Wyn sighed. “One of these days you’re going to get out of your research cave and make some real relationships. One that’s not just me. You hear me?”
Wyn just didn’t get it. How could she move on, find happiness, when Kat was...
Hallie stood up, brushing the sand from her skin. “Yes. But right now, I’m hungry. Let’s go inside! I’m thinking we fire up the grill.”
“Deal.”
Chapter Three
Two Years Ago
The car was so cold that Hallie could see her breath. Kat’s heat was broken again. Kat stared straight ahead over the wheel, not speaking, and Hallie could feel the weight of her friend’s anger. Outside, street lights flashed by like warping stars, and the houses were barely visible in the darkness of night.
Kat flicked the blinker on, and the pulsing green light on the dash bathed her face in a sickly glow. The red of the traffic light blended with and then overwhelmed the green as the car came to a stop.
Hallie risked a glance back at Wyn in the back seat as the light changed and Kat pulled forward. Wyn was sprawled across her seat, antlers angled away from the window but eyes closed as she rested. She’d had at least three beers and maybe a wine or two before they’d left the bar, and Wyn never could handle much alcohol. Odd for a Fae.
Kat was nearly through her turn when headlights shone from the left, growing brighter, larger.
There was the crack of two cars hitting. Metal shearing. Glass shattering. A piece of Wyn’s antler flying through the air, its sharp point slicing through the skin across Hallie’s collarbone.
But Kat.
Kat never had a chance, the other car barreling into her door and crumpling it like an egg shell.
***
Present
Hallie blinked against the bright, warm sun falling across her face and rolled over. The bedroom smelled like cedar and pine and fresh laundry, and she settled deeper into the soft mattress.
Her eyes snapped open. She was late for class. For research. A meeting. For...something.
She was halfway out of bed when she remembered: this was the lake house, and she got to pick her schedule. Guiltily, she glanced at the stack of books next to the bed, then climbed back in, determined to get in another hour or so before rising. Besides, the cabin was quiet, which meant Wyn was also still sleeping in the other room.
She had just started drifting off again when a floorboard creaked.
“Are you forgetting something?”
The voice snatched her out of sleep’s tender embrace. She knew that voice. But it had been...years.
Hallie rolled over, holding the blanket up close to her chin. Sure enough, there was the boy from her dorm room all those years ago. The Fae.
It all rushed back to her, and she bolted upright. The rejection letter. The boy. The bargain.
“I believe we made an agreement,” he said. He didn’t step any closer, but the air suddenly felt colder, the boy more threatening than last time they had met.
She swallowed past the lump in her throat, pretending she couldn’t remember even though she knew it would do no good. “Yes, um...what was it again?”
He rolled his eyes. “I give you entry into Sabine? You give me your firstborn? Ring any bells?”
Butterflies fluttered around her stomach. Her academic firstborn. Her chance to bring Kat back.
Crap. How could she not have realized that her one chance was the knowledge she would lose? But she couldn’t have known her first discovery would be this when she’d made the bargain; she wasn’t clairvoyant.
Her eyes darted back to him, suddenly fierce. She couldn’t give it up. Give up her chance to get the three of them—her, Wyn, and Kat—back together again.
To bring Kat back to them. To make up for the part she’d played in her friend’s death.
“I hope you’re not thinking of going back on your word,” the boy said, his eyes growing cold, sparkling with hunter-green light. “The Fae do not forget.”
She simply stared, frozen in the moment.
He laughed. “Did you really not know? You did call for a Fae, after all.” He leaned forward, teeth glinting. “Or were you simply lying to yourself?”
She stood quickly and pulled her sweatshirt on over her head. “Of—of course I knew. But my discovery...you don’t understand!”
Her mind whirled around thoughts of what she had discovered, of what it could mean to humanity. Of what it could do for her and Wyn.
“It doesn’t matter what I understand. It doesn’t even matter what you understand. The deal was your firstborn, and I aim to collect. You will not keep it. You cannot.”
