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He laughed shortly. “I won’t hold that question against you, Anya, but no, I don’t hunt your kind. I find the sport, if you want to call it that, barbaric.”
I offered him a weak smile, for I believed he was being honest. “Thank you. I’m sorry for doubting you.”
“No harm done.” He gave his string of rabbits a shake. “Now go inside so I can skin these.”
I headed back to the house, knowing I should feel better about Thatcher in the aftermath of our encounter. But something about his behavior still made me uneasy, and I finally realized what it was—he hadn’t opened the door of the shack while I was there.
Everyone else was up when I reentered the cabin. Shea cast me a quizzical look, but did not ask where I’d been, nor did I volunteer any information. I simply began to help with breakfast preparations. Human cooking wasn’t much different from Fae cooking, despite the ridiculous gossip in Chrior that they ate their food raw, drank blood and cannibalized one another when their hunger grew too great.
Thatcher came inside in time for the meal, and we all ate together, though I made no attempt to participate in the family’s small talk. When I was finished, I retreated to my bedroom and kept to myself the rest of the day, wanting to concentrate my energy on healing. I was recovering more slowly than I had from any previous injury, and I could feel the anxiety this bred building within my body. My attempt to cross the Road had made me acutely aware that I was in a race against time. I needed to find Zabriel and bring him to Chrior before Queen Ubiqua died; and I needed to do it before the last of my magic was gone. The Bloody Road would kill me—that much was certain. Likewise, the Sale tucked in my pack would kill me if my nature was fully human. But if I had a sufficient trace of magic left in my being, the healing power of the drink might be enough to see me safely back to Davic and the Faerie Realm. My plan was to find Zabriel, then consume the Sale, leaving my fate to the amber liquid in my flask.
In the late afternoon, after preparations for the evening meal were well under way, Shea took me into her bedroom and offered me a choice of two dresses to wear for dinner. While I didn’t have a problem changing out of my leggings and shirt, I wondered what was behind this particular convention.
“If you don’t mind my asking, Shea, why does your family change into fancier clothing for this one meal?”
“It’s my dad’s idea. He wants us to end the day in a more civilized fashion. And my mom says it’s a way to remind us of our manners and how we should behave in polite company.”
I stared at her in confusion, wondering what polite company they expected to encounter out here in the wilderness.
Ignoring my expression, Shea smiled and tossed me the dress at which I was pointing. “You might say it’s one of our little quirks.”
She returned the garment I had rejected to the wardrobe, selected a different one for herself, and headed for the door.
“I’ll leave you to change, and then you can join us. Don’t worry—you’ll get used to our traditions. Besides, it’s actually kind of nice to feel like a princess, however briefly.”
Shea departed, and I lay the dress down on the bed to examine it. It had more buttons and ties, ruffles and bows, than anything I’d ever worn before. Celebratory gowns in the Faerie Realm were loose and flowing, although they were often decorated with beads or bits of colored stone.
I scratched my head, not even sure which side of the garment was the front. Putting it on was sizing up to be more challenging than learning to read the night sky. Eventually I managed it, and I was pleased that my biggest worry hadn’t materialized—the dress wasn’t too tight around my chest. I’d pictured having to face the family the entire meal, maneuvering my body in order to hide the open back that was necessary to keep pressure off my injuries.
I went to examine myself in the mirror on the wall, and hardly recognized the young woman staring back at me. The hair and eyes were correct, but I looked more like a doll than a living, breathing person. I combed my fingers through my loose auburn hair, then entered the main room to take my place at the table.
This evening’s meal consisted of a delicious rabbit stew served with thick slices of bread. The younger girls talked animatedly, and the overall conversation was punctuated with murmurs of “please” and “thank you.” Maybe this custom wasn’t such a bad one, after all.
When everyone had eaten their fill, I helped Shea with the dishes, while Elyse did some mending and Thatcher drew his younger daughters around his fireside chair to entertain them with card tricks and shadow puppets. When Elyse rose to usher the girls to bed, Shea cast several glances at her father before finally posing a question that I sensed ran counter to her better judgment.
