

Oberon's Children

By: Hal Emerson

Copyright © 2014 by Bradley Van Satterwhite

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Chapter One: Memories

Chapter Two: Music of the Spheres

Chapter Three: The King of Moonlight

Chapter Four: The Bower

Chapter Five: To Catch the Moonlight

Chapter Six: The Darkness

Chapter Seven: Sides

Chapter Eight: Prior Claim

Chapter Nine: Survive

Chapter Ten: Run

Chapter Eleven: Here You'll Live

Chapter Twelve: Iron and Fire

Chapter Thirteen: Changeling

Chapter Fourteen: Her

Chapter Fifteen: Faolan

Chapter Sixteen: Puck

Chapter Seventeen: Apprentice

Chapter Eighteen: He Who Rules the Darkness

Chapter Nineteen: Broken

Chapter Twenty: Robin Goodfellow

Chapter Twenty- One: Children of the Fae

Chapter Twenty-Two: Truth

Chapter Twenty-Three: Leaving

Epilogue: Return

About the Author

Chapter One: Memories

I have begun to remember.

The first of the memories came back when I woke this morning, in the same instant that the pain in my chest flared and then began to fade. That constant steady pain that I have known for all my life – it is dying and grows less and less with each passing moment. And as it falls away, in have rushed memories that cannot be mine.

I don't know how this story ends, only how it begins – on a night like tonight, in the light of a summer moon. I've been fighting ever since I came here, a frightened girl with holes in her mind she couldn't understand, bruises and scars she couldn't explain; but I'm running out of time – I'm forgetting even the pieces that I managed to hold onto, and I need to get them back. I'm grasping at them even now, but they pain me and I want to shout in frustration at the half-remembered scraps.

Is it even possible? The part of me I've hidden, the part I think of as the madness, whispers to me to go on, tells me that he's still watching.

I came in from the fields tonight scrabbling for parchment, and now I find myself writing these words in a combined paroxysm of agony and ecstasy, reveling in the knowledge that I remember enough to tell the story, and yet, still not enough to know why any of it matters, or even if it's real. Watching these black marks appear like slim soldiers on the page, marching one after the other in carefully marshaled lines ... my heart races in my breast.

I can't stop now that I've begun – perhaps I never could.

There are some things you go through that change who and what you are – they remap you in a fundamental way; they redraw the boundaries of your soul. They change your purpose, if there is such a thing in the collection of heartbeats we call a life.

He was that thing for me. He was that thing for all of us, all of his children.

I remember ... more is coming back. How long has it been? I can feel the fever ghosting over my limbs even now ... how long since I've felt that? How long has the coldness in my chest kept it back? But the cold is gone now – somehow it's gone, and the memories are returning.

I have to remember it all – I have to!

His children: that's what he called us, and what we called ourselves after we knew. I don't think we ever knew how many of us there were, and I don't know how many remain behind. But I was one of them. As a girl, as a frightened, urchin girl, I was one of them, and now as I woman I look back and cannot seem to grasp ...

Maybe my sanity has finally cracked. Maybe my mind is filling in the gaps with false memories, like water rushing in to fill an empty space, but I do not think so. No – this must be real. I remember it so clearly –

But why? Why do I remember only now?

And why do I feel there isn't much time? It doesn't make sense, I know that, and I know too that most of what I do remember doesn't either. But I will not stop and start over; if I do, it will be lost forever; I feel that in my blood, my heart, my bones. The madness is forcing me on, I can feel its pull, can feel the fever shivering through me, heating my mind –

No more. We begin.

Chapter Two: Music of the Spheres

It began in childhood. I hate remembering my childhood.

It's not because something terrible happened – though many terrible things did happen – it's that barely any of the woman I am is at all a part of the girl I was. But so much of what I remember is extraordinary, and so much of it is something I can't even begin to believe, that I find myself forced to start there, in the world outside, in the real world. I need to lay the scene – and, hopefully, pull myself out of this world and into the next in as seamless a transition as sea to sky on a cloudless summer day.

Still, life before the madness is as insubstantial as a dream. I spent ten years in the world outside, but those years seem so unimportant – even then they seemed that way. I think I always knew, somewhere deep inside, that I was simply passing time until my life began.

I went through that world in silence. People thought I was touched, which, I suppose, I was. I remember a city – a string of them, actually – full of people and the filth that followed with them. The filth was where I lived, mostly. The filth was where the dregs of society ended up – and I was the dreggiest of dregs.

That life before the Bower was short and brutal. What little I remember I am loath to keep, though, try as I might, I cannot seem to part with it. I was told my mother did not keep me, and I have no memory of a father other than ... no, I will come to that later.

The earliest remembered sight I have is of streets, long and wide, some hard and bright with oil lamps or torches, others soft and dark with curtains of shadow. I stayed in the darkness even then, secluded from even the torchlight imitation of day, dingy as it shone through the muffling blanket of night. I remember the smells most of all: the fragrance of rot that comes with warped, refuse-soaked wood hidden from the sun, and the pungent vinegar stink of unwashed bodies.

Someone took care of me; I never knew her name. Perhaps she didn't have one – perhaps she chose to forget it. Names mattered very little back then, certainly much less than hunger and fear and pain. Those were the forces that guided our lives: we fought hunger, we ran from fear, and we endured pain. I don't remember speaking a word until two summers before I was taken – and I only spoke then because the laughing men we were begging from wouldn't give us food unless we pleaded. I think those beggars who were with me were more surprised by my speech than the cruel men were.

The old woman who took care of me treated me as a daughter. She knew many words, though I never answered her when she tried to draw me out. She knew other words, too, words that only she spoke that I couldn't understand, words the others looked at her askance for muttering, even when she did so far away. She spoke the words every night before she went to sleep, and to this day I can still hear her voice chanting, as if in prayer. The words still make no sense, maybe because the sense of them is lost in the distance of time like the consonants of a far-off shout, but the religious feel of them, the fire they inspired in her dying eyes, was undeniable. Yes ... her eyes. I'd almost forgotten that woman, or at least the withered shell of her.

My surrogate mother.

I don't know why she took me in, or what I could have possibly meant to her, old and withered as she was. Perhaps she did it out of routine; perhaps she did it out of hope. Perhaps she saw in me the struggling girl she might once have been – a girl about to become a young woman with no protection. I suppose the reason matters little.

It is her voice that I remember above all else, a voice that had been scoured and rubbed raw by the arid winds of a long, harsh life; a life that had ruined her, but not broken her entirely. She sang me to sleep with those rasping prayers, or maybe sang herself to sleep, using them to evoke strange half-remembered dreams of an old discarded life. Her voice, no doubt grating and painful even to her own ears, was far from pleasant, but her prayers were the only lullabies a distended tumor of life like me had any right to hope for. I am grateful for that much, at least. After all, I slept soundly through those nights, plagued as they were by hunger and a thousand shades of deprivation. Such reckless ease is not something I've been able to repeat since; maybe I owe her prayers more credit than I've been giving them.

But one night was different. I woke with a start, which was strange. I don't know why – maybe it was the first night I could hear the other world, or maybe it was the first night I was old enough to know the sound, to understand it on the level of complexity it demanded. Maybe it's something you're born into, or maybe he makes it so that only a few can hear it, only those he wants. It makes mistakes, sometimes, or at least I think so. I don't know – I can't remember; there's something ... but it's almost gone.

I heard it, that's what matters.

The music.

I can hear it now; I can remember it. It is the sweetest melody, humming and whistling at the same time, soaring through harsh, fiery notes of elation only to dip into the deep, lugubrious waters of melancholy. Even now, thinking about the pale imitation of it filtered through the haze of memory, my hands have begun to shake and I feel weak. It's always changing, always molding into something new. I don't even know if it is a sound at all – it's more of a feeling, one that goes down deep inside you and fills up every empty corner you never knew was there.

I was ten that first night, or so I think. I woke in the middle of a pile of people just like me who had no skills or family ties and thus lived beneath the notice of those who strove for land or power. I don't remember where we were then – I don't even remember who "we" were; our group was protean by nature, fluctuating day by day – all I know is that we were in a field outside a town on a warm summer night, and when I heard the music I followed it; followed it away from the sleeping old woman, the wandering votaress that cared for me, who had ceased her prayers when sleep took her. I wonder now what became of her – I never saw her again.

I moved toward the forest that bordered the field, toward the trees where the sounds echoed, my careful silence temporarily forgotten. I shuffled forward, caught up in a waking dream, and stubbed my toe against a rock that cracked along a boulder and bounced against a tall, crumbling, dirt-and-stone wall that ended in a broken crag like some half-finished imitation of a mountain range. Some of the others stirred behind me, but I never even thought to turn around. My whole being was captivated, utterly entranced. I remember realizing that my cheeks were wet, realizing it in the distant way a dying man might realize his clothing is soaked with blood.

I had never cried until then. I don't know why – my stoicism was unintentional, as far as I can remember – but I had never cried, not even when I was so hungry I could barely see straight. I had tried – a begging girl earns more with tears than words – but none had ever flowed.

Tears do not feed you; what is the use in shedding them?

I had discarded several weeks before the shabby foot-wrappings that had kept me alive through the snow of winter, and as I walked I felt the dirt between my toes as I left the edge of the town, felt a warm breeze against my bare lower legs. My feet scraped against rocks as I scrambled over the ruins of whatever wall had once encircled the town. It crumbling stones left a rough, chalky film on my skin, though I barely felt it at the time – the music was burning in my head, driving all thoughts and sensations away – but now it seems as clear as day. Bits of the world I was about to leave clinging to me, trying to hold me back.

No creature stirred in the field as I crossed it, making for the trees; the stars twinkled down at me, smiling, and the moon beamed full and ripe, like a fruit ready to be picked.

The world changed as I walked. My vision became simultaneously sharp and dim as the world I was in gave way to the world I was being pulled into, and between one step and the next the forest went from clear to fractured. I saw everything through sheets of color: violets and roses blossomed before my eyes in the light of the silver moon, highlighting the lower slopes of the gray-brown tree trunks before me. An arch made of vines – twisting, grasping tendrils – grew even as I watched, and through that arch came the sounds of the music from the depths of an inky blackness.

I should have been afraid, but the music was all I cared about, and maybe that's its purpose. There was no thought left in my head but the inexorable draw of the sound, and I know now consciously what I knew then viscerally: I would reach the source of that melody no matter the cost.

The vines stretched for me, the thick skin of them a dark forest green that I had never known before, the color of primordial nature in contrast to the cultivated yellow-green of crops or the fresh teal of tame rivers. The air became crisp and invigorating, full of infused vitality and empty of the putrid backwash of humanity.

Words cannot express the depth of my surrender, nor the breadth of the music's power. I didn't know him then – didn't even know it was a he who was pulling me – but, looking back, I can see his touch on all of it. He was one with that world in a way none of the others ever were, and he could command it because he was of it.

Serenity filled my mind as I stepped through the gateway.

I emerged in a forest the likes of which no living mortal has ever seen. I do not say such a thing in hyperbole – I say it in wonder, but with veracity. The whole world was bathed in moonlight, the source itself glowing in the sky, turning the hot, giddy gold of the sun into cool, serene silver. No wind blew, and no cloud obscured the violet night sky, scattered with stars beyond measure, visible through the reaching limbs of trees that threw their hands skyward in praise. My heart thundered in my ears as I walked through the landscape of a dream, my feet dragged inexorably forward by the siren call of the music rushing through my head, invading me.

The cool, dewy grass washed away the chalky residue of my former life that still clung to my bare and clumsy feet, and as it did something in me faltered, perhaps some final remnant of who I'd been. I turned back, ready to retreat, though not sure why. I had no home, no life back there, save for the comfort of the familiar.

I clapped my hands over my ears and tried to drown out the music, but it found its way through to me still, holding me, keeping me from moving. I had managed to turn just enough that I was looking back at the arch that I had come through, the moonlight playing beautifully off the gray stone that lay beneath the thick, encircling briars and vines. It had become hazy for some reason – I couldn't understand it. My eyes were still watering though my tears had ceased to fall.

I blinked, and the arch was gone.

Nothing else about the forest had changed. It had to still be there – I know it still was – but I couldn't see it, couldn't make it out through the thicket of trees clogging the tunnel of my vision.

I scrubbed my palms over my eyelids, trying with all my might to focus back on the spot I knew I'd come from, but there was nothing there. My hands having left my ears, the music came back again, full force, and I felt myself turning back around, heading deeper into the forest, away from the edge of the two parallel worlds where the arch had stood. With each step, the thoughts of returning seemed to fade further and further away, until I couldn't even remember why I was upset anymore.

All that mattered was the music.

I stumbled through the forest, going step by step with little thought. I remember only flashes of the journey, and nothing at all of how long it took or how far I went. The trees there were enormous, and made to seem even more so by the darkness, the music, and the moonlight shining down in brilliant silver shafts. There was a feel to that night in a way that I've not felt since – the night and those shadows that I ran through contained in them something beyond the realm of consciousness.

There are secret paths through the world that mortals are not meant to tread, and I was being blithely pulled through all of them.

My breath caught in my chest as I staggered into a run, compelled to move faster. I passed beneath towering trees, inhaling the clean scent of pine and air freshly washed with rain. My feet were cold from the dew that clung to the grass, and my hands and knees were skinned and raw from the times I'd tripped over the moss-covered limbs of the slumbering, arboreal giants that surrounded me. The air was thick and heavy, full of moisture, and I was breathing in huge gasps. A bead of sweat ran down my face, traced the line of my cheek, and fell, disappearing into the night.

I became aware of the others before they became aware of me. I heard them before I saw them – sounds of heavy bodies crashing through underbrush. I turned my head left and saw a young boy with black hair that glinted blue in the moonlight. He rushed past me without seeing me and I saw that he was wearing a set of well-sewn, embroidered clothing.

I ran after him, heading in the same direction, and from my right came another, this one a girl like me, with blonde hair tied back in a number of small tails. She was shorter than I, and fuller, and she ran gasping through the night, her eyes completely glazed over, staring straight ahead.

The music grew louder still, and I realized the three of us had become a group of five, then eight, then nine, then finally ten.

My lungs were seizing in my chest, and it felt as though hot knives had been shoved into my sides. My eyes could barely focus, and my body was shaking with desire to reach the source of the sound, to find the music maker.

We burst through a final thicket of branches, pushing them aside though they grabbed at our faces and hands, and stopped.

There was already too little air in my lungs, but what was left was pushed out in a wheezing rush. We had emerged in a clearing lined by a ring of ancient trees that speared the sky, all centered on a gnarled, twisted giant of wood, vines, and moss, growing up into the air to touch the sky, bisecting the distant moon and throwing light down around us in haphazard shards. Dozens of gnarled roots rose and fell throughout the clearing like minor hills; hundreds of thick branches, some so big around they looked like smaller trees themselves, flowed out and up from the trunk; thousands upon thousands of leaves that must have been larger than my entire body whispered in the midsummer breeze. It went up and up and up, so high that I couldn't comprehend it, looking as though it yearned to embrace the sky.

Lights flickered from between the branches and in the trunk itself, lights that glowed blue and silver like captured stars. I stumbled forward, and the lights resolved into colored windows, behind which oddly pale fires had been lit. There was movement too – movement all around us now, and I realized we were far from alone. There were hundreds of figures, forms, and shapes, and all of them hidden by the shadows of the giant tree. They were gathered among its roots, in the tiny hills and valleys they created, and inside the tree as well. As we approached, the gathered figures began to shift and murmur to each other in tongues I did not know. They sounded like sea and wind and settling earth.

We were compelled down the center path the roots had made, a wavy but unbroken line. A strange flickering silver light came from behind those watching us, and though we could see outlines we could not see more. In the minds of younglings as we were, terror warred with wonder at the sight. Huge figures with arms as thick as tree trunks lined the walk, watching us from an enormous height. Others, smaller, flitting back and forth, seemed to hiss as we passed, like cats warning off intruders; and still more, in various shapes and sizes, all watching us, humming and singing and murmuring to each other. I wanted to scream and run, but found I couldn't.

The tree continued to grow in our vision as we approached, and I felt as though we were floating toward it. My feet had gone completely numb from the chill of the dew, even though the air here was hot and humid. Before us yawned a mouth that led straight into the heart of the ancient tree, and through it could be seen an enormous hall, lined with rows and rows of tables and silver fires burning in metal braziers.

We crossed the threshold into the tree, and I was able to pull away just long enough to look back over my shoulder. The figures that we had seen outside had followed us, our group of ten, and there was no way back through them, if there had ever been one. I stumbled, and a figure caught me before pushing me away as though I'd burned her. I caught her eye, and saw that her pupils were slit long-ways like a cat's and that her skin was a yellow-green.

The touch of the living tree was warm, and within the first few steps my feet thawed enough to sense the smoothness of the wood. The grains flowed perfectly, like tiny frozen rivulets.

We moved into the center of the hall, now completely encircled. What I had taken for a shining star at the end f the hall was instead a throne covered with gemstones that reflected the silver light of the fires. There were so many stones that the throne seemed to drip with them, glinting like water as the flames flickered and cast moving rays of light through the shining seat.

And on this throne was a man.

His flowing hair was bronze with silver streaks that reflected the light of the moon that streamed outside, and he wore layers of black and green that made him look like a piece of the forest that had come to life. On his head he wore a crown of silver leaves that glowed with an eerie luminescence. I felt more than saw the other children drop their gaze, blinded by the brilliance, but I couldn't tear my eyes away. The music died down to a low background hum, and a solemn silence descended. I looked around, suddenly aware enough and able enough to turn my head. I saw figures moving across the smooth wood floor, illuminated by the silver fires, and my heart lurched out of rhythm, shocked into missing a beat.

None of them were human.

The first impressions I had were of creatures out of children's tales, but not the kinds with happy endings. These creatures were from the darker stories, the ones told on the nights so cold that there was no sleep and the fire gave not a shred of warmth. Grim figures, full of strangeness, and all so wondrous that I couldn't take them in. Some looked as if they'd come straight from the ground, with vines and dirt wrapped around themselves and skin that shone a pale green even in the strange light. Others were thick and wide and moved with the unconscious fortitude that belied power both enormous and careless. Still more seemed to flit from place to place, grinning through mouths full of needle-sharp teeth that clashed and clinked against each other. And there were more, almost beyond count, all watching us, all following us with eyes we couldn't see, eyes that hid in the darkness.

My contemplation of the lower denizens of the court came to an abrupt end when the man who sat the throne above them stood, unfolding himself to his full height. He moved like he looked – a wild thing, with only an external gloss of cultivation that kept him from appearing savage. Moonlight rode on his brow, and the unpredictability of wind and rain infused his gray-green eyes with chaotic life.