Hallie stood straighter, taller, hoping to make herself more threatening. “And if I refuse?”
His face shifted so fast, she wasn’t even sure it was the same person before her. Every line grew sharp, his eyes dark, his fingers like claws.
And then those fingers were around her throat, his mouth next to her ear, his breath hot on her cheek. “Unacceptable.”
Her heart began to race, her breathing coming in short gasps. Mistake, that had been a mistake.
Stupid, stupid Hallie! Hadn’t she been learning about the Fae for the last two years? Hadn’t she been best friends with a Fae for six years? And didn’t every resource say the same thing?
Don’t cross the Fae.
Wyn, she needed Wyn. She was Fae. Maybe she could help, maybe she could stop this. Convince the boy to leave.
Hallie opened her mouth, straining to scream for her friend, but the Fae had her throat too tightly. She could barely catch enough oxygen to stay conscious. She could barely even squeak.
She needn’t have worried. Wyn was suddenly at the door, looking more inhuman than ever. Her eyes had turned entirely black, every point of her antlers looked sharper than normal, and her face seemed elongated, like a deer’s.
She’d never seen this much of the Fae in her friend.
In two strides, Wyn had reached the boy, wrapping her long fingers around the back of his neck. He snapped his gaze back to Hallie, accusing, and then the world shifted around her, and the lakeside cabin disappeared.
Chapter Four
As soon as they reappeared, the Fae dropped Hallie. She collapsed, grasping at her neck and gulping for air. The world around her was fuzzy, softly blurred, but even she could see they were no longer in Pennsylvania. The light was too bright, the sounds of nature too loud, too alien, and the creatures standing around them too inhuman. She could recognize more Fae, those usually found in the Spring Court like High Fae and other animal-Fae of temperate forests, including some Harts, which she hadn’t expected. All were dressed in ridiculous finery that seemed entirely out of place in the forest glade.
Wyn snarled. “What is the meaning of this?”
The Fae crossed his arms over his chest. He was dressed much as he had been that first time, in the guise of a scholarly human. The light glinted off his glasses, blotting out his eyes. “Your friend made a bargain. The terms have come due.”
And then Wyn was whirling toward Hallie, focusing every inch of her Fae fury on her. Hallie gasped again and shrank back, holding up an arm to protect herself.
“You did what?” Wyn nearly screamed. “How long have you known me? And you did this? How can you be so stupid!”
Hallie couldn’t stop herself from whimpering. “I’m sorry.”
Wyn’s face softened, and she grabbed Hallie’s arm, yanking her to her feet. She turned back to the boy. “What are the terms? What did she promise you?”
The boy just smirked.
Hallie’s mind raced. She’d already lost Kat. She couldn’t let this mistake take Wyn from her, too. There had to be a way to make this right.
But how?
What did the Fae like more than collecting on a bargain? Maybe...maybe another bargain.
“I’ll make another bargain with you,” Hallie said, slowly lifting her eyes to the boy. The world seemed frozen around her, the other creatures silent, the sound
s of the spring insects and frogs muted.
The boy half turned, and Wyn flinched, pulling her away from the boy.
“Hallie,” she started.
“What do you propose?” the boy asked, cutting Wyn off.
“A...a counter-bargain.” Her mind kept cycling, trying to come up with terms that wouldn’t come back to bite her later. What could she offer? How could she make him accept?
The boy looked irritated again. “Which would be?”
What would he accept over her discovery? What would a Fae want?
And then she had it. Something that might actually lead to more knowledge for her, even if she failed.
“Me,” she said. “Give me another task, anything, and if I can’t solve it, I...I’ll stay here. But if I can, I get to keep my discovery!”
Wyn’s eyes grew large, her mouth dropping open. “Hallie, how could you—”
“Deal.” The boy extended his hand.
Cold, creeping dread began drifting into her. Where was her mistake? He was too eager to accept, too happy about her terms.
