He gave her a small smile that looked more like a wince, as if he had known what she was going to say long before she said it. And, likely, he had. Chall was many things, but a fool was not among them. “How?”
No arguing, no telling her that he would have nothing to do with it and that it was on her, only the simple question. She loved him, in that moment, for perhaps she had turned herself into a caterpillar but now, she would turn herself into a butterfly once more, if she could. And if she managed it, she would have Chall to thank, for he, and his coming, was her cocoon. She brushed the disgusting cup of tea off the table, oblivious to the sound of the small cup cracking as it struck the wooden floor, then she leaned forward, eyeing him. “I’ll tell you how.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
People tip-toed around him, scared to talk, that they might say the wrong thing, scared to remain silent, that he might take offense. But they did not know him, none of them, at least not as I did.
For as terrifying as his anger was, it was not the worst of him.
No, he was not at his most dangerous when he was angry.
For when he held the Fey king’s head before him at feast, gobbets of blood dripping from it onto the table, he was not growling or cursing, not shouting or threatening.
No. He was laughing.
—Excerpt from journal of Maeve the Marvelous regarding Prince Bernard, known as “The Crimson Prince”
Matt followed the big man’s back as they trudged through the snow-laden ground of the Black Woods. They had traveled so for over a day, heading south. He knew that much only because his father—or the man who had claimed to be his father—had taught him to read the stars long ago, in case he ever got lost. He did not know why they headed south just as he did not know the answer to the thousands of other questions pressing on his mind. He had tried to ask Cutter, at first, about what the green demon had said, what it had meant when it called him Kingslayer and Destroyer and Hero, but Cutter had avoided the question. Since then, he had not bothered even doing that, choosing instead not to answer Matt at all.
And so, they walked in silence, as they had for the last day and a half, the big man saying nothing except for the night before when it had been time for them to break camp and then only, “We’ll stop here.” That and nothing else.
Being here, in this place, in the cold that seemed to penetrate him all the way into his bones no matter how many clothes he wore or how much he bundled up at night, with only his silent, brooding companion for company, Matt missed his family, his loneliness a terrible ache in his chest. He was not angry, not any longer. He was only sad. Perhaps they had not been his real family. Perhaps they had even taken money to watch over him as Cutter claimed, but what did that matter? They had watched over him, after all, had treated him as family, had loved him—or at least pretended to—as much as, perhaps even more, than any of the other parents of the village had loved their own children.
He missed his mother’s smile, the one he had always thought of as just for him, missed her asking him what he wanted to eat for breakfast. He missed his friends, too, missed carefree days spent fishing in the summer thaw, laughing and telling jokes and lying about which village girl they’d kissed with no bigger worries than that someone would call them on it. He had always hated his life, envied those other boys whose mothers and fathers had decided that life in the remote village of Brighton was not to their taste and who had chosen to take their chances among civilization. He had watched those families leave angrily, angry mostly at his mother who had refused, who had told him that their place, his place, was in Brighton.
He had always asked her why, why they must stay in such a gods-forsaken village with snow and nothing else, and she had always refused to answer. Except, that was, for one time when she had grown cross at his insistent, petulant demands, and had finally told him that they stayed because of a promise. She had clearly not meant to say it—that much had been obvious in her expression—but no matter how much he had pestered, she had said no more than that. And now, he would never know.
He wasn’t aware he was crying until the wind struck his face, and he felt the cold dampness on his cheeks. He glanced up at Cutter, terrified that the man would notice, as for reasons he could not explain, even to himself, the man’s regard mattered more to him than he cared admit. He needn’t have worried, though. Cutter only trudged forward, the axe slung across his back in a sling he had fashioned the night before when Matt had lain down to sleep. He marched forward as if there was nothing else in the world, as if he had no hopes or dreams, no regrets or any feeling at all except for