"Welcome to my Bower," he said, in a voice like falling leaves.

Chapter Three: The King of Moonlight

As soon as he spoke, the music died completely. His voice, a deep sigh that seemed to whisper and vibrate simultaneously, rolled across the room and filled up the spaces between us; every creature and every child went completely silent.

He stepped down along a small set of carved wooden stairs that led from throne to floor. His movement was perfect, with no more effort than was needed, and with perfect, poised control. Each step reverberated through the hollowed tree, as his solid boots, made of some black material that seemed to shimmer in and out of sight, touched down on the solid, unyielding wood.

He exuded what I can only describe as majesty. The expression slashed across his face existed somewhere between a thunderhead and a craggy mountain precipice. It was rough and rugged, and though his cheeks were free of stubble, thin scars crossed the skin, marring its perfection like the pitted surface of the moon. His jaw was solid, and his cheekbones high, and though his eyes stared out at the world with perfect clarity and must have at least once beheld a pleasing sight, it looked as though he never once had smiled.

He came to a stop when he reached the level of the floor, and when he did my eyes slid sideways for the space of a second.

There was a man behind him, off to my right, who seemed somehow out of place. He was slight of build, much smaller than the king, and though his clothing matched that of the man who wore the crown of silver leaves, there was nothing similar about them. His skin was golden, even in the wan silver light of the hall, and his eyes burned like fire in a setting full of earthy greens and browns. His face was sharp and angular, and a small smile played about his mouth that put me in mind of sourceless mischief.

Even then, Robin Goodfellow did not quite fit.

"Do any of the gathered Fae wish to assert prior claim?"

I don't know why it took me so long to realize that he was addressing the others, but eventually I came to the understanding. They were still and silent at first, but then there was rustling and whispering, and I realized they were looking at each other and speaking in tongues I didn't know, tongues that sounded like wind running through trees.

I don't remember why I did what I did next, only remember feeling that something was forcing me to do it. Maybe it was some part of the madness that was to follow, though I can't be sure.

I lurched forward, pulling my dank, tangled hair out of my eyes.

"Why are we here?"

Silence fell like a stone. My heart thudded within me like a drum, and I wrapped my arms around my stomach, feeling exposed and vulnerable. His eyes landed on me and never wavered from my face.

"She's a brave one," murmured the smaller man by his side, the man I hadn't noticed at first. He had bright golden eyes, and when he smiled he revealed a set of perfect teeth, save for one canine tooth that was twisted so that it stuck out slightly along the side of his grin. It ruined the otherwise perfect symmetry of his face, and turned what would have been a charismatic smile into something rugged, almost wicked. I shivered as he examined me.

"Silence, Robin," the taller man said simply, not even looking back. He watched me for a long time, and I could see the decision being made somewhere behind his eyes, deep in an impenetrable mind.

"You're here because you must be."

The sound of his voice raced through my mind and shattered into a thousand new questions that wanted to come rippling through my mouth, but I had no time to speak again before he looked up and away from me, cutting our connection.

"I say again – do any of the Fae assert prior claim? I will not ask a third time."

More shifting, and a distant humming and whispering that slowly faded away. No one responded directly, though. I didn't know what it meant, but I was certain my first guess hadn't been far off. Somehow, this King was offering us to his gathered vassals. I've thought about that many times, and wondered how different everything would have turned out if any of the gathered Fae had spoken.

"Nobody?" quipped the honeyed baritone voice of Robin. He grinned again, looking feral in the moonlight. "I think the lean black-haired one might have your chin, Gwyn," he continued, addressing someone off to my right in the crowd. "Sure you didn't have a tryst with a milksop of late? Oh no, I forgot, you're not interested in women unless they're related to you by blood."

One of the forms came forward immediately, solidifying into an actual figure out of the bluish-silver haze the fires cast. He resolved into a man both beautiful and terrifying, the only other being that came close to rivaling the king who stood before the throne. He had fair skin half-covered in black fur, and wore oiled leather armor that covered his arms, shoulders, and lower body, leaving his chest, hands, and feet bare. Wild black eyes, sunk deep in his head, stared out at the world and demanded submission, exuding power in a way that was harsh and deadly. His black hair was so long and thick that it covered him almost like a garment of clothing, draping over his shoulders and down his back, free from tangles and snarls, a feat which baffled me. He stood straight-backed and tall, towering over those around him. His face was set in fierce lines, pulled tight along the jaw and across the forehead where his snarl creased his skin; his powerful hands were clenched into heavy fists. When he snarled at Robin, his breath smelled like beautiful flowers rising from a pile of filth, and his teeth were yellowed daggers.

"Do not test me, Puck," rasped the man. He spoke in a harsh, guttural voice that carried with it the martial quality of drums and trumpets; his wicked teeth glinted in the light.

"I apologize for my fool," the king said in a causal way, his gray eyes turning to burn down at the new participant in the night's revelries. "Apologize, Robin."

Immediately, the smaller man bowed low, sweeping an imaginary cape in courtly obeisance.

"I apologize, great Gwyn ap Nudd, for the fact you have no sense of humor, or perhaps lost it on one of your Hunts."

Several of the watching figures laughed, an odd collection of sounds that made me flush all over with apprehension. My heart was still hammering in my ears, and I couldn't seem to think straight.

The hunter stepped forward, his black eyes burning with outrage as he made a move toward the smaller man, but before he'd gone more than a dozen steps, a hand closed over his arm and he was held back by another such man, clad in gray instead of green, with a thick beard covering the lower half of his face. Strangely, the beard, completely out of place though it seemed, was what turned him human in my mind. Suddenly he wasn't a creature at all – in fact, he even looked strangely noble.

"Peace," the second man-creature said, his voice a deeper rumble instead of a rasp. His voice was sweet but with an undercurrent of steel. "We are in the court of the Erlking – hold in your pride, brother. We rule the wilds, but the Bower is his domain, as we agreed long ago, and we are very grateful for his sanctuary."

It was clear that he wasn't speaking only to his brother, but that his words were meant to be overheard by the king and the rest of the gathered congregation.

"Your brother speaks sense," Robin said, a wicked smile splitting the golden glow of his face. "You grow more savage by the year, Gwyn. Maybe you should keep away from the hounds – it seems they're having an effect on you, not the other way around."

The others laughed again, particularly a group of heavy-set shadows that seemed to bristle far from the two man-creatures on the other side of the hollow. Gwyn snarled at Robin again, but allowed himself to be drawn back by his brother.

The king, all this while, did nothing. As soon as it was clear Robin had been chastised and Gwyn's brother was attempting to stop him from doing something foolish, he had turned his eyes back to me, and despite the few glances I'd spared for the others, I was looking back at him with equal intensity, matching him stare for stare without really understanding why. He was so ... beautiful.

I do not mean that word in the lewd sense – I was ten, and he was old enough to be my father. It is not beauty in that such way, not attraction. It is a charismatic compulsion that flows from him, from his eyes, from his stance, his voice, even the way he carries himself. Even standing still, surrounded by otherworldly creatures and half-men, he was perfectly at ease, and the way he stood told everyone in the room that he was in command. There was no question – he ruled this place, whatever it was.

I'd seen much of ugliness in my short life. In those days, I could count on one hand the number of beautiful things I'd ever seen in the world, and I was one of the lucky ones: Most people outside didn't have even one thing of beauty to hold on to – most people stopped looking for them.

But I'd seen sunrises that turned oceans and skies colors you can't describe, and stone buildings that gleamed white in the sun, and those things were beautiful, I knew they were. But this was more than I'd ever been able to grasp in my limited understanding of life. Until this moment, I hadn't understood what it was like to live in a world where greatness existed. He was that and more, and as I stared back I longed to be a part of this world. I didn't know anything about it, and everything in me should have been primed to run and run as far and hard as I could. But I knew I wouldn't, knew I couldn't. It was a compulsion born of the music, I know that now, but it was something more as well, something created and nurtured by me alone.

I belonged there.

"Very well," he said, his voice once more sighing out of him, but with the undercurrent of distant thunder, a threat of the violence that would come forward if any dared question his unwavering authority.

"Then they are mine."

A shout went up, and I stumbled backward, shocked by the noise, but I soon realized it was a cheer. The crowd of gathered creatures began to move about the room. Music swelled, coming from all around, and my mind went blank. I remember turning around, trying to understand what was happening, and remember seeing the other children of the group with me. I had nearly forgotten them, and still, as I looked at them, I didn't really take them in. Only one thought floated across my mind before the night closed in and there was only darkness:

We had come home.

Chapter Four: The Bower

My first memory on waking was of moonlight streaming in a thick shaft through a window that contained no glass.

I realized I was sitting up, staring at it, and I had no idea of where I was or how I'd gotten there. A blanket, soft and warm, was coiled around me in tiers, and I was grabbing hard to the high sides of a strange sunken bed that lay in a cut out section of the wooden floor. I shook my head, just a small back and forth motion that jarred me out of my waking dream, and came back to myself.

I looked around, and took almost nothing in. My eyes had simply glazed over and I wasn't seeing anything. The world was a soft silver blur, with tiny hints of green and gold interspersed throughout. There was a light burning nearby, and I fixated on it. It was coming from a small knot on the wall, and it flickered like fire, but the light was silver instead of gold. Still, its light was close enough to the color of the moon or the sun seen through mist that this singular point of familiarity helped me come back from the edges of my over-exposed mind. I didn't know where I'd gone – didn't even know who I'd been – but the flickering light in the wall, so like the fires we'd clustered around in the Hall, drew me back into my body.

I blinked once, and the room came into focus in a rush of images that sprang forward, eager to assault me. I was in a small room with a low-hanging, unadorned ceiling. Everything was wood, and all perfectly smooth and of one piece as if carved from a solid block. The only breaks in the flowing curves were the window and a row of ten cutout rectangles with rounded corners spaced evenly down the center of the room. I was farthest from the window at the very end of the row – or the beginning, perhaps – and looking across the other nine sleeping spots I saw the nine forms of the other children from the night before.

An image came back to me of us breaking through the tree line into the clearing for the first time, and looking up at the impossible tree.

The Bower. He called it the Bower.

Once again, movement drew me out, and I turned my head to follow it.

A woman was approaching me – or at least what I thought at first to be a woman. Her features were certainly female, but in an undefined way that was entirely confusing. She had low cheekbones and a long jaw, and her torso tapered in at the waist, which was easy to see since she wore no upper-body clothing. She didn't need to: Her chest and shoulders bore the tracery of well-define muscles, but she had no breasts to speak of, nor any nipples. It was simply smooth skin – skin dyed colors that I didn't know skin could be. Pinkish-red was the predominant color, like some strange, exotic flower, and the rest was a flaky white: Not the slightly pink-tan to which I was accustomed, but actually white, as in the pure color of ivory or alabaster.

She said something, and at first I was unable to respond. She took a step closer and my mind snapped back to life.

"Done staring, nestling?" she snarled, thrusting her face into mine. Her teeth tapered to points, and she carried with her an air of command.

I recoiled and ducked my head, mumbling something incoherent and vaguely apologetic. One of the lessons you learn very quickly as both an orphan and an urchin is that pride is the privilege of those who know where their next meal is coming from, scant though it may be. The truly destitute would rather have food, and remain unharmed. That was me, through and through.

But something from the night before had changed me just enough that a flash of resentment flared for a brief instant in my gut before guttering out. It was like a spark hit off a rock in a dark room – a flare of brilliance that, without fuel, immediately begins to fade. I paid it no mind – if anything, I tried to pretend it hadn't happened. Pride got you hurt; pride got you killed, if you were truly unlucky. I would allow it no place in my heart – not even here, in this place that felt so right to me, like an old coat where you know all the pockets.

Why did it feel so right? I still can't remember.

"Get on your feet," she said, after quite a long time staring at the top of my head. I did immediately as she commanded and rose out of my bed only to realize I was stark naked. I fell back down immediately and covered my chest and groin with hands that were much too small to cover all the bare tan-pink skin.

"Are you having some sort of seizure, nestling? I told you to stand!"

I looked up through the strands of my long, ragged hair and just stared at her for a second, not knowing what she was asking. But then I saw something building in her pink-red-white eyes, and I discarded all the strange training of a life lived in deprivation. I surged to my feet and stood stock-still, my hands by my sides, fighting against an entire life's worth of training that told me to cower and protect myself as best I could. I felt something open in my thoughts, a strange divergent road I'd never thought to take. My whole mind changed in that instant, as if something had been severed or reversed, and the instinct toward privacy disappeared as I realized on sheer intuition that worse was soon to follow.

This night was just beginning.

I still wasn't looking the half-woman in the eye, but that was for the good. She circled me, her breath hot and heavy on my skin, so close she was almost touching me. I felt her eyes scanning my body, examining me. I tried to block her out, letting my mind go back to that strangely dreamy state I'd woken in. I was worried about the cold, standing there, but despite the moonlight streaming in through the windows, the air seemed almost balmy, and was heavy with the humidity present just before a summer storm. I felt a smile trying to rise to my lips for no reason and fought it back.

Finally satisfied, the woman-creature passed me by and moved on down the row, looking into the other small round-edge rectangles cut in the floor. One by one she woke the others, all of who seemed at first disoriented, but quickly remembered where they were. A number of them had much more trouble being naked than I did – three of the boys wouldn't stand up straight, even after the woman-creature approached them and hiss-snarled in their faces. Her voice was the sound of knives being sharpened, and it carried with it the same sense of open danger. How they did not sense that and react to it, I will never know. I suppose that, for all the horror of my childhood, I should be grateful that it left me far better prepared for the Bower than any of the others.

"No!"

I almost forgot myself and turned my whole head to look at the sound of the noise, but stopped at the last second. The boy next to the one who'd shouted did turn and even lunged forward to help, raising a hand to strike the woman as she pulled the first boy to his feet. Faster than any of us could see, she slapped him across the face with an open palm, rocking him back. Shock rang through the room like the vibrations of a struck bell, and the boy, cowed into stillness and silence, stood numb and red-cheeked.

"Do not interfere," the woman-creature said with stone-cold certainty that she would be obeyed. "If you interfere, you will be punished."

I couldn't help but shift my eyes just enough to peer out from behind the ragged curtain of my hair and glance toward the offending boy. He had long black hair cut about his head to cover his ears and fall over his forehead, and was the particular kind of skinny that comes by nature not by deprivation. His large brown eyes were round and made him look like a cornered animal, but try as I could to feel sorry for him, I didn't. This world played by the rules I was familiar with, not the ones he was privileged enough to expect – he would learn them, or he'd face the consequences.

"No – no! Give us our clothes! You can't hit me!"

She sneered at him, and I knew instantly that he had said, if possible, something to make the situation even worse. I still do not understand people who try to assert what is patently untrue. Whoever or whatever this person was, she certainly could hit us.

He saw the look as well and his fear turned to anger in a flash of emotion that roared across his face like a flood. His mouth pulled down and out as his full lips turned into the pouted curl of contempt, and he kicked the woman.

The foot landed a solid blow, smacking against her thigh, but she stood rock-still, unmoved. She looked down at him still, but now the sneer was gone, and in its place was an emotionless slate that was ten times as frightening.

The responding blow was brutal. She struck him with the side of her hand right at the base of his neck, causing his limbs to jerk out straight and over-extend as if struck by lightning. He cried out and tried to retreat, but she grabbed him and rammed her knee into his stomach. He cried out again. I saw tears collect in his eyes, and that spark in me was struck again, seeing him in pain for nothing more than asking for clothes, but just as quickly I smothered the thought. She'd told him there would be consequences – she'd given him the choice. If he didn't listen, then it was his fault he suffered.

"Stand up straight," she hissed at him through her pointed teeth, and he obeyed, even as the pooling tears rolled down his face and his whole body shook. I tried not to look at him, his nakedness now somehow more shameful than the rest of ours, and told myself to stay away from him; he was the weak link in this group, the impulsive one. You always had to stay away from people like that – they were the first to go.

The other two boys, the one he'd been trying to help and the one beyond him, stood up as well, though not completely straight, somehow convinced they could conceal some of their nakedness if they curved their spines. The second boy was about the size of the first boy, though with a decidedly rounder stomach and a darker complexion, but the third boy was at least as tall as the woman-creature herself, if not half an inch taller. He was the only one of us that had hair anywhere but on his head, and what there was of it was thick, black, and curling. Something flashed in my mind about what Robin had said the night before to the wolf-like man he'd called Gwyn ap Nudd, but I dismissed it from my mind. He hadn't been talking about that boy – or if he had, it had only been in jest. No, he'd been talking about the last boy, the one at the end of the line, who, like me, had purposely done nothing to provoke our warden. As soon as he'd woken and realized what was going on, he'd stood up, hands at his sides, and stared at the ground. I don't know if he was conscious of me then, but I suspect it.

The other girls, like me, had caught on and were at least smart enough to stare at the floor. One of them was silently weeping and shaking with fear; another looked too shocked to react; a third looked up and spoke.

Like an idiot.

"Where are we?" she asked.

Immediately, the half-woman was back in front of the girl, staring her down, snarling in her face. The girl cowered back, curiosity replaced with shock and terror.

"I – I just asked a q-question –"

"Let me help you understand something," the woman hissed, her tongue momentarily flicking out of her mouth to taste the air, sampling the girl's fear. "From this moment on, you ask no questions, you get no answers, and you do nothing but what I say. If you speak out again, you will regret it, more than you already do."

She stared at the girl, who, too late, realized she should lower her eyes. Her recently washed honey-blonde hair in numerous braided tails fell in front of her face, and she quivered from head to toe.

"As for where you're going," she moved away from the girl and turned to me; I immediately flicked my eyes back to the floor, getting them there just before she noticed I'd been watching, "you go nowhere until you straighten your nestle."

Her sharp teeth just barely missed each other as she sneered at me; I could hear her mouth opening wide and shutting with a clack.

"Do not make me repeat myself, nestlings," she hissed, spitting out the final word as if it were an accusation. "All of you – now!"

Galvanized into motion, I spun to look at the bed in which I'd slept.

Was that a 'nestle?'

It was the only messy thing I could see, with the soft yellow-white sheets pulled from under the sides of the bed and the small round pillow crammed between the mattress and the wooden side.

Of course, I'd never straightened a bed before.

Feeling the woman watching me, I bent and began pulling the sheets at random points, straightening them and trying desperately to think of what else I could do to make it neat. On a spur of inspiration, I began tucking them in around the sides of the mattress. I'd never had a mattress, aside from one with busted seams spilling straw that we'd found in an alley, but this one seemed to be stuffed with what felt like several pounds of feathers.

