Faerie Winter

“He’s also of more interest to those who would use that power for their own purposes.”

Like the Lady. Had she wanted Kyle killed because he was useless—or because she feared anyone who might be able to control those she transformed? It was hard to believe that the Lady feared anything.

Karin set Elin down again, found her water skin, and stashed it in her pack. “I should have Kyle’s oath before we go,” she said.

Kyle helped me fold the blanket, but his gaze kept straying to Elin. I was glad. The warier he was, the better. “I already took his oath.”

Karin blinked. “You intend to teach him, then?”

“The oath isn’t about teaching.” Is it?

“The oath is about many things.” Karin took the blanket, put it in the pack, and tied the pack closed. Kyle hung behind me, clutching the edge of my coat with one hand and his frog with the other. I was responsible for him. That was what the oath meant.

I got Kyle’s hands into the sleeves of his coat and buttoned it up. I traced the bloodied slashes along the coat’s back and glanced at Elin. At least with his sweater on backward, no part of him was fully exposed to the cold.

I hesitated, then took my leather gloves and set them beside Karin’s pack. She’d need protection if she intended to carry the hawk. I turned away before she could thank me, still wishing she’d leave Elin behind.

I tied my knife belt around my waist, though the sheath was empty. “Ready?” I asked Kyle. I couldn’t do anything about his gloveless hands, but I wrapped my scarf around his neck. The woven-together ends would help keep it in place, and I wouldn’t let Elin anywhere near the wool.

Kyle held his head up high. “Now we find Johnny, right?”

“Right.” I climbed outside. The ground was slick with ice, and I grabbed the trailer for balance. Cold metal stung my palms. I cursed and jerked away. The clouds were gone, and through the trees I saw an orange glow at the horizon. I reached for Kyle and helped him out. He slipped, and I caught his hand, steadying him. Karin climbed out after him, green ivy hidden beneath gloves that met her jacket sleeves and hawk balanced on one leather-clad fist. She didn’t stumble as she landed silently on the ice.

The sun poked above the horizon, breaking through the trees. Light hit the branches around us, turning them bright as broken glass. The light hurt my eyes. I blinked hard against it, and as I did I saw—

Kyle, crying. Johnny holding him and whispering, “Hey, kid, don’t worry what she says. I’ll take care of you.” “Promise?” Kyle sniffled. “Promise,” Johnny said—

The Lady, glowering down at Elin while ice fell around them both. “I told you not to return without the leaf. Why do you continue to disobey me?” Elin held up her hands, as if to explain, but the Lady grasped her wrist. In moments she was a red-tailed hawk once more, launching into the dark. Behind her the Lady whispered, “And so Kaylen will pay for his foolishness with the human girl at last—”

The Lady, marching through an ice-sheathed forest that glittered in the early-morning sun. Johnny marched by her side, a gray wolf at his heels—

“Liza.” Karin’s quiet voice drew me out of my visions as gently as Mom’s voice drew me out of nightmares. I opened my eyes to the shining trees around me. Kyle still held my hand.

“She found Matthew.” Had the Lady gone looking for him, or had he returned on his own, looking for Johnny and me? It didn’t matter. “We have to find them.” Matthew and I were supposed to keep each other safe. What was the point of whatever was between us if we couldn’t do that much?

“You are certain it was not the future you saw?” Karin asked. Elin hunkered down on her fist, talons digging into leather, as if she would deny us all.

“I don’t think so.” Though there was no wind, the dawn was cold. “It was morning, and there was ice on the trees.”

“Best not to let any more time pass, then.” Karin looked at me. “Ice and sun will present challenges for you as a seer. Do your best not to focus on any one spot for too long—but do not try so hard that you are not careful of your footing. Kyle, if Liza stops walking, can you squeeze her hand? That will help wake her out of visions.”

Kyle nodded soberly. “Can I pinch her, too?”

A smile pulled at Karin’s lips. “If you wish.”

I kept a wary eye on Elin as we set out. Ice coated the limestone bluffs, the white snow, the path we walked. My steps were maddeningly slow over the slick ice. I wished I were a hawk, not bound to the slippery earth. My thoughts kept turning to Matthew, imagining the Lady’s fingers running through his fur, imagining Matthew trotting behind her, obeying her every command.

The glimmering ice tugged at my gaze, like a child eager to show all her toys. Fragments of vision flickered at the edges of my sight.

Elin, running through underground tunnels, younger, alone—

The Lady, her hands on Elin’s shoulders. “How dare you let your control of the firestarter slip? You will find him. You will destroy him and all the escaped children who have caused our people grief with their magic this day—”

Matthew, running along a snow-covered path, running so hard his paws bled—

We crossed the river, Kyle and I making our way slowly over slick rocks, and even Karin choosing her steps with care. I’d hoped to cut through the forest and so gain some time, but the ground was too slippery. We followed the path toward Clayburn.

Elin watching Clayburn’s houses burn, her hand on Ethan’s arm—

Elin turning away from the sound of screaming, the sight of bright flames licking wood. Elin kneeling to throw up in the snow—

Ethan shuddering as if just coming awake, then creeping away from Elin’s side—

The sun rose higher, turning the sky a deep blue. “Stop,” Kyle whispered.

I stopped. “Why?”

Kyle pinched my arm. “That’s why!”

“Hey!”

Kyle giggled. Karin laughed, too. Elin twisted her head to glower at us. Karin shifted the hawk from one fist to the other as we walked on.

Darkness flickered within the ice-sheathed trees. Shadows—the trees hadn’t lost their shadows with the coming of winter after all, any more than the seeds had. They’d merely drawn that last bit of darkness close, as if to hold it safe. I softened my gaze, focusing on the shadows instead of the ice, and the visions came less often.

Hope calling up wind, her hands raised high, her face grim. Only then her hands fell slack, and she smiled—

Mom, standing on Kate’s back porch, looking into the Lady’s cold eyes. “Do to me as you will. I will fear you no longer—”

It was hard not to walk too fast over the treacherous ice.

As we neared Clayburn, Karin paused beside something silver that shone against the ground. Elin’s butterfly, feebly flapping its wings. “You kept it,” Karin whispered as she took the butterfly in one hand. She raised the hawk toward her, but Elin turned away.

“Set it free.” Kyle lifted his chin toward the butterfly. A faint shadow clung to its metal wings.

“If I set it free, it will die.” Karin frowned as she straightened a bent wing tip.

Better to die than to remain helpless, trapped in silver forever. “Where did Elin get such an awful thing?”

“It was a gift.” Karin sighed. “From her mother.” She fastened the clip into her own hair, above her braid.

In Clayburn ice sheathed the burned houses, sheathed, too, the burned bodies around them. Kyle dug his fingernails into my hand. Karin’s steps grew slower, more deliberate—there was anger there. On her shoulder, Elin craned her hawk’s head this way and that, as if so much death were a matter of mere curiosity, as if those deaths weren’t all her fault.

“She says they smell bad,” Kyle whispered.

Karin stroked Elin’s feathers. “I know,” she whispered, though the smell was faint now, decay slowed by the