Dora tore at his hand, thrashing and writhing in fear. But as the elf spoke, a strange coldness ran through her body, wiping away the sharpest edges of her terror. Her protests slowed, and her mind began to wander strangely. An elf had snatched her from the creek, it was true—but the danger that he posed seemed less pressing and more dreamlike than before. Surely, this problem would pass, and Dora would soon continue on her way to the tree she was after.
Lord Hollowvale let out a sudden cry of pain, however, and he dropped her to the ground.
Behind him, Dora’s golden-haired cousin Vanessa stumbled back, with a pair of bloody iron scissors in her hand and a horrified expression on her pretty features. Oh dear, Dora thought to herself distantly. But Vanessa is so sweet and obedient. How could she stab a marquess with her embroidery scissors?
“Dora!” Vanessa gasped fearfully. She stumbled across the mud towards her cousin, helping her up from the ground. “Please Dora, let’s run, we must!”
Lord Hollowvale staggered to his feet, clutching at the back of his leg. Vanessa had given him a terrible gash along the back of his calf, such that he had to limp towards them. Deep crimson blood stained his fine white coat, and his face twisted with terrible anger. “This girl’s soul is mine by right!” he hissed. “You will give her to me this instant!”
Vanessa turned upon the faerie, holding her bloody scissors before her with a stricken expression. “I do not want to hurt you,” she said. “But you shall not touch my cousin, not for any reason.”
Lord Hollowvale jerked back from the scissors. Fear briefly clouded his face as he glanced down at them—a strange circumstance, since the scissors were only a little bigger than Vanessa’s little fist, and their eyes were decorated with cheerful little roses. Vanessa drew Dora slowly around the faerie and back towards the manor, keeping her scissors squarely between herself and the marquess.
“As you wish, niece of Georgina Ettings,” the elf spat finally. “I have full half of my payment. May you make good use of the other!”
And then—even as they watched, with their eyes fixed directly upon his form—he disappeared into thin air.
“Oh, Dora,” Vanessa sobbed, as soon as the elf had gone. “Are you all right? Has that awful elf done something to you? I was so afraid. I only meant to scold you back to lessons, but he was right there, and I had my scissors in my apron—”
“Why are you so upset?” Dora asked her curiously. She knitted her brow at her cousin. “Why, it’s over and done with now. You can come and climb my tree with me, if you like.”
Vanessa looked at her, bewildered. “Are you not upset?” she asked fearfully. “He was very terrible, Dora, and all of that blood...”
Dora smiled pleasantly at her cousin, though she felt as she did that something important was missing from behind the expression—something that had been there, only minutes ago. “I suppose I should be upset,” she said. “A normal person would be, wouldn’t they? But perhaps I will be upset later, after I have thought on it.”
Vanessa insisted that they return to the manor immediately. Dora went with her, though she still had a fondness for the tree across the creek. As Vanessa wept relating the story to Auntie Frances, it slowly began to dawn on Dora that she was not acting as she normally ought to act. All of her emotions had dulled to a distant sort of fancy—as though she were observing herself in a dream.
Auntie Frances gave them both the most horrified look, as Vanessa recounted the elf’s words. “Quiet!” she begged Vanessa. “Quiet, both of you. You mustn’t say a word of this to anyone else, do you understand? Do not even speak of it to your father, Vanessa!”
Vanessa gave Auntie Frances a teary, wide-eyed look. “Why ever not?” she asked. “That elf has done something to Dora, I know he has! We must find someone who can fix her!”
Auntie Frances snatched at her daughter’s arm, dragging her forward. She got down on one knee and lowered her voice fearfully. “Dora is faerie-cursed,” Auntie Frances said. “Look at her eyes! One of them has lost its colour! Perhaps the entire rest of this family is cursed with her, if it’s true what her foolish mother did. If anyone were to find out, we would be driven off the land!”
Dora’s aunt made them both swear not to breathe a word to anyone else. Dora found this perfectly agreeable. In fact, she felt no distress about the situation at all, except for a faint bit of worry, easily ignored. It was rather like a fly, buzzing distantly about in the corner—she knew it was there when she bothered to pay attention to it, but in the greater scheme of things, it really didn’t signify at all.
Vanessa promised only with the greatest reluctance. When they went to bed that night, she crawled beneath the covers with Dora and held her tightly.
They slept with the iron pair of scissors just beneath the pillows.
Chapter 1
Sir Albus Balfour was nattering on about his family’s horses again.
Now, to be clear, Dora liked horses. She didn’t mind the occasional discussion on the subject of equine family trees. But Sir Albus had the most singular way of draining all normal sustenance from a conversation with his monotonous voice and his insistence on drawing out the first syllable in the word purebred. By Dora’s admittedly-distracted count, in fact, Sir Albus had used the word purebred nearly a hundred times since she and Vanessa had first arrived at Lady Walcote’s dratted garden party.
Poor Vanessa. She had finally come out into society at eighteen years old—and already, she found herself surrounded by suitors of the worst sort. Her luscious golden