"Don't just watch her – do it!"

It was only then that I realized I was the only one who'd burst into motion, but at the woman's whipping command the others fell to the floor and began pulling their own sheets straight in imitation, and I felt a huge sigh of relief well up inside me. I stifled it before it could pass my lips, but I still felt it course through my body.

I finished and stood again; I glanced at her, not expecting a word of praise, but at least expecting an acknowledgement of what I'd done. The woman-creature raked her eyes across my face, snarling neither praise nor criticism, before she turned to scrutinize the others. Her entire back was covered in miniature red spines, like those of a porcupine. They were almost like thick hairs, protruding from just beneath her skin.

As soon as the others finished, she strode in front of us again, flicking her eyes back and forth between us all, watching us for any signs of rebellion. This time none of us, not even the black haired boy with the slap-reddened cheek and blooming bruises, looked at her.

"Good. You will call me Ai'Ilyn. I am your Ilyn."

She pronounced the name "a-ill-in," and the title "ill-in," and didn't deign to explain either. I waited for one of the others to ask her about it, but it looked like all suicidal tendencies had, for the moment, been suppressed.

"You are Oberon's children now. All who come here start off as you do, and they start off earning their place. All of you are here for a reason, even if that reason is not clear to you. All you need to know, all your entire world should be focused on, is that you must obey me in everything you do. There is no one else who wants you – no one who is willing to spirit you back to the place from whence you came. You are part of the Fae, and you are under my care and command. There is no choice in this – do not make the mistake of thinking that there is. You were born to come here, and there is no way out but through."

She fell silent and watched us. What was she talking about? All of us were here for a reason? We were born to come here?

"From this point on, you will speak only when spoken to. All privileges here are earned; in time, you will earn the privilege of speaking. If you do not follow this rule, you will be punished; if you do, rewarded."

"But what if we want to go back?" the black-haired boy said, the words squeaking out through his tear-and-snot-streaked lips. I cringed even before Ai'Ilyn approached him, and the slap that rang hollowly through the room came as no surprise to anyone. The boy cried out and cringed back, and then did something even more foolish: he came forward and swung a fist.

I was so stunned that I didn't truly understand what happened next until later, when I'd had time to put all the pieces together in the right order. Ai'Ilyn reached out and grabbed the boy's fist, stopping his pathetic flail dead, and in the same movement struck with her other hand, knifing into his throat with a stiff-finger blow.

He gagged and doubled over immediately, all thought of further conflict totally absent, his only concern now the need to get air into his lungs.

I remember very clearly that none of us tried to help him. I think we all expected someone else to, but none of us ended up doing it. Something in me still hates that, even knowing him as he became, knowing that he deserved that and more. But back then, back when all of us were new ... maybe it would have changed things.

Ai'Ilyn knelt in front of him as he continued to gag and gasp and cry. That was when I first saw through his mask – his shock had forced him to drop it, and I could see a cold calculation behind his eyes, like a thief caught in the act of robbing. His tears had stopped, and I realized that they too were a mask, that he'd been putting it all on for show.

"Speaking is a privilege you have yet to earn," Ai'Ilyn said, her voice barely above a whisper but loud enough to carry. "The next time you break this rule, the punishment will be worse. Should you break it again after that, the punishment will be worse again, and so on. Perhaps you'll heed this warning and stay silent, or perhaps you'll test me until you find yourself with broken bones. Do not make the mistake of thinking that you will garner pity by being a martyr: none of the Fae care about whether you hobble around the Bower. Until you change, you are beneath notice."

She stood and looked at the rest of us, her face cold, bare stone.

"All of you are beneath notice."

She let that pronouncement sit, her eyes pulling in our fear, harvesting it as if she intended to feed on it, almost appearing to swell visibly as she breathed it in.

"Follow."

She left the room.

None of us moved at first. The darker-skinned boy with the round stomach turned to the boy who was still choking as he tried to breathe and hesitantly tried to help him to his feet. The other boy knocked his hands away and continued to cower on the floor, while the rest of us remained in our frozen positions. We just looked at each other, all too shocked to move.

The silent boy on the opposite side of the room from me was the first to break the tableau. He moved quickly, with determination, and made directly for the entrance to the room, set in the wall across from the window. When he crossed in front of me, he caught my eye, and I was struck by the realization that we, at least, knew how this game was played.

I fell into step beside him, and together we left the room.

The way out was strange – the opening led to a short twisted pathway barely two steps long that then led out onto a long corridor that seemed to be entirely encased in one solid tube of wood. This main corridor that we emerged into was the dark russet brown of deep bark and I felt a sense of vertigo as the pieces of our prison fell in place.

We were inside the branches of the Bower tree.

How it was possible, I had no way of knowing, but I accepted it with the simple reasoning of a child, the kind of reasoning that believes in dreams and fantasies as readily as facts. Looking back, I think that's what kept me sane.

A handful of creatures were walking past us down the long narrow corridor into which we had emerged, lit by silver light that beamed down from bright stones sunk into the wood of the ceiling. The creatures were made strange and terrifying by the shadows the light cast, and their varying shapes and sizes, some huge and bulking, some lean and tall, still others short and shifty, blended together to create one large canvas of unfamiliar life. Some of them, as they passed by, watched us curiously, their expressions hidden by the shifting shadows that my daylight-accustomed eyes could not yet pierce.

I felt the first boy, the smart one, shift, and realized he was hurrying to follow the disappearing form of Ai'Ilyn as she moved off to our right, the red spines of her back now flush against her skin, coating it in streaks of red through which the flaky white base color glowed in the moonlit halls. I hurried to catch them both, and heard the scrabbling of bare feet over wood as the others left the room and fell into a line behind me, all of us too overwhelmed by the creatures around us to even think of leaving the company of fellow humans. Even I was crouched over now, trying to hide my nakedness, though whatever shame I might have felt was drowned in the overwhelming sense of dislocation that grew in me with every step.

We passed through corridors so long they made up what could have been entire streets. What the half-woman Ai'Ilyn had called the Fae moved around us, giving us a healthy space, going in and out through a series of open passageways that branched off to either side of us down the long span of the corridor. The path we took twisted and turned in the irrational, chaotic way of all growing things, but Ai'Ilyn led us unerringly forward. We took a blind turn and I felt fresh air hit my face. I rounded the corner and emerged from the side of the leviathan Bower onto the first of a series of platforms that had grown out of the tree itself, a flat place with not even the hint of a railing. We were higher in the air here than I could have thought possible, and I could see the green expanse of the field far below us, glinting and winking as moonlight reflected off the gathering dewdrops that clung to the blades of grass. There were creatures there that looked like Ilyn, moving among the field, and smaller figures too, ones that I couldn't quite make out.

I gasped, even though I knew the importance of remaining silent. Ai'Ilyn either didn't hear or didn't care – she kept walking, and the boy in front of me did as well, the muscles that lined the brief expanse of his shoulders outlined in the light of the too-large moon that filtered down through the long flat leaves of the branches above us.

As we continued our journey, crossing back into the Bower trunk through a hole in the thick bark that looked like a black mouth, I realized we were descending now, going down through ever-widening corridors past an increasingly bizarre collection of creatures. Towering beasts with gray-green skin walked by us, and smaller insectile creatures hissed and buzzed. Several creatures that looked like Ai'Ilyn moved past us as well, in colors either a few shades lighter than her or a few shades darker, but all of whom she greeted with a vicious smile and an affable nod. Some were different colors entirely, and these she largely ignored save for a chosen few to whom she nodded. The ten of us children, the only ones in this strange menagerie that bore any strict resemblance to humanity, clung very closely together. I doubt any of them, even those who'd acted out against Ai'Ilyn earlier, had any thoughts of running or resistance then.

We passed through the Hall from the night before, and I noticed that the rows upon rows of braziers that had been lit with the strange silvery light had been banked, and that the tables were empty. There were figures moving up and down the rows, apparently cleaning, but I couldn't make out what they were doing. I lifted my head as much as I dared and strained my eyes, trying to see –

Other children.

They were older than us – old enough that some of the boys had begun to grow gristly patches of hair on their faces and the girls had long, uneven waterfalls of hair halfway down their backs. They wore strange off-white clothing that hid most of their bodies save for their arms and faces, and when the silvery light caught them I could see that some bore scars across their faces, hands, or arms. But despite whatever past wounds they had sustained, there were no current wounds in sight, and they all looked strong and dexterous. They moved in a simple rhythm, each gesture fluid and graceful, no effort wasted, scrubbing the tables and floor with hard pumice stones and soapy rags.

We rounded a corner and they were lost from sight, though my mind continued to grasp at them and wonder why they were here and if we were meant to become like them. I tried to focus back on what was happening around me and realized I was completely lost. I didn't know where we'd gone in the great Hall or which door we'd taken, but it was very clear that we were still headed on our downward trajectory, following Ai'Ilyn down a circling stair that curved around and around into the earth. Roots began to poke through the ceiling in small cracks, and the smooth wood of the tree turned into stone and hard-packed dirt.

I felt the walls begin to close in on me, and I started to find it hard to breathe. I had never been in a space like this before – never been underground at all, and now here we were, descending deep, deep, deep – deeper underground than I had ever been above it, even on the highest hilltop I had ever climbed.

We burst out into a cavern. Cold air hit me in the face, and a harsh, sharp smell singed my nostrils. I hugged myself as I shivered, the skin all over my body bunching into goose bumps, and tried to keep up as I stared around at still stranger wonders. Flickering moonstones that shone with their eerie, unnatural light lit the rocky edges of the monstrous cavern, and a single shaft of light speared through a hole above us, streaming down between giant, gnarled fists of root to spill silver illumination across a lake of black water far below. The pool itself was perfectly still and so wide across that I couldn't see the other side. I heard splashing but knew that made no sense: no ripples disturbed the surface of the underground lake. I strained my eyes and saw shadowy figures moving on the far shore that I could almost just make out, but they disappeared as if aware I was watching them.

Ai'Ilyn continued to lead us down, this time along one of several paths that branched out from the base of the stair. The path led away from the still, black lake, and the smooth feel of wood beneath my feet gave way to the grainy, painful slip of cold, rocky dirt.

After several twists and turns, we rounded a large boulder and I saw two smaller pools below us, both of which were bubbling with foul-smelling minerals. The path down was narrow, and only one of us could go down at a time. I followed Ai'Ilyn and the boy in front of me with caution. After the long trip down the tree into the bowels of the earth, I had begun to suspect that more than just altered pigmentation separated this strange woman from humanity. Each step she took was sure-footed, and her balance was perfect, while the rest of us stumbled, nearly blind in the dark, and cut our bare feet on sharp rocks that jutted up between the smaller capillary roots of the giant tree.

I ran suddenly into the boy ahead of me before recoiling from the cold slap of his skin. I'd been looking down, trying to find a clear path to take, and hadn't noticed that Ai'Ilyn had pulled up short.

I looked up just in time to see a flash of white and red skin cross my vision, and sudden shocking fear swept over me. She was rushing toward me, and I felt heat rolling off of her bare androgynous chest, saw her filed teeth gnashing in a snarl –

She shot past me, throwing me into a root outcropping that dug into my back and sent pain through my body. I gasped and tried to breathe, looking up desperately to see what was happening.

The skinny black-haired boy from before had taken the opportunity of the winding single-file path to run. Through the white fog of pain, I could see his coppery-skinned body loping back up the path at an impressive speed, his bare feet kicking up tufts of dirt as he jumped over roots back up the path. I thought for a mad, wild instant that he would do it, that he would break free and rush back through the Hall, through the trees, and into the world we'd come from, if only he could reach the stairs.

Ai'Ilyn caught him in seconds.

She didn't move like a normal woman – didn't move like a human being, even though she bore some trace resemblance. She bounded forward, ripping her feet into the earth and throwing herself forward, jumping up to push off the high curve of an arcing root and send herself flying through the air straight for the boy.

The first blow was so savage that it threw the small pale figure straight to the ground. Ai'Ilyn dropped out of the sky above him, landed on his back, and smashed his head into the ground. She reared back her head and a high keening wail filled the air that made me shiver uncontrollably.

The boy was concealed now behind the roots that lined the path, and I couldn't see what was happening; I only saw the Ilyn reach down and grab something, and heard the blood-curdling shriek of the boy.

Someone farther up the line retched over the side of the path, one of the other girls, the blonde one, whose fear had punched her in the gut. I felt nothing but numb, filled as I was with the sudden perverse certainty that she had killed him. Images of blood soaked hands filled my mind, blood covering red and white skin like glaze on a finished tile. I was frozen to the spot, truly at a loss for the first time since coming to the Bower, truly realizing the horror of our predicament, realizing we had no way out, realizing that I'd made a mistake after all, that everything I'd felt the night before about belonging here had been a trick, a terrible lie.

I was only jostled out of that mind-numbing shock when I saw Ai'Ilyn turn and stand straight. She came walking down the path with a swift, arrogant tread, the walk of a hunter who has demonstrated her mastery, and I saw she was carrying a pale, limp form effortlessly in one hand, as if it weighted nothing. I thought suddenly that she had skinned him, that she was carrying his flesh back to us like some grotesque spoil of war, but with the first full breath I'd managed to take in the time since I'd been thrown into the gnarled root, I was able to grab hold of myself again. The figure wasn't just a skin, it was the whole boy, and he appeared, if unconscious, mostly unharmed. There were bloody marks on his back, likely from where he'd been driven into the rocky dirt, and his eyes had rolled up in his head to show pure white, but he was still whole and intact. All the blood had rushed from his face, leaving his copper complexion a few shades lighter, and his nakedness made him seem pathetic – made him seem like nothing more than the young, frightened boy that he truly was.

A hand grabbed my shoulder.

The fear I'd been too numb to fully feel rushed through me with fiery insistence, and I grabbed the hand, ready to twist it, break it, get it off of me in any way possible as if it were a disembodied entity separate from the arm and head and person I should have rationally known directed it, a venomous personified spider that threatened my very life.

"Stop!" hissed a voice.

I loosened my grip a bare fraction as the human voice penetrated my mind and pushed away the roiling cloud edges of my fear.

The boy behind me, the one at the head of the line.

"Get out of her way," the voice whispered, pulling insistently at my shoulder but stopping short of actually forcing me back.

Ai'Ilyn was coming toward us, the boy held in one hand, and she was not slowing down as she approached. The others were still along the path, save for the girl who'd retched over to the side, and I spotted what the boy behind me had seen only seconds before: anyone caught in her way would very surely live to regret it.

I shrugged his hand off of me and moved as far to the side as I could, pushing myself against the wall of roots and soil into which I had just recently been thrown. The smart boy did the same, and as he ducked out of the way the silvery moonlight coming through the hole in the cavern roof caught his hazel eyes and revealed a look of cool, calculated understanding.

Ai'Ilyn continued down the path, and the others realized too late that she wasn't going to stop. The last in the line, the other boy who had protested the original introduction of Ai'Ilyn into our lives, didn't move in time. Indeed, he almost seemed sure she would stop.

She strode up to him and cuffed him across the face, sending him sprawling to the side of the path with a shout of surprise. The next one in line, the girl with the light honey-colored hair and freckled skin, tried to move, but was too slow, and, in turn, suffered the same fate. The others dove out of the way, rushing to either side of the path, two coming perilously close to the downhill slope opposite the wall I'd pressed against that led down a sheer rocky cliff side to the shore of the dark lake below.

Ai'Ilyn came to us, the hazel-eyed boy and me, and paused.

"You're learning," she said. "Good."

She stood there, looming over us as we cowered among the cold dirt and roots, and then continued on as if she'd never stopped, still holding the unconscious form of the black-haired boy. Waves of alternating fever and chills ran through me, and my hands unconsciously grasped handfuls of cold dirt from the wall behind me. There was a root pressing into the small of my back, bowing my naked chest and stomach out in front of me, but my bare body was the least of my worries now.

Ai'Ilyn turned back after several steps, seemed to sense we needed further provocation, and shouted back with a voice that boomed around the cavern:

"FOLLOW!"

The hazel-eyed boy and I were the first to move, scrambling back to our feet and launching ourselves down the path in her wake. I heard the others making noise behind me, but I didn't look back to see if they were following. My eyes stayed trained forward, keeping the back of our savage leader in constant sight.

I glanced at the boy in front of me, noting with distaste the way the dirt from where we'd squeezed around and under the roots had coated the side of his body. I surreptitiously scraped as much dirt as I could off of myself, almost daring him with my eyes on his back to turn around and look at me again.

We rounded a final mound of rocky soil and saw before us the two pools I'd noticed from farther up the cavern side. They were lit by a ring of torches that flickered with gold and amber fire that licked the end of oddly spear-shaped wooden staves. It was the first golden light I'd seen here, and it gave everything a ruddy glow that seemed somehow forced. The water itself was opaque and bubbling, boiling up from somewhere down below with a viscous yellow substance that collected along the edges of the pool like scum along the rim of a pond.

Other creatures lined the far edge of the pool. Half of them looked up at us and left as soon as we emerged around the final pathway turn, but three of the ones who stayed stood and turned to us, and we all faltered and stared at them, even the boy in front of me.

They were huge, towering over us, and their skin was a deep green mixed with brown and gray, like sprouting seeds covered in rich dark soil. They wore no clothing, and didn't need to – their skin looked as thick as bark, and they appeared totally sexless.

Ai'Ilyn strode forward into the pool and threw the boy into the churning water.

Fear clutched at me as I shrank back, but my panic was dispelled when the boy broke through the barrier between water and air with a gasping, hacking cough that turned into a drowned shriek. He floundered about blindly, but two things were immediately clear: he could stand, and he had not been scalded. He tried to pull himself to shore, pushing through the pool and throwing off waves of mineral-crusted water about him, even disturbing one or two of the creatures at the far end of the pool, who looked over at us with dark, predatory eyes.

Ai'Ilyn grinned; the torches turned the expression into a leer laced with obvious traces of eagerness, and she grabbed his head and thrust him under the water again, holding him there as he thrashed about.

"All of you are to wash yourself," she said casually over the flaky, molted skin of her red-pink shoulder. She never took her avid gaze off of the boy she was casually drowning. "You stink of the human world."

I kept my breathing even as I watched this, telling myself she wouldn't let him drown, forcing myself to believe it. But my hands were balled into fists, my nails digging into my palms, and my teeth were clenched so tightly that I could feel the tension all the way through my neck and down into my back. I wanted to do something, knew I should do something, but I stayed where I was.

She'll only do the same to me.

And then the darker, harsher thought:

And he deserves it anyway.

Ai'Ilyn turned and looked straight at me.

