Seventeen
WHEN THE FOG CLEARED, we were back on the dark, thorn-choked path through Maeve’s woods.
“So much for putting us back where we were before,” I muttered, lowering my candle and reaching for Tybalt’s hand as I started forward.
We needed to get through this wood as quickly as we could. I didn’t know how much time Raysel had.
The Children’s Hall transformed its occupants, but the process wasn’t instant, or even particularly fast. She could be in there for days without transforming at all; she could be twisted into something I wouldn’t be able to recognize in a matter of hours.
I was reasonably sure of my ability to reverse whatever Michael’s lingering magic did to her; my own magic had grown so much since I was a captive there that I was all but certain I could loop my mental fingers through the strands of his spell and snap them one by one, freeing her from whatever she had become. But she didn’t need the trauma.
Being transformed into something that you’re not, against your will and without your influence, is a terrible experience.
It’s terrifying, and the scars it leaves are just as deep as scars carved into flesh.
I’ve been transformed enough times to know that the fear and the agony don’t go away just because the process is reversed.
Raysel had already been through enough. She didn’t need to be treated like a plaything by people who should never have been allowed to touch her in the first place.
Tybalt didn’t argue as I hauled him down the path, only allowed himself to be pulled in my wake, not attempting to pull his hand out of my own.
Between us, our candles cast enough light to let us see where we were stepping, making it relatively easy to avoid the roots and brambles cutting across our path, as long as we kept our pace slow and measured.
Going any faster, we might have a problem.
In the distance, a hunting horn sounded.
I exchanged a quick, almost-frantic look with Tybalt. “It can’t be—” I said. “I mean, they don’t have a hunt leader. They can’t actually be hunting.”
“Riders can ride for reasons other than a formal Hunt,” he said, and it wasn’t clear whether he was agreeing with me or telling me something he thought I needed to be worried about.
The horn sounded again, closer this time, although still far enough away that they might not be heading specifically for us.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm the terror that was trying to kindle in my stomach.
I wasn’t a child this time. I wasn’t a victim.
And I could still feel my skin getting tight and my heart starting to beat too fast, remembering the last time I’d heard those horns at my back.
Then the horn sounded a third time, underscored by the sound of closing hooves, and I knew that all my fears were true ones.
I broke into a run, hauling Tybalt along with me until his hand slipped from mine.
I stumbled, almost turning around, only to start running faster as a tabby cat streaked past me in the dark, tail carried low and fur puffed out in all directions.
He knew we were in danger as well as I did, and honestly, I was happy to have him ahead of me.
Let me take whatever hits there were to absorb.
I could recover from them, while he possibly couldn’t.
I would be less afraid if I knew he was safe.
I would be less afraid. I would be less afraid. And maybe if I kept telling myself that, it would be true.
Arrows began to tear through the briars around me, slashing through the air with a terrible ripping sound, like someone was slashing holes in a piece of canvas just behind us.
They probably wouldn’t use elf-shot; they’d always wanted to carry their victims back to the skerry, and Michael hadn’t wanted his children to sleep away their youths.
He’d wanted them for his stables and his ranks, and that required them to be awake.
It was possible the Riders had learned new tricks in his absence, but that seemed unlikely.
Although there was still the possibility of— An arrow embedded itself in the meat of my thigh before I could finish the thought, the impact accompanied by a stinging sensation that spread rapidly through my flesh.
I tried to keep running, but my feet were suddenly heavy, seeming to stick to the ground for precious seconds as I attempted to rip them up and continue moving forward.
After three steps, I could no longer lift my feet.
I looked down, coldly unsurprised to see that I had grown roots, splitting my shoes and sealing my feet to the path.
I twisted as far as I could, drawing my shell knife with my free hand and holding it up like that was going to be enough to hold back an entire group of armed hunters on horseback.
They came charging out of the dark only a few seconds later, pulling up short of trampling me where I stood.
I didn’t recognize any of them, and at the same time, I recognized them all, because they were the Riders of Blind Michael’s Hunt, twisted, faceless, and familiar.
Several of them were laughing, the sound deep and low in their chests, rattling there as they advanced on me.