“Dad, will you be hunting again soon?”
“Yes, I want to fill the shack before the weather gets harsher. Why do you ask?”
“I want to go with you. We’ll bring back twice the game.”
Thatcher perused his daughter while he slowly exhaled his pipe smoke, and the tension in the room ratcheted upward. Knowing my presence was no longer needed, and likely not wanted by Shea’s father, I stole to the bedroom. I left the door open a crack, however, and peered out at the argumentative pair.
“You haven’t held a gun in months,” Thatcher asserted, giving Shea the same look I had received from him before he had locked me in the bedroom the previous morning: an assiduous stare that suggested something precious to him was being threatened. “I only taught you to use a pistol in case of an emergency. Besides, your mother needs you here.”
“She can get by without me,” Shea replied with a touch of belligerence, taking a few steps toward him. “Maggie and Marissa are old enough to help her with the cooking and the laundry. You can easily teach me to shoot a hunting gun— I’m tired of being in the house all the time.”
“The alternative would do more than tire you.” There was danger in Thatcher’s voice, and I had the impression he was no longer talking about hunting.
“It might interest me. But never mind that. What is it you always say? You can’t put a price on my safety. But you can put one on my freedom. You don’t have any problem with that.”
Agitated, Thatcher shifted position as though to get up, only to decide against it.
“Shea, you’re not coming with me. If you’re bored, I’ll ask your mother to find more for you to do.”
With a disgusted groan, Shea stormed toward the bedroom. Remembering at the last moment that I occupied it, she halted, her face scrunched with deliberation. Then she knocked upon the wood. I waited a few seconds before inviting her in, not wanting her to know I’d been eavesdropping.
She closed the door and strode to the bedside table, where she struck a match to light the lamp. I watched her carefully constructed expression for signs that I could broach the topic. Then I realized she wouldn’t have come in here if she didn’t want to talk.
“How much is the price on your freedom?” I ventured.
Shea laughed bitterly, the emotion not really directed at me. “I knew you’d be listening. I kind of hoped you would be, if I’m honest.”
“Then...what do you want from me?”
“I want to know if you’ve ever thought someone—someone who’s always been right before—was wrong. About a very important matter.”
I laughed more loudly than she had. Buying a little time, I went to my pack and unsheathed the Anlace, examining the blade. Had I ever questioned someone who was wise and powerful? Ubiqua had handed me her crown. Yet where was I now? Lost in the woods, lodging with human strangers, unable to return home. I should have trusted my aunt’s judgment when she had commanded me to stay in Chrior; I should have listened to my father and Davic. All of which made me the last person who should be giving advice on this subject.
“Why are you asking me?”
“Do you see anyone else I can ask?”
It was a fair point. The Mores lived an austere and solitary life. “Yes, I’ve thought that. It’s the reason I crossed the Road. It’s the reason I ended up that bloody mess your father found.”
Shea paused, digesting this information as she chewed on a thumbnail. “Where were you headed before the hunters attacked you?”
“Nowhere, potentially everywhere. I’m looking for a cousin of mine. He ran away two years ago, but his mother is dying and she wants to see him before she does.”
I stopped, deciding Shea didn’t need to know that the stakes were higher than this, that my cousin’s mother was the Queen and that the fragile politics of two races hung in the balance.
“What did she do to chase him away?”
It was a blunt question, and a rather bizarre reaction to my story. Shea assumed automatically that Ubiqua was to blame for Zabriel’s flight, while I’d never considered that the Queen might be at fault. Feeling it wasn’t her business, I didn’t respond.
“Sounds like an important task,” Shea continued, undisturbed by my evasiveness. “I hope your luck improves from here on out. Lord knows, this family has little to spare.” She laughed self-consciously, as though she had revealed something she should not. “But thank you for being honest, Anya. I haven’t had someone be straight with me for a while now. And I haven’t had a friend in even longer.”