I stood frozen to the spot, my feet trying to ball up into knots of cramped tension around the gritty patch of dirt beneath me. My eyes were open so wide they felt ready to pop out of their sockets. Her red eyes were brilliant, burning into me as she dared me to protest, but I forced myself to stay where I was, forced myself to stare back. I screwed up my face and held her gaze. She wouldn't do it – she wouldn't let him drown. She was punishing him for breaking the rules – that was all – that was all – wasn't it?

She smiled, revealing her pointed teeth, and let the boy go. With an explosion of water, he surfaced again, this time crying in fear and relief, gasping and choking for breath, snot and tears running down his face. I breathed out a ragged sigh of relief. One of the giant gray-green creatures caught him and pulled him away from us, as easily as a cat with a half-dead mouse.

The other two approached us, their skin eerie in the torchlight.

"Wash yourselves," one of them said, the voice coming out like the creaking, settling sound of an old tree in high wind, "or the Urden will wash for you. The Urden are here to assist the Ilyn. This is the Urden's only warning."

I was the first one to move, though Smart Boy was only seconds behind. We both plunged down into the water, gasping as the heat swept over us, burning our extremities as we became accustomed to the warmth. I waded in further, ignoring the pain of rushing blood, and began to scrub against my skin with my bare hands.

"All the way in," Ai'Ilyn said.

I turned and saw she had abandoned Trouble Boy, who was half-in and half-out of the pool, lying on the rocky shore as he tried to regain full consciousness, watched over by one of the hulking shapes – one of the Urden.

I scrubbed more fiercely, trying to show that I was doing what was required of me, but she only sneered and took another step forward. I tried to pull away from her, but she was too fast.

I felt a sharp pain as my dirty, tangled hair was grabbed in her fist, and then just had time to close my eyes before I was doused in the deep pool. My first instinct was to panic, and I felt a scream building up inside my chest, pushing its way up my throat. But the force of Ai'Ilyn's hand holding me in place was undeniable, and I knew, with whatever part of me that was mulishly holding onto my mental faculties, that if I struggled she would only make it worse. She enjoyed this – she enjoyed forcing us to obey.

The only way out is through.

I went limp in her arms, and my fear disappeared.

The heat died down after the first few seconds, and I kept my eyes squeezed tightly shut. The cuts that I had accumulated on my body and face during the previous night's mad dash toward the Bower burned like acid and ate away at my self-control, but I forced myself to let the pain flow around and past me, keeping myself immune, like a boulder in a rushing stream.

More time passed. I felt the fear begin to gnaw at the edges of the self-contained void into which I had cast myself, threatening to shatter it, but I refused to let it in. I pushed the fear down, deep inside, forcing it into the shape of a black box, and walling it up behind wall after wall of stubborn resolve.

The hand released me.

I emerged from the water in a crashing wave and gulped down a huge gasp of air, water rolling off my head and rinsing through the straggled strands of my hair. I turned around, not knowing whether I intended to break away from Ai'Ilyn or to wait for her next action, only to find myself alone. The triangular figure of her back and shoulders was moving toward the shore, to where one of the other children was performing the same half-hearted cleaning that I had been. Two of the giant forms – the Urden – had circled around behind the rest of the children and were forcing them in toward Ai'Ilyn.

One of them glanced toward me, a shockingly human eye staring out from tight pale green skin, and I immediately began to scrub myself again with vigor, running my hands through my tangled hair, pulling at knots to undo them, nearly ripping the offending locks from my head in my desire to show my compliance.

The other children – the smart ones – were doing the same as me. Smart Boy was scrubbing himself with some kind of porous stone he'd picked up, all the while keeping a hazel eye on Ai'Ilyn as she terrorized the others, and two girls to my left were taking turns furiously scrubbing each other's back.

The rest of the children were on the shore still, waging a losing battle.

I doubt even a fully-grown man trained in combat could stand a chance against one of the Urden, and the melodramatic tantrums of the children who hadn't yet realized the position they were in was almost comic. They beat against the thick arms and rock-wood chests with no effect. The creatures gathered them up in their huge hands and simply waded into the water and dunked them with the unceremonious boredom of workmen doing a routine job. Ai'Ilyn rounded up the stragglers, including the black-haired Trouble Boy who'd finally regained enough presence of mind to start wailing at her once again. She cuffed him across the mouth and threw him back in the water. He came back up, gasping for breath and crying out for help.

I turned away and continued scrubbing. Eventually his yelling stopped, though I couldn't bring myself to look at him again. Images of a broken jaw, or missing teeth, filled my mind. I wanted to hope that wasn't what was happening to him – wanted to hope that the thudding sounds I heard coming from the direction of the other children in the hands of the Urden, too, were nothing more than superficial reminders of who held the power here, reminders of who was in charge.

What had we been pulled into?

But as terrifying as the experience was, it could only last for so long. Far apart from the torture it at first had seemed, the pool truly did clean us, and those of us who took it upon ourselves to do as we'd been commanded soon found ourselves left alone to perform our task. When I started feeling as though I was about to scrub my skin off entirely, I noticed the others were retreating back from the shallow middle of the pool to the rocky soil of the shore, wringing out their hair and brushing off the yellow scrum of minerals that had collected on their bodies.

I hurried to follow them, and saw that Ai'Ilyn was dragging Trouble Boy and another boy with dark skin up onto the shore, both of whom seemed to have taken it into their heads to disobey by trying to do nothing. I looked away from them again before I saw the inevitable punishment that was to follow.

She would break them. I'd seen it happen to others in the life I'd come from – I didn't need to watch it again. The outcome would be the same.

When we had gathered, the towering Urden who'd spoken before spoke again:

"Leave the pool," it said to us, its voice creaking and settling with an enchanting regularity that seemed almost like a song. "The Urden are done with you. The Urden leave you with your Ilyn. The Urden will see you when the moon turns. Do not come at other times; always come at this time. If you do not come, the Urden will find you and the Urden will bring you here. We three are tasked to you, and you alone, for this place and time. Do not try to avoid the Urden."

They turned as one to leave, and that was the end of it.

"Follow."

Ai'Ilyn's voice came from directly behind me, and I jumped to the side, my skin crawling. She walked past, dragging the two trouble children behind her, their feet madly and ineffectually scrambling at the ground. The rest of the children followed after, all resistance gone. I was the last to fall into line, except for the hazel-eyed boy.

As we fell into step our gazes caught and tangled. He looked like a bedraggled rat now, black hair clumped and flattened, and the resolve I'd seen earlier was flickering. I realized that he was trying just as hard to hang onto sanity as I was. I wanted to say something to him, but the words caught in my throat.

We followed Ai'Ilyn with no further incident up and away from the pools, meeting not another soul until we were back at the base of the giant tree, where we proceeded to make our way up through the Hall, up the stairs, and through the long circular passageways. She led us through the maze of corridors past rooms with vaulting ceilings, through small side passages barely wide enough to squeeze through, and along railing-less platforms that branched out over thin air, hauling the two boys in her tight-fisted grip the whole time. They continued to fight, screaming and crying, lashing about at anything and anyone who happened to be passing, but she largely ignored them until one of them came close to striking a passing Fae.

She pulled up short and hefted the boy into the air with no prelude.

It was the first boy, Trouble Boy. His face was bloody where it had been cut against the rocks, and his eyes were round with terror as he shouted, again and again, senseless words that echoed up the corridor and struck the rest of us like a lash, making us cringe and forcing us to look away.

Ai'Ilyn arched her neck and rammed her head against his.

The boy's eyes rolled back in his head, and his body went limp. The sound of his screams cut off, and I could hear my own heart beating in my ears as I stared at Ai'Ilyn as if she were the only thing in the world.

That was the first and last time I seriously contemplated running. In that moment, watching Ai'Ilyn and the obvious pleasure she'd taken in silencing the boy, seeing how absorbed she was in her triumph and hatred for whatever he was, for whatever we were, I thought madly that this was my one and only chance. My feet shifted beneath me, and all the carefully reasoned arguments about following instructions I'd been plying myself with ever since I'd woken to that alien face now seemed to disappear in a puff of smoke. I saw my escape – she was occupied, I could run, I could go, now –

A flicker of movement caught my attention from the corner of my eye, and I turned to see three other creatures like Ai'Ilyn walking past us, all watching carefully. Ilyn – that was what she'd called them, that was what she'd said she was. The flaky whiteness was all but gone from them so that most of their skin was red or pink. As they walked past me, I stopped moving. My weight shifted back, and all thoughts of running stalled. I could see what would happen if I did – I could see why Ai'Ilyn didn't need any help from others of the Fae to keep us in line. We were known here. We had all come in the night before – was it only the night before? – and we stuck out like sore thumbs.

How could I have thought I belonged here? None of us belonged here. We'd been called into an alien world and placed in bondage. We were captives, and, if we tried to run, every single creature we passed would grab us and hold us until Ai'Ilyn had time to track us down, one by one, and punish us for disobeying.

As if beckoned by my thoughts, she turned to face us, and sneered, a small smear of the boy's blood spread almost artistically across her forehead.

"I am in control," she said, her filed teeth glinting in the dim light of the branch corridor. "No one cares how much you cry or whine or beg. You are here because you must be. You will not and cannot leave. All you can do is what you are told."

She turned and continued on, still holding the boy by the hair, dragging his feet along the ground behind her. The other boy, the one with darker skin, looked so shocked by his companion's unconsciousness that he forgot to resist. He simply went limp and followed along beside Ai'Ilyn as she pulled him. In fact, when she realized he was now walking under his own power, she let him go with a hiss, and continued on without looking back. The boy quickly fell into line with the rest of us, his eyes wide.

After another series of turns, we emerged from the side of a branch so high up in the limbs of the Bower that I had to stop myself from retreating back inside. The world beneath me seemed to narrow and spin, the ground mocking me from so far below.

I looked up, trying to keep my mind on moving forward, on following Ai'Ilyn along the path that wound through the branches here, a path with no rails, and saw the moon riding high to my left. It was beautiful, and perfectly clear, and far larger than I'd ever seen before. Wind whispered through the leaves above us.

We passed from the precarious path into another room, this one built outside the tree in graceful lines that belied expert craftsmanship. It looked almost as if the room had grown out of the tree itself.

All of us, all nine as one, froze where we stood.

The room was huge, far larger than it looked outside, and filled with thousands of beautiful strands of yellow-white silk, some as thick as a rope, already braided, others so fine they were almost translucent. In the center of the room, sunk into the tree in a perfectly round pit, was an enormous loom that towered up toward the ceiling, its shuttle clacking and pounding as it raced back and forth.

Tending the loom and spinning the silk were creatures with the torsos and faces of women, and the bulbous bodies and limbs of spiders.

They crawled all over the room before us like a collection of spliced nightmares, faceless terrors from an ancient story. The skin of their torsos and faces was normal human skin, while the bulbous lower spider's body was universally dark, either black or deep earth brown. I caught traces of red and purple that crossed the abdomens in distinct patterns, and the creatures ranged in size from those no larger than a child my age to some that looked to be as strong and heavy as one of the Urden who lived down deep below. As we entered, a number of them paused and turned to look at us, and I saw that some of them had many eyes stuck into their heads haphazardly, as if a god had constructed and sent them out into the world without caring to refine the work.

Terror clutched me and froze me to the spot. I heard gasps and groans from the others, and more than one of them began to weep.

But none of us ran. None of us even tried.

"Arandil!"

One of the creatures at the loom turned at Ai'Ilyn's call.

"We need clothing for the nestlings!"

My knees went weak at the mention of clothing – I never thought I'd be so relieved at the thought something so simple – but the relief turned to revulsion as the creature called scuttled forward on her eight long legs, tilting her head to the side as she approached, watching us with a neutral expression. She scanned us one by one with eyes that were blank and glazed, high black orbs that took up too much of her otherwise human face. My breath caught in my throat in a spasm of indrawn air, and I rocked in place, locking my knees to keep from falling. The edges of my vision blacked out and I realized I was only a little push away from fainting.

"Are these them? They looked well scrubbed at least. Poor darlings – terrified as always. I'll take them from here, Ai'Ilyn."

The voice that came from her mouth was soft and motherly, and it made no sense at all. How could this creature, this hellish creation of a child's nightmare, speak like a kindly woman?

Ai'Ilyn grunted in acknowledgement. She dropped Trouble Boy where she stood, leaving him in a heap on the floor, and retreated to the edge of the room to lounge against a wall, the perfect picture of apathetic boredom.

The creature scuttled forward, her powerful legs, black and segmented, making scrabbling scritch-scratch sounds on the wood floor. The rest of us retreated, drawing together as if for warmth, and watched her bend over Trouble Boy, whom Ai'Ilyn had left to puddle on the floor. The second boy was frozen in terror, and a small pool of liquid began to pool beneath him as he wet himself. The half-woman spider reached out her human hand for him.

"Do not worry, child," the woman said, her mouth smiling in what should have been a reassuring way. "You will suffer no harm from me."

She turned and hissed something back into the cavernous room.

Two creatures detached themselves from the shadowed weavings and came forward, their human torsos both clothed in simple yellow-white shirts. They gathered up the two boys in their arms – neither child gave any resistance as one was already unconscious and the second had just fainted in a pool of his own urine – as if they weighed no more than dolls.

"Take care of them," the first creature said. "We will fit them last."

She turned back and spoke in a matronly voice.

"My name is Arandil, and I am the First Weaver. We are the Caelyr, first given shelter by Oberon, Erlking and Ruler of the Moonlight Realms, many years ago. In return for shelter, we do what we can to clothe those who wish it, and heal those who come to harm."

She gestured to the towering loom behind her.

"This is where we create and cut our cloth. We will make one set of clothing for each of you – and you will receive a new set each month until you pass into the madness."

"Arandil!"

The outraged shout echoed around the room as Ai'Ilyn came away from the wall against which she'd been skulking. All activity in the room ceased as the Caelyr around Arandil turned to Ai'Ilyn and hissed. A number of them even dropped down from above her, powerful looking creatures dressed in black instead of white, blending them in perfectly with the shadows.

Ai'Ilyn didn't seem to notice. Something about her had changed, something almost imperceptible about her stance and bearing, like an actor dropping character. She was staring at the spider-woman with a different kind of anger, one tinged with fear and shock, and she looked somehow older. But in the next second the change had reverted, and she was snarling at Arandil.

"I apologize for speaking out of turn," Arandil said, her motherly voice now cold. "But you will keep a civil tongue in your head while you are here, or you can wait outside."

"The nestlings are in my care," she retorted, "and they are to know only what I tell them. That is not my wish – it's his."

There was a beat of uncomfortable silence.

"Indeed," Arandil said, looking suddenly regretful. "I am in error. I shall speak no more of it. Now let me go about my business so you can go about yours."

Ai'Ilyn retreated back to her place leaning against the wall, but, for all her apparent nonchalance, her shoulders were tight.

"Come, children," Arandil said to us, beckoning. She turned around and moved away, her segmented legs moving in a flurry of quick, precise motions.

We moved forward as a group this time, all of us clinging together, so close that we were nearly on top of one another as we tried to stay as far away from the edges of the room and its shadowed occupants as possible.

The loom rose up before us, a huge construction of beams and pillars that grew directly out of the floor and disappeared seamlessly into the ceiling so high above. As we came closer, I looked down the hole that contained the base of the structure: a number of off-white strands of silk spun off the larger weave of the pattern made by the flying shuttle ratcheting back and forth; each strand was caught and separated into a braided pile of its own by other Caelyr, working with human hands and spider forelimbs.

Arandil led us down into this pit, where dozens of the human-spiders labored, spinning the woven silk into piles and piles of cloth, cutting off lengths with the sharp pincers of their shortest legs. She hissed something to the others, and a few of them made odd sounds back, strange rhythmic thumpings that came from deep inside their chests; it was only after a few seconds of confusion that I realized they were laughing. They looked up from their weaving work in curiosity, saw us, and smiled.

If I hadn't been so terrified, I might have felt oddly comforted.

"Ah, here we are."

I looked back at Arandil and saw that the two boys had been returned. The gashes in the first boy's skin had been bound with sticky patches of off-white binding. The second boy was also bound, though around the head, and I realized he must have struck himself on the floor when he'd fallen. Neither was moving, but both had full color in their cheeks, and I could see their chests rising and falling rhythmically.

"Ellenum will help you; please step forward one at a time."

None of us moved.

"Come now," Arandil said, chiding us with a stern look. I felt a simultaneous shiver run through all of us at once. I realized that, if one of us didn't step forward now, more than likely we would be forcibly separated.

I stepped forward, putting myself well within striking distance of the half-woman spider should she wish to indulge in a rash of moonlit child-feasting.

"Very good. This way."

I followed her outstretched arm toward a second Caelyr, this one slightly smaller, brunette, and with hairy spider legs that looked a little wilted. She held out her hands and motioned me toward her, a gesture I'd seen countless times among the mothers of the towns I'd gone through, but a gesture that had never been made toward me.

I approached, still shaking, and the new Caelyr, Ellenum, grabbed my arms and spun me around. My heart started hammering in my chest again, but the skin of her hands felt entirely normal, and I realized she was measuring me. She made a clucking sound with her human tongue.

"Right leg longer than the left," she said in perfectly understandable, though strangely accented, speech.

Another spider-woman off to the left nodded and began to pull sheaves of silk cloth out from the piles that had formed at the base of the loom, the entire structure of which still shook and quaked, letting out tremendous bangs every so often that were loud enough to sound like thunder.

Each of us were pulled out of the group and measured, and we soon found ourselves draped in soft silk clothing, an off-white color that looked like freshly laid eggs or the clouds in summer when they're highlighted with the yellow reflection of wheat fields. We were given no shoes, and I was surprised when I felt a pang of disappointment.

When the two trouble boys woke, they twitched violently and let out cries of alarm, but soon quieted, apparently paralyzed by fear. It seemed that whatever madness had taken control of them had been tamed by their brief incapacitation, and they meekly allowed the Caelyr to dress them, staring at the spider-women with wide eyes and seemingly unable to move their own limbs.

When all of us were clothed, we were shuffled back to Ai'Ilyn with little ceremony; the Caelyr seemed to have forgotten us and returned to obsessing over their weaving. The one exception was Arandil, who escorted us back across the room and bade us farewell in her motherly voice. When she was gone, Ai'Ilyn took over and eyed the two newly woken boys, clearly watching for a word or noise of protest but finding none. Seeming satisfied, she growled at us to follow her. I clutched the new silk shirt tightly about me – even the smallest layer of protection was welcome.

