by Che Golden
“That’s all great, but I’ve got teeth marks in my arm from one of you lot,” said Danny. “If you’re so noble, then how come you sneak around playing storybook wolves?”
A shaggy gray wolf glided up to Danny. His eyes glinted, and as his tongue lolled from his mouth, he looked as if he was laughing. He cocked his head and examined Danny’s torn sleeve. “I could have sworn I got a better hold than that,” he said.
“That was you?” said Danny.
The wolf bowed his head. “Nero, at your service.”
“You could have had my arm off!” said Danny.
“Mmmm, if I’d wanted to,” said Nero. “Rather remiss of me. Shall I have another go?”
Danny scowled at him.
“How are your ribs?” asked Maddy cheerfully.
The wolf’s teeth snapped shut, and he didn’t look like he was laughing anymore. “Sore, as a matter of fact,” he growled.
“That makes us even then,” said Maddy.
“Um, thank you anyway,” said Roisin, as Nero and Maddy eyed each other. She looked at Fenris. “Honestly, thank you.”
Fenris inclined his shaggy head in acknowledgment.
“Have you seen Stephen?” asked Maddy.
“Yes,” said Nitaina. “He passed through here with the Winter Queen and a hunting party. He slept in her arms as she rode by.” She looked at Maddy. “He was very pale. You need to find him quickly.”
“Is there any way to get into the White Tower other than across the lake?” asked Danny.
“No way by land . . .” said Fionn.
“But there is a way, right?” said Danny.
Fionn twisted her hands and looked about her.
“Fionn?”
“Only one way to get to the tower now.”
“And?” snapped Maddy.
“You fly.”
“Of course,” said Maddy. “And how are we supposed to do that?”
Fionn looked at the wolves nervously. Their gimlet eyes stared back at her, but they didn’t make a sound.
“There is a faerie, a strange one, in the mountains, who could help you,” said Fionn.
“How is she strange? Doesn’t like doing nasty things to people, does she?” asked Roisin.
“No, lives on her own too much, gone a bit rotten in the head,” said Fionn. “Too many squirrels nesting upstairs. If the Amaguks bring you to the foot of the Skyring, a mountain range just a little beyond the tower, you’ll find her.”
Maddy narrowed her eyes at her. “Why—where are you going?”
“Home,” said Fionn, as she wrung her hands. “I need to go to my tree. Need to sleep. Tree is already sick, won’t last long if I stay away.”
“Please don’t, dear, sweet Fionn,” pleaded Roisin. “We can’t do this on our own. You said it yourself—we nearly died on the ice, and we only made it this far thanks to you. You can’t leave us now.”
“No,” said Fionn, shaking her head. “Liadan will see. She knows everything.”
“But if we don’t help Stephen and break Liadan’s grip, then Summer will never come. You said so yourself,” said Danny. “What will happen to the forest then?”
“We will live to see Summer,” said Fionn, as she backed away from them. “There will always be trees.”
“I don’t reckon this weirdo faerie is going to help us unless another faerie speaks for us,” said Danny. “No offense to the Amaguks, but the locals seem to be as suspicious of them as they are of us. I don’t see how we are going to make it without you, Fionn.”
But the little dryad just shook her head and continued to back away.
“Wait, Fionn,” said Maddy. “Can’t you do this for Stephen?”
“My tree needs me,” she said.
“I know but . . . think about it,” said Maddy, struggling to keep the desperation from her voice as she watched Fionn’s eyes dart around. “You were so pleased that you were doing something. You knew you were helping your tree when you helped us. Do you remember?”
Fionn nodded, her eyes wary. But she stopped sidling away.
“You were so brave when you helped us,” Maddy continued, her voice soft. She was pleased to see a green blush stealing through Fionn’s cheeks. “Stephen means as much to me as your tree does to you. But he can’t last as long on his own. He’s already been away from home for much too long. He’s not even a sapling—he’s a tiny, tiny little seedling. You know how fragile they are, don’t you?”
