“He won’t believe you.”
“Oh won’t he?” Brella replied frostily. “You believed my lies for this long, Sergeant Major.”
“He knows me. He’s too smart.”
“Does he know you?” Brella hissed, and oh, it was a dagger dipped in poison, sharp first, and then burning, nauseating, eroding the soft bits of her that she had only just remembered, only discovered in these dangerous woods. “Does anyone?”
Scratch blinked the hot tears away and ran.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Branches scraped her arms, and roots rose up to trip her. Strange noises raked at her ears, weeping, hollow sounds that she could barely discern from her own mangled cries of pain. A bird shrieked nearby. Something chittered, low and hungry. Still she ran, her breaths ripping out of her chest, leaving iron splinters in her throat and mouth. A low branch tangled in her hair, claiming strands and scalp as she tugged herself free. The sting brought tears to her eyes.
Eventually, her body gave out. She crumpled onto the ground, reaching into the grass to steady herself. It was coarse between her fingers.
The wrenching pain she had felt since she had awakened began to dull, leaving behind a swirling mess of fear and regret. What had she done? What did fleeing help? Did she really think she could find a way out of the forest on her own?
Something skittered in the underbrush, sending the hairs on her arms to standing. When it left, she was alone.
The night was dark and thick around her. The only light came from the low-slung moon, which winked behind a canopy of pointed leaves like needles. Tall trees surrounded her, thick-trunked and thorny. She turned slowly, afraid to make a noise, afraid to disturb these empty woods. Leaves crushed under her hands and knees, too loud. She couldn’t see a path back. She was lost.
There was nothing to do but weep, so she wept. She wept for her life, the one she had built from nothing, lying in shambles back at the palace. She wept for James; would she ever see him again? Was Vel lying to him, just as Brella had lied to her? Oh gods, she hoped he wouldn’t find out like she had, once he had fallen too far.
Because that was the truth of it. Brella had burrowed into her skin. Into her mind. She had changed Scratch, and there would be pain in the undoing of it.
Gods, that dream. What had she seen? In that room, Brella and her co-conspirators had concocted a trap, and Scratch had walked directly into it. Pain seared her stomach like a brand. She folded over herself, clutching at the ache.
She had known Brella was a liar, but she had barely investigated beyond that. The truth was, she hadn’t wanted to know. The clues had been there if she had only bothered to see them. But Brella had been there, too, dazzling and angry and more tenacious than anyone had the right to be. Brella had known who Scratch was. She had been ready to travel. She’d had too many answers, too perfect answers. She had revealed enough, just enough for Scratch to think she was getting somewhere when, in reality, she’d been walking in circles.
She was going to die out here.
“Sc-sc-scratch?”
Something emerged from the trees ahead. A woman wearing familiar muddy boots and an embroidered apron. Her hair was braided and bronze, her skin rich brown and freckled. At the sight of her, relief flooded Scratch’s chest like warm water.
“Brella?” she said, the word nearly a moan. In this moment of pure relief, her body had forgotten to be angry.
“Y-yeh-yes. Scra-a-a-atch.”
Instantly, the warmth of relief froze into icy horror. That was not Brella’s voice. This was not Brella.
“Who are you?” She reached for her knife, pointing it at the . . . something, some not-Brella, who was opening her mouth too wide, splitting her face to reveal rows and rows of teeth, yellowy stalactites hanging down from her palate.
“Scraa-aa-aatch. I have yo-o-ooou. Give to me-me-me-meeee.” The thing shambled forward, feet clumsy and hands outstretched. Its head hung limply. When it walked, its ankles rolled, feet pointing impossibly inward. Its hands were long-nailed and flaky-red, and an odor rolled off it like sickly-sweet rot.
“Stay back!” Fear prickled at her skin. Her mind swam. “Get away from me. I don’t have anything you want.”
“Flesh or truth.” It snapped up its lolling head, opening two black eyes. And then a third. And a fourth. “Flesh or tru-u-th. Give me what you wa-a-ant.”
Scratch’s pulse slammed in her throat, and she tasted fear, acrid and sour, on the back of her tongue.
“What does that mean?” she shrieked desperately.