We were led back down the tree, down through the enclosed corridors and hallways, through the grown-in hollowed-out halls and chambers draped with forest finery, and down to the ground level where the bark seemed to vibrate with activity.

Ai'Ilyn spoke to us not at all during the journey; indeed, she barely even looked back once to confirm that we were following her. She seemed absorbed in her private thoughts, and we were happy to leave her there.

We emerged once more from the large central stair into the great Hall. I saw that the others from before, the children like us, were gone. There were still people there, or at least Fae creatures, but they were the hulking green-gray of the Urden or the flaky-white-and-colored of the Ilyn, and so I withdrew into myself, wondering about the others who had been here, who they were, and where they had gone.

We passed straight through the Hall, heading this time for the large opening that spilled out onto the field through which we'd run the night before. The moon was high in the sky, as it had been the night before, but I saw now that it had begun to wane.

I wondered suddenly, for the first time, why they had woken us at night instead of during the day. And then a stranger question came to me, for which I had no answer:

What if here there was only night?

I had to squint at first – the inside of the Bower was so dark that I felt like I was emerging into daylight with the bright silvery cast of the over-large moon shining down. Gathering dewdrops covered the grass and flowers of the clearing, turning the green carpet into a spangled, twinkling field, and I realized that the humidity and heat I had woken to not so long ago had faded. I was once more grateful for the clothing we'd been given.

My eyes adjusted to the bright, moonlit scene, and my breath caught in my chest as I saw movement in the field. My mouth dropped open.

Hundreds of children, my age or a few years older, were standing just out of the direct moonlight in the shadows created by the root-hills that arched to either side of the entrance to the Hall. They were waiting restlessly, some speaking softly to one another, in clothing the same off-white silk as mine, with an air of anticipation.

I couldn't believe it. Where had all of them been the night before? How were there so many?

I hadn't realized how alone I'd felt, even in my group of ten. But here was the proof I wasn't alone, not truly –I was displaced, I was disoriented, but there were others here like me. I knew that the feeling of belonging I'd had before couldn't have been misplaced – I had been right, I did belong here –

And then I saw the Ilyn lining the walls around the children.

There were scores of them in a dozen different colors. They were watching the children carefully, with everything from steely, expressionless masks to sneering grimaces of disgust, and I realized that none of these other children were free either. The Ilyn held their chains as tightly as Ai'Ilyn held ours.

"Listen to me," Ai'Ilyn said, breaking into my thoughts. She had turned to face us and was staring us down, her face a cool, dispassionate mask. "You are here to learn. Tonight you only watch – do not attempt to join."

She turned back around and stood with her weight rested casually on one hip, arms crossed across her chest, waiting.

I realized then that we too had stopped just outside the light cast from the moon. We were still inside the lip of the Hall, and from our vantage point we could see everything that was happening in the long patch of the clearing before us, where stood clustered the other children. They were all waiting, but for what, I couldn't understand.

Seconds ticked by, and then minutes, but still nothing happened. Those in my group shifted nervously and cast surreptitious looks at one another. Most of the others seemed to avoid looking at me, even the other girls, but Smart Boy caught my eye. His hazel gaze was bright.

"READY!"

My head jerked around. A lone boy, tall, with dark hair down to his shoulders, had raised a hand into the air and was pointing upward. I followed the gesture and realized he was pointing at the moon. The almost-full circle of silver light, hanging huge and heavy in the sky like a burnished silver platter, was toward the zenith of its arc.

There was a rustling that spread across the clearing, and I saw the other children raise a series of somethings made of strange black and silver material. They unrolled the material and shook it out to reveal gathering-bags, the kind that farmers would use to collect cotton when it was ripe and ready to be picked.

The moon crossed into the space directly above us, and the world exploded in silver light.

Moonbeams fell from the sky in silver arrows as thick as a man and struck the dewy grass in a cascade of light. The dew that had collected there caught the moonlight and refracted it in glittering rainbows of color that nearly blinded me. I threw a hand in front of my face and took a step back, but I remember feeling that I had to look. I remember the moonlight ... calling to me.

I lowered my arm and squinted against the blaze.

The children had burst from their confines, rushing in from the shadows. They were racing across the field, grabbing up handfuls of dew that sparkled with beautiful silver light to sluice them into the black-and-silver bags they carried slung across their shoulders. The children raced from one side of the clearing to the other in alternating waves, a complicated dance to which I felt I would never know the steps. They seemed to race the light as the moonbeams crashed down to earth in huge waves; they ran with complete abandon, whooping and shouting like madmen dancing on the lip of a crumbling mountainside, knowing they were cheating death, knowing and never caring.

The Ilyn stayed hidden in the shadows, and I saw Ai'Ilyn cringe back. Their sneers were gone, and I could see carefully controlled apprehension on more than one face.

A profound need rose up in me, a compulsion that told me to join the dancing children. They were laughing now, their bags nearly full with the moonlit dew, and what was left over they were drinking, pouring it into their mouths as they scooped it up from the grass of the clearing. I took a step. Someone next to me grabbed at my arm, trying to pull me back, but I shrugged off the offending hand and moved forward, almost past Ai'Ilyn. I don't know what would have happened if I had made it out there on that first night – don't know if I would have survived to tell this tale, or if I would have ended up like the ones who ... burned. But I suppose I will never know.

Just as I was about to rush past Ai'Ilyn, the moon shifted past its zenith high above, and the dazzling display of light disappeared into a thousand sparkling motes of crystalized light that faded into the night.

I came to a stop and stood, not understanding, desperately yearning for it all to return so that I could be a part of it. Disappointment filtered down through me, settling in the pit of my stomach like a heavy weight, but there was nothing I could do: whatever we had witnessed was over now. The children were laughing no longer; they had all returned to their respective Ilyn with their bags now overflowing with dewy drops of moonlight, and the Ilyn were snapping orders out, gesturing toward the Bower.

Ai'Ilyn turned around and saw me, standing several steps in front of my group. I stared up into her strange eyes and knew I should back away, but my mind was still blank. She casually raised her arm and backhanded me across the face, sending me stumbling back to the others, who caught me and kept me from falling. She advanced toward me again, and black terror sank its claws into my gut, ready to tear me apart if Ai'Ilyn didn't do it first.

She stopped an arm's length away from me and, for a moment did, nothing. Other children flowed into the Hall around us, passing without so much as a word, though I'm sure any number of covert glances were shot our way. We hung there frozen, the ten of us children cowering, me at the front, with Ai'Ilyn towering over us, until they'd all passed us by.

Finally, when we were alone, she spoke.

"Back into the Hollowed Hall," she said, much softer than I expected her voice to come out. There was something in it – a yearning almost – that I couldn't understand. "You'll be catching moonlight soon enough."

"When?" I asked, pleading. The word slipped out before I could stop it, and I felt the others tense behind me, the hands of whomever had caught me, clutching my back through the thin layer of my new clothing. I needed to know – needed to find out when I would be a part of what I'd just witnessed. I remember feeling that need course through my body like nothing I'd ever felt before – like a drug that made my blood rush.

"Did you question me?"

The tension behind me increased tenfold at the threatening quality of her voice. I knew I should look away from her, knew in every finely-tuned fiber of my urchin's body that I was being stupid, but I couldn't. I stared into her red-white eyes and felt again what had confused me before – felt the yearning that she was trying to hide.

I slowly shook my head.

She grimaced and strode away, leaving us to follow in her wake.

Chapter Five: To Catch the Moonlight

Ai'Ilyn led us back to the room we'd woken in and told us to lie down in, what she called again, our "nestles." I thought she was insane – why on earth would we need to sleep again after only being awake for a few hours? – but as soon as I was beneath the blankets, I felt exhaustion roll over me in a savage, consciousness-obliterating wave, and I realized I had no idea how long I'd slept the night before. Had I slept at all? Had any of us truly slept? What was sleep when there was no golden daylight to mark the passage of time, to even out the heavy silver light of the moon?

Ai'Ilyn strode up and down the room in front of us, her red-and-white skin glistening in the light of the moon, the only light left in the chamber to see by after she had extinguished the glowing moonstones along the wall. I tried briefly to hold on to consciousness, but I was fighting a losing battle when Ai'Ilyn stood over me and spoke:

"Sleep, nestling. You will need your energy for the morrow."

Something about her voice struck me as strange, but I couldn't place it. I tried to look up into her face, but it was concealed in the shadows of the room, and I could make out nothing at all. I fell asleep wondering why she hated us, and why her voice had been so soft.

I awoke some time later, feeling as though I was being pulled through a dense fog that wouldn't part before me. Layer after layer of the wet soupy mist hit my face as I ran through the night, going somewhere I couldn't understand, trying to escape from the place I wanted to be. The fog began to cling to me, and with every step more and more of it attached, sticking, weighing me down, cutting off my breath. I gasped out, trying to breathe, and pain wracked my body, shooting from my side. A sound was ringing in my ears that I couldn't at first make out, but, as it became harder and harder to breathe, the dream of running through darkness faded into reality, a reality where I was thrashing wildly, my arms pinned against my sides and held immobile.

"Damn it, nestling! By the Erlking – HOLD STILL!"

A sharp blow struck the back of my head, sending stars flashing across the vision I still had of total darkness. It didn't feel like my eyes were closed, which meant I was in pitch-black darkness or I had gone blind. Fear clenched my stomach into a tight fist of tension, but I stopped struggling.

Light blossomed, a blurred line of silver tinged with gold along the edges, and then air rushed into my lungs as some kind of weight holding me immobile was removed from my arms. I lurched forward and smacked my knees against the edge of my nestle, sending myself sprawling across the floor on my face as my shoulders were wrenched back behind me.

Gasping for breath and trying to understand what was happening, I turned and saw Ai'Ilyn holding the blankets from my nestle, her face a thunderhead of disapproval. We remained motionless like that for a long moment, and then she shouted at the top of her lungs.

"ON YOUR FEET!"

I shot up, both my kneecaps crying out in protest, and stood rail-straight. She threw the blankets that I'd managed to wrap around me into the hollowed bed with a sharp motion and strode forward; she thrust her face into mine, her teeth sneering at me only inches away from the tip of my nose.

"By the Hounds of ap Nudd, what is WRONG WITH YOU?!"

Her rage made me quake inside, but I held still, frozen to the spot by fear and a deep instinct that told me if I moved I would bring the anger to action, and then nothing would save me.

Ai'Ilyn pulled back just far enough that she could stare down at me with her red-white eyes; I immediately looked down, knowing that to hold her gaze would be to challenge her. For a long moment I waited for the impending blow to form and fall. There was nothing I could do – if she chose to hit me, moving would only make it worse. I had to hang on to my wits – I had to hang on to who I was.

She spun away from me with a howl of anger, shouting to the others to rise from their beds as well, casting baleful glares back at me, but I sensed a strange relief behind her eyes that made no sense. She had gleefully beaten Trouble Boy the day before; why did she look relieved to not be beating me?

But that thought was quickly shoved aside as I cast my gaze at the rest of the room, trying to piece together what had happened. The moon was shining through the window once more, but the light was different – different enough to tell me, I who'd spent many nights under the open sky, that the moon was rising.

Had we slept through another daylight?

Ai'Ilyn had managed to rouse the others, slapping one or two of them who hadn't complied as quickly as she'd wanted and arousing pained yelps from her victims. We were all still clothed in the silk we'd been given the night before, and, though it was sleep-rumpled, it still shone faintly with off-white luminescence. The others were now all awake as I, and we stood straight and attentive as Ai'Ilyn strode up and down the room, eyeing us each in turn.

"Today you will begin your life as one of the Fae," she said, watching each of us closely, daring us to speak. "That is the proper name for who we are – Fae. We are those who live on the edges of the world, those that lived in the world long before it gave rise to man. We live there no longer because we have no place there. This is our refuge, this is our home – this the Kingdom of Moonlight, the Realm of Oberon's Children."

She stopped in front of me. The look from before was gone entirely, and she was once again sneering down at me as if I were a piece of excrement caught on the tip of her toe.

"The rules are simple. You do as I tell you – you do as all the Ilyn tell you – and you do it as quickly as you can. If you disobey, you will be beaten. If you resist, you will be beaten harder. If beatings have no effect, we will find something else that does."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement that looked like a cringe, and knew it was the boy who'd resisted yesterday. I wondered vaguely if he was going to attempt to resist again – if maybe he was formulating a plan even now about trying to run for his freedom. The thought made no sense to me, considering how easily they had brought us here in the first place, but the boy had already proven himself to have less sense than any streetwise orphan had in their little pinkie.

"There is nowhere to run," she continued as if addressing my thoughts. "If you try to leave, you will be brought back, and you will be beaten within an inch of your life. Some of you may think that I can't truly mean that – that I'm exaggerating the severity of your punishment. I am not. No one runs a second time."

She looked pointedly at Trouble Boy who was staring hatefully up at her.

"You will be worked until you can work no more. You will clean when I tell you to clean, you will eat when I tell you to eat, and you will shit when I tell you to shit."

The profanity rolled off her tongue with such ease that I wasn't even surprised by it. Some of the others were – if anything, it seemed to make them even more fearful, which made no sense to me. Bad words were much better than bad deeds.

"You are not to ask questions of me or anyone else. You are not to interact with the other children here, either the older ones that came before you or the younger ones that are coming after you."

Younger ones coming after us? My mind began to buzz at this new thought, but I kept my lips tightly shut. We all did; we'd learned our first lesson.

Ai'Ilyn made one more pass up and down the line, examining us all for any flaw, real or perceived, but what she saw must have satisfied her. She turned toward the opening to the room, and barked a single command over her shoulder:

"Follow!"

We did, me in the lead, the others close behind.

When we left the room, we turned immediately to the right and stopped only several steps away. Ai'Ilyn pointed toward an opening in the wall I hadn't noticed the night before. I stood awkwardly looking up at her for a minute, and then went where she had pointed. The others tried to follow, and I heard her stop them.

It was a room, small and almost completely bare, save for a single round hole in the center that opened up into nothing. I went toward the edge and then looked down the hole – a hole that, just like everything else in this living structure, was not carved but grown, a simple divot in the living wood that went down and down and down into deep darkness – and my nose puckered. The smell that wafted up to me – the sharp smell of urine and the earthier smell of its waste-related kindred – was so strong I gagged and pulled back.

"Hurry up, nestling!"

At the sound of Ai'Ilyn's command, I pushed my disgust aside and reached for the waist of my thick new pants and lowered then removed them in one quick motion. I straddled the hole, and did what I was expected to do. Oddly enough, I was somewhat relieved. I'd been forced to pee in much worse places before and I hadn't realized how badly I'd needed to go.

One by one, the others used the room as well, and one by one came out. A few of them looked horrified by the experience, especially Blonde Girl and Trouble Boy, but it was over soon enough. When we were all back together, Ai'Ilyn led us away, down the winding staircase we'd taken up the night before. As we passed through the maze of corridors, I wondered how big the Bower truly was, but I dismissed the thought when we emerged at the bottom of the stair and found ourselves once again in the Hollowed Hall. The tables were set now with food and my mouth immediately began to water. There were heaps of berries, fruits, and vegetables, alongside bowls of shelled nuts and grains. There was meat as well – far off in a distant corner, where I could see a number of Ilyn tearing at it with satisfied growls.

But Ai'Ilyn led us past it all toward the opposite end of the hall. We passed through an opening that led to a curved corridor and finally let us out in a large room that could only be a refectory kitchen. Roots came in from the ceiling, hanging above us like subterranean worms, and rocks lined the walls, but food was in sight all around, being prepared, washed, stored, and served by children moving about in distinct groups led by Ilyn.

Ai'Ilyn led us down by way of a wooden ladder grown into the side of the earthen wall, made out of what looked like intertwined roots. She led us then to a smaller chamber off to the side, one of several dozen such chambers that honeycombed the larger room. Here there were ten earthenware bowls laid out, and ten earthenware cups, on either side of a long slab of wood that seemed intended to serve as a table.

"Eat," Ai'Ilyn said, gesturing to where the bowls and cups lay.

I hadn't realized how hungry I was until I'd entered the Hall, but even that paled in comparison to the overwhelming joy of eating the fruit, berries, roots, nuts and tubers that had been chopped up and stuffed into the bowl until it was almost overflowing. I barely even remember going from the door to the bowl, so intent was I on the food, but, by the time I'd begun to eat, I'd made the important and life-changing realization that the heavy bowl I held in my hands was full of more food than I'd ever had in one sitting.

Each bowl was stuffed full of raw produce, the kinds of things I had helped pick during the harvest season but been forbidden to eat. It tasted better than anything I'd ever had in my life. The sweet, sugary juice of the fruit rolled down my chin as I ate; the nuts crunched between my back molars, releasing a strong bitter-savory taste; and the cool water in the cups washed down my throat and eased tension from my body as if I were a wet cloth being wrung out. I attacked the food as if it were the last meal I'd ever have, and in no time my bowl was empty and I was left licking my fingers for the sweet juice and honey that had been drizzled over it, my stomach gurgling happily.

But our reprieve was short-lived. Ai'Ilyn had us back on our feet as soon as the last bit of food had disappeared inside our mouths, and we were soon back out of the room, up and across the hall, and ascending once more into the upper levels of the Bower.

I hadn't realized how long it had been since I'd eaten, but at that moment I thought it out and realized it could have been as long as several days counting the time I'd been in the Bower. My mind was slowly working its way back to full speed, and I felt the full-body energy of a full stomach rushing through my limbs for the first time in what could have been months.

My thoughts turned to the others and I started to wonder just who they were.

As we moved through the Bower, I snuck a surreptitious glance over my shoulder.

They were all walking behind me in a single-file line, and for the most part their eyes were downcast. But one pair of hazel eyes was up and they met mine as I looked back. I turned quickly around once more to face the front, eyeing Ai'Ilyn's back as she walked ahead of us. She hadn't noticed me turning, but I wasn't going to risk it by trying again. The hazel-eyed boy – Smart Boy. I'd start with him.

Other children passed us in the corridors, but, as Ai'Ilyn had told us we were not to interact with them, we made no noise or gesture of acknowledgement, and they too acted as though they could not see us. The older children, older only by a few years but still quite a bit taller and stronger, moved with ease, and their Ilyn said not a word to them. Watching their movements, I realized that what Ai'Ilyn had said really was true: if we followed what she said, we wouldn't be struck. In fact, the Ilyn supervising the older children were barely even watching them, and some groups looked as though they were allowed to talk to each other as they walked.

It was clear to me that they had grown up in the Bower. Their familiarity with their surroundings, the way they walked with purpose as if they knew exactly where they were going – their whole demeanor made it glaringly obvious.