I didn’t bring up the fact that, discounting the time I’d spent unconscious, she’d known me for a total of three days. But then, who was I to reject her offer? She’d saved my life but a day earlier, at risk of her own. There was hardly a better foundation for building trust.
“You can have your bed back,” I volunteered, thinking it no longer fair of me to inconvenience her. “I can sleep on the floor.”
“No,” she said, almost recoiling at the thought. “For one thing, you’re hurt. And for another, you’re a guest. Now let me have a look at your wounds.”
I carefully removed and hung the dinner dress, then let Shea care for my back. After her departure, I crawled into bed, though I left the lamp lit, suspecting she might claim the floor in here rather than her sisters’ room. I heard her come in a little while later, and allowed myself a tentative smile. The barriers between us were falling away. And maybe I needed a friend as much as she did.
CHAPTER SIX
THE PRICE OF FREEDOM
Over the next few days, I joined in more of the family’s activities, helping with meals, playing with the younger girls, and assisting Marissa with her reading and letters. While I had never before spent such intimate time among a human family, I couldn’t help but think their lifestyle peculiar, even for their species. They lived far away from any human settlement, from any neighbors, ostensibly preferring to keep their own company. Thatcher, in particular, continued to make me nervous. From what I could tell, he hunted, cleaned, and repaired his weapons, chopped firewood and prowled the area around the cabin as though on alert for intruders. He appeared to have no livelihood, and even when he relaxed in his armchair with his pipe in the evening, his gun was never out of reach.
My initial assessment of Elyse as timid was a gross understatement, though the reason for her meekness remained unclear. I had assumed she was afraid of her husband, but he never raised his voice or hand to her. Instead, it seemed she was afraid of life itself.
Even though I was on the road to recovery, my body felt heavy and sluggish. I probably weighed less without my wings, but my inability to hover made me feel rooted in a way I never had before. It felt like the earth was working against me, like it was trying to prevent every step I took. This sense of discontinuity with the natural world was demoralizing, and never more apparent than when I bathed and was surrounded by water—water that, when I’d been in possession of my elemental connection, had hugged my skin gently and kept me warm like a silken coat. Now it pressed on me, pulling at me and making it hard to breathe. Before long, I dreaded submerging myself in the treacherous substance. With no ability to communicate with it, the water’s raw power was evident, and I feared the element that had once been my closest ally.
* * *
I was outside one afternoon with Shea, fetching firewood, when three sharp cracks punched through the air, startling us both.
“What’s going on?” I asked, clutching the Anlace that was sheathed at my hip. I scanned the trees, which hugged the More house almost constrictively, on alert for a threat.
“Gunshots,” Shea said shortly. “But not from my father. He doesn’t hunt this close to home. Something’s wrong.”
She patted the pocket of her coat as though to check its contents, then rushed into the trees. I sprinted after her, suspecting I would be more effective in a conflict than she would be—I wasn’t wearing a dress, and would be calmer if Thatcher was injured. Besides, she’d saved my life when I’d run off.
Shea was faster than I expected, or else I was slower, and again I bemoaned the loss of my wings for handicapping me. I caught up to her when she halted, confused about which way to go, for snow was falling and the footprints Thatcher had left on departure were gone.
“Follow me,” I said, mentally re-creating the gunfire in my head. The shots had so abruptly broken the quietude that I could still hear them ringing in my ears, and I thought I could guide us closer to their point of origin. Eventually the sound of a male voice reached us, and we jogged toward it, taking care in case there was peril ahead. We broke into a ring of trees, but heard no sounds other than the dull rustling of an animal in the distance.
“Dad!” Shea screamed, forgetting caution, and I rushed to quiet her, pressing my palm across her mouth. I’d already been attacked once in this forest. What if the voice we’d heard belonged to one of the contract hunters about whom Thatcher had told me? She tore my hand away, her eyes darting frantically about.
“What are you doing out here?”
