“Kurrg?” Raina breathed. “Kurrg the Ruthless?”
“It all sounds mad, I know, but two days ago Endsborough and the Wild Wood were at each other’s throats, and yesterday I watched Albert Townshend teach some sort of hobgoblin how to play marbles. Jim Warner apologized to a pixie. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that man apologize to a human. Your daughter did that. I’m still not sure how she managed it—but she did.”
“They’re . . . listening?” Raina said. “To Fable?”
“More than listening. They’re calling her Little Queen.”
Raina laid her head back on the pillow. The trees rustled contentedly in the breeze outside. She smiled. It had been a long time since Raina had slept on a proper mattress in a proper house. Little Queen. Perhaps the forest really could manage without her—at least for a while.
THIRTY-TWO
A cool breeze carried the gentle breath of pines and wild lavenders across the field. The remains of Mr. Hill’s equipment had been reduced to dark lumps that hugged the earth, already overtaken by ivy and moss, thanks to Fable’s strong encouragement.
Leaves rustled high in the branches of the Grandmother Tree. Fable’s tree. Mr. Hill was no longer trapped within it. It had taken hours, but the powder had finally worn off and he had shrunk back to his regular size. He had been moved—pale, shivering, and mumbling incoherently—to a cell in the town’s jailhouse. The spriggans had not been happy about that. A crime had been committed against them, after all, and they felt they should have some say in the consequences—but they had not pressed the matter.
Great big knots scarred the tree where the giant had been. They would heal eventually, but in the meantime, children from the village had already discovered that a good round rock tossed in at the top would come rattling out through one of the leg holes, and they had wasted no time designing games based on guessing where objects might emerge. While digging around in the grass for good tossing stones, Peggy Washington found a smooth, polished moss agate. The unexpected treasure brought a smile to her face.
The shadow of Fable’s tree stretched over the field like a yawning cat in the afternoon light. There should have been bodies. Everyone agreed that there should have been countless casualties after all that fighting—and yet, impossibly, there were none. Dr. Fisher had busied herself to exhaustion over the past few days trying to keep it that way, treating burns and stitching cuts. Some of the elders found this happy fact unsettling. That much blood does not spill without catching Death’s attention. But so it was. The grass would grow wildly well the following season.
And so the only bodies occupying the field as Raina stepped gingerly into it for the first time since the battle were healthy and whole, sitting around a handful of dwindling campfires and sipping cider, telling stories, and laughing.
Fable held Raina’s arm to steady her. “I’ve got you, Mama.”
Raina breathed in the blending aroma of subtle perfumes, pipe tobacco, and pine needles, all dancing together in the air. “Okay, Little Queen,” she said. “Show me.”
“Oh! Do another!” Hana Sakai clapped her hands.
Tinn took a deep breath and concentrated. His chin wavered for a moment, and then out sprouted a big, bushy beard that consumed the bottom half of his face.
“That one’s Mr. Zervos!” Eunice called out.
“Too easy,” said Oscar. “Do another!”
“Do Mrs. Silva!”
“No, do Old Jim!”
It felt strange. Not the peculiar tingling that came with each transformation—Tinn was finally getting used to that—no, it felt strange to have the weight of his big secret suddenly gone. It felt impossible to be standing in a field in the center of all his classmates, not hiding anything.
Tinn had braced himself for fear and hate for so long—he had never taken the time to even consider the possibility of acceptance.
“Oh! That’s Sheriff Stroud!” Oscar yelled.
Even bratty Rosalie Richmond had joined the circle. “That was supposed to be Sheriff Stroud?” She rolled her eyes. “That was your worst one yet. It didn’t look anything like him.”
In that moment, Tinn could have hugged her. It was all so inexplicably, beautifully normal. Tinn was himself. No secrets. Everything out in the open.
He closed his eyes and took another deep breath. “Okay. How about this?”
Kull watched from the edge of the field. He could not stop smiling. Tinn was the rarest goblin in a generation—maybe the rarest in history—and he was finally giving himself up to it completely. He was showing the humans, and they were clapping and patting him on the back! It was more than Kull had ever dared hope for the wee changeling he had carried across the mire all those years ago. His heart swelled with pride.
“Go on, then,” said Chief Nudd beside him. “Say hello, at least.”
Kull turned toward the chief, horrified.
“Yer allowed,” Nudd assured him. “This place is common ground.”
Kull bit his lip. “I wouldn’a want ta ruin it,” he said. “I’d only embarrass him. He’s a right wonder, he is, puttin’ on all them faces—but I’ve only got the one face, an’ I’m fair sure it’s na one the lad wants his wee friends ta see.”
“Kull!”
Kull froze. Tinn had spotted him.
“I think yer lad might have his own ideas about who he wants his wee friends ta see,” said Nudd with a wink.
Kull’s legs instinctively prepared to run away, but a gentle push from behind sent him stumbling forward, instead.
“These are my friends,” said Tinn. “Everybody, this is Kull. Goblin parents are . . . more complicated than human parents, but he’s basically my goblin
