The stones wobbled, and then loosened, tumbling inward one by one. As each row crumbled more stones shoved up to take its place, pouring from the earth in an endless fountain. The percussion of clattering rocks drowned out every other sound, and chalk dust billowed like smoke. Rook reached my side, and we staggered away together just as the clearing heaved, throwing everyone to the ground. I felt, rather than saw, the final eruption of stones. One as large as a wagon wheel rolled past us, leaving a trail of crushed ferns and bent saplings behind.
When the air cleared an immense cairn sat where the Green Well had been, a brooding tumble of rock that already looked a thousand years old. Regardless of what happened to us now, I took a fierce satisfaction in knowing that the hateful thing was ruined, that no mortal would face its torment after me. No one would meet Aster’s fate ever again.
The place where Gadfly had stood was buried beneath enough rubble to crush a man ten times over. He was gone.
Foxglove was the first to react. “She has destroyed the Green Well!” she howled, scrambling toward us on her hands and knees. Rook dealt her a blow across the face with an out-swung forearm, flinging her aside. Her head struck the cairn with a wet, hollow crack. Moss surged over the stones, covering them halfway, followed by a riot of purple wildflowers springing up between the cracks. Of Foxglove’s body, nothing remained. She was dead. I’d just seen a fair one die.
The other fair folk descended upon us. This time it was Hemlock who seized me and hauled me to my feet. It took four to overwhelm Rook; he threw each of them off before they managed to subdue him together, restraining his arms in wary tandem, shooting glances at Foxglove’s remains over their shoulders.
Amid the exclamations of horror and wordless keening, one person laughed. Senses dulled by pain, it took me a moment to identify the source. Aster lay on the ground, running her hand across the moss in front of her, as though feeling it again for the first time after a long imprisonment. Tears streamed down her face, and she laughed and laughed deliriously. I stared at her without comprehension until I realized what was different. She was human again.
“That was awfully clever of you, mortal,” said Hemlock into my ear. Her mouth was so close I heard her lips part to speak. Her breath brushed against my face, cold as frost. She smelled more frightful than any other fair one I’d encountered: I had a vision of endless, ice-locked pines, and mountains rising in the distance with snow dusting their peaks, and wolves leaping through the drifts with fresh blood soaking their jaws. Her armor’s rough bark scraped against my back. “Or, it wasn’t clever at all. It’s ever so hard to tell sometimes. Hold still.”
I expected her to kill me there on the spot. I wasn’t prepared for her to seize my dislocated arm and wrench it back into its socket with a brutal twist. I was so taken by surprise I didn’t even cry out. The pain in my shoulder faded to a dull throb.
“There you are. I simply cannot stand the sound of humans whimpering. Come along, everyone! Stop moaning. Get up.”
At Hemlock’s call, the trees surrounding the clearing thrashed, snapped, and rustled. A thane stepped forth, bowing its head to free its antlers from the branches. Its glamour streamed from it in ragged pennants. One moment it was a handsome stag of majestic proportions; another it was a monstrous forest growth skittering with insects, its eyes dark knotholes weeping rivulets of decay. When it turned and looked at me I felt something else, ancient and implacable, gazing through it.
“This mortal has just earned us an audience with the Alder King,” Hemlock finished. And she whirled me around before I’d processed the words, marching me back the way we had come. The fair folk picked up and followed us, clutching their disheveled clothes, gazing around wide-eyed. They left Aster behind as though they’d forgotten she even existed.
At first I had not a clue where Hemlock meant to take us, until I spied the riven stone in the distance. Rook lurched upright nearby. He’d thrown off two of his detainers and made it halfway to us by the time they managed to get him down again. One received an elbow to the chest for his trouble. Rook thrashed beneath them, spitting out dirt. “Do not take us this way,” he said to Hemlock. “You know mortals aren’t meant to walk the fairy paths.”
She aimed a dangerous smile down at him. “Do you propose we keep the king waiting?”
“The Huntsman always strove for a clean kill. A fair death.”
The smile froze in place. “She used to,” she replied, so low I barely heard it. Then without another word she dragged me forward. The others heaved Rook, resisting, to his feet.