Thatcher pushed his way through the underbrush and into the small clearing, dragging a dead buck. Close on his heels was a burly, bearded man with blank eyes and a hunting gun resting against his shoulder.
Shea pressed her hands against her cheeks. “I heard the gunfire. I thought something bad had happened.”
Thatcher’s heavy brows dove toward his nose. “And if something had happened, what were you planning to do about it?”
Her jaw clenched tightly, Shea withdrew a silver pistol from her coat pocket. “I came armed.”
Though I instinctively shied away from the weapon, I looked at her with new respect. I did not know how much skill she had with the gun, but at the very least she was willing to defend herself. Thatcher glanced at the burly hunter, who was stroking his beard as though he was bored or hard of hearing. Somewhat more relaxed, he then shook his head at Shea, although he did not otherwise address his daughter’s readiness to do battle. Instead, he motioned to his companion.
“I ran into Gray here. He was tracking this buck and I helped him. We’re going to split the meat back at our place. Let’s get going.”
Thatcher and the hunter headed off, Shea trailing without objection, but I hesitated. Our flight from the cabin had taken us in a direction opposite the Bloody Road, into a part of the forest with which I was not familiar, and a strong sense of apprehension stole over me.
I stood still, barely breathing, the hair on my arms and the back of my neck prickling. Glancing around, I soon found the reason for the feeling. Every tree in the ring that surrounded the clearing was scratched, as though marked by a wild animal. I pressed my memory, but couldn’t recall the markings being there when Shea and I had arrived, though my senses, lacking magical enhancement, didn’t pick up peripheral detail in the same way they once had. Even more disconcerting, each set of scratches was level with my head. Shea was shorter than me, Thatcher and Gray taller, and no scratches announced their heights. It was as if some creature had made me a crown.
A drop of icy water landed between my shoulders and slipped down my spine, and I jumped, breaking free of the trees’ bewitchment. Trying to will away my misgivings, I followed the trail of deer’s blood until I caught up with the others.
Once back at the More residence, Thatcher and Gray took their kill to the shack that stood behind the house. Shea and I went inside and sat before the fireplace in the main room, warming ourselves in silence, and I tried to assess the damage I might have done to my back with today’s exercise. While I couldn’t be sure, it felt like I was bleeding, and I wanted to scream in frustration at the sluggish rate of my recovery. Behind us, Elyse busied herself with dinner preparations.
“You two are quiet,” she said, and I jumped at the sound of her voice. She was so meek that I never really expected her to have one. With a huge sigh, Shea came to her feet, leaving her coat and pistol on the chair.
“It’s nothing. Just Dad. He wouldn’t take me hunting with him and now he’s angry because I followed him.”
Elyse nodded, curling her body around the stove as if she wanted to become part of it, to disappear entirely. What was it about this family? Shea was brash and defiant. Elyse acted like a horrible fate awaited her every time she spoke. Thatcher continually scrutinized me, presumably thinking I had an ulterior motive for being there, when he was the one who had saved my life. If all humans lived like this, they were a stranger species than even Illumina or anyone in the Anti-Unification League realized.
We washed and changed into dinner dresses, then ate without Thatcher, who was still helping Gray divide the meat. The younger girls had already been sent to bed by the time he entered, and Elyse hastened to prepare him a plate of food. But it wasn’t food that interested him. Waving his wife away like she was a buzzing fly, he called for his eldest daughter.
“Shea, grab your coat and meet me by the shack.”
Shea’s head jerked in her father’s direction as he once more left the house, and she quickly obeyed his bidding. Elyse, looking uncomfortable, went to check on the younger girls, while I retreated to the bedroom, leaving the door partway open in case father and daughter returned. I was determined to find out what was happening, and didn’t trust that Shea would tell me. Crossing the room, I carefully opened the window in the hope that my sharp Fae hearing would enable me to catch their conversation. I knew Shea was in trouble, but I wasn’t sure why.
At first, all I detected were rumblings; then Shea’s voice became strident.
