28. Cassiel
The early hours creep in quietly, the dark thinning at the edges.
I wake with my back screaming and my legs numb, the kind of pain that tells me I slept far longer than I meant to.
Wren is still pressed against me, warm now, her breathing deep and even.
For a moment, I let myself stay exactly where I am.
Then I carefully, painstakingly, wriggle free, lying her carefully back down.
Every muscle protests, but it was completely worth it to hold her like that again.
I stretch as silently as I can and glance down at her. She doesn’t stir. I pull Zephyr’s cloak back over her shoulders and turn just as a familiar presence brushes the edge of my senses.
“Do you have it?” I ask.
Zephyr stands in the doorway, dawn light caught in his hair. He nods, holding out the totem carved in my likeness.
“It’s dispelled,” he says. “I’ve removed the enchantment on it.”
Relief loosens something tight in my chest. “How did you manage—”
“Moira—the spellcaster—has a sister who is much more agreeable than she is,” he says lightly. “It’s completely safe now. Look.”
Before I can stop him, he bites into my wooden head.
I grimace. “You don’t need to literally bite my head off.”
Zephyr laughs, bright and unguarded. “I can see why Wren likes you.”
“I am incredibly likeable,” I say, snatching the totem back. I turn it over in my hands, frowning at the carved lines that once held so much power over me. It doesn’t look exactly like me, but the resemblance is still unsettling. “I never realised before how creepy this was.”
“You can destroy it safely, now.”
I nod, tucking it away for later. I suppose I could just discard it, but that seems unceremonious and a part of me worries that it could be picked up by someone else and a similar curse enacted.
Zephyr’s gaze drifts back to Wren. “Has she woken at all?”
“A little,” I say. “Do you want to wait until she wakes again?”
He shakes his head. “I need to return to the Moonhollow. I’ll leave you the elkasha.” His expression tightens. “I’m afraid I wasn’t able to retrieve the rest of your belongings; the hunters had trashed most of it. I was lucky I could salvage the totem.”
Annoyance flickers through me, but fades quickly. “We’ll manage.”
We have transport, and a clear path out of the forest. There’s no reason to linger—not after what I saw beyond the star gate, not now that my sight has nearly fully returned. I’ve done what I came here to do. Depending on where we are, I could be home soon.
My gaze flickers to Wren, and doesn’t move. I’m suddenly in no mood to move at all.
Zephyr presses a bundled pack into my hands. “Some food,” he says. “It’s not much, but it should do for a couple of meals.”
“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it.
He kneels beside Wren for a moment, and brushes his fingers over her cheek. She doesn’t wake, but her brow smooths at the touch. He lingers a heartbeat longer, then rises.
“Take care of her,” he says softly.
“I will,” I say, even though I can’t. I only have a week or so left here. It’s not enough time to look after her the way I want to.
He gives me one last look and then melts back into the forest, as silent as he arrived.
I stand there for a long moment after he’s gone, listening to the morning wake around us. Birds tweet among the branches, their song crisp and soft. I sit beside Wren and allow myself a small, steady breath.
She wakes slowly, like someone surfacing from deep water. Her breath stutters first, then steadies when she realises where she is.
“Easy,” I murmur. “Don’t move yet.”
She blinks at me, unfocused. I help her sit just enough to drink, tipping the pain relief carefully between her lips.
She swallows obediently, then I press a heel of bread into her hand.
She eats in small bites, methodical, as if she’s afraid that if she stops concentrating, everything else will come rushing back in.
Robin pads over at some point and wedges himself against her leg. She smiles faintly and drags her fingers through his fur as she chews.
When she’s finished, the quiet stretches.
“Are you all right?” I ask. “We have more of the painkiller vial—”
Her face crumples without warning. No sound at first—just tears spilling over, her shoulders trembling as she stares at nothing. I don’t interrupt. I’ve learned better than that. I just slide closer and put my arm around her, drawing her gently against me.
She cries into my shoulder, silent and devastating, like the grief is too big to give a voice to. Of course it is. In the space of a day, she’s learned she’s been a puppet her entire life, that her grandmother, someone she loved, killed her mother, and on top of it all, she’s almost died.
There aren’t enough tears in the world for all of that, but eventually, the shaking eases. She wipes at her face with the back of her hand and sniffs. “Everyone is awful,” she says quietly.