Fionn nodded. Her body looked tense but her head was cocked to the sound of Maddy’s voice. “So many bad things happen to seedlings,” she said. “Animals eat them, elves crush them. That’s why they need their dryad.”
“I know, I know,” said Maddy. “Only Stephen doesn’t have a dryad. He’s got a mom, back in our world. She can’t come in here, and he can’t get out without us. Can you imagine how much danger he is in? What his mother is going through? Can you imagine if you were locked away from your tree?”
Fionn shuddered.
“You were brave to help your tree, but if you help Stephen, you’ll be more than brave,” said Maddy. “You’ll be doing something pure and good and noble because you’ll be doing it for someone else. You’ll be a hero.”
Fionn didn’t say anything, but Maddy was sure that she saw her stand a little straighter and puff her chest out a little as she thought about this.
“And I’ll keep you safe from Liadan,” said Danny. He walked over to the little dryad and took her tiny hand in his. “I promise I won’t let anyone hurt you because you helped Stephen.”
Fionn blushed a deep emerald as she looked up at Danny and sighed. “All right, I’ll help your seedling,” she said, gazing into his eyes.
Chapter Sixteen
Fionn practically danced away through the trees, her silver hair shining bright as a new star as it swirled around her. The little dryad glowed as she flitted back and forth to Danny before running on ahead again. Her soft laugh rustled through the air like leaves dancing in the breeze as she whispered and laughed with him in her soft voice, her tiny thin hands patting him now and then.
Roisin walked next to Maddy as the wolves drifted around them. “Do you think Fionn fancies Danny?” asked Roisin, as she stared at the pair in amazement.
Maddy looked at her with her eyebrows raised. “Oh yes!”
They looked at each other and burst out laughing, clapping their hands to their mouths to smother their giggles when Danny looked back at them with a frown on his face. He opened his mouth to say something, but Fionn distracted him by tugging on his hands.
“Imagine anyone fancying Danny!” said Roisin. “Yuck!”
“Fair play to him though,” said Maddy. “He said just the right thing back there.”
“I know. I’m still in shock,” said Roisin. “Danny being diplomatic for once. I didn’t think he had it in him. I thought he was going to hit her until she said yes. It’s what he always does to me.”
“I don’t think he was being diplomatic,” said Maddy. She dropped her voice to a throaty whisper and wiggled her eyebrows dramatically. “I think he was being seductive.”
Roisin nearly choked on her laugh, and Maddy started giggling again until a low growl from Fenris warned them to be quiet. Danny shot them both a filthy look. Maddy hoped he hadn’t heard.
They hadn’t been walking for long when they came to a cleared area of forest that had been fenced off into paddocks. The wolves flattened themselves into the grass. White horses stood around in the paddocks, their bodies alert and their ears pricked toward the tower. Fionn hunkered down, the long grass brushing her upturned nose, and she pulled Danny down beside her.
“Get down,” she hissed at Maddy and Roisin. “Time to be mice again.”
“What’s going on?” asked Maddy.
“We’re going to wait in the trees for a while,” said Fenris. “The elven mounts are dangerous. If they see us, they might jump the fence to give chase, and I’m not risking the pack. We need to get past when they have
been fed and are sleepy.”
“They’re only horses,” said Danny. “Let’s go past now—who cares if they see us?”
Fionn waved a long hand and blinked slowly at him. “Not horses, very dangerous.”
Danny looked again. “They look like horses to me.”
Roisin gazed at the paddocks and the animals that littered the green grass like statues, a frown puckering the skin between her eyebrows. “They’re not grazing,” she said after a minute.
Fionn nodded her head. “They don’t eat grass—they eat meat. Watch.”
They all flattened themselves on the ground as they saw lights approaching through the trees ahead. As the sounds of singing drifted toward them, the wolves melted into the shadows and lidded their eyes so they wouldn’t reflect in the lights.