The thing bent in on itself, quivering as it shifted shape. When it raised its slack head once more, its many eyes were bright green, shaded by thick brows.
“Yo-o-our truth or your flesh,” croaked the not-James. “Tell me wha-at you wa-a-ant.”
“I want you to go away!”
“Wrong answer.” It curved down again, its hair growing long and yellow, its eyes ocean blue and too wide in a wizened face.
“She came here,” it said through a grotesque replica of Purpose’s mouth. “She gave me what she wa-a-a-anted. Give me that or give me fle-e-esh.”
“I want to go home!”
“Wrong.” It leered, black ooze dripping from the side of its wide maw. “Wro-o-ong little fetus.”
It shuddered, its features shifting, worms roving under its patchy skin.
“Truth or flesh,” growled not-Temperance. She looked heartbreakingly dead, and still so very young. Thankfully, the creature convulsed and morphed again, but when it rose, the form it had taken was the most frightening of all.
“Wha-a-at do you want?” rasped the Western Wilds fighter. Blood leaked down the side of his head and he held half of a broken spear in his desiccated hand. It was a soldier Scratch had killed. She had thought of it as a clean kill, just one stab under the ribs. It didn’t look clean now, the ragged hole gaping from the thing’s midsection, green and infected. “What do you want?”
“To do better!” she shouted, squeezing her eyes shut. It did no good; the image was burned into her eyelids. “To be better.”
“Good,” the thing cried. Around it, the winds shifted, pulling Scratch nearly off her feet. “More.”
“To mean something. Something that actually matters.”
“Yes.” The winds howled, churning up dead leaves and sticks, a vortex of dust and debris. “More.”
“Brella. I want Brella!” The truth of it was a cliff jump, freeing and terrifying. She could feel the wind whistling by her ears as she fell, wincing for the impact. She was honest and terrified, free and dying. Frightened, alone, falling . . .
To want was to see things clearly. All these things she had ignored, the deaths she justified to herself, the kills she claimed were necessary. The reaching for a command, the title that would change how she was seen, but not what she saw in the mirror—the skinny, hungry, lonely Lakes girl without a friend. Her insistence that she didn’t want love because it would pull her away from her path. The truth, that she didn’t want love because it would force her to see things clearly, force her to know herself. Force her to face the reality that all these things she wanted, she didn’t want at all.
The wind died. Scratch carefully opened her eyes. Where the beast had been now stood a girl of around ten. Her skin was milk white and fresh, her hair in long, blue curls.
“Thank you,” she trilled, and skipped away into the forest.
Scratch stood dumbfounded. Her hands shook. Her mouth was dry and she was impossibly thirsty. She raised her hands to her stomach, her face. She was clothed. She was whole. How? How could that be true when she could have sworn she was naked and rent?
“Well,” said a voice from behind her, “I’d say that was a test well passed.”
Scratch turned around and screamed.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Generally, I expect a ‘good morning,’” said the newcomer. “I shall give you another chance to provide one.”
“G-good morning,” Scratc
h stammered.
He beamed. “And a good morning to you, young traveler. I am Uncle.”
Scratch did not have any uncles, but if she did, she doubted they would have shared even a passing resemblance with this new fae.
Uncle was, for lack of a better word, a bug. A very large, extremely well-dressed bug wearing wire spectacles and tails. His antennae twitched merrily above his large, oblong head. His yellow, protruding eyes peered from behind two small, round lenses, and a burgundy waistcoat stretched across his sternum, testing the resilience of the golden buttons that held it closed. His velvet tailcoat was immaculate, and what appeared to be a large leaf fluttered behind him like a cape.
“It would be my pleasure to serve as your escort this morning.” He bowed low, offering a feeler for Scratch to shake. She did, despite her apprehension. The appendage was surprisingly firm, with tiny strands of something coarse on the surface. “It’s a dreadful shame that we should meet like this, but, needs must.” He peered around. “Shall we head back? Your Brella is rather distraught.”
“Sh-she wants me back?” Scratch asked, disbelieving.
“Of course she does! Do you think Umbrella would let a friend traipse off into the forest alone, especially one with whom she has shared a blood connection?”