It’s hard not to agree. “Marnie and Tob aren’t,” I say after a pause.
She huffs a weak laugh.
“And Evander wasn’t,” I add, the words costing more than I expected. I have to take a breath, steady myself as my brother’s face rises unbidden in my mind—his quiet smile, his certainty, the way he always seemed to know what to do. “I… I can’t be like him.”
She turns to look at me. “No one can be like anyone else,” she says gently. “But for what it’s worth, I absolutely do believe that you can be someone that he would be proud of.”
I nod. I don’t trust my voice.
After a moment, I clear my throat. “You’re not awful, either,” I say. “Just in case you didn’t know.”
She smiles, but the smile fades from her face when the world comes back into focus. I hesitate, then ask the question I’ve been circling since she woke.
“What do you want to do,” I say carefully, “about your grandmother?”
Her mouth twists. She leans back against the wall, eyes tracking the low light on the ceiling as she thinks. For a long moment, she says nothing at all.
“I have considered,” she says eventually, very calmly, “sneaking into Moonhollow and murdering her.”
I snort before I can stop myself.
She glances at me. “I’m serious.”
“I know,” I say, sobering. “You usually are when you offer murder as a solution.”
She sighs, scrubbing a hand over her face. “It would be… clean. Simple. Or it would be, if I could do it.” Her gaze drifts to her hands, to the faint tremor still in her fingers. “But I don’t know if I’ll win that fight. And I’m not sure if this conflict can be ended with yet another death.”
I nod, because I completely agree. If Wren manages to kill her grandmother, I think the other elders will likely rise up in response. More revenge. More death.
And I don’t want to risk her life for anything.
She shifts, looking at me for a second, then drops her gaze again. “It’s probably time for you to return to Caerthalen.”
My chest aches at the thought. “So keen to get rid of me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You did say two weeks,” I remind her. “It hasn’t been that long.”
“Anyone would think that you are growing fond of this place.”
I glance around at the cold stone, the bloodstains we didn’t quite manage to scrub away, the forest waiting just beyond the door. Then I look back at her.
“It has its charms.”
She laughs, and lies back against my shoulder. I allow myself a moment to savour the warmth of her.
“How do you always smell of wildflowers?” I ask her.
She scoffs. “Better than blood and sweat, right?”
“I mean, I can smell that too…”
She elbows me in the side.
Another moment passes in silence. “I know you’re still recovering,” I tell her, “but we have virtually nothing in the way of supplies, and this isn’t the best place for you to recover in. Is there anywhere we can go?”
Wren thinks for a moment. “Brindlewick,” she says.
“Where Marnie and Tob said they were headed?”
She nods. “I doubt they’ll be there already,” she says, “But Brindlewick is probably the only place that will welcome us, and it isn’t far by elkasha.”
It seems like the perfect suggestion. I pack our pitiful collection of supplies quickly, rolling bandages, stoppering vials. It’s a lot easier to do with sight. Wren wraps the last of the bread in cloth. I tie it all to the elkasha’s shoulders. There’s no saddle to speak of.
When I turn back, Wren’s trying to stand.
“I’m fine—” she starts, seeing something in my face.
I don’t listen. Before she can protest, I scoop her up and carry her outside. She makes an indignant noise that would be far more convincing if she weren’t leaning into me.
“Cassiel,” she warns.
“Yes?”
“I… I don’t need you to carry me.”
I set her down carefully on the elkasha’s back, behind our supplies.
“I don’t need to hear you in pain,” I tell her. “Just… let me do this. Please.”
Wren nods. She doesn’t say anything else. I climb up behind her, searching for reins before I realise there aren’t any.
“How does it know where to go?” I ask.
Wren shrugs, like it hardly matters. “It’s part cat,” she says, smoothing down its fur. “They know everything.”
I scoff. It’s truly a magnificent creature, long-limbed and sleek, antlered like a stag but with paws instead of hooves.
Its fur shimmers iridescently, silver one moment, a rainbow the next.
It even has a set of wings, though they seem more for style than substance.
They’re thin as gossamer and veined with light.
Wren leans forward, whispering into its doe-like ears. “Brindlewick,” she says.
The elkasha launches without warning. Wind tears at my hair and cloak. I yelp and fall back, avoiding slipping off entirely because Wren grabs my hands and plants them around her waist. She laughs as I scream, then melts against me.