“Could have walked away,” said one of them. “Could have been grateful for the Lady’s hospitality, and gone in peace and on an open road. But you had to come back here, by the light of a candle.”
“Now you get to stay,” said another. “Stay forever, as you should have all along. Stay silent and strong and not putting your little fingers where they aren’t desired, where they don’t belong. Now you get to rest. Don’t you want to rest?”
“Go to hell,” I snarled, slashing at the air with my knife.
I couldn’t reach very far, couldn’t reach them, not without the ability to move my legs.
My feet were entirely numb, and the numbness was spreading rapidly up my legs, far more rapidly than it had the last time I’d fallen afoul of what felt like Acacia’s magic.
She wasn’t our enemy, was she? Things hadn’t changed that much while I’d been trying to find the answers to Raysel’s disappearance?
The numbness spread past my knees, and the normal flex and adjustment of being a standing biped was suddenly gone, leaving me rooted firm and rigid where I stood.
It kept spreading. It would pass my hips soon.
I glanced down. My jeans were vanishing as the numbness spread, replaced by rough brown bark.
My descendant line was always going to be easy to transform, according to the Luidaeg, who was one of the only people truly in a position to know.
Maybe that was why this was happening so much faster than it had before: I was more fae now than I’d been the last time I was in Blind Michael’s lands.
In this specific way, I was more vulnerable.
But these weren’t Blind Michael’s lands.
I was still on the Thorn Road, and Acacia didn’t have access to this route: only children of Maeve and those who had been specifically granted access by a child of Maeve could walk here.
If the Riders were in this space, they must have found someone who would open the door for them.
If they’d gone to the Luidaeg, she wouldn’t have had a choice in the matter. Anyone who could pay her could command her magic. But she was my daughter’s godmother, and she didn’t want to raise my child herself. She would have found a way to warn me. She would have—
The numbness hit my middle, cresting over my hips and into my abdomen. The pain was sudden and intense. I moaned involuntarily, glaring at the Riders as I did.
“That will be your organs beginning to turn,” said one of them, in a tone that sounded almost like an attempt to be helpful. “It should only hurt for as long as there’s flesh to change.”
“Not the reassurance you think it is,” I said. I could feel the numbness creeping toward my lungs.
For the fae, turning enemies into trees is a time-honored tradition, and one that we’ve had plenty of time to practice on.
I was certain I could survive it and be turned back.
It had happened to other people I knew, and they didn’t heal like I did; even if the interruption in the beating of my heart technically killed me before I switched over to a tree’s circulatory system, I would be able to recover.
It didn’t make the sensation any more pleasant, or the prospect of becoming fully wooden any better.
“Can you stop this?” I asked.
The nearest Rider pulled hard on the reins of their horse, causing it to dance in place before starting to turn. “We could,” they said. “But we won’t. Enjoy your rest, traitor.”
Then the whole company of them turned, cantering off down the path and into the trees. Silence followed their departure.
I looked down at my body, or as much of it as I could see. The bark was spreading, smoothing out my curves and crevices and replacing them with rounded, unyielding wood. I bit the inside of my cheek, sucking hard to draw every drop of blood from the wound that I could get, then looked again.
Thin green and golden lines ran through my transformed flesh, Acacia’s spell taking hold.
They were delicate and lacy, and spreading rapidly, multiplying in a way that made it clear I wouldn’t be able to outpace them.
If I started snapping threads, the remainder would just continue to spread.
I had to hope that I would still be aware of myself as a tree, even if it was a different form of awareness, and could start plucking the threads away in my own time. If not …
The sun never rose on the Thorn Road, and sunlight is one of the few things that can break down and dismantle transformations. The sunrise was how I’d been able to come back from my time in the pond. Without it, I could very well be trapped. There might be no getting out of this.
The lines spread higher, the numbness traveling with them, until it felt like a fist was compressing my chest, squeezing all the air out of me. I tried to catch my breath, struggling against the transformation for just a little more time.
But there wasn’t any more time. The numbness surged again, and the last of the air was crushed out of me, and my thoughts tumbled down into the dark, into the soft, silent place where the dreams of trees are dreamt.