She took his hand numbly, feeling the tingle of their magical pact sinking into her flesh.
“You figure out my true identity, and you get to keep your discovery. But if you can’t do that by the end of your ‘spring break,’ you stay here. Forever.”
Hallie’s stomach dropped. That was it. She let him choose the task. But how hard could it really be to figure him out? There were plenty of people around she could—
“And no one is to help her,” the boy continued. “Anyone who does will answer to me.”
She could almost feel the fear drifting over the assembled creatures, and she swallowed. No one would help her, and she had no idea why, other than some ambiguous power he held over them. Worse, if she got anyone to help her, she had the dreadful suspicion it wouldn’t end well for either of them.
“I’m not part of this Court,” Wyn cut in. “I don’t have to follow the same laws.”
“True,” the boy admitted, releasing Hallie. “You’re not one of ours. You’re not one of any Court. You may help her, not that it will fix anything. Your friend is a fool, and you are a fool, too, if you think we will let her keep what she has learned and roam free.”
Wyn looped her arm in Hallie’s, and Hallie flushed at the boy’s insult. She really was a fool. And those final words...she had only bargained to keep the knowledge. It did not guarantee her safety.
She might die from this. But at least she wasn’t completely alone.
Chapter Five
A small frog-creature hopped out of the crowd, its throat bulging with each croak. It was half Hallie’s height, standing like a man and dressed in white and gold, but under the human clothes it was fully frog.
“Follow me,” it said in a deep voice.
Hallie glanced over at Wyn, but the cold anger—the fear—in her friend’s eyes kept her from responding. But she needn’t have said anything. Wyn tugged on her arm, pulling her after the frog-man. Wherever they were going, Wyn would keep them safe. Right?
The frog-man half walked, half hopped down a path dappled in honey-gold sunlight, morning fog drifting around the tree trunks and muting the colors of the forest. The frogs in the distance croaked softly, and Hallie briefly wondered if they were kin with the frog-man.
Everywhere she looked, there was too much to see, too much to take in. Every color was brighter than in the human world, the smells stronger, the sounds sharper. It was as if every one of her senses was turned up so high she could hardly bear it, and with every step she took, she felt her heart accelerate. Her breath became gasps, her eyes darting from tree trunk to tree trunk.
This world was alien. She didn’t belong here, no matter how much she had wanted to learn about the Fae Courts. What had she gotten herself into?
Suddenly the frog-man stopped, and she ran into his back, stumbling backward as her mind jerked her away from the sensory overload and back to Wyn and the creature.
The frog-man swept a hand toward the gap between two thick trunks, their branches draped in sage-green ivy dripping tiny white flowers. “This is where I leave you.”
Hallie turned back, raising her hand to ask him why here, as if she were in class, but the frog-man was gone faster than she could blink. She shuddered.
Wyn’s nose twitched, and she reached her head forward toward the gap. For a moment, her forehead wrinkled in thought, then a bright smile overtook her face.
“What?” Hallie said, her heart still pounding. “What is it?”
“A demesne!” Wyn responded, then stepped into the mists.
And vanished, enveloped in the swirling vapor.
“Wyn?” Hallie called, her voice high and strained. “Wyn, where are you?”
For a few heartbeats, there was nothing but the distant, quiet call of the forest, then Wyn’s silhouette reappeared, antlers reaching to the sky.
“Come on!” she called, her shadow beckoning Hallie forward.
Cautiously, Hallie stepped forward. The grass bent underfoot, quickly giving way to soft, spongy moss speckled with those white blossoms. The farther she went into the trees, the stronger their sweet scent grew, something like jasmine and tea, and her anxiety began to calm.
And then she broke into a clearing free of fog, thickly bordered by trees and honeysuckles on every side. A swing draped in vines and jasmine swayed peacefully on one side, and across from it stood two twin-size beds, each made up with the brightest white linens, the natural wood headboards covered in creeping lichen. Moss covered the floor, creating a natural, soft, cool carpet under her bare feet. Birdsong was louder here, and unlike on the path outside, Hallie found herself slowly relaxing, almost as if this forest room was made just for her.