“You get used to it,” she says.
I wrap my arms more tightly around her waist. That I could get used to. The sheer speed at which these creatures move is something else altogether.
“We could have used one of these to begin with.”
Wren shakes her head. “Elkasha have to come to you, have to be willing. This one is particularly obliging, aren’t you girl?”
The creature purrs.
“She doesn’t belong to Zephyr?”
“It’s more the other way around…”
A few minutes pass in silence, save for the whooshing of the trees.
The elkasha does not fly so much as cut through the air, slipping between trunks and over canopies with impossible precision.
The forest rushes past beneath us—branches flashing by close enough to touch, leaves scattering in our wake.
The speed steals my breath. It feels like being loosed from a bow.
“Did Zephyr say anything to you?” she asks. “About me, I mean?”
I shake my head against her back. “No,” I tell her. “Or, not much. He seemed to think you wouldn’t want to see him.”
“I’m surprised that you did,” she says.
“He saved you,” I reply. “I could tolerate him forever.”
“I… I haven’t spoken to him since the day the fey attacked Caerthalen.”
“I figured. He… he did say he was sorry.”
Wren is quiet for a moment. “I’m glad.”
We continue to speed through the forest. After a while, Wren lifts up her arms, her braid blazing behind her. She starts laughing—breathless, wild, the sound torn from her by the wind. The sound shimmers inside me like thunder.
I lean closer so she can hear me. “I like elkashas,” I tell her.
She twists just enough to look back at me, loose hair whipping around her face. “I knew you would.”
We ride for at least an hour. The light shifts from sharp afternoon gold to the softer greens of early evening, shadows stretching long and cool across the forest floor. Eventually, the elkasha slows, descending in a spiralling glide.
Brindlewick reveals itself gradually. It doesn’t look like a town at first, just a wide, towering glade.
But burrows open at the roots of ancient trees, their doors round and brightly painted.
Walkways are woven through branches high above, lanterns already being lit, their glow warm and welcoming.
Smoke curls gently from hidden chimneys.
As we move through the trees, I spy banners strung between the branches and thick garlands of flowers.
The air smells like baking bread and crushed herbs.
The elkasha stops in a clearing, folding itself down with surprising grace. I dismount first, then lift Wren down. Her legs wobble, and she scowls at them like they’ve personally betrayed her.
We barely have time to take three steps before we’re surrounded.
Hobgoblins peer at us with wide eyes, gnomes whisper urgently to one another, brownies dart in and out with baskets and ribbons in hand.
I’ve never seen so many fantastic creatures in one place before.
Some are no taller than my waist, others scarcely reach my knee.
The hobgoblins are broad and ruddy with sharp, watchful eyes and parsnip noses, while gnomes huddle together, their long beards threaded with beads as they whisper in low, urgent tones.
Brownies dart between them all—small, quick, and nimble, with long pointed ears and huge doe-like eyes—dressed in scraps of cloth and leaves, their movements so fast they seem to flicker in and out of sight.
Someone gasps.
“Oh stars,” a brownie cries. “You’re bleeding!”
“Both of you!” another adds, horrified.
Hands reach for us, for bandages, for stretchers that appear from nowhere.
“We’re fine,” I say quickly. “Truly. It’s not—”
“Cassiel?” a familiar voice squeaks.
I look down to see a small brownie woman staring up at us, an infant swaddled in her arms. A dark-haired man at her side holds what appears to be a garland of flowers. They both freeze, eyes fixed on our bloodstains and bandages.
I’ve only seen the brief outline of them before, but I know who they are.
“Marnie?” I say. “Tob? We didn’t think you’d be here—”
“Brownies heal fast,” Marnie says. “But humans don’t! You look like you’ve been stabbed—”
“A little,” I admit, “but our injuries have been dealt with. It’s just our clothes that are issue…”
Marnie is already fussing, pressing her free hand to Wren’s sleeve. “You need a healer. Or a bed. Or both. Tob, tell them to stop the music.”
“No!” Wren protests weakly. “Please don’t stop anything.”
Too late. The cheerful bustle has ground to a halt.
“We don’t need doctoring,” I say firmly. “Just rest. If you have somewhere we can lie low for a bit.”
Marnie exchanges a look with Tob, then nods decisively. “Of course. Of course you do. Tall-folk house, second oak on the left. Come on.”