“What does the blood bond have to do with it?”
His yellowy eyes warmed. “She wouldn’t bond with someone she didn’t care for. Now, let’s get a move on. I assume she told you about me.” He held himself, if possible, even taller. Scratch shook her head. “She must have. I assume you’ve forgotten.” He straightened his lapels. “Off we go then.”
They walked side by side through the dark forest. Dawn began its daily crest behind them, illuminating the thorny trees in smoky cool light. Perhaps Scratch had lost her nerve, because the trees were just as terrifying as they had been in complete darkness. The bark was gnarled, the slashes and knots forming the vague shapes of leering faces, with shifting eyes that followed her as she plodded back to the glen.
Uncle didn’t seem to mind being observed by the trees. He whistled a happy little tune, his spindly legs carrying him jauntily along.
“Brella called for our help as soon as you fled,” he told her. “Very bad form, by the way, you scurrying off. I believe you were warned about the tests. You could have very easily been killed.”
She shuddered. “What was that thing?”
“Oh that? That was Peek. We have her over for tea on occasion.”
Scratch’s stomach was in knots by the time they approached the familiar clearing. She wasn’t sure how to feel. The dream had punctured her, and she was wounded, but running hadn’t been a bandage. It was avoidance.
Uncle made a courtly bow, extending a feeler forward.
“After you.”
She took a deep breath and stepped onto the grass. Brella stood, looking small and bereft, her arms twisted. She raised a sorry hand.
“Hi,” Brella said.
Scratch rocked onto her toes, heart thrumming. “Hello.”
“This is lovely.” A woman’s throaty voice floated by, so jarringly not of the two-person world she and Brella currently occupied that Scratch couldn’t help but flinch. “See, Brella? You had nothing to worry about.”
“Yes,” Brella muttered. “Thank you, Aunt.”
The woman approached, holding an arm out for Uncle. Her skin was pale white with a light violet tint. Her iridescent, sunset-pink hair fell down her slender back in thick, glossy ringlets. She peered at Scratch with slow-blinking, green-lashed eyes, and smirked with lips as soft and lovely as rose petals. From just below her chin to the tips of her toes, a thick carpet of wildflowers coated her entire body. Even her hands sported little bouquets. She stood on her tiptoes to give Uncle a kiss on the tip of his oblong head. He might have been a bug, but the fae could still blush, pink staining the green of his cheeks.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, soldier.” The flower woman regarded her with cool, green eyes. “Brella didn’t give me your name, but I’ve heard a great deal about you. Granted, it was through tears and screaming, but I reckon I’ve got a pretty good idea of what you’re about.”
“Um.” She scratched the back of her head. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”
“Well, we’d best be off.” Uncle gave another of his well-practiced bows, extending a feeler for Scratch to take. “It was a joy making your acquaintance, young traveler.” He kissed the top of her hand. His lips were stiff, and Scratch had the distinct impression of being prodded by two wooden spoons.
Aunt approached slowly, rose-colored eyes narrowed and arms outstretched. As she walked, she left footprints of wildflowers in her wake: perfect, oblong flower beds of pinks and purples, yellows and reds.
Scratch accepted her tentative hug, flowers like butterfly wings caressing her skin.
As soon as their bodies touched, Aunt tensed her fingers, digging in to Scratch’s flesh. “Don’t leave again,” Aunt hissed in her ear. “You don’t know what you’ll bring back from out there. And I swear to you, if you hurt Brella, if you lure anything dangerous to her, I will kill you.” Aunt squeezed tighter, small thorns popping from her hands, piercing the top layer of Scratch’s skin. “We fair folk don’t abide by the same rules as humanity, you know. I will kill you and I will enjoy it. Do not wait to see whether I am lying. Trust that I am not.”
She pulled back with a beatific smile, thorns retracting into her fingers, leaving Scratch shaking.
“A treat,” Aunt said, and it sounded like a warning. “Uncle, shall we go home?”
“As you wish, my lady.”
