Chapter 13 Bear & Donkey #2
Once Devil had extricated himself, Jon stood on his two back legs and easily reached up to yank the arrow out between his jaws.
Devil took it from him and bit a large chunk from the apple while Jon sat back on his haunches to reach above his head with a paw nearly the size of my entire torso.
Deliberately and carefully, he batted at the other apples above him, knocking several more to the ground.
I went to retrieve one for myself and placed a second in Will’s hand just as Jon took another swipe at Devil.
“Begone, you foul monster!” he cried with a crowing laugh. Jon heaved onto all four paws and lumbered around the base of the apple tree, eating the fruits whole in single bites. “I really must teach him to bathe.”
“You have the strangest friends,” I remarked, biting into the crisp apple and allowing the juice to dribble down my chin.
To my horror, Devil reached out and wiped it away with his thumb.
Only when I stopped walking and stared at him did he seem to realize what he’d done, but he merely shrugged and continued leading us through the forest. Silently thanking all the gods that Will was blindfolded, I followed.
“So,” I said after we’d been walking through the Arden for some time in silence, “are you going to offer an explanation?” I was still leading Will along with one hand, but waved my other at the great bear trundling along ahead of us.
“An explanation for Jon?”
I laughed incredulously. “Not all of us have close personal companions who can transform into bears at will, you know!”
“Jon cannot transform at will,” said Devil quietly.
“He is not fay, but a human man, cursed by Lord Oberon.” I swallowed and shifted my eyes back to the bear.
I hadn’t been able to see Jon’s ears beneath his mass of shaggy hair, but now that I reflected, his face did lack the ethereal beauty of the other fay I’d met.
“What is the nature of his curse?”
Devil gave a long sigh. “When Jon was young and foolish, he came to the Arden to hunt. Not to feed his family or earn coin, mind you, but to prove himself as a man. To return home with a bearskin, claws, teeth—trophies and symbols of his strength. Unfortunately for Jon, bears are sacred to Oberon. His favored creatures. Before Jon could deliver the killing blow to a bear he’d wounded, Oberon found him and laid down a fearful curse.
Now, Jon is controlled by that which drove him to hunt in the first place: his own anger, pride, and bloodlust.”
“So…he cannot decide when he is a man and when he is a beast?”
“He has far more control over it now than he did at first,” Devil said, a sad note in his voice.
“For the first year, he was so rageful, he could not take human form at all. Living amongst the Fair Folk has gentled him somewhat, but the bear still takes over whenever he feels the urge to do violence, even when it is only instinct or in defense of those he cares about.”
“Can it ever be broken?” I asked in a whisper. It was difficult to reconcile the terrifying image of the charging bear with the rather silly-looking, rotund animal currently rolling in a patch of brambles to scratch its back.
“Lord Oberon will not say,” Devil muttered, “though I have asked many times. Jon is a good friend, a good man. He suffers in the knowledge that his family has had to live all these years without him, and without answers.”
“Your Lord Oberon sounds cruel and heartless. What sort of ruler willingly causes such suffering?”
“He is under no obligation to protect humans, especially those seeking to harm the Arden’s creatures.
You must understand this, May, if nothing else: Oberon and Titania will always value fay lives over human ones.
Always. That is their mandate from the Huntress.
Part of the bargain they made with her.”
I fell silent, but the nerves that had been simmering in my stomach suddenly flared to life, sending pinpricks of heat skittering across my arms.
“I won’t have to meet them at the revelry tonight, will I? Oberon and Titania…”
“You will.”
“But I’ll be glamoured…”
“It won’t matter much,” Devil said casually, “since both of them have the power to see glamours, and to remove them.”
I stopped walking and Will bumped into my back. “You didn’t tell me that!”
“Have you not already learned that we Fair Folk are appallingly vain?” Devil replied with a smirk.
“Half the revelers there will be glamoured to make themselves even more beautiful or conspicuous than they already are. Yours will go unnoticed, trust me. I would never place you in any sort of real danger.”
I did not reply, as my thoughts and feelings felt far too muddled to do so.
Instead, I glanced back at Will, who was following dutifully along behind us, gripping my hand.
The foolishness of asking for him to stay in the Arden even for a night was not lost on me, but I was desperate for something familiar, something safe.
And if nothing else, Tuck and Sissi at least deserved to hear from Will that I was safe, and that maybe someday I would see them again.
Besides, even if my hope for the two of us had died, even if my feelings for him had changed so irrevocably, I at least deserved a proper goodbye.
When we arrived back in the Hollow, Jon charged ahead with a deafening roar, which brought the Fair Folk out from their homes and secret places.
They greeted him warmly, some of the children even leaping up to ride on his broad back, but they all fell deadly silent when they saw Will.
