk with my mother.”
“Close your eyes.” Nys’s voice was as quiet as Elin’s, but harsher, catching on something inside me the way silk caught on work-worn hands. “I’ll not have you altering our destination, little seer.”
What destination? I shut my eyes, obeying the command, wanting to please Nys as dearly as I did Elin. He stepped forward, and I followed him. I felt glass part like water around me, felt water thicken into stone. Stone pressed the air from my chest, and then I burst gasping into the open air. Warm wind caressed my face and neck. “You may open your eyes again,” Nys said.
A half-moon lit the clearing where we stood, just like the moon at home. But we weren’t home, and no clouds stopped this moon’s light from reflecting off the oblong of shining black stone that stood beside us, as tall and flat as Kate’s mirror and nearly as bright. Nys pulled me down onto a low bench, made of duller stone, to sit beside him. Bench and standing stone were surrounded by a ring of dead trees, little more than burned snags. I knew where we were, then: Faerie. I’d never been anywhere else with so many dead trees. The largest snag held a shadow that stretched beyond where the stump ended, branches grasping like arms at the sky, but all the others were as dead within as without. Dark ash littered the ground, and the air held a faint stale scent, a troubling scent.
Nys turned my head toward him. “So you’re Liza.” He took my hand in his again. His fingers ran over the stone, and I felt their touch deep within it. Thoughts of why the stale scent should concern me faded. I leaned toward Nys, reaching for his face with my good hand. Beneath the fall of loose hair, his skin felt rough and furrowed.
Nys pushed me away. “I am past playing games with humans, save when it serves some greater purpose. This glamour is a tool for holding you here, nothing more. Elin wishes to bring her mother home and believes your presence the most effective way to compel her to come. She thinks Karinna might know some way we do not to slow the Realm’s steady crumbling, and so I have pledged my support. You made it easy for us, sleeping by the door. We were prepared to work much harder to get to you. As it was, we needed only to locate the mirror, an easy enough task, if one that required some walking.”
Nys stroked my hand once more. It tingled with life. His fingers crept past the sensitive spot at my wrist to touch living skin. Something rose in me at that touch. I moved closer to him as his fingers strayed back to the stone, feeling his warm breath against my face. Again Nys pushed me away. What had I done to displease him so?
He dropped my hand and stood. The shining stone rippled, and Elin stepped through it. Karin followed, her hand on Elin’s arm, her stance watchful.
Allie followed Karin, fingers clutching the plant speaker’s sweater. “Of course I won’t leave you!” Allie cried. She fell silent as the warm wind blew her nightgown about her ankles. “Oh.” Allie bit her lip and looked around, as if taking the whole of ruined Faerie in.
I stood, too, reaching for Nys with my stone hand as I sidled closer to him. Allie’s eyes went wide, but I couldn’t work out why, any more than I could work out the strange green tug I felt from where Karin stood.
“Where is Liza?” Karin drew away from Elin and reached for Allie, who took her hand.
“I’m here.” Surely Karin heard my steps and breath, just as always.
“Come to me, Liza.” Karin’s voice was tight. Angry, as I rarely heard it.
Nys took my stone hand back in his. Yes. This. “Can’t,” I told Karin, a little breathlessly. Don’t want to.
“Let Liza go.” Karin’s other hand was clenched at her side. “Release her from your glamour, and allow them both to return to their own world. Only then will we talk.”
“I think not.” Elin’s dress rippled where it brushed the ground
, as if alive. Her magic was for weaving. “You refused to return to this world after the War that nearly destroyed us, for my sake or your people’s sake. If holding your student’s leash is all that prevents you from taking flight once more, I shall hold it.”
“I cannot stay here.” Karin held herself so stiffly, with none of her usual easy stillness. “Let them go, and then I will explain. If you acknowledge Liza is my student, you acknowledge, too, that she is not yours to hold.”
“There are greater bonds than that between student and teacher.” Elin dropped to her knees, but her eyes remained defiant. “Such as the bond between the Realm’s own ruler and her people.” Nys knelt, too, pulling me to the ground beside him.
“The land is unraveling, and we have need of your knowledge and your power.” There was ice in Elin’s voice. “Does that not matter to you more than a couple of mere humans? Or do you care so little for your own true people that you would release your claim on us?”
“The land.” Karin held tight to Allie’s hand as she spoke. “You cannot imagine what the land says to me. It is worse, so much worse than before, when my mother yet lived and it was only the plants I heard. I cannot hold out for long. I thought I’d have more time. Daughter, please. Return with us to the human world and we will talk. You have my word.”
“No,” Elin said. “You will not choose humans over me, not this time. If you wish to speak, speak here.”
“I must know Liza is unharmed first.” There was something unsteady—something wrong—in Karin’s voice. “I cannot see her, as you well know. She must come to me.”
Karin had never asked for anything on account of her lost sight before, any more than I’d asked for anything on account of my dead hand. Not dead. Faintly I felt Nys’s fingers wrapped around mine. He looked at Elin. Elin pressed her lips together and nodded. They both rose, and Nys released my hand. “Go to your teacher, Liza.”
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