Faerie Winter

I looked at Karin, keeping my focus soft. I looked at Kyle, tangled in his blanket. I looked at my own hands. I saw no shadows there.

Karin brushed a strand of hair from her face. “We can work on human shadows later, if you like. Those will be harder, for my magic is only with plants, much as Kyle’s is only with animals. I cannot see human or faerie shadows, though I can guide you toward them. Only a summoner can perceive the shadows in all things—and if the price of greater strength is lesser subtlety, well, it’s strength we’re going to need to call back spring.”

“I can’t call anything back. I keep trying, and I always fail.” I let the seed slip from my fingers. It twirled toward the floor, shadow clinging to it still.

Karin caught it in her cupped hands. “Try again, only this time, call to the shadow, not the seed.”

I kept my soft sideways focus on the shadow. I felt—not growth, not life, but a sort of lingering sleepy existence that told me sleep and death were not the same thing after all.

I reached for that. “Come here,” I whispered.

The seed shuddered in Karin’s hands. A pale white root shot out from it, and a brown stem followed. Something arced between me and the seed, a thin thread shivering with the faint will to grow. Two brown leaves pushed through the seed coat—and then with a sigh the small plant fell limp, and the thread dissolved to shadowy dust. The dust drifted off, leaving no shadow clinging to the dead plant Karin held.

I sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Karin laughed at that. “Liza, those two leaves are more than I’ve been able to call all winter.” She let the seed fall from her hands and touched the vine around her wrist. “My power is much diminished, in this season of dying trees. Even the leaves I wear cling to life only because I did not allow them to slip into sleep when autumn came, and because I speak to them of growing often enough that they do not have the chance to forget it. It is a great deal of work. My magic is with living plants, not with shadows that hover at the edge of death. I cannot call back a sleeping forest, but what you’ve just done tells me that, just maybe, you can, if we find a way to hold the life you call into this world once it begins to grow—and if you are willing to try, for it is not without risk.”

Outside, the wind was dying, but in the trailer I shivered. If this gray winter was my fault—if it was—this might be my one chance to make it right. It seemed too much to hope for. “Of course I’m willing.”

Karin let out a breath, as if she’d doubted it. “We need not act right away. It may be that spring will yet find its own way back into this world, as your people expect, heeding the call of light and warmth and requiring neither summoning nor the memories of the Realm to help it return. We have time yet to summon spring. More time than we have to stop my mother.”

My thoughts spun back to the Lady. “We should go.” I glanced at Kyle. He slept soundly, and I didn’t look forward to waking him. I didn’t look forward to carrying him through the wind and the dark, either. He needed rest, but the ice had stopped and the wind was letting up, which meant the Lady could set out for my town anytime.

“Tell me of the other children in your town,” Karin said. “If we can find any the Lady’s glamour has not touched when we get there, will you speak with them? Can we rely on their help?”

Afters stick together. “They’ll help us.”

“All right, then. I can teach you little more of magic, in so short a time, that will make you any more effective against the Lady. But I can at least give you this much: I can take your oath before we leave.”

I stared at the vine that nuzzled Karin’s wrist like an affectionate cat. I’d heard Karin give the oath before, in her town, to a child who had just come into his magic. The words had angered me then, with their easy promises to do no harm with magic. They made me uneasy now. “I’m not sure I can.”

Karin’s eyes narrowed, and the leaves around her wrist went still. “Do the words trouble you, Liza?”

I met her level gaze. “No one can promise not to do harm with magic, least of all me.” I already had done harm with my magic: to Ethan, and perhaps to Mom as well. Magic was merely a weapon, no worse than the one who wielded it—but weapons slipped in the hand, arrows went astray, blades were blunter or sharper than expected, the wielder proved too weak for the task. “And if the Lady gets hold of me again—” I drew an unsteady breath. “Anything could happen then.”

Karin looked at me thoughtfully. “I think perhaps you do not understand what the oath is for.”

“Tell me, then.” There was a challenge in my words.

“Very well.” Karin rested her chin on her hands. “The oath cannot protect against the error in judgment, the failure of knowledge, or the lack of skill. Avoiding harm is not so simple as flipping the switch linked to a human generator, knowing that light will always follow. What the oath demands is that you always choose with care, with the intent of not doing harm—and that when you cause harm in spite of these efforts, you do all you can to mend it. The oath may also provide some small protection against those who would sway your thoughts toward harm, but that has never been tested.”

“Wait—the oath is protection?”

Karin stroked her ivy leaves, and one by one they curled up. “It is no promise of safety, only of mindfulness. Yet mindfulness is a sort of protection, too.”

“There are no promises of safety,” I said.

“Even before the War, this was true. Will you give me your oath?”

I nodded slowly, knowing that once I spoke the words, I had to mean them. “All right.”

I thought of the child who’d taken the oath in Karin’s town, surrounded by family and townsfolk who’d known him all his life. Here there were only Karin and I, the soft creaking of wind through trees, and the softer sound of Kyle’s breathing. Karin spoke, her voice quiet and sure, and I repeated after her:

Blessed are the powers that grant me magic.
I promise to use their gift well.
To help mend my world,
To help mend all worlds.
And should I forget to mend,
Should I refuse to mend,
Still I will remember
To do no harm.

My voice trembled at first but grew steadier as I went on. Something inside me shifted, not the terrible twisting of my thoughts I’d felt with the Lady, but the steadier feeling of having found level ground on an uneven slope. I would do all I could. I’d always done all I could and thought it was never enough.

It was enough. That was what the oath meant. I would mend where I could, fight what I could, and put everything I had into both the mending and the fighting. If I failed, it would not be for lack of courage or action.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“You are welcome, Tara’s daughter.” Karin squeezed my hand. “I will do all I can to be worthy of your trust.”

Through the hole in the ceiling, the night wasn’t quite as dark as before. It was time to go. I stood, stretching stiff legs, and walked to Kyle’s side. Outside, the wind had stopped. A hawk cried out, and Kyle bolted upright on the couch, throwing his blanket aside.

“She’s looking for me,” he said.

Chapter 12

“Who’s looking for you?” I asked, though I feared I knew.

“The hawk.” Moss and bark fell out of Kyle’s sweater. I didn’t have to ask which hawk he meant.

Ice tinkled to the ground as Karin slid the trailer door open. “Wait here.” She slipped outside and pulled the