I stopped walking as Devil beckoned to Myrtle, the little faun girl, and whispered in her ear.
She let out a mad giggle, then galloped away between the trees with a pack of other fay children behind her.
“I must get you to Arachne,” he said when I approached. “I’ve charged Myrtle and Vale with guarding our prisoner.”
“Prisoner…” I repeated with a frown. “Change him back, please.”
“Oh, but we cannot deny the children their fun!” Devil cried.
“Look, Myrtle is about to make him far more appealing, anyway.” The faun child was racing back toward us with a crown of flowers in her hands.
Beside her ran the small girl with floppy gray rabbit’s ears, carrying another crown.
The rabbit-girl laid her circlet around Jon’s furry bear ears, while Myrtle ran up to me and lifted hers high, beaming proudly.
“Can I put it on him?” she asked earnestly. “He’ll look ever so pretty!”
I couldn’t help but smile and grabbed her waist, lifting her up to place the circlet of musk roses and nodding violets between Will’s donkey ears.
Perhaps it was petty, but the image of him kissing Helena on the archery range had been running through my mind the entire walk back, bringing with it waves of humiliation and bitterness.
I set Myrtle down and caught Devil watching me closely.
“Can you…give him back his sight and hearing, but leave the ass’s head?
” I mumbled. The smile that broke across his face was delightedly indecent, and I regretted my request as soon as the fireflies swarmed from his hands.
The first thing Will cried out when he had his hearing back was my name.
It was still his voice, but coming from the donkey’s mouth it sounded more like a bray, and I had to stifle a laugh behind my hands.
“What’s so funny?” he cried.
“I’m sorry…” I breathed, “it’s just…” I fought back another giggle and looked at Devil, who seemed to understand exactly what I wanted and began to conjure up a mirror in his hands.
Will’s horrified reaction was worth every minute of pain and uncertainty he’d given me in the lead-up to the Prince’s Tournament.
I let his little tantrum play out until he tried to go after Devil and I had to step between them while Jon held Devil back with his giant body.
“He’s a fucking lunatic, May!” raged Will as I led him away from the others. “How can you possibly consider staying here?”
“They’re all lunatics,” I sighed, motioning for him to sit on the grass beside the creek.
It was difficult to look at him in such an unsightly, monstrous state, so instead I busied myself by pulling off my boots and stockings.
Once my blistered feet were free, I dipped them in the cool, clear water and sighed.
“You’re going to make him change me back, right?” Will asked, sitting beside me with a loud huff.
“Of course. I wouldn’t want Helena to faint on her wedding day, after all.”
If he’d been capable of frowning, he would have. “That isn’t fair.”
“What’s not fair is me giving you every opportunity to come away with me and you not taking a single one.
What’s not fair is you kissing her when you knew I was standing right there, watching.
” My voice had lost all the anger it carried before when I’d shouted at him.
All that remained was resignation, sadness, and a little grief… perhaps more than a little.
“I hardly even remember…” Will muttered. “His magyk must have…muddled it.”
“Do you want me to tell you?”
There was a long pause before he answered, “Yes.”
Keeping my voice as even as possible, I explained everything to him. The tournament, Devil, Angus Gower, the kiss. He listened in silence, pulling chunks of grass from the earth beside him. When I finished, he shook his head slowly.
“I’m a fool and a coward. I’m so sorry.”
“Will,” I whispered, putting my hand over his, “you’ve been my truest friend…
since I can remember. You’ll always be my friend, but I am not going to come out of this the same.
” I waved my hand around at the Arden. “So, I don’t think I can go back to the same life.
Even if I don’t stay here…I can’t go home either, and I know home is the one place you’ll never leave.
At least this way, you can go back and tell Tuck and Sissi not to worry for me. ”
Will just nodded, then someone cleared their throat behind us. I turned to see Devil standing against a tree trunk nearby, his face stoic. “Arachne is waiting for you.”
I stood up and helped pull Will to his feet, then approached Devil with my arms crossed. “Promise me he’ll be safe while I’m—”
“Oh, gods above, I cannot—”
“Shut up!” I snarled. “I wasn’t finished. He will be safe while I am at Arachne’s, and while we are at the revelry, and he will find his way safely out of the Arden tomorrow.”
I put my hand out and Devil eyed it suspiciously. “Another bargain?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
He just raised an eyebrow. “I cannot guarantee his safety, and so I would not take anything from you in exchange for it. I can only promise you that he will come to no harm from anyone here in the Hollow while we are away.”
“That…that is enough,” I said, pulling my own hand back. I turned to look at Will, but he was already being led away by a pack of small fay children, supervised by Larch and Jon, who was human again and, mercifully, wearing trousers.