“This creature means something to you?” the elf asked.
“She’s mine. Give her back!” Wynn lunged for the net, but the elf pulled it away from her with a swing of his long arms.
“I’m taking it. If you ever want to see it again, you will follow orders. Do you understand?” He held the bundle and Mildred let out a desperate squawk.
Wynn wasn’t sure about all of his words, but she knew she had to behave. She nodded. Quietly she followed the elves, and sat glumly in the back of the wagon.
They rode a long time. Wynn wasn’t sure how late in the day it was, but her stomach growled and she was very tired and thirsty. As they traveled, the woods seemed less tangled. Wynn noticed certain branches had been cut. The circles left on the trunks from the severed branches shone white where the soft inner wood was exposed. There were a lot of large boulders here too. Some of them had clean edges, as if they had been shaped by a stone cutter. The black fruit hung from several trees along the path. It probably wasn’t sweet at all.
This part of the woods looked angry. So did the elves. Not one of them had smiled.
The band of elves stretched out down a narrow path before they came to a large wall of thick tangled vines. One of them put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. It was the same strange whistle she had heard earlier, but she thought it was a bird.
Wynn heard a great wrenching sound, and the clattering of a chain. Something groaned, the way a tree does when it is about to fall.
An enormous door opened up in the vines, slowly pushing toward them. The elves whipped their reins over the backs of the large boars. Wynn peered around as she passed through the gate. The vines covered the front of an enormous wooden wall made of sharpened poles. From the outside, the vines covering the face of it made it disappear into the forest. Behind the wall stood a bustling village teeming with more green-faced bald people.
They all wore long tunics made of woven cloth in drab browns and grays. They were simple and functional clothes that made it difficult to tell the girls from the boys. They reminded Wynn of the clothes she used to wear in the Otherworld. Most of the elves wore hoods over their bare heads, though some of them wore strange contraptions on their faces with glass over their orange eyes.
“Take her to the Headmind,” one of the wagon drivers said as he slid off the seat of his wagon and handed the reins over to another elf. “And keep this with you.” He shoved the net with Mildred in it into another elf’s arms. Mildred squawked and wriggled.
“Give her to me,” Wynn said. She reached out for the net. “I will be good.” She wanted Mildred safe in her arms, and not wrapped up in the net.
The elf looked her up and down. His grim expression didn’t change. “You’ll be good, or else.”
Wynn didn’t wish to test the elf. He was already very angry. The new elf grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her through a series of strange houses. They were tall, and made from neat mud bricks in interlocking patterns. Large wheels paddled running water to the tops of the houses. It flowed through hollow reed gutters linking the houses together. The wheels also turned heavy rope belts that powered several other machines Wynn didn’t understand.
The elf led her to a large brick and wood building in the center of the village.
Inside, stone steps led up to a large room with a throne at the back. Fires burned in stone pits to either side of it, fanned by billows that pumped themselves.
They warmed the room, but did not make the room feel lighter. An elf sat on a very old-looking stone throne. The back of it was enormous, and had pictures carved into it. The pictures looked a lot like the one in Flame’s house in the ruins. Carved elves stood holding hunting trophies. The arms of the throne were carved to look like the heads of tigereons. The seat was covered with a striped animal skin that looked like the one the Fairy Queen had on her wall.
Around the room, woven panels showed more elves. Some of the elves in the tapestries looked at the stars through strange devices. They mixed potions, and worked with tools. There was even one picture of an elf posed in a mutual bow with a man with a beard, an Otherworld man.
The leader rose from the throne. He wore very fancy clothes with fine stitching that seemed very old, but well cared for; they piled on his shoulders in heavy layers that made him look bigger than all the other elves. Shaggy boar hide lined the collar of his dark brown outer robe. It glittered with embroidered threads that looked golden. A tarnished crown sat upon his bald head. It too seemed very old and was set with large pieces of amber.
He didn’t seem very happy.
He said several things to her guards. They answered him in words she couldn’t understand. It was very rude to talk in a language she didn’t know. When they stopped talking, he turned his glowing eyes to her.
“Who are you, and what do you seek in our woods?” he asked. His words were very clear.
“I am Wynnfrith,” she said. “I want my chicken back.” She tried to tug her hands apart, but couldn’t free them.
“That tells me nothing,” he said. “You were found near a trap in the Witch’s Wood. And the carcass of a reaper is rotting on our doorstep.”
Lots of elves came into the room from the doors behind her. They stood around the edges, giving her plenty of clear space. Only the guard who held Mildred in the net stood near her. He