“What is this place?” Hallie breathed.
Wyn grinned and flopped onto one of the beds. The soft linens pillowed around her, and she sank into their depths. “Our accommodations for the week, owned by the master of this Court.” She flipped over and inhaled against the pillow. “Oh, I’ve missed this.”
Hallie’s eyes lingered on her friend. It was like Wyn had come home, as if she had always belonged here. She could practically see the glow of contentment radiating from the Hart. She’d thought Wyn liked living in the human world, but...
No. Wyn wouldn’t just abandon her, and even if Hallie failed, at least it would be a peaceful, pretty prison. Though this wasn’t what she had wanted when she entered the folklore program; she wanted the safety and peace of the research, not the danger of the Fae themselves.
She had to figure this mess out.
She stepped across the springy forest floor and sat on her own bed, facing Wyn. Just like her friend, she sank deep into the mattress. It called to her, beckoned for her to lie down and rest her eyes, promised her the best rest she’d ever have.
But she couldn’t give in yet. “So now what?”
“Hmm?” Wyn looked up dreamily, then shook her head, her ribbons fluttering, and sat up straighter. “Oh, right.”
“Any suggestions?”
Wyn’s face morphed from dreamy pleasure to concern. “Well, first off, stop making bargains with Fae! What in the Four Courts is wrong with you, girl? How long have you known me? How many times have I warned you about dealings with Fae?”
“But you don’t understand!”
“I understand you think so little of my opinion that you’d ignore my advice!” She bolted to her feet and began pacing from one end of the demesne to the other. When she looked back at Hallie, hurt filled her eyes, tears pooling like the crystal water of a spring. “How could you? How could you risk yourself like this? I mean, I knew you had an unhealthy interest in Fae bargains, and there was that whole nonsense about summoning a Fae, but I never thought you’d actually go through with it!”
Hallie threw herself backwards on the bed. “I had to, Wyn.”
“Why? What was so important that you had to make a bargain?”
“I never got in to Sabine.” Halli
e covered her face with her hands.
Wyn paused. “What? But you told everyone you did, even your parents!”
Hallie sat back up, slapping the linens. “And that was the problem! How could I tell them I hadn’t made it? That all the pride they had in me was misplaced?” Tears pricked her eyes, and burning shame spread across her skin. “How could I let everyone down like that?”
Wyn wandered back to her bed, taking her seat slowly. “You would never have let anyone down, Hal. No one but yourself, that is.”
And that much was true. How many anxiety attacks had she suffered after her exams? She’d desperately hidden every B from her first-year classes, even though she knew her parents would be proud of even that. She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone thinking her less than gifted, of any possibility of disappointing those who loved her.
But in reality, Hallie was the only one. She knew this, though she couldn’t accept it. She couldn’t fail. She just couldn’t.
Wyn sighed. “So what did you agree to give away?”
“My ‘academic firstborn,’ as he put it.”
Wyn quirked an eyebrow. “Which is?”
“My first discovery.”
Her friend’s face smoothed. “I see. And I assume this is the same discovery you’ve been slaving over? Care to share what it is now?”
Hallie bit her lip. “Resurrection.”
Chapter Six
Wyn blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“You heard me,” Hallie mumbled. “Turns out that the Spring Court can resurrect creatures.”
Hallie could practically read every thought that passed across Wyn’s face in those moments. She’d had many of the same. But one thought, of course, prevailed.
They had a chance to bring Kat back from the afterlife. To be whole again.
“Hallie,” Wyn finally said slowly, “this is...”
“I know.”
“But...there’s always a cost. Have you stopped to wonder why the Spring Court doesn’t share this knowledge with anyone?”
Seasons of Magic Volume 1 Page 17