“I want out of here! You can’t keep us locked up forever.”
“Locked up?” Thatcher’s voice rose ominously. “You think this is a prison? Try hard labor, Shea. Try servitude. Try paying back a debt to society.”
“A debt to society? No, you owe a debt to that government man. And I could respect you for fighting that debt. But you’re not fighting. You’re running, and you’re dragging your family down with you.”
“I will not have you speak to me like that! I have done everything to keep you safe—”
“Everything except own up to what you did.”
A long silence followed Shea’s acidic response, then I heard the cabin door open and Thatcher’s thunderous footsteps upon the floor. The door closed, telling me that his daughter had likewise come inside. I hastened to the other side of the bedroom, intent on continuing to eavesdrop, this time watching, as well, through the crack in the door.
Thatcher saw his daughter’s gun out of the corner of his eye, still lying on the chair. The fire at his back was feeble, and I could hardly see what he was doing as he strode across the room. Then he handed the silver pistol to Shea, the bullets clutched in his fist.
“You don’t need these,” he growled. “I’m letting you keep that gun because it was your grandfather’s, but don’t push me, Shea.”
“Take the bullets. Take whatever you want. That doesn’t change a thing.” Shea tore off her overcoat and flung the gun on top of it. “You’re not listening to me. I told you—I want out of here. Stop being a coward.”
Thatcher stared, openmouthed, and I tensed, thinking he might strike her.
Shea hoped he would hit her. I knew it the moment Thatcher chose to admit defeat, stumbling away from her, and her posture shrank with telltale guilt. Still caught up in her anger, she looked to be on the verge of tears, but managed to whisper an apology. Turning from her father, she strode into our room, opening the door so forcefully she nearly knocked me over, then closing it with purpose.
“Why doesn’t telling the truth feel better than this?” she demanded, gripping the handle with a white-knuckled fist, the slam of the front door in the background telling us Thatcher had left once more for the shed.
“What is the truth, Shea?” I thought I needed to know—both for my protection and for her sanity.
She bit her thumbnail, deliberating, then words poured from her mouth like a dam had broken.
“My father crossed someone in Ivanova’s pocket. It was a while ago, over two years now. When he ran, he made his family collateral—any of us can serve his sentence, seven years in the Governor’s service if we’re caught. My father sold our freedom to keep his own.”
“What did he do?” I asked, struggling to grasp the situation. What could anyone do to earn seven years of servitude? This explained why Shea had been eager to be friends with me—a family on the run had no chance to form bonds.
“It’s no secret that Ivanova is a narcissist. There are three social classes in Warckum—the Governor’s friends, the surviving, and the slowly dying. His friends sleep on feather beds and eat imported delicacies, while the lower classes waste away. We thought fortune was at last smiling on us when one of the feather beds commissioned work from my father. He was a woodworker in Tairmor, and all it takes is a smile from one of Governor Ivanova’s men to change your entire existence in that city. But then Dad objected to some part of the project and didn’t deliver. I’ve never known exactly what went wrong, but it’s obvious he didn’t make a wise decision.”
I remembered Illumina’s rants against humanity, and was filled with a new appreciation for my aunt. Ubiqua had never punished my cousin for disagreeing with her. She could have. Certainly Illumina’s words had never been welcome, and her father’s ties to the AUL had always been of concern. The Queen could have silenced my cousin’s opinions and objections, just like Thatcher More’s had been silenced.
“So your father was convicted of some offense against the government?”
“Not convicted, just sentenced,” Shea scoffed. “When we heard a warrant had been issued for his arrest, we fled to Sheness. We hoped to bribe our way onto a ship and leave the continent and the Warckum Territory for good, but the port city was handling an influx of armed forces. So we headed inland, all the way east to the Balsam Forest, where people worry more about crossing the Fae than the Governor’s laws. Here there are no patrols. But here there is also no life, at least on this side of the Road.”
She slumped to the floor on her makeshift bed, tossing one arm across her forehead.
