Faerie Winter

My town’s people might die yet if spring didn’t come, and Karin hadn’t stopped at saving only my town. I fought not to look away from the Lady’s bright eyes. Who was I to negotiate with such power?

I was the only one left to do so. I forced my thoughts away from the pain in my shoulder and focused on choosing my words. “You will leave all the human towns, or I will keep the leaf.”

Arianna crushed her wineglass into the mud with her boot. “You try my patience, Liza. I will not harm any human who remains within this world’s few surviving towns. You will give up the leaf and never seek to hold it again. Are we agreed?”

I looked at my mother. She gave me a bright, empty smile as she twirled the knife in her hand. She’d left me, she’d chosen others over me—but she hadn’t wanted to choose, any more than Karin had, any more than I did. She was only human. She was only my mother. The thought filled me with a strange, aching sorrow.

I drew my knife again and flung it away, into the brambles. “We are agreed.” Whatever happened next, the human towns would be safe. I reached between my jacket and my sweater to clutch the silver chain.

“You have given your word.” The Lady’s voice was velvet soft. She held out a pale hand.

The stars glittered, cold and distant, above me. I would protect those I could. I would do exactly as I had promised and give up the leaf I wore.

In a single motion I drew the chain from around my neck and draped it over my mother’s head.

“Mom,” I said, my voice steady, sure now of what I needed to do. “Wake up.”

Chapter 16

Mom drew me close, and I knew, in that embrace, that she was my mother once more. I fought the longing to stay there, to believe that she could protect me.

I knew better. I pulled free and ran, sure of what must happen next. I’d kept my word—but that wouldn’t save me. I could only hope the Lady was truly bound to keep her word as well, to leave my people alone.

“Liza!” There was nothing soft in the Lady’s voice now. I fell to my knees at the power there. She was before me in an instant, lifting my chin, forcing me to look into her bright eyes. Fear trembled beneath my skin. That fear was already fading. I knew I would do whatever the Lady asked of me.

Mom circled around behind her, holding her knife.

The Lady held up a hand, not turning. “One more step, Tara, and I shall order your daughter to pluck out her own eyes. Would you like that, Liza?”

“Yes.” My fingers moved toward my face. I wondered what it would be like to feel my nails pierce that soft flesh. Would my blood please the Lady?

Had Johnny’s blood pleased her? I felt a ripple of fear at that thought, but it was a distant thing, as distant as the ache in my shoulder.

Mom went very still. “It’s me you want. Let Liza go. She is no part of this.” I saw fear in her eyes, and anger, and understood neither of them.

“Oh, but she is. The moment you seduced my son into withdrawing his glamour from you and betraying his people, you and all that is yours became very much my concern.” Arianna reached for my hands and drew me to my feet. “You are a clever girl, aren’t you, Liza?” I frowned, not sure whether being clever was good or not, as the Lady went on. “Yet I can be clever, too. I note that neither you nor your mother are within the borders of your town, and so my promises do not apply to you. All humans leave their towns, for one purpose or another.” She glanced at the oak branch from which Elin watched us, utterly silent. “And my granddaughter has made no promises. It will be a small matter for us to destroy your people. The terms of your trade are not as well thought out as you believed.”

Her words should have troubled me, but they didn’t. Mom looked near to tears, though. I’d always hated to see her cry. “It’s okay.” I leaned back against the Lady. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Not anymore.

The look that crossed Mom’s face was a terrible thing. “To think I wanted to bring our children back to your world when they came into their magic,” she said. “I thought they’d be safer in your world than mine. I thought surely you had perished in the War, and I imagined that with you gone I might find teachers there.”

Arianna stroked my hair. “I think you’d better give me the knife, Tara.”

Mom stepped back. “Not unless I have your word you won’t give it to Liza.”

Arianna laughed at that, laughed and laughed. I wasn’t sure what was so funny, but I laughed, too. “I do not need your feeble human weapon to hurt Liza.” She smiled down at me. “What shall I turn you into, child? A wolf, perhaps, to replace the one taken from me? Or a cat. I could use a good hunting cat, and Tara tells me you are quite the hunter.”

“A cat,” I agreed. I’d had a cat once, hadn’t I? I liked cats.

The sun touched the horizon, and gold light flashed into my eyes. The Lady gripped my shoulder, hurting me—I didn’t mind. I’d never feared pain.

Mom clutched her knife. “Surely there is no need—”

My skin melted beneath the Lady’s grasp. Something caught fire within my bones—I screamed as they melted like iron in Jayce’s forge, melted into the mold the Lady pressed on them. I fell to all fours, and my scream turned into a cat’s growl. Not a small cat, like the cats I’d known. A hunting cat, bigger than a wolf. I paced, tail thrashing, strength coursing through me. The night around me seemed sharper than before, the moon brighter.

I flexed my claws. I needed to sharpen them. The Lady drew her hand away. I stalked toward a tall oak, snarling, and raked my claws against the tree. My shoulder screamed in protest. Some shadow within the wood shifted. A hawk cried and threw itself at me, but the creature’s wing failed it, and it sank to the ground.

The Lady sighed, reached down, and brushed her fingers over the hawk’s feathers. Silver light washed over the bird, and then Elin huddled, naked, on the ground, one arm drawn to her side. Arianna put her hand to my back, drawing me away from the oak. “There is no need for you to punish Karinna, my cat. As a tree she will die, as all trees must in this dying land, and it will not be without pain.”

Elin looked up at the Lady, her eyes wide. Arianna reached out and stroked my fur. I purred at the Lady’s touch. Power coursed beneath my skin, but I held it back—I could hold back for her. I wasn’t afraid, in this powerful body.

Mom stood just a few steps away, clutching her knife. “Liza. Give me some sign you’re still in there.”

Of course I was still in here. I was better now, stronger—surely Mom could see that. I opened my jaws in a toothy cat smile.

Elin struggled to her feet and took her grandmother’s hand. Wind blew her fine hair over her bare skin.

The Lady smiled. “Kill Tara, Liza.” Her whisper scraped the inside of my skin. “Kill her now, my powerful cat.”

I leaped, releasing taut muscles, knocking Mom onto her back. The knife fell from her grasp. Pain flared through my shoulder as something tore inside it, but that didn’t matter. Only doing as the Lady demanded mattered.

“Liza. You’re Liza.” Mom’s voice was hoarse as she fixed her gaze on me, as if she were trying to call me out of the cat, the same way I’d once called a boy out of a wolf, a girl out of a bird. But my mother was no summoner. I would stay a cat, filled with a cat’s power. I snarled and lunged at her throat. She threw her arm up, and my teeth dug through her coat sleeve to pierce flesh. The taste of her blood mingled with the taste of goose down and nylon.

Something stirred inside me at that. I drew back, memory bubbling to the surface. To do no harm. I was Liza, and Liza had spoken words—human words. Something about those words was important. They were a promise; that was it. I couldn’t break my promises. Yet it didn’t feel like harm, this flexing of strength, this drawing of blood. It felt like what I was made for.

Mom’s other arm slammed into me, knocking me aside with startling force. She leaped to her feet and ran. She’d run from me before; I remembered that. The Lady released Elin’s hand to step toward me—and fell, a remarkably graceless motion. Her dress had tangled around her legs, and its fabric bound her arms to her sides.