I can barely breathe.
“She didn’t scream. She’s a brave girl.” The storm hag seems to enjoy drawing out this moment. “Said she was looking for you.”
“For me?”
“I told her that last I saw, you were in the company of a prince, and that he had taken you prisoner. She wanted to help, of course. But mortals will make a muddle of most anything, don’t you find?”
“What did you do?” My voice is almost all breath.
“Gave her some advice, is all,” says Bogdana, stepping into the shadows of the trees. “And now I am giving you some. Get away from that Greenbriar boy before it’s too late. And when I see you again, you’d best do what I ask. Or I can snuff out that spark I put inside you. And snuff out your little unfamily, too, while you watch.”
I am shaking all over. “Don’t you dare touch—”
At that moment, Tiernan steps through the branches. “Traitor!” he shouts at me. “I caught you.”
CHAPTER
11
T
iernan looks across the clearing at me, his sword drawn. I take a step back, unsure if I ought to race off into the night.
Bogdana has disappeared into the woods, leaving behind only the distant hiss of rain.
I shake my head vehemently, holding up my hands in warding. “You’re wrong. Bogdana surprised me. I ran from her again, but she said she wanted to talk ”
He peers into the forest, as if expecting to find the storm hag still lurking there. “It seems obvious you were conspiring with her.”
My mind is reeling, thinking of how puzzled Tiernan was when Oak suggested we part ways. Thinking of how clever it was to let me believe I was on this quest of my own free will.
I recall Tiernan tethering me in the motel. Barely speaking with me. Now I can guess the reason. He’d always considered me a sacrifice, something to look away from, something to which one ought not become attached. I shake my head. What defense can I give, when telling the truth would expose their deception?
“She warned me about continuing north,” I say. “And she thought I should help her instead of Oak. But I never agreed to it.”
He frowns, perhaps realizing all the things he would be unable to deny. Together we walk back to the camp. I pick up new wood as I go.
And as awful as it is to think about Oak handing me over, everything in me shies away from the story of my making. Am I no more than the sticks I carry and a little magic? Am I like a ragwort steed, something with only the appearance of life?
I feel sick and scared.
When we arrive back at the camp, Tiernan sets about moving the fire out from beneath the lean-to so it doesn’t set the whole thing ablaze once the sticks dry out. To keep my hands busy, I weave branches together and knot them with more pieces of my dress to create a mat for our dwelling. Everything is still wet, droplets falling from trees with every gust of wind, causing the fire to smoke and sputter. I try not to think about anything but what I am doing.
Eventually, the heat dries things out enough for Tiernan to stretch out on my dampish mat, kick off his soaked and muddy boots, and warm his wet feet by the fire. “What did she offer you for your help?”
I reach out my hand to the fire. Since I was formed of snow, I wonder if I will melt. I hold my fingers close enough to burn, but all that happens when I snatch them back is that the tips are reddened and they sting.
“Stop that,” Tiernan says.
I look over at him. “Bogdana’s offer was to not murder me and my family.”
“That had to be tempting,” he says.
“I’d prefer greater politeness than I’ve gotten from anyone who wants to use me for my power,” I tell him, knowing that what he wants to use me for is very different.
I think Tiernan hears a secret in my voice. But he cannot possibly guess what I have to hide. He cannot know what I am, nor why the storm hag believes I owe her. And if he wonders whether she told me that I am meant to be Madoc’s ransom, he will try to convince himself otherwise. If he didn’t like looking into my face knowing I was a sacrifice, how much worse would it be to look at me if I knew as well?
I am under no illusions that Bogdana would make for an easy ally, either. Too easily I can picture Bex confronting the storm hag, standing on her lawn in the moonlight. She must have felt dizzy with terror, the way I did when I first saw one of the Folk.
And yet Bex would not have been nearly afraid enough. I think about the phone in my pocket, now wishing that I could steal away and charge it, call her, warn her.
I stand and reach for Tiernan’s cloak. He gives me a sharp look.
“You should hang it to dry,” I say.
He undoes the clasp and lets me take it. I walk a short way to drape it over a branch, my fingers skirting over the cloth, looking for the strands of my hair he took. Such fine things, so easy to hide. Easy to lose, too, I hope, but I do not find them.
Oak’s whistling alerts us to his return. His hair is dry, and he’s wearing fresh clothes—jeans that are a little too short in the ankle, along with a cable-knit sweater the color of clotted cream. Over one shoulder he has the straps of a hiker’s backpack. Perching on the other is the owl-faced hob.
The creature eyes me with evident dislike and makes a low, whistling animal noise, then flies off to a high branch.
Oak dumps the pack beside the fire. “The town would be lovely during the day, I think, although it lacked something by night. There was a vegetarian place called the Church of Seitan and a farm stand that sold peaches by the bushel. Both closed. A nearby bus station, where various entertainments could be gotten in trade. Sadly, nothing I was in the market for.”
I glance up at the moon, visible since the storm cleared off. We began flying on the ragwort horses at dusk, so it must be well past mid-night now.
Oak unpacks, taking out and unfolding two tarps. On them, he places an assortment of groceries and a pile of mortal clothes. Nothing has tags, and one of the tarps has a small tear in it. He’s brought back a half-eaten rotisserie chicken in a plastic container. Peaches, despite his saying the stand was closed. Bread, nuts, and figs packed in a crumpled plastic bag from a hardware store. A gallon of fresh water, too, which he offers first to Tiernan. The knight takes a grateful swig from what ought to have been a milk jug, according to the sticker on the side.
“Where did you get all this?” I ask, because it obviously wasn’t from the shelves of any store. My voice comes out with more edge than I intended.
Oak gives me a mischievous smile. “I met the family at the farm stand, and they were enormously generous to a stranger caught in a storm on a windy night. Let me take a shower. Even blow-dry my hair.”
“You vain devil,” Tiernan says with a snort.
“That’s me,” Oak affirmed. He slides the strap of his own bag over his head and sets it down not too far from the fire. But not with the communal offerings from the backpack, either. That bag is where he must keep the bridle. “I persuaded the family to let me have a few things from their garage and refrigerator. Nothing they’ll miss.”
A shiver goes through me at the thought of him glamouring that family, or making them love him. I imagine a mother and father and child in the kitchen of their home, caught in a dream. A chubby toddler crying in a high chair while they brought the prince food and clothes, the baby’s cries seeming to come from farther and farther away.