Three years living here? Four? The number seemed to vary, and some looked barely older than us, which I suppose made sense. I remember feeling confused – remember being baffled by the idea of living in one place for so long. I had never called a place home for more than a season before – I was always moving, as were those that shared the same life with me.

What would it be like to stay here?

We passed another group and I cut my eyes toward them. This group in particular seemed old – in fact, they seemed the oldest I had yet seen. The boy who'd raised his hand and pointed to the moon the night before was among them, and they all were talking quietly to each other, their Ilyn at their head, either unaware or uncaring. A sense of wildness clung to them, something that revealed itself in their unkempt, unruly appearances and the carelessly tossed phrases that seemed to bite and twist. They seemed different, and that frightened me.

After we'd ascended a series of stairs, twisting and turning in almost-darkness, we emerged into a large chamber grown into the side of the tree's bark. There were glassless windows in the far wall that opened onto the distant scene of the field far below us. I saw figures moving there, along the line of the towering trees at the edge of the clearing, but I couldn't make out who they were or what they were doing.

"Ai'Ilyn! You're here."

I looked back across the room, toward the opposite side of the hall from the windows, and saw a short, slim creature with strange, olive skin that had a decidedly yellow tint. It had eyes that were wide and large, with pupils slit down the center like a cat's. I realized she was female, whatever she was – she was curved and all of proportion to her diminutive stature, which made her look almost like a full-grown woman shrunk down to three-quarters size. Long black hair was pulled back from her face and tied behind her head with what looked like a thick vine. She was beautiful, even in her strangeness, like a perfectly crafted doll.

She smiled at Ai'Ilyn, revealing sharp teeth like needles.

"Fal," the Ilyn replied, moving forward and inclining her head. We followed her, not knowing what else to do, and the small woman turned to us; as she did, something flittered in the air behind her, and I peered through the shadows that draped the room to see –

Gossamer wings, like those of an insect.

Her bright cat eyes, shining the yellow of a blooming flower in the darkness, saw me looking and caught my gaze. She said nothing, only smiled. My stomach churned inside me and I tried not to show my fear.

"Let's get them to work," the creature said.

Ai'Ilyn moved off to the side of the room, and a number of other small creatures with insect wings moved into the light, carrying hard porous stones and buckets, expertly woven of reeds, full to the brim with water and floral-smelling soap. We were set to scrubbing the floor of the chamber, working the porous stones back and forth over the smooth floor that now seemed to contain hidden bumps I'd never noticed. We smoothed these, sanding down the offending edges, until the patch was smooth. The winged Fae then told us to move forward, bringing us more soapy water. The process continued for what must have been hours, and we barely made it halfway across the floor of the room. My arms began to burn and ache to the point where I could barely lift them, but I didn't dare stop. Ai'Ilyn watched us off to the side, leaning up against the wall of the Bower tree, face stony.

The winged Fae called Fal drove us hard.

"You missed a spot – start over there."

I gasped and returned to where she'd pointed and redid my scrubbing.

"Again – smooth out that knot."

I went over it again, and then once more again. Nothing escaped her eye. The only part of the whole endeavor that in any way resembled an upside was that when Fal moved off to the opposite side of the room to watch the others, I was left alone next to the hazel-eyed boy.

When it first happened, I did nothing, thinking I'd be caught if I tried. Surely she knew that she was leaving us unattended. But minutes ticked past, and both Fal and Ai'Ilyn never turned their attention toward my side of the room. The winged Fae returned in time, coming back to critique us once more, and then she moved away again, toward the others. My heart was hammering in my throat by that point, but I forced myself to wait. I had to be sure. She drifted back again, coming closer to me but saying nothing when she saw I'd scrubbed my area to her satisfaction. She moved away and energy shot to the tips of my fingers and toes before I could calm myself. I swallowed hard, trying to wet my throat to allow a whisper out, and turned my head just far enough to the side that my mouth was angled toward the boy.

"Who are you?"

He paused briefly in the same act of scrubbing that I was performing, and barely titled his chin to the side to flick his gaze toward me. Our eyes caught, and then we both dropped our vision back to floor, staring at the ground we were scrubbing as if it were the only thing in our world.

For a long moment, I thought he hadn't heard me right, or, worse, that he'd decided not to answer. He was a survivor, like me. Maybe he'd decided to go his own way, to keep to himself –

"Faolan."

The whisper was barely there at all, like the bare hiss of wind on a silent, still summer night, something you hope for so hard you think you're imagining when it comes. He cocked his head to the side once more to look at me, and whispered something else:

"Yours."

It wasn't a question – it was a demand for an equal share of information. This was an exchange – he'd taken the risk of going first, and he was seeing if it was a risk that would pay off, seeing if I was someone that he could trust with this small and yet all-important knowledge.

"Mol," I whispered back, my voice as small as I could make it.

I remember quite clearly how the sound of it shocked me. Up until that point, I don't know if I'd ever spoken the name aloud. As an orphan and an urchin, the very idea of having a name was somewhat out of place. I never used it, had never told it to anyone in my memory – it was just something I knew myself as, like a marker that had been placed on me sometime deep in my childhood before I'd formed real memories, the way abandoned ruins exist until no one remembers what they're from or why they're even there.

He nodded and continued scrubbing.

I felt like I should say something else. I'd never been talkative before – never speak when you can listen – but I couldn't leave the conversation there. If anyone in this group was worth knowing, it was he, and I had to make it clear I knew that. I had to say something to him.

"Thank you."

The words were out of my mouth before I realized I'd said them, and I almost cursed aloud when Ai'Ilyn and Fal turned back toward us. I forced myself to keep scrubbing, pretending that nothing had happened. I wanted to scrub harder, to show that I'd been doing so all along, but I knew that to do so would be a dead giveaway that I was guilty. I continued the slow, deliberate pace that Fal had shown us.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Faolan doing the same. His hair had fallen in front of his face and around the sides of his ears – he had a lot of it – so I couldn't see his expression, and I was convinced this was deliberate. He would hide however he could from the scrutiny of the two Fae creatures, and I couldn't blame him for it.

After what felt like an eternity they turned back away from us, focusing on the others at the far end of the line, stooping to point out something to Trouble Boy. I cringed automatically when he spoke back to them, his voice coming out in a syrupy-sweet, fake baby voice that made my teeth ache.

Ai'Ilyn slapped him before he'd even finished the sentence.

"Even if I had asked you to speak," she hissed at him, "you will never speak in that voice again. Do you understand me?"

The boy had recoiled from the blow, and he said something back, something longer than the simple "yes" that should have escaped his lips.

I began to wonder, not for the first time, if he had a death wish.

Ai'Ilyn growled deep in her throat and reached down to grab the boy by the front of his shirt. She hoisted him into the air with so little effort it was like watching a full-grown man pick up a kitten by the scruff of the neck. The boy shouted and lashed out, panic making him do what even he should have known not to, and Ai'Ilyn sneered.

"See what I have to deal with?" she asked Fal almost casually. "You Paecsies have it easy – all you have to do is make sure they work."

"That's hard enough some times," the smaller woman-creature sighed, looking put upon and slightly disgusted by the display of emotion from the boy. "Do you want to punish him or shall I?"

"I'll do it," Ai'Ilyn said with a grin that bore no softness to it now. "He should get used to respecting me – the clothes he wore here were rich. He's the spoiled brat of some cuckolded lord, no doubt. He needs to learn his actions have consequences; needs to learn I mean what I say."

She smiled at him as she held him above her head and I felt a revolting thrill of excitement rush through me at her words. The feeling scared me more than Ai'Ilyn ever had – the thought that I was excited to see this rich boy beaten like I'd been so many times. Where was his protection now? Where was his father to keep him safe?

A whispered voice broke through to me, knocking me from the staring trance into which I'd fallen, and I realized my hands were shaking as I clutched the scrubbing stone convulsively.

"For what?"

I looked over – the barest flicker of motion, not turning my head or any other part of my body even a fraction of an inch – and confirmed that it was the boy, Faolan, speaking to me. His hair had been pulled back on the side of his head facing me and one hazel eye was staring up at me.

Ai'Ilyn set the boy down, turned him so that his small buttocks were facing her, and began to spank him, almost casually at first, telling him that she would stop as soon as he apologized for speaking out of turn. He cried out with every slap, but formed no words. I felt a thrill go through me and realized I wanted to watch, and then just as quickly revulsion followed. I swallowed hard and shook my head, turning back to Faolan.

This was my chance – I wasn't some rich boy idiot who would waste it.

"Yesterday," I whispered back, moving my lips as little as possible. "The pool. Pulling me."

I don't even know if I would have been able to say more than that. I'd held so little conversation in my life that my voice came out tense and gruff, my throat aching, muscles long since atrophied from disuse – but he seemed to understand. I flinched as the other boy's cries became more desperate. Between every slap against his backside, Ai'Ilyn calmly repeated that it would end when he apologized, and though he swore at her and spoke in depth about how what she was doing was unfair, the apology which would end the torture had yet to escape his mouth.

She turned him around, held him up, and calmly began to slap him across the face. He started to cry out again, but still he didn't yield, didn't apologize.

I am ashamed to admit I felt no sympathy for him, but knowing who I was then, I understand why I didn't. Living the life I'd lived, seeing what I'd seen ... and here was this boy who had the power to stop the pain; he had control. I cannot begin to express how much that matters. If he refused to give in, then he deserved every slap she gave him. She'd made the rules very clear. How could he complain that this was unfair? How many times had I seen a rich man beat a poor man for pleasure and sport alone? How many times had I heard what they might do to the unwary woman? And here he was with control in his hands, Ai'Ilyn offering for it to end, and he was screaming about how unfair it was. She'd even given him a warning!

"You're welcome," Faolan, replied. He was still scrubbing, but had turned his head just enough to look at me. "Mol."

A single shiver went down my spine when he said my name.

"Enough!"

Fal was looking on as Ai'Ilyn continued to strike the boy, and she was the first to realize he had passed out. Ai'Ilyn hissed in annoyance and simply opened her hand and let him slide out; he fell, struck the floor, and puddled there. My heart lurched in my chest, skipping over a beat and making my head spin; my breath returned to normal as I felt a wave of shame roll over me.

Ai'Ilyn reached down and grabbed one of the woven washing buckets and upended it over his head.

Immediately he was up again, sputtering and coughing as he breathed in a huge lungful of half-air half-water and tried to retch it back up. She tossed the bucket to the side and I cringed as it struck the wall of the Bower tree. It caromed off in my direction and landed just short of hitting me, flinging up cold soapy droplets that splashed against my face.

"Let me be abundantly clear," she said as she reached down and grabbed him again. She wasn't just speaking to him now, she was speaking loudly enough that we all could hear her very clearly, and her cadence had slowed to lend each word weight. "You are to do what I say, when I say it. You are to follow my orders in every detail. Whatever you were before matters not at all. You are one of us now – and I will break you, over and over again, until you learn discipline. That is what I am for – it is my only purpose in your lives."

The boy was awake enough now to hear her, and his gasping and sputtering had died down as he stared through a face red with slap-marks and already swelling with bruises. Bruises ... but nothing worse.

"You will only speak when spoken to – and you will respond immediately when I ask you a question. You will respond with the truth and nothing else. Do not test me – I'm one of the Ilyn. I can smell a lie from across the Bower. Do you understand me?"

The boy was literally shaking with fear now, his hands grasping Ai'Ilyn's hands as she grabbed doubled handfuls of his new shirt. He looked truly terrified, as if he were staring at someone who was attempting to murder him.

"No blood," Faolan whispered out of the corner of his mouth to me, and I couldn't help but nod – I'd noticed it too. In the outside world, blood meant damage and fear. Blood meant risk of infection, and the chance of scars. Blood was real pain – anything else was somewhere lower on the scale. Ai'Ilyn had struck for shock value and to show she could, but if she had wanted to truly cause him injury I had to believe it would have been very easy for her. The tendons and muscles of her arm were standing out even now with iron strength, and nothing the boy did, no matter how hard he squirmed or pushed, made her budge an inch.

I flashed back to the image of Ai'Ilyn's face after I had woken that morning, the way she'd looked concerned, almost worried for my safety when I'd had the nightmare and woken nearly strangled by my own blankets. I hadn't made a mistake – she had been worried.

I caught Faolan's eye and nodded. The corner of his mouth flicked up the tiniest amount at the edge, and I realized he was smiling. I smiled back with the same barely-there twitch of my lips, elated by the understanding that passed between us; we had just discovered the first rule of the Bower.

The Ilyn were there to scare us, not to harm us.

Ai'Ilyn was watching the boy in her hand expectantly, and I realized she'd asked him a question that I had missed and was waiting for the answer. The boy had tried to pretend he hadn't understood her – and no doubt had tried to pull off some kind of cute I'm-so-innocent routine with his baby voice just moments before, but she had seen through all of it, and now the truth was clear. The boy's eyes were blazing with hatred and intelligence, and I realized he'd been testing her all along, pushing the boundaries on purpose in order to discover the rules of this new place in his own way.

I felt a grudging respect for him temper the budding hatred I'd been nurturing.

"Just say yes, Tristan!"

I snapped my head around and realized it was one of the other girls who'd spoken – Blonde Girl. I took a closer look at her and realized she was beautiful, with arching eyebrows and full lips, the picture of childhood perfection; she was staring emphatically at the boy, cowering back from the blow she knew must come from Ai'Ilyn.

But the red-and-white skinned woman didn't make a move toward her. Instead, she smiled widely, revealing her sharp teeth, and spoke at the boy.

"I would suggest taking the girl's advice."

The boy's face was becoming more and more red as the balled shirt held in Ai'Ilyn's hands cut off his circulation, and the first flicker of uncertainty appeared in his gaze. The silence lengthened, and still he didn't speak.

The slap rang through the room so loudly that I couldn't help but flinch. My heart was racing in my chest - I hadn't even seen her move! The only evidence that the slap had even happened, that we hadn't just imagine the sound, was the red mark, deeper and darker than any of the others before, evident on the boy's face.

I saw tears well up again in his eyes, but I crushed the sympathy I felt for him. He had the chance to end this right now – all he had to do was say yes. Didn't he see that this was all a test and he was failing? Couldn't he see that there was something else happening here – that there was some other reason we'd been gathered? Why was it so hard for him to let go? Pride is useless unless you have power to back it up. In the Bower we had no power – in the Bower we could have no pride. Why couldn't he see that?

"Yes."

The word was barely a whisper, but it thundered in our ears. I felt relief surge through me, but I stopped it short, looking to Ai'Ilyn.

"Yes, what?" she asked, sounding like a parent reminding a child to say 'please.'

The boy scowled at her, and I realized that the tears forming were tears of childhood rage, the kind of all-consuming hatred that knows no bounds. I thought briefly he'd take it back, thought that she'd have to go at him again, but then his expression flickered and I saw fear there as well.

"Yes, I understand," he whispered.

She opened her hand and released him. He fell the few feet to the floor, scrabbling madly for purchase through the air before landing painfully his back. He gasped for air and tried to sit up. Ai'Ilyn ignored this.

"Good," she said, looking for all the world as though nothing had happened. She even looked bored now – as if the day's only excitement had just come and gone and now there was nothing left but to soldier on until the end.

"Get back to work!"

It was the Paecsie who shouted this at us, her gossamer wings shooting open and launching her into the air above as she realized we had all stopped to watch the proceedings.

"We have a schedule to keep! Don't look at me – get to work!"

We all bent back to our task with renewed vigor, attacking the floor with our stones and soapy water. Even the chastised boy, silent now as tears of shame rolled down his face, grabbed a stone and began to scrape it against the wood, clearing off the top layer that had been dirtied by the passing feet of so many Fae.

The boy named Tristan.

For the next several hours, there was no further resistance, only further cleaning. The Paecsie drove us hard, and, when we faltered, Ai'Ilyn was there to tongue-lash us back into motion. She didn't use her hands now, I noticed; she didn't need to. She'd proven her point, and no one, not even the momentarily broken Tristan, wanted to test her. But as the night went on, and as we cleaned more and more floors, scrubbing off layer after layer of dead top-layer wood grain, I kept shooting glances down the line toward him, as did Faolan. I think we both knew that he was dangerous, and we both saw the fire rekindle in his eyes as the night wore on. By the time we were done, when our hands were cracked and bleeding and Fal finally released us, his tears had dried and that fire was fully stoked once more.

I wish he had learned his lesson that night. I really wish he had.

We followed Ai'Ilyn down through the halls, using different passages and stairways, something I half-suspect she did just to confuse us. We passed by a window and I saw that the moon had shifted and was nearly at its zenith, something that made no sense to me. We had woken at moonrise what felt like hours and hours ago – how was it possible that the moon was only now cresting the height of its arc?

And then I remembered what had happened the night before, what the other children had done when the moon was high. My heart began to beat faster, knocking against the inside of my ribs with an insistent beat.

We emerged from a side passage into the great Hollowed Hall and my pulse began to pound throughout my body. I'd never felt like that before. I'd felt the pulse-pounding that comes with fear, the heart-screaming that comes with pain and loss, but I'd never felt this before, this lifting feeling that made me want to run toward something and not away from it. I was alive with true excitement for what might have been the first time in my life. To be part of that wild dance – what would it be like?

But we didn't go outside. Ai'Ilyn led us across the room to the area we'd visited that morning, down the wooden stairs, and into the small room where more bowls of food were laid out for us. I was astonished. Two meals of such proportion in one night? That was close to the longest streak I'd ever had in my whole life.

I had stopped in the twisted entryway, shocked by the sight, but, as I was the first in line, my abrupt cessation had bottlenecked the rest of the group behind me.

Someone pushed their way past me with a sour grunt. I staggered to the side as the biggest boy of the group, the one who already looked as though he was entering the beginning stages of pubescence, moved for the table. He sat with a simple, unassuming air, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about what was happening.

I moved forward, broken from my trance, and sat in front of my own bowl, the one in the same place on the left side of the long table that I had eaten at when we'd first arrived here. Faolan sat across from me, and I did my best not to acknowledge that he had done so, because Ai'Ilyn was looking straight at me. I bent down to my bowl and started picking out long twists of root and crunching into them with my back molars. Even they were delicious – full of flavor and snap. How was that possible? Faolan went through his fruit first. Soon the small room was filled with nothing but the sound of children eating their way through dinner.

I caught motion to my right, at the entranceway to the room. Seated where I was, I could see through the strangely twisted doorway to the area just outside, where Ai'Ilyn waited, leaning against the wall. She wasn't alone anymore; there was a second Ilyn now, with skin a darker red with less pink, and who stood several inches taller.

"Ai'Ilyn."

