She looked puzzled when she took a bite. “What is this?”
“Dried and smoked mushroom.”
“Ohhh.”
“Do you not care for it?”
“I just didn’t expect it to taste so… fungal.” She took one more bite and handed it to me. She was right, it tasted very strongly of mushrooms, but I was hungry enough to eat several good mouthfuls.
Rowan grinned and nibbled on the rest as we walked. “We don’t eat much meat here.”
“Yes, so I’m told,” I said, thinking that was one part of living in the fairy lands I would not care for.
“Now, I bet you’d like to know the plan,” he said. “I’m taking you to meet with some of the other Green Hoods. We should be there before nightfall. Is it true that you were actually with Erris Tanharrow, in his clockwork body?”
“That’s right.”
He whistled. “Now that’s a situation I don’t envy. How did it all happen?”
My history with Erris certainly made for a good yarn to fill the time as we walked along through the soft snow and the still air. I had just reached the point when Erris and I left to find Ordorio Valdana when we heard voices ahead in the distance. The land rolled in gentle, forested hills, so you heard people quite a bit before you saw them. Rowan glanced around at the barren winter forest. The snow was full of our tracks.
Rowan paused a moment, with the same expression Erris had when he was listening to the forest, then he motioned us sideways. I could see an open space ahead indicating another creek or ravine, but I wondered about the tracks.
“I can hide our tracks,” he whispered. “At least for a ways. Once they’ve passed, we have to hurry along to the camp, just in case they’re looking for you.”
We ran forward to overlook a brook making tiny rapids over the rocks below. I shivered just looking at it, but it had rocky banks with enough room to hide. I was mostly concerned with getting down-from where we stood the best way to get down to the riverbank, as far as I could see, was to slide down the slope. It would be dirty business, and Annalie was wearing a dress.
“You go first,” Rowan said. “I’ll create a glamour on the tracks. I do apologize, ladies.”
Annalie, with a slight frown, tossed down her pack and gathered up the hem of her skirt, which was already dirty and wet from the snow, baring her wool stockings. “Well, do be a gentleman and turn away.” She made her way down, using her arms and legs to keep from falling in the steeper portion, and I followed the same way, the dirt turning to mud as we reached the bottom and the snow runoff. My gloves and the seat of my trousers were now black with grime.
“What a mess,” Annalie muttered. “This whole voyage is making me feel quite the pampered princess. I should have worn trousers like you, but I just wouldn’t feel right in them.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Look, at least your dress hides the dirt better.”
“Shh!” Rowan dropped down beside us, somehow managing not to dirty himself at all. I hadn’t noticed how lean and lithe he was while he was tromping through the snow, but now I thought he was probably quite skilled with the knife at his belt too.
It actually made me a bit cross, to think that after all I’d been through, this stranger was escorting us to the Green Hoods and I presumed they would lead the rescue. My role felt almost an afterthought. What use did they really have for me?
I had a fleeting wish to break away from Rowan, and even Annalie, and steal away to Telmirra to find Erris myself, if he was somewhere to be found. My fingers traced the outline of his key beneath my shirt.
With the water rushing over the rocks, and the hill we had just slid down muting sounds from above, we could no longer hear the voices. Rowan had his hand pressed against the dirt, obviously trying to sense when they had passed. Annalie sat down on a rock to rest while I paced.
“All right,” Rowan finally said. “They’ve passed. Let’s hurry on before they find the tracks. We can travel down the riverbed for a time.”
And so we resumed our march, nibbling corn cakes and dried mushrooms along the way. A mile or two down, the riverbed narrowed and became too treacherous to continue down, so we had to scramble back up the embankment, getting even dirtier in the process. What a sight we would be to the Green Hoods.
“Rowan, when we get to the camp, what will happen?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll have to discuss it. We learned of you from the jinn, but he has to do whatever the king says, so we’ll proceed cautiously. We just need to hurry along now and worry about all that later. We want to reach the camp before nightfall.”
Despite Annalie’s obvious exhaustion-she had, after all, spent most of the past few years cooped up in a handful of bedrooms-we managed to reach the camp before dusk. A tall, athletic woman with a stern expression was mending arrows, while a man was tossing more of the strong-tasting mushrooms-goodness, I was already getting sick of them-in a pot half submerged in the ashes of a cookfire. When we appeared, they both looked up. The woman remained stern and went right back to her work, but the man stood and grinned.
I had somehow expected more people, and more of an excited air about the Green Hoods’ camp. This place had the feeling of a party nearing its end.
“You found them.” The man approached us, and suddenly Rowan grabbed my hands from behind, while the other man took Annalie.
Action came to me before thought; I jerked from his grip hard and fast, but it wasn’t enough. He still had me, but I kicked backward, trying for the most painful place, although I couldn’t quite see. He deflected my kick with his leg, and pulled me closer.
“Sorry, Nimira. Nothing personal, just my job,” he said, but I was furious at him for daring to apologize and call me by name even as he betrayed me. How ironic that the humans at the gate had thought us spies and instead, we walked right into a spy’s trap!
All the while, the fairy woman was replacing the heads of broken arrows, without seeming to care what happened to the rest of us. Clearly, she was so confident the men had it under control that she wouldn’t even bother. That angered me too, when in a rush I thought of Ifra attacking Celestina to break our attention. I reached with my magic into the cookfire-my body was already blazing with anger, and the connection came with surprising ease-and flung it at her, a ball of red flames that caught her hair and clothes.
She screamed, and now-now I kicked again, managing to plant my heel between Rowan’s legs. He let go with a howl, but I heard a knife slip from its sheath.
Oh God. I didn’t want to get cut with a knife.
I ran around the other side of the cookfire, which was still blazing as if I’d taken nothing from it. The woman had rolled in the snow to staunch the fire. She’d acted quickly enough that she was barely scorched and was already back on her feet-at least she didn’t appear to have any arrows at the ready-and the other man still had Annalie.
The fire was my only asset, but I couldn’t fling fireballs at all of them at once-it took too much time, and the fire didn’t last.
Could I touch the heat, now that I had a connection with the fire? I’d never tried it before, but it felt like something that could work, and, backed into a corner as I was, I was desparate. I grabbed a smoldering stick from the fire, and sure enough, it seemed the same temperature as my own warm hand. I threw the stick at Rowan, and before it even reached him, I lobbed another at the girl. Both managed to dodge. These fairies were clearly experienced at their business, and one winter hadn’t turned me into a great sorceress.
Of course, if I didn’t know that already, I wouldn’t be in this mess.
I shouted, “Who are you? What do you want with us, then?”
“I’ve been undercover with the Green Hoods,” Rowan said. “But really, I work for Prince Tamin. When I heard you might be coming with word of Erris, I knew he’d reward us handsomely for you and your companion. That’s it, really, and I do feel badly because you spun such a tragic tale, but I have a family to feed like anyone else…” He trailed off, glancing at Annalie. The firefly lights of spirits had appeared around her. They still lacked their full impact in the blue light of dusk, but suddenly she seemed to melt out of her attacker’s hands, black sleeves flowing behind her. She rushed to my side.
“Do you know what to do?” she whispered in my ear.