A group of elves appeared from the trees, some of them dragging a wooden cart covered in a rough brown cloth. The metallic scent of blood filled the air, and the elven mounts rushed to the far fence and milled about, snorting and prancing. Maddy could only imagine what the smell of blood was doing to the wolves, whose wet noses were quivering. The elves reached the fence and threw back the cloth, revealing a heap of raw meat. They began to throw it over the fence at the animals, who reared up and pawed the air. They snapped at gobbets of flesh, before wheeling around to tear at them on the ground. As they ripped and chewed, Maddy could see they were things out of a nightmare—huge yellowed fangs curled in their mouths, while their feet ended not in hoofs, but in paws with wicked claws.
A small female, chased off the carcasses by her bigger companions, snapped her fangs at the elves, her ears flattened against her skull. One elf, his clothes streaked with blood, got too close to the fence, and she reared, lashing out at him with her front legs. The elf screamed and staggered backward, clutching his arm, blood welling up between his fingers, while his companions laughed. He swore at the female, who neighed and bared her teeth, her eyes red with rage. The children lay and listened to the sounds of teeth and claws ripping and tearing, long after the elves had disappeared back up the path.
Afterward, their gleaming white hides splattered and smeared with blood, the mounts lay down to sleep off their meal. The little female picked over the remains of the carcasses, crunching bones for their marrow. Now and then, a sound in the surrounding forest or the movement of some small and frightened creature would catch her attention and her head would jerk up and her mean red eyes would scan the trees while her lips peeled back from her fangs.
“We wait,” whispered Fionn. “Elven mounts are not going to let a stranger slip past—you can’t bribe them with an apple.”
The children nodded, dumb with fear, and crept back into the trees with the Amaguks to discuss tactics. “We’re hungry, and there is plenty of meat left scattered in those paddocks,” said Nitaina. “Some of the pack will go in and carry out the leftovers. The mounts won’t like it, but they are used to our scent and will leave us be. Later, when they sleep, we will slip past them, with you four crawling on your hands and knees among us. Our scent is on your clothing so they will not pick you out from among us and raise the alarm. We have all been walking for a long time, so I suggest we get some sleep while we wait.”
A few of the pack slipped away with Fenris to brave the paddock while the rest curled around Nitaina. Fionn followed Danny to sit at the base of a bald oak tree. She wrapped her thin arms around one of his, leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. Danny sat stiff and awkward, glaring at Maddy and Roisin, daring them with his eyes to say something.
Maddy sat on the cold forest floor next to Roisin, who had her arms clasped around her knees and her face tilted up to the turquoise sky, where a few stars had begun to twinkle in the shadowy edges of the sky’s bowl. George was curled against her feet, his belly rising and falling with deep breaths, his paws paddling as he chased rabbits in his sleep. Maddy put her head in her hands and tried to relax. But the fear she had been living with ever since they had stepped through the mound was still humming through her, and she knew she would not be able to sleep. She thought of the tower and its unnatural stillness as she had inched her way toward it over the ice. Nothing had moved in the light-filled rooms, no sounds had drifted through the air, but it had still felt full of life. Teeming, evil, alert life. She had felt a thousand minds, leaning forward in the tower, focusing in on her single heartbeat as she had struggled on the frozen surface of the lake. Fionn had told them to be like mice. Fachtna had called them insects. Maddy had never felt so small, so lost, even when she had been told her parents were dead.
She sneaked a glance at Roisin and was surprised to see a small smile hovering on her lips. She looked happy and peaceful. The shadows from the trees lay velvety on her face, staining the closed lids of her eyes and her lips almost black. Maddy felt a spasm of guilt. She realized Roisin was the only one of her cousins who had ever actually tried to be friends.
“I’m really sorry, Ro,” she whispered.
“Hmmm?” said Roisin, opening her eyes and blinking at Maddy sleepily. “What for?”
“For dragging you into all this,” said Maddy.
“Don’t be,” said Roisin. “I’m glad I’m here. Well, the threat of death is a bit of a pain, and I’d kill for a burger and chips, but how many people get to see the Land of Eternal Youth?”
Maddy stared at her, open-mouthed. “Roisin,” she said, “this place is a hellhole.”