The new Ilyn's voice was deep, and it made me look closer. The creature's shoulders were wider, and the muscles on its bare chest and arms were larger and better defined. There was also a thin trail of a bony ridgeline located above each of its eyes that went up and over its head; when it turned, I saw that the ridges went down its back, disappearing into the long vertical spine-divot of his back.

"Zal'Ilyn."

I very cautiously watched Ai'Ilyn as the newcomer approached. She inclined her head toward him – I realized that I had started thinking of him as a male – and then watched him nod back to her.

"I set aside meat for you," Zal'Ilyn said in his deep voice, smiling easily at her, revealing filed teeth that gleamed white. "It's outside."

"Thank you," she replied, her face turned away so I couldn't see her expression. "I had trouble with the black-haired one with copper skin."

Zal'Ilyn grunted and looked in through the doorway. I immediately relocated my gaze to my bowl and became very interested in a piece of carrot.

I heard them both enter the room fully, but didn't look up.

"Which one," he said, all business now.

"That one."

She motioned to Tristan, and, right on time, he took the opportunity to turn around with mock innocence and shrug in a babyish "who me?" way, the picture of perfect innocence, a look ruined only slightly by the evident bruising that covered the sides of his face. Two of the girls who saw it giggled before remembering to be silent and I immediately wanted to punch them in their stupid faces.

Ai'Ilyn must have been thinking along similar lines. She left Zal'Ilyn's side and was behind Tristan in seconds. She'd grabbed a handful of his hair with one hand and the underside of his chin with the other and twisted his head painfully up toward her, cricking his neck and making it hard for him to breathe. Zal'Ilyn strode behind the two girls, one of them the beautiful blonde who'd called out to Tristan earlier, and grabbed handfuls of their hair. They screamed, and then went silent, as the male Ilyn forced them to look at the boy.

"Do not play that cute game with me," she hissed into Tristan's ear. His eyes were wide but defiant. "I hate feigned ignorance. It is a way of lying – and I will not tolerate it."

She yanked back on his hair so hard that his neck cracked and he cried out in shock and terror, thinking she was trying to snap his spine, but when he realized he was still alive his defiance returned, even as she forced him to stare up into her eyes.

"There are other ways to punish you. Do not make me try them."

She released him, and he crashed down against the tabletop, where he whimpered from the pain of smacking his forehead against the solid wood. She turned and strode away, not even looking back. The other Ilyn released the girls and followed her as far as the entrance, where he stopped and turn back toward us. He folded his arms across his bare red-white chest, the muscles in his arms rippling beneath his skin, and gazed at us each in turn.

We all looked away. Even Tristan.

We finished our food quickly – me fastest of all – with no more incident. Honestly, I don't think Zal'Ilyn needed to stand there to enforce discipline; I probably would have done his job for him. The Ilyn had now fed me twice in the same night the best food I'd ever eaten – fresh fruit with honey drizzled over it; honey! – and if anyone so much as stepped a toe out of line that might cause said food to be taken away from us, I'm quite confident I would have beaten them myself.

And though I was a girl, I wouldn't have used girly slaps like Ai'Ilyn had.

When she returned, she told us to stand. One of the children hadn't finished yet, the dark-haired boy with the round belly who'd made trouble with Tristan the night before, and he continued trying to shovel the food into his mouth even after Ai'Ilyn had ordered us to stand. She strode over to him, knocked the bowl away, then slapped him on the back so the food he'd stuffed into his cheeks went flying across the table in half-chewed bits.

"Eat faster or not at all," she growled.

I was, once again, the first one out, and Faolan was right behind me. Ai'Ilyn led us back through the scullery, where other children labored feverishly to clean and sort a dwindling stack of soiled earthen cookware. Many more of them were flowing out of the scullery both before and behind us into the Hollowed Hall.

We turned left, toward the opening that led out onto the field.

My heart skipped a beat and then began to thump out a rhythm double-time. I looked past Ai'Ilyn, out of the Bower, and saw that the other children were all gathering there in the shadows of the root-hills, the various Ilyn in their multitude of hues arranged behind them. The moon was rising up over us, and I saw that it was only inches away from its zenith. It was even less full than before, which at least confirmed for me that time was still passing, even though I had yet to see a new day dawn.

We were led to a spot just outside the Bower, barely even on the grass. I dropped my gaze and looked in the direction of the forest through which we'd arrived. I wondered vaguely if it was even possible for one of us to find our way through it if we managed to escape, and decided that the chance was so remote as to make the idea of running that much more ridiculous.

I looked over at Tristan and saw he too was scanning the trees. I think it likely that he came to an entirely different conclusion. When Ai'Ilyn turned to glance at him he looked down immediately, just before she caught him. He was getting smarter.

Now that I was close enough, I saw that the other children groups had formed up in lines in front of their Ilyn with the large carrying bags slung over their shoulders. Every time I was sure that Ai'Ilyn was looking elsewhere, I snuck glances. Some of them were talking to each other in low voices and their Ilyn didn't seem to care. Others were looking straight ahead, standing at attention, almost like soldiers. But all of them, even the ones forced into that unnatural stiffness, radiated fevered excitement like a fire on a cold night. You could see it in the way they held their hands, fingers restlessly ticking back and forth where the Ilyn couldn't see; could see it in one of the girls chewing her bottom lip, ignoring the two boys talking in hushed tones beside her; in a boy barely older than me trying to keep his restless legs from shaking.

I flicked my gaze to the bags the closest group of children had slung over their heads and down their sides. They were made of a black leather material, and bore traces of shimmering stitching along the edges, and a strange pattern of gold along the top, where was the opening through which the moonlit dew would be sluiced off the fingers of the children gathering it.

I glanced toward the grass and saw that the dewdrops, glistening in the night, were fat and full of moonlight. The humid heat in which we'd woken had again faded somewhat, and the cold had condensed the water in the air, making the drops look like ripe fruit hanging from the trees of the tall grass stalks.

A glimmer of gold caught my eye to my left, somewhere toward the ground. I looked and saw that the Ilyn in the group beside me – a male with green coloring splashed along his too-white skin – had brought an extra bag, one that looked as though it had been recently repaired.

Ai'Ilyn turned back to face us. My head snapped back to looking forward and down, my gaze just high enough that I could see where she was and who she was looking at, but just low enough that there would be no way for her to think I was looking her in the eye. After what felt like a very long time, she spoke:

"Listen very carefully to what I am about to say. I will not repeat myself. One of your duties as a member of this Bower is to collect the moonlight captured in the dew. Each night there is a moon, you will come here and do so. When you are here, you are not to speak to anyone in any other group but yours. You are not to make eye contact with them. You are not to involve yourselves with them in any way."

She paused to let this statement sink in, but I was already nodding internally. I'd expected as much – I wanted her to get on to what it was that we were meant to do. How did we "collect the moonlight"?

"Every drop of dew is precious," she continued, still standing perfectly still save for her head, which swiveled back and forth, her eyes roving over us as she looked for any flaw, real or perceived. "When you run through the field, you are to catch the dew and run it into the carrying bag you are given."

Dozens of questions were burning my mind now, itching the tip of my tongue, but I stayed silent. I would not endanger my chances of running through the field by speaking out of turn. I would give her no reason to hold me back from it.

"The Bower is not like the world you came from. The moonlight here is not the same as the moonlight you grew up with. In this realm the moon rules all, and the power of its beams is beyond your comprehension. When you enter the field, you must not pause, you must not turn, or you will be consumed. You will be burned out – and there is nothing we can do to save you from it."

My heart was beating painfully, crashing so hard inside me that I felt every vein and vessel inside my body throbbing with anticipation. I needed to be out there. I needed to be a part of this.

"You will catch the moonlight every night – once I deem you ready."

It took several seconds for this statement to crash down on me, and when the realization of what it meant – the realization I'd have to wait even though I was on the very cusp of something so amazing I could barely contain myself – was disappointing that I almost whimpered in agony. It couldn't be right – she couldn't be making us wait another night. It had to be tonight, it had to be!

"Tonight you will only watch," she repeated, eyeing us each in turn. Her tone was adamant, her gaze boring into us, and I realized she knew. She knew exactly what she was doing to us, making us wait – she knew that she was denying us something that was calling to us in our very bones.

"You will stand here and you will watch. See how they run – see how they dodge. Learn well. By the next full moon you'll be there as well – and you'll either live or burn."

She turned away, done with us, and as a group we shifted for a better view. I glanced to my right and saw the others with clenched jaws and drawn brows, staring out at the unfolding scene before us. I glanced to my left and saw again the other children and the group nearest to us. There were seven of them – and their Ilyn had brought an extra bag.

The Ilyn said something I couldn't hear to one of the boys of the group, prodding him on the shoulder so that he turned around. The boy nodded and responded with an affirmative, and then the Ilyn moved off, dropping the extra bag to the ground, where it lay crumpled in the shadows.

I followed his movement with my eyes, watching the deep green-and-white skin until he was on the other side of the group, antagonizing another of the children. When he was out of sight, I dropped my gaze.

The extra bag lay beside me, barely two strides away.

My hands began to sweat.

"READY!"

The same boy from before, the tall one with the long hair, was pointing at the moon, his sharp chin drawing a shadow along his neck in conjunction with the angle of the light.

My bare feet hugged the dewy grass as I flexed my toes in the soft dirt beneath.

The moon shifted into position, and the night exploded in silver light.

The children on either side of the clearing took off running, yelping and crying out to each other. My heart was pounding in my chest as my eyes followed first one and then another back and forth as they ran. Ai'Ilyn was right: they followed a pattern of some kind, a dance that had them dodging and weaving along lines that were never straight. It was chaotic, like boiling water, but something deep inside me seemed to know that it made sense – there was a pattern to it that lay just out of my reach.

I glanced to my right, down the line of my group, and saw that Ai'Ilyn had drawn back behind us, watching warily, through slitted eyes, the falling moonbeams.

Not watching us.

In a dream, I walked forward. I felt someone grab at the back of clothing, but I didn't stop, and with a quick twist the offending hand was gone. I think someone said my name, but I can't remember. Nothing was making sense – it was all a jumble of sights and sounds that fit together all wrong, distorting my thoughts. I grabbed the bag off the ground in a single smooth motion and stepped into the silvery light beaming down from above us, the shouting voice of Ai'Ilyn fading behind me until there was nothing but a ringing through my entire being.

I gasped and shivered.

Pleasure coursed through my body followed by waves of pain, the sensation of sitting by a fire just at the point between warmth and burning. I stumbled forward as blood surged through my body and filled my extremities with boundless energy. I moved forward another step and the pain dipped while the pleasure spiked, but then as soon as I came to a stop the opposite occurred; immobility was pain, motion pleasure.

I started moving forward again, gaining speed, and then passed seamlessly into the rush of the other children. They shouted and whooped, rushing around me like wind or a gushing stream, and I realized dimly I was laughing.

I bent to the ground and ran my hands through the dew that had filled with silver light, and shivers of ecstasy ran through me, coursing from the tips of my fingers through my body, down to my toes, back up to tingle along the skin of my lips.

I slung the bag over my shoulder, shook my hand into the gold-embroidered opening, and began to run.

I ducked down again and grabbed another handful of dew, a bigger one this time, and once again shook it into the bag. Pleasure rolled through me, so intense that I felt my toes trying to curl up even as I spread them to catch my balance. The other children were still rushing around me, and some of them were shouting taunts in voices I could barely hear. My head was still filled with a strange ringing that I couldn't understand, but one thought rose above the chaos, clear and bright:

I had to catch the moonlight.

I laughed and ran alongside the other children, all of us united. I ducked and weaved around them, and the pattern of their movements came to me, blazing through my mind like a series of steps learned long ago. I filled my bag with more of the dew; I licked my fingers clean of what remained, every droplet down my eager throat like the first drink a dying man tastes as he emerges from the desert.

We danced through the moonlight, and my soul exulted.

It ended as abruptly as it had begun. I threw my head back, still laughing, and saw that the moon had passed beyond its zenith. The other children moved off to their Ilyn, many of them watching me with smiles that were quickly fading. I realized I was still laughing, almost manically, and that tears were running down my cheeks.

With a force of will I did not know I possessed, I pulled myself back from the edge of insanity, and realized what the true danger of the dance was. Ai'Ilyn hadn't meant just that we would be burned by the moonlight if we stood still – she'd meant the pleasure might drive us to madness.

On the heels of this thought, and as the ecstasy of racing through the silver light died away to memory, I began to comprehend the full extent of what I'd done. My heart began to beat quickly again, but this time it was fear that motivated its frantic beat; the sensation of spreading heat that had so recently suffused me retreated and reversed, leaving my fingers and toes cold, the dew upon them suddenly icy.

I turned to look at Ai'Ilyn and saw her staring at me with eyes like distant thunderheads. I realized that the other children had stopped moving as well, that the Ilyn who they'd returned to hadn't spoken a single word to them but were watching me and Ai'Ilyn and the space between us. I saw her swell with indignation and pure, unadulterated rage, and realized this time I may not be so lucky as to escape with only bruises. She crossed to me in the field, picking up speed with every step; her hands were extended and grasping, reaching for me like the twisted branches of wind-blown trees; her eyes blazed with fire that held me immobile even as I knew I should run. A foot away from me she drew back her arm, her hand balled into a fist –

"Stop."

The single word rushed through the clearing like an eager wind. It tore my hair and played through the leaves of the Bower tree, and as soon as the soft syllables rang out, Ai'Ilyn froze where she was. Everyone froze – even the cicadas that had been chirping in the trees and the crickets making music among the grass of the field ceased their calls.

Everyone and everything stood silent.

I looked over Ai'Ilyn's shoulder toward the sound of the word, every muscle in my body tense, as some force, real or imagined, tried to stop me and hold me still. But still I turned my head, insistent, until I focused my eyes on the entrance to the Bower tree, and the figure that stood there.

He stepped forward from where he'd been watching in the shadows of the Hollowed Hall. The moonlight, still strong, though the peculiar effects of the zenith had passed, shone down upon him and threw his face and silver-leafed crown into bas-relief, making him look like a statue come to life. Another figure emerged from the shadows by his side with flashing golden eyes and a smile wide and sardonic.

"Come here."

Again, the words were spoken at no more than conversational volume, but still the whole of the Bower responded to the request. All the children leaned in, and some even took unintentional steps forward; the Ilyn looked ready to restrain them, but their efforts would have been half-hearted at best for they too were captivated by the Erlking's presence.

There was no question that I would obey him, not even in my own mind. My bare feet whispered through the grass, the cool dew slicking down my skin, the bag of moonlight hanging heavily over my right shoulder and under my left arm. When I was only several yards away from him, I stopped. I felt every eye on me, including his.

"Robin, take the bag."

Robin came forward, his wolfish grin firmly in place, and extended a hand towards me. There was blood beneath his fingernails.

I slipped the bag over my head and gave it to him, noticing how heavy it felt. The top of the bag had sealed itself somehow, the stitching along the sides stretching with the weight until the top was shut tight. Robin took the weight of the bag and I saw his eyes widen the slightest amount. Anxiety rushed through me – what did he have to be surprised about?

Robin returned and passed him the bag.

"An eager one indeed," the Puck said, his mocking voice at odds with the ease of the Erlking's. The jarring note of it broke the trance that held the others spellbound, and they shifted from foot to foot. But as soon as the Erlking held up the bag and pulled it open, they stood stock still once more.

"Full," he said.

A murmur passed around and through the gathered children, a wordless sighing as of relieved pressure. He lowered the bag and held it out behind him. Immediately, the huge shape of an Urden appeared from the shadows and grabbed it before the creature bowed and retreated.

He looked at me with his gray-green eyes and I couldn't think.

He took a step forward, and then another. My heart was beating so quickly it felt ready to burst from my chest. Air seemed to have been caught in my throat and was somehow unable to pass into my lungs. Stars appeared at the edges of my vision; I quickly blinked them away.

He stopped barely an arm's length away from me.

"What is your name?"

He was staring at me as if he already knew, but I knew that was impossible. He wouldn't have asked if he already knew. I opened my mouth to speak the word, but found I couldn't. The whole of my identity rebelled against the idea of telling him that name – the name of a soft orphan who lived a life of ignominy.

"Choose one for me."

The words were out of my mouth before I could consider them. Gasps punctured the silence, but murmurs died on the lips of the speakers as everyone waited for his reaction.

He studied me for a time, and then he smiled.

I didn't know what else to do: I smiled back.

His eyes lit up with a fiery excitement, and then he laughed. The sound of it was rich and deep, like loamy earth ready for seeding. My smile widened, and a thrill rushed through me.

"She can catch the moonlight whenever she wishes," he said, looking toward where I knew Ai'Ilyn must be standing. "The rest of the regimen stays the same."

He turned, and in a swirl of his long sable cloak, disappeared into the hall. I stared after him, mind blank, until I realized that Robin had approached me. He leaned over me, bending down so that his lips were against the outer curve of my ear.

"He favors you."

The words were barely more than a whisper. I swallowed hard and tried to control my breathing; my head was still spinning.

"Why?"

I felt him grin; that was his only reply. He pulled away, disappearing into the shadows, and when he was gone, the last evidence of Oberon's presence, the children and Ilyn behind me remembered to breathe and moved back into motion.

I stood where I was, staring after him, until Ai'Ilyn approached me from behind. She rounded me until she was standing right before me, blocking my vision and forcing me to focus on her. I couldn't read her expression, and perhaps that was for the best.

"Follow," she hissed, her voice low.

I did.

Chapter Six: The Darkness

Our lives became a simple routine: We were woken each moonrise by the snarling face of Ai'Ilyn; we made our beds and followed her outside the room, where we were allowed to relieve ourselves; we ate; we were taken to Fal and a string of other Paecsies and tasked with cleaning work that took us from the highest dizzying heights of the Bower to the deep corners of the caverns underneath where the Urden lived. We ate again; we caught the moonlight; we slept, falling into our nestles utterly drained of energy.

I was surprised at how easily I fell into that routine. All that I could count on from one day to the next in the world I'd left behind was that the sun would rise and the seasons would change – every day out there was different, every day was plagued by thoughts of where food would come from and where danger would find me. Here I was worried by none of that. All of those needs had been met – I had food, I had a bed, and I knew that if I did as I was asked I would not suffer harm.

I suppose it's no surprise I fit in so easily – I had nowhere else to go.

