Chapter 37
Talvie
There’s warmth now, and a soft surface under me. The scent of wood smoke and the familiar murmur of voices tell me where I am.
The cottage. Home.
I think I’m on the sofa. Voices rise and fall around me—some that feel complicated, some warm and familiar, calling to me.
“…dew from the glasshouse,” Katja is saying. “It has to be dawn dew, and the sun’s almost crested the trees.”
“You go get that, Doc. And hurry.” Lark’s voice cuts through the fog.
“On my way,” she replies over the fluttering of wings, “but you hurry too, Lark. Don’t forget the hearing.”
“The…oh, storms. The hearing!” Lark’s groan is all too real. “That’s at midday.”
“We can’t reschedule. Sentry Niemi made that very clear.”
“I know, Doc. We won’t miss it. I won’t let you down.”
“But…Val was supposed to be there.”
“I know.” Lark drops his voice. “But I promise you I’ll fight like the kraken to keep you kids, even if I have to do it alone. You know I will. Now hurry before the dew’s gone…”
I jolt at the rush of wings. The hearing! If I don’t wake in time, I’ll be letting Lark down. Missing the play was bad enough, but this would be a thousand times worse. It feels like the dark is squeezing the air from my lungs as I push against it. Why can’t I wake?
“Are you back, Valkie?” Lumi’s voice threads through my barren nightmare.
“Lumi? Where did I go?”
“Only to a deeper sleep as they carried you to the cottage. Lumi did not leave you.”
“I’m still not awake?” The tender spot in my chest aches.
“Not yet. Soon, snowdrop. They are dividing tasks for the counterspell,” Lumi tells me. “The twins and Mikael are gathering sunbeams in a shimmer flask. Katja fetches the dawn dew, and Lark is preparing to take Helkki and Beron to the spring for moonflowers and a gremlin.”
A gremlin? I focus hard. A small, warm hand shifts on my ankle.
Lark’s voice tugs at me, and I reach for it like a tether through the black fog.
“Helkki, bring gloves. We only want the gremlin biting our intended victim.”
Beron’s answering rumble is gruff. “Fantastic. Can’t wait.”
“Aw, just one little gremlin bite and one little teardrop. Our big, tough Head Huntsman can handle it.”
“Try me and find out, Illusionist.” Beron growls back, but with no real venom. Interesting.
Then I hear an old softness in a once familiar voice. “Be sure they’re true moonflowers. Glory moon vine looks nearly identical but would turn the spell into poison,” Taynia says.
Memories press in of nights spent sprawled in front of a fire, talking and sipping faerie wine together. She almost sounds…concerned.
“Yes, Your Majesty. I know the difference.” It’s good to hear Lark trust himself, at least in matters of botany.
More memories come in a wave. The pond, the curse, Lark finding me, thawing me free, Beron and Taynia arriving… Wait, was there a mule?
And the things they said.
They broke through to Taynia. She may still be thawing, but she’s here, helping break this curse. The mother I once knew is in there somewhere, if only she can uncover that forgotten piece.
And Beron… “Wait, Lumi! Did Beron hire Lark and the troupe to stage the distraction on the road? He knew it was fake?”
“Apparently so,” the moon confirms.
“He arranged my escape. He didn’t betray me.”
My eyes burn with unshed tears. Beron might have betrayed his loyalty to the queen, but he upheld his loyalty to me. And maybe he knew Taynia better than she knows herself, sensing she’d regret it. He looked out for me then, and again when he tampered with the potion.
Why was I so ready to accept betrayal and abandonment as my fate? Why couldn’t I believe others would care for me?
Like Lark.
How often has he shown me he cares? From the first day he saved me, lifted me up, taught me skills without ever making me feel bad. Instead, he made me feel valued. Precious…his kulta.
Lark, who is so selfless and warm-spirited, who laughs and teases, who fixes a sink as easily as he spins the most elaborate illusions.
Lark, who has known who I was this entire time. He showed me more trust and loyalty in keeping my secret than I ever could have earned in a century of trying. I’m the one who doesn’t deserve him.
“He loves me.”
“He does,” Lumi agrees.
“I love him.”
“You do.”
“Why isn’t that enough, Lumi? Why doesn’t he believe it’s enough? Why doesn’t he believe he’s enough?”
I hate this.
I hate that the world has made him doubt, and that I never gave him reason not to. I hate that I never told him how I feel, or who I really am, or that I love all of him, no matter what society thinks about it.
“Valkie already knows why. We have seen much these past few fortnights living among the Wilder folk, and Valkie knows now.”
I sigh.
Of course, Lark would never believe I could love him.
His own people made him an outcast, forcing him to hide his nature and keep his ears under that drowning hat all the time.
Even if the Wilder Fae did accept him, the divide between our kinds feels insurmountable.
He has no reason to think a Point Fae royal could ever be with a Wild One.
I don’t care about that, though. I’ll fight anyone who tries to tell me I can’t be with him, and that includes my own stepmother.
He’s worth it.