Scratch watched them leave with a sense of relief, the trees parting slightly to let them through. Soon, the sound of Aunt and Uncle’s footsteps faded, two lines of tiny flowerbeds the only evidence that the magical beings had been there at all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Silence fell. Scratch’s heart thumped an insistent pattern on her ribs—go, go, go, do something. She couldn’t move. Brella stood on the other side of the clearing, blank eyes staring out at the spot in the trees through which Aunt and Uncle had disappeared. She looked wrung out like a washrag, her clothes rumpled and her skin oddly colorless. Darkness ringed her eyes, adorned with the spidery evidence of burst capillaries. Blood lined two of the fingernails of her right hand, evidence of biting or picking, neither of which Scratch had ever seen her do before. Her slumped shoulders rose and fell with uneven breathing.
When she spoke, her voice was scratchy. “He’s a katydid.” Her eyes didn’t leave the trees. “Uncle. Aunt is some sort of flower fae. They were both born in the forests.”
Brella swayed on her feet. Scratch shot out an arm, then pulled it back just as quickly. Something told her not to touch. Not yet. Thankfully, Brella stayed upright.
“Katydids live for only a year. Sometimes a little bit more, but not much. He’ll die soon.” She took a ragged breath. “He’s died so many times. Every year he dies, and every year Aunt cries for him. She cries so hard all of her flowers shrivel up and die. She’s left naked and alone.”
Brella closed her eyes and breathed, those thick eyelashes clumped together like spikes. “The forest loves her. It needs her flowers. So when she cries, after her flowers have gone, the forest grows her a new Uncle, right from the ground. Every year, the new Uncle remembers a little more from his other lifetimes. Mostly, he forgets. So she tells him, every year, everything they’ve been through. They’re impossibly old; well, she is. She has centuries of life to catch him up on. And she does it every time he returns. Because she loves him so, so much. She loves him so much that the loss of him wilts her, strips her.”
Scratch trembled, locking her knees to keep herself standing.
“I made her a book a few years ago,” Brella murmured. “It was blank. I assumed she could write. I thought maybe the fae had a written language. I was w-wrong.” Her voice hitched. “I hadn’t even brought a quill. I thought she would already have one. I should have
asked. And she was so disappointed. That there was this thing in front of her, blank and ready for her stories, and she had no way to use it. That I hadn’t asked.”
Her voice broke. She brought a hand to her eyes and breathed for a few moments. “The next time I came, I brought her a quill and the primer books my siblings and I learned how to read on. She and Uncle traveled with Vel and me so I could teach her to read. I taught Uncle, too, because he was interested. We all knew he would forget. I almost said no. Teaching Aunt was hard enough. But Uncle said that dying soon didn’t mean he couldn’t learn to read in this lifetime, even if he forgot in the next. It turned out to be rather easy to teach him. They both picked it up quickly, and Aunt started writing their life into the book.
“What I hadn’t expected was that Uncle wrote in the book, too. Aunt wrote their stories from the front and Uncle wrote from the back. Not stories, though. He wrote her notes. She let me see them once. Just a few. He wrote things like ‘When I’m dead, miss me, but not too much,’ and ‘Hold a gold button from my waistcoat to your mouth. If it’s cool, I’m thinking of you. If it’s warm, I’m thinking of you.’ He wrote ‘If you can’t get me back this time, my sweet, don’t despair. Don’t blame yourself. You know I never truly leave you.’”
Brella finally turned away from the trees. The red that rimmed her eyes made the amber of her irises even brighter, two gold waistcoat buttons floating in watery whiteness. She smiled, but there was something broken in the way her lower lip trembled.
“I always think I’m right, Scratch. I never ask what people want. I just give. I give wrong. I give burdens, sometimes. And I never give other people room to surprise me. I almost didn’t teach Uncle how to write. I didn’t think there was a point. But there was.”
“Brella—”
“Scratch, if you don’t let me finish, I’ll never get this out.” She inhaled deeply through her nose and then let loose a stream of air from her mouth. “I thought I knew who you were. I thought I hated you. I didn’t.” She set her jaw, though her chin wobbled. “I don’t. I should have told you everything far earlier. I shouldn’t have decided it was better for you not to know. I should have given you the opportunity to surprise me.”
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