Roisin laughed. “It’s not, you know. It’s really not. We’ve been so scared, and we’ve been on the run pretty much ever since we set foot in here so we haven’t had time to look around us. Remember how we felt when we first opened our eyes? This place is the dream of a faerie, Maddy. Forget about Liadan, just for a second, and listen.”
Maddy sat and listened and tried to figure out what Roisin meant. At first all she could hear was the sound of the forest around them, the rustle of small warm bodies creeping through the undergrowth, the creak of the trees as their topmost branches swayed in the breeze.
And then she heard it. That strange singing that had been there in the background ever since they stepped off the mound, now getting stronger as night fell. There were no words to the song, just high, sweet notes that trembled and ached at the very highest reach of her hearing. It swooped and trilled and soared with such joy that Maddy felt her own heart grow lighter as she listened to it.
“Who’s singing?” she whispered to Roisin, her own voice thick with tears of happiness.
Roisin slipped a hand into Maddy’s. “Look up,” she whispered.
Maddy tilted her face to the darkening sky. The sun had finally sunk beneath the horizon, its last rays pale against the dark land. The sky had turned a deep sapphire blue, and the stars were shining boldly now. One in particular stood out bigger and brighter than the rest, and as Maddy watched, its celestial light throbbed and pulsed with the rise and fall of the song. She felt a thrill of surprise going through her, and she squeezed Roisin’s hand. Roisin squeezed back and laughed softly.
“See?” said Roisin. “The stars really do sing here.”
“They do,” said Maddy. “I just hope Cernunnos can slow time enough for us to make it home. I don’t want to listen to them sing forever.”
Chapter Seventeen
Maddy must have dozed off at some point because she was woken up by a pain in her neck from lying on the forest floor and George’s licking her face. A full moon hung bloated above them and bathed the ground in silvery light. She disentangled her hand from Roisin’s and climbed stiffly to her feet, an excited George bouncing around her. Icy leaf litter crunched under the rubber soles of her sneakers. Sleepy birds crooned as they huddled together on the snow-crusted branches. Now and then an eye blinked at her from the rough bark. Small childlike shapes scampered away from her, swallowed up in an inkling by the dark beneath the trees.
The wolves were pacing and stretching. Nitaina heaved her pregnant body upright, shaking grass from her thick gray coat. Roisin stumbled alo
ng behind her, rubbing her eyes, while Danny was patiently listening to a twittering, twitching Fionn.
Fenris growled when he saw Maddy. “At last. I thought I was going to have to bite you to make you wake up,” he said.
“Keep your fur on,” said Maddy. “We can’t have been sleeping that long.” She grabbed a wriggling George and clipped the leash to his collar.
“We need to get moving,” said Roisin. “We have no idea how long we’ve been here. My mam is going to be going mental.”
“Nothing new there,” muttered Maddy.
“I heard that,” said Danny, narrowing his eyes at her.
“You will all have to crawl through the grass so the mounts don’t see you,” said Fenris, as the pack gathered. “We’ll surround you so they will keep their eyes on us. Move quickly and quietly.”
Maddy curled George’s leash tight around her hand and patted him on the head. He was very slowly getting used to the wolves, but he was still tense and cautious. “Be a good boy,” she whispered.
They reached the edge of the trees, and Maddy could see the elven mounts in the paddock. Most of them were sprawled on the grass, dozing, their gleaming white hides still spattered with blood and gore from their meal. As the moon rose higher in the sky, it turned their faces black where their muzzles had been dipped in blood. Their lips twitched back from their fangs as they dreamed, while the littlest mare slept on her feet, her nose on her chest, slightly apart from the rest of the herd.
Maddy felt ill just looking at them. Danny turned a white face to her. “I want a poker in my hand, going past that lot,” he whispered.
She nodded and carefully opened the backpack, peeling the zipper back slowly. Danny gripped a poker between two hands so it wouldn’t clank against its partner as he pulled it out. Maddy took the other one and decided to bury the bag under a pile of leaves. There were only a few biscuits left anyway, and she didn’t want anything to slow her down as they sneaked past the mounts.