I frown at my hands, but I can’t just ignore his words. “Not a nice place to be anything.”
“What do you suppose they were planning for you?”
I draw my legs up and shrug.
“Marry the prince and then kill him, is that right?” He doesn’t sound accusatory, only interested.
“I don’t think they meant either of us to live long.”
To that, he doesn’t reply.
I stare into the fire, watch the flames crackle.
I sit there for a while, feeding bits of the log to the blaze, watching them catch, embers blowing up into the sky like lightning bugs.
Then I get up, feeling restless. Living in the woods as long as I have, I ought to be gathering things. Perhaps there isn’t much I can do to make up for freeing the prisoners, but I can build up our shelter at least.
“I’ll gather some more wood,” I say. “And see if I can find anything worth foraging.”
“Remember that I have three strands of your hair,” the knight says, but there’s no real threat in his voice.
I roll my eyes.
Tiernan gives me a strange look as I walk off, gathering his wet cloak around himself.
As the night envelops me, I scent the air, drinking in the unfamiliar forest. I don’t go far before I stumble on a patch of lemony wood sorrel and bullbrier. I gather some, tucking it into the pockets of my new dress. Pockets! Having them now, I cannot believe I went so long without them.
Idly, I pull the human’s phone out. The screen is entirely black and will not wake. The battery has run down, and there’s no way for me to charge it unless we stay in another mortal dwelling.
I tuck the phone away. Perhaps this is better, not having it work. It allows me to imagine that Hyacinthe and Gwen are safe, that my unmother was happy to hear from me. That perhaps she even called the number back.
Wandering farther into the woods, I discover a tree of loquats and pick them by the handful, eating as I go and filling my bag. I walk on, hoping to find chanterelles.
There’s a rustling. I look up, expecting to see Tiernan.
But it is Bogdana who stands between the trees, her long fingers wrapped in the nearby branches. The storm hag looks down on me with her shining black eyes and smiles with her sharp, cracked teeth.
There is a rushing in my ears, and for a moment, I can hear only the thundering of my blood.
I take a branch from the floor of the woods and heft it like a bat.
Into that moment, she speaks. “Enough foolishness, child. I’ve come to talk.”
I wonder how she found me. Was there a spy in Queen Annet’s Court? Was it the Thistlewitch herself, out of courtesy toward another ancient power?
“What do you want?” I growl, feeling like a beast again despite the finery I’ve been dressed in. “Have you come to kill me for my lady mother? Tell me, then, how am I to die?”
The hag raises her eyebrows. “Well, well, look who’s all grown up and throwing accusations around.”
I make myself breathe. The branch is heavy and wet in my hand.
“I have come to fetch you,” Bogdana says. “There is little profit in fighting me, child. It is time to separate your allies from your enemies.”
I take a step back, thinking to put some distance between us. “And you are my ally?”
“I could be,” the storm hag says. “Surely you’d prefer that to making me your opponent.”
I take another step, and she grabs for me, nails slashing through the air.
I slam the branch against her shoulder as hard as I am able. Then I run. Through the night, between the trees, my boots sliding in the mud, thorned bushes tearing at my skin and branches catching on my clothes.
I slip, putting my foot wrong in a puddle. I crash down onto my hands and knees. Then I am up and running.
The solid weight of her comes down on my back.
We crash together, rolling on the carpet of wet leaves and pine needles, rocks digging into my bruises. Her nails digging into my skin.
The storm hag grabs my chin in her long fingers, pressing the back of my head against the forest floor. “It ought to sicken you to travel with the Prince of Elfhame.” Her face is very close to mine, her breath hot. “Oak, whom you might have forced to cower at your side. To have to take orders from him is an affront. And yet, if he does disgust you, you have done well hiding it.”
I struggle, kicking. Trying to pull away. Her nails scratch my throat, leaving a trail of burning lines on my flesh.
“But maybe he doesn’t disgust you,” Bogdana says, peering into my eyes like she sees something more there than her reflection. “They say that he can talk flowers into opening their petals at night, as though his face were that of the sun. He’ll steal your heart.”
“I doubt he would have the least interest in anything like that,” I tell her, flinching away from her fingers.
This time she lets me go, grabbing one of my braids instead. She hauls me to my feet, using it like a leash.
I reach into my pockets and find the knife that Oak lent me to strip the log and pull it from its sheath.
The hag’s eyes flare with anger at the sight of me with a weapon pointed at her. “The prince is your enemy.”
“I don’t believe you,” I shout, slashing through the braid she’s holding me by. Then I take off through the woods again.
And again, she gives chase.
“Halt,” she calls to me, but I don’t even slow. We crash through the brush. I have lost track, but I think I am headed in the direction of the lean-to. I hope I am headed toward the mortal town.
“Halt,” she calls. “Hear me out, and when I am done, you may choose to stay or go.”
Twice before she has nearly had me. I slow my step and turn, knife still gripped in my palm. “And no harm will come to me or my companions by your hand?”
She gives a wicked smile. “Not this day.”
I nod but still make sure to leave plenty of space between us.
“You’d be well served to listen, child,” she says. “Before it’s too late.”
“I’m listening,” I say.
The hag’s smile grows. “I’ll wager your prince never told you the bargain Lady Nore offered. That she would trade Madoc to the prince in exchange for the very thing he is bringing north. A foolish girl. You.”
I shake my head. That can’t be true.
No, Lady Nore must have asked for Mellith’s heart. That was why he went to the Thistlewitch to find it. What use would Lady Nore have for me, who could command her? But then I recall Oak’s words in the abandoned human house: You’re her greatest vulnerability. No matter her other plans, she has good reason to want to eliminate you.
If Lady Nore wants me, she wants me dead.
And hadn’t I wondered if it was me she asked for, when I was in the prisons with Hyacinthe? Suspected and then dismissed the idea. I hadn’t wanted to believe it.
But the more I think on it, the more that I realize Oak never said that Lady Nore had asked for Mellith’s heart. Only that he hoped to use her need for it against her. That he planned to trick her.
If it were me that Lady Nore wanted, I can see why he would have hidden so much of his plan. Why he was willing to risk his own neck to keep me out of Queen Annet’s hands. Maybe even why he’d gone looking for Mellith’s heart, if he thought that was something he could give to Lady Nore instead.