He’s worth whatever it takes. I’m ready to show him the world he deserves to live in, even if it means I have to build it myself, one brick at a time.
“Lumi, can I ask you something?”
“Anything, little snowdrop.”
“Why do the Wilder Fae live the way they do outside the capital? Ylvara has proper homes with walls and hearths. Why do others live in such squalor?”
“There is a law against Wilder structures so close to the capital. Those desperate enough to choose life near the Point Fae can ill afford homes anyway, so they migrate to the capital to survive off scraps and hope. Living in a shanty is only one more abasement on top of many.”
At the beginning of this journey, I would have gasped in outrage. Now, that’s sadly what I expected to hear. The Hinterlands doesn’t treat folk as equal, nor with the respect all fae deserve. No wonder Lark doesn’t expect a Point Fae to stand up for him.
“I need to wake up. I need him to understand, and then I need to change this, Lumi. This land has to wake up too.”
“Valkie will be the spark.”
Maybe, but am I too late?
There’s been nothing but occasional footsteps crossing the floor, the scrape of a chair, and a low hum of movement or voices for too long.
“What’s going on out there?”
“She watches over you,” Lumi says. “Though she pretends not to.”
“Who? Aili? I can feel a little hand on my leg.”
“Her too.” Lumi brightens in my mind. “Though she is not who I meant.”
Taynia.
“She is not so cold as she was, but neither is she accepting yet of the heat inside her. She keeps glancing your way. Taynia regrets, but grief waits close behind it, and she fears to feel it.”
I want to rub at the ache in my sternum, but I can’t move. I hate this.
A small voice draws me back. “Why did you hurt her?” Aili grumbles.
“Oh.” Taynia takes a shaky breath. “I—I thought I had to.”
“Why?” Louder. Grumpier.
“Well…it felt like the only way.” More stilted breaths, then a chair scrapes closer.
“When my husband died, I buried everything else along with him. That day…it broke me. I couldn’t be drowning in grief while there was a land to protect and rule.
And I didn’t know what to do with a grieving girl who reminded me of him every moment.
I never expected to be left alone with her. ”
“You didn’t want her?” Aili’s question is so frank, yet so honest, it kind of breaks my heart.
Taynia’s response cracks it open. “I loved Talvie like she was my own. I—I still do.”
My stomach leaps in a way I’m not proud to admit, but her words hit deep. Craving her approval is a tough habit to break, even after all the time I spent telling myself I didn’t need her. It turns out I never managed to turn off the hope and bury it under false hate.
“This is hard,” Taynia murmurs. “I expected the regret, but not this much pain.”
Aili’s hand leaves my leg, and I miss it immediately. But then, I make out the soft sound of patting. Oh my sweet waters, is my adorable little grump patting the Ice Queen’s arm? My heart explodes inside me.
More pats. Swishing fabric. A soft, “Oh.”
“Lumi? Lumi…is Aili hugging her?”
“That appears accurate, yes.”
Storms. My heart.
Aili’s not so different from Taynia, at the core. It’s hitting me like rolling thunder how much I love her and the other kids. I can’t leave them now when they need me most!
“Lumi, how long until the CPS hearing?”
“The sun has risen, but there’s still time.”
The twins’ voices herald their return, along with the soft click of the door being closed by gentle Mika. Katja is next to return with a flutter, and finally the rest, coming in with triumphant shouts from Helkki about her gremlin-wrangling prowess.
“Beron, you cried?” Taynia asks with amused disbelief.
“No.” He’s extra gruff. “My eye leaked for a moment. That’s all.”
The kids’ giggles are a balm to my aching soul. I need to wake up.
Soon, the scent of moonflower and lavender stirs, followed by the honeyed tang of something sun-warmed and strange. A slow bubbling sound seeps through the haze in my mind.
“They are brewing the counterspell,” Lumi informs me. “Beron is stirring while Lark adds ingredients. Helkki keeps telling them to add sugar.”
Her voice is a brush of light against the dark. If I could move, I’d be pacing.
Brew faster, I want to yell. I need Lark to take the potion and free me from this terrible prison.
“The potion glows like frostbitten flames,” the moon tells me after an age passes. “Lark adds the Valerian root now. Lucky we had so much on hand.”
“I’d feel luckier if I were awake.”
“Patience, snowdrop,” Lumi says, her voice tinkling like a moonlit stream, calming the anxiety knotted in my throat.
Footsteps. Low voices. The creak of a door.
Finally, Taynia’s voice is cool and controlled when she says, “It’s ready.”
Silence stretches through the cottage. It lingers like dense fog, settling.
Stifling.
It goes on so long, I’m about to ask Lumi what’s happening again.
Finally, Helkki breaks it. “So…who’s going to wake her?”
I can almost picture the looks they’re exchanging. There’s only one answer, and I wait for it, straining to hear.
“I can’t,” Lark says finally. “It can’t be me.”
Of course it can! I want to shout. It’s always been you! Only you! I want to jump up and shake him until he believes in himself. Believe in us, Lark!
But the words stay locked inside, smothered by the darkness.