I was soon certain there was no sunlight in the Bower. After waking several times to the dark night sky, I'd been forced to conclude that the Moonlight Realm had not been named figuratively. I couldn't know it then, in those first few weeks, but later I would come to understand the seasons were unchanging too. The crushing winters of my early childhood, the kind that left the unprepared half-dead and the stupid all-dead, never came to this perpetually blooming world. There were changes, though: fluctuations in temperature, even weather. Some days the temperature dropped and huge crashing storms shrouded the Bower in wave after wave of drenching downpour; other days were so hot and humid that I felt I was breathing air turned solid; and still more days were so wind-wracked it felt that if I jumped into the air I'd land sprawled out six feet downwind.

The moonlight went through its monthly changes, indeed it was the only thing that showed the passage of time, but it stayed in the sky longer than I knew it should, and it glowed brighter and hung heavier than any moon I'd ever seen in the world outside. It did set, dipping below the horizon while the Bower slept and leaving the sky spangled with stars that stretched out forever, but at times and in patterns that didn't make logical sense. The only time it failed to rise was the night of the new moon.

The one night that did not belong to Oberon.

The first time it happened, the first time we woke to only the soft silver glow of the moonstones in the walls and no sign of light through the high window in the chamber wall, it was to the sounds of howling. I thought at first that I was still dreaming – thought perhaps something from my past life had invaded my sleeping mind – but when I sat up and looked around, I knew that the only dream I'd had was the waking one in which I lived.

The darkness outside the glass-less window was oppressive and total, even extinguishing the stars. It crouched over the Bower like an invading army of shadows, sending tendrilic questing fingers through to me as I lay awake, listening spellbound to the howls that accompanied it. The silver light of the moonstones seemed like a collection of pebbles trying to hold back a flood; their wavering light flickered and sputtered, and I knew somehow that all light was being sought out, that the darkness outside would consume us if given a chance.

We didn't go outside that night. Ai'Ilyn still came to retrieve us, but she never acknowledged the howling we heard from outside, nor the snarling sounds that later morphed into the terrible sounds of ripping and screaming. Everywhere we went that night the sound of it followed us, coming in through the smallest window, echoing down the corridors, stretched and amplified into ghastly convulsions that shivered past us as we walked and worked.

All the creatures of the Bower seemed to be elsewhere or firmly cloistered in quarters of their own; only the children were out and moving among the halls. The corridors were deserted, none of the moonstones lit. It was as though the entire structure had been deserted, the inhabitants fled in the face of a besieging force.

The only ones out were the Caelyr – and they were everywhere.

Every room we entered, we found the giant spiders spinning strands of gossamer silk to replaced torn sheets, to mend ill-used tapestries that hung in the meeting and feasting rooms we scrubbed, to repair or replace even the dirty rags we used to clean.

I never dreamed of asking Ai'Ilyn about what was happening, but we had learned that while the Ilyn were harsh and unforgiving, others in the Bower were not so set against the children. The Paecsies were one such group – though there were variances among them as well. Fal was never to be crossed – when one of our group, testing the waters, spoke up the first time Ai'Ilyn was absent, the reaction had been swift and decisive: the offender was whisked away and only returned to us when we went to sleep, a huddled mass of weeping bruises held together by what once had constituted a child. Other Paecsies didn't mind – some ignored us, unless we were loud, and others answered simple questions, so long as we did not attempt to carry on a conversation; but there was no guarantee you'd find one of them – the chance of getting one who'd punish you was much higher, and that kept most of us silent.

But while we had tested the Ilyn and the Paecsies, we had not yet had a chance to test the Caelyr. They remained isolated in their distant tower, feverishly spinning their silk. By silent, common consensus, we were taking it in turns to test the Paecsies given command of us. I had yet to go – the others had all gone, even Faolan.

So, that night, when Ai'Ilyn briefly left us in the care of a Caelyr named Ionmar, I bit back my revulsion and fear and moved to her side. Faolan saw my movement and his eyes lit up. The others were only a few seconds behind him – and they all spread out, working together to give me time, though Tristan watched me with suspicious eyes, the look he always had for me who obeyed the Ilyn so readily.

I was sweating even in the chill night air. With the moonlight gone, somehow the darkness had grown so cold that it felt as though winter was upon us, and the shivering fear in my own gut only amplified the effect.

"Hello," I whispered.

The word alone, the solitary sound amid the nearly silent ministrations of the children and the other Caelyr, made sweat leak from the skin of my entire body. I tried not to shake as I waited for the sound of Ai'Ilyn's rushing footsteps, waited for the pain of the first blow. She hadn't disciplined me for the way I'd acted when I went to catch the moonlight, but the Erlking's favor was no protection here.

"Hello," the Caelyr replied simply. I felt a wave of relief roll through me, but the cold tinges of fear still clung to the edges of my mind and body. She had not yet betrayed me – but she could very well change her mind.

"What is ... outside?"

I was carefully coiling the silk she was spooling so that it could be used to replace the unraveling strands of the tapestry that hung on the wall of the room we were cleaning. It depicted a scene of trees and a rushing river, the moon high above, like a fat, ripe fruit, dead-center in the sky. The edges had frayed, and the Caelyr were repairing it.

"It is the Wild Hunt," the Caelyr said softly, her human mouth moving only as much as it needed to as her spider forelegs and human hands wove the silk together in a feat of astonishing dexterity.

"The Wild Hunt," I whispered.

Stories and legends spread far and wide, particularly among the landless masses, and even more so spread the dark ones. There were stories I'd heard of children taken in the night, stories I now knew were based in fact; but worse than that were stories of the Great Hunter, the nameless one who came and pulled the souls of the dead or wicked into the underworld, taking them through the land of the Fae. It was a story I'd heard from those I'd travelled with – a story that had given me nightmares.

"Yes," Ionmar said quietly, eyeing the distant form of Ai'Ilyn, who had returned and was watching over Tristan. "Would you like to know more?"

I looked at her sharply, not understanding what she was asking. Had she decided to tell Ai'Ilyn how I'd been speaking? Was she going to raise her voice and call the Ilyn over? Would she beat me herself with the hooked ends of her spider's legs?

In the lidless black orbs of her eyes I saw my own reflection, silvery and soft in the moonstone light, and realized she was waiting for me to speak. Her face was that of a kindly woman, with a simple fall of curled brunette hair pulled away from her plain face and button nose. There were even wrinkled smile lines around the corners of her mouth.

I glanced back at Ai'Ilyn, saw that she was still involved with Tristan on the other side of the room, and forced myself to take a chance.

"Yes," I breathed at her, all the while thinking I was insane.

She smiled softly.

"Wait."

She turned and left, leaving the strand she was working on behind, and moved to cross the shadowed room. Her eight black legs seemed to be even more numerous in the dim light of the single moonstone set in the ceiling, and the shadow of her form spidered across the floor and walls as her legs skittered and clicked.

She went straight for Ai'Ilyn. I froze in place, willing myself to be invisible, clinging on to the insane hope that she wouldn't reveal me. The Caelyr reached the Ilyn and spoke to her in a hushed voice that didn't carry. Ai'Ilyn looked mildly surprised, and then she turned to look at me. My fingers and lips went numb, but I continued coiling the gossamer silk Ionmar had left behind, only watching the pair of them from the corner of my eye. I moved slowly, by rote, only just able to keep myself from shaking.

I remember very distinctly wishing she'd just get it over with and punish me – it was the anticipation, not the act itself, that most affected me.

But then Ai'Ilyn shrugged, grimacing at me and then at Ionmar, before turning back to the other children. Ionmar nodded graciously and returned, stopping along the way to pick up an un-lit moonstone set in a small hole in a nearby wall. The stone came away easily, and as she touched it it began to glow softly, lighting her face from below. She didn't speak; with a gesture she beckoned me to follow her. We left the hall quietly, the only sound of our passage the tread of our footsteps, mine soft and light, hers sharp and heavy.

As we left, the sound from outside increased in volume, and we again heard wolfish howling that preceded cries for help that cut off in high, quavering notes. Chills went down my back, and I looked back and saw the others watching me go. I felt the combined hope and fear of them all like a weight I was suddenly carrying on my shoulders. They wanted answers as much as I did.

Once we were in the hallway, and far enough down the circular corridor that noise would not carry to the room we'd left, Ionmar looked down at me out of the corner of her eye – or at least I think she did. It's hard to tell with spiders' eyes.

"We are going to the Weaving Room for more cloth," she said shortly, her voice low and without inflection. Her whole posture and expression was a study in neutrality. "Once we return, this conversation will end."

The finality of her tone, neither unkind nor friendly, brooked no room for argument, and I had no desire to argue. That she was agreeing to speak with me at all – and for the entire trip to the Weaving Room and back! – was more of a stroke of luck than I'd had the temerity to wish.

"With every step your time grows shorter," she intoned, her voice dry and bookish. She was looking ahead now, steering us through the Bower's maze of corridors and branchings that I despaired of ever fully grasping.

"The Wild Hunt," I said quickly, watching her for even the hint of a reaction, lost though it might be in the soft light of the moonstone she carried to light our way. We passed though a larger room, one with long slender windows that let in long slices of the black night. As if beckoned by my words, the howling once again rolled over us, mingled with the shouting that sounded far off and yet too close.

"Yes, tonight is the night of the Hunt. Keep up, girl."

I realized I had fallen behind her when I'd stopped to look at the black slab of night visible through the window, and I quickly hurried to catch up once more. My voice came out strangled as I spoke again:

"What is it?"

"You know the stories, I do not doubt. Even humans know of it. They are not far off. No one knows for sure who is a part of it, though we know who leads them. Any who leave the Bower and enter the darkness tonight will become part of the Hunt, and they will become something less than themselves. Or maybe something more."

"Who are they?"

"Gwyn ap Nudd leads them," she said, and I detected the first hint of a quiver in her voice as she said the name. "There are others as well, those who are rumored to be among them, the legendary dead. His brother, for one, and those of other close relation that joined him in the dark. They turn the tides of battles and sway fortune – they hold power over the witching hour of the Realm of Men, the realm the Erlking gave them long ago when they wanted to become part of the Fae."

"They weren't Fae?"

"They were – but not of the moonlight, not under the Erlking's protection and without his blessing to move through the Bower into the earth – into the world beneath where lay the souls of those at rest."

I shivered violently and hugged myself, hearing again the sounds.

We turned a corner and began to ascend, and I realized we were almost to the Weaving Room. I racked my brain for more questions, knowing I had them, knowing that this was my chance to have them answered.

"Who is the Erlking?"

The words were out of my mouth before I'd fully considered them, and I knew from the way Ionmar's step faltered just the slightest bit that I had touched on something that even she, in her deep neutrality, was wary of answering.

"His name is Oberon," she said, her voice hushed, even softer than a moment ago, as if worried someone would overhear her. "He is one of the oldest Fae, his true name long forgotten when the Bower was still new, and he is now known only as Oberon the Erlking. He has ruled from the shadows ever since the day he withdrew from the world of men, taking the first of his children with him."

"His children?"

"Those of us who live by night," she said, turning her head to stare at me with her protruding eyes. "Those like you and I."

My heart was racing – we were touching on the true root of everything. I had so many more questions, but as I opened my mouth to ask them, she held up a human hand.

"I must go to the Weaving Room for the cloth. I will return – but you cannot come with me. The way there is through the open air, and if you see the Hunt or hear it without the warding of the Bower's skin, you will be called to it. Stay here."

She pulled a hood up over her head, off-white like the rest of the garment that covered her woman half, and left me. I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I realized she'd left the moonstone behind in a hole in the Bower wall.

I sat there in the semi-dark, listening to the sounds outside. I found myself staring into the moonstone, but the small wavering point of light was not enough to block out the images that my mind created to go with the howling and screaming. The seconds stretched out until they felt like wide, barren tracks of land with no end in sight. I tried to control my breathing, tried to focus on the light, but all my defenses seemed to wash away in the continual barrage. I could hear horns as well now – drums too. Far off, barely on the edges of my mind, I thought of the stories I had heard, of how the Hunter came for you when you died, collected you when the moon was gone and the sun was gone, and took you to the place where the dead reside.

Gwyn ap Nudd ...

In a flash of memory, I realized I how I knew that name.

The man in leather armor, the one who looked like half a wolf and still was handsome; the man at the gathering feast, where we were when we were called; the man that Robin mocked.

The Lord of Death who bowed to none but Oberon. Shivers raced through my body as I once again contemplated the power of the one who'd drawn me here.

There was movement around the corner that led outside the Bower, and my heart raced in my chest before I could slow it. Ionmar detached herself from the shadows outside, holding two large swaths of cloth in her hands. She handed both to me; they were so heavy that I staggered beneath the weight.

"Follow," she intoned.

I did, shouldering my newfound burden.

"Tell ... about the children," I gasped, following her as quickly as I dared. She'd caught up the moonlit stone again, holding the light above her to light our way, and I was desperate to stay within its sphere of illumination.

"I will answer questions, not give lectures."

"Oh – I'm – sorry," I gasped, backtracking, trying to gather my wits from the corners of my mind where the sounds had driven them. I had to remember my place here – I had to remember the rules. "I apologize, Caelyr."

I'd heard the others use the name as an honorific, and it felt right to add it there. I fell silent, waiting for her to acknowledge me, and almost let out a gasp of relief when she gave a small nod of satisfaction.

"Proceed with your questions, changeling."

My heart lurched in my chest – there was that word again.

"What does that mean, Caelyr?"

"Changeling?"

"Yes, Caelyr."

She smiled down at me and shook her head slightly.

"That, I cannot answer even if I wanted to. You will find out when the time comes. But you are one – and so are all the children who are here."

"Is that why ... we are here?"

"You were called home – nothing more."

I glanced at her, hoping for some other sign of what she meant hidden in her expression, but her face was once again impassive, showing nothing. We passed back through the large chamber with the tall, slender windows and the noise of the Hunt, and a new flood of questions rose up in me.

"But why here? Why are we ... the Fae? ... why here? Why not outside?"

Ionmar didn't look at me, and I was worried that I had done something again to offend her. We passed through more corridors and I knew that we were approaching the room we'd started in.

"We are here because we are safe."

The words seemed forced, but I couldn't understand how. Her face was still impassive, and her black orb eyes contained as much emotion as the night sky or the water of an underground pool.

"We are here because the world embraced the sunlight, and we did not."

This answer meant absolutely nothing to me. But before I could question her further and attempt to pierce the cloud that obscured her meaning, she stopped outside the door of the large chamber we'd been in, where the others were all still helping the Caelyr repair wall-hangings and replace lengths of cloth in the various structures molded and formed out of the walls of the Bower.

"Enter; I will not go with you."

About to do just that, I pulled up short, surprised. Where else was she going? I looked up into her face, and she looked back down at me. I saw again myself reflected in her eyes, my white skin and blue eyes shining in the moonlight, my thick black hair concealing my shoulders and neck.

"Do not worry for me," she said simply. "You've reminded me of things I do not wish to know. I will see you when next you come for clothing."

A spasm crossed her face, and as I bowed my head to her, this time out of true respect and not in play-acting deference, she moved away, leaving the silvery stone in a sconce up the wall. It was only then that I realized she could make her way through the Bower in the dark; she'd only brought the light so that I could see.

I turned away from Ionmar as she scuttered up the corridor, leaving me behind. Making sure to grab hold of the cloth I was still carrying – I realized now that she was gone that my shoulders had begun to burn with the exertion of carrying them all this way – I turned back to the room to rejoin the others.

And found Ai'Ilyn standing right in front of me.

I froze, every muscle in my body seizing in terror, and the cloth tumbled from my hands. What did she know? What did she suspect? Would she beat me even though she had no proof that I had broken the rule of no speaking?

She stared at me with her red-white eyes, unblinking. She reached down and grabbed the piles of silk I had just dropped and thrust them once more into my arms, striking my chest through the bolts of cloth.

"Do not drop that again. Come with me."

My knees weak with relief, I followed her and was placed again near the others, all of whom were looking so intently at what they were doing that I didn't know how Ai'Ilyn missed that they weren't looking at me. I wanted to catch Faolan's eye, but I couldn't; Ai'Ilyn was still too close. When she finally turned away, I looked over and saw him turned toward me. I tried to convey as much of the conversation to him as I could in a single look – something that seemed so easy to do at that age in that place.

But he only looked back at me with confusion, and then flicked his eyes to the room's high window, far off the floor, high enough that none of us could even attempt to see through it. The question he was asking made perfect sense to me, and I nodded as slightly as I could, telling him I did know what was out there – I knew what was making the noises we were hearing. He flicked his gaze toward the form of Ai'Ilyn; the corners of his eyes narrowed, and I knew he was making the same calculation I had, that she was far too close to attempt to speak. He flicked his eyes back at me, those hazel eyes that changed in the light and were tonight rimmed with a ring of misty gray, and grimaced, a slight tightening of the skin along his jaw and over his upper lip. I nodded again, barely, and we broke contact, isolating ourselves in our own work.

The howling outside increased throughout the night, and so did the screaming. The horns sounded once or twice more, and each time my soul shook as if begging to leave my body and run to the source of the sound, to become one with it and loose the bonds that held it anchored inside my body.

Ai'Ilyn seemed to sense these moods in us, and when she saw one of us shiver, as we did when a particularly intense howl filtered through the leaves of the Bower and down to us, she moved us to another room. The Caelyr that worked with us didn't say a word about it; in fact, they said no words at all. They spoke in hissing whispers from time to time, and made strange clicks deep in their throats that shouldn't have been possible with human vocal cords; but there were no words that we could understand, which left us trapped in our islands of dark isolation, with only the moonlit stones lighting our world.

She took us back to our nestles early that night, and I found myself more than willing to go. There was no moonlight and thus no need for us to be awake any longer. She watched us get into bed, watched us pull the covers up and over our heads to put a physical barrier between us and the sound, and then turned to go. Just as I was about to do the same, about to duck my head and hope that the night would soon swallow the sounds, I noticed that Faolan was looking toward the window of our room, the one at the far end high up the wall.

I couldn't see his face; he was turned away from me. But his back was stiff, and his head cocked to one side. He was listening. I glanced toward the door, toward where Ai'Ilyn was, and saw her looking away.

I scratched a nail against the heavy grain of the wood, the barest hint of sound, and Faolan twitched, breaking out of his trance. Ai'Ilyn heard the sound too, and turned back, only to see the two of us in bed. She paused again briefly, then turned away and moved on.

Faolan rolled over, turning his face to me, one eye just barely catching mine across the length of the room over the edge of his cut-out. He wanted to know – needed to know. He's the only person I've ever met as curious as I am.

Hunters, I mouthed to him, not even daring to make the sound required for a whisper.

His eyes narrowed in confusion, but then he nodded, and I realized he had understood me, just not the reason why there were hunters here. He arched an eyebrow, and I took it to be a request for further information.

Gwyn ap Nudd.

I don't know why I said the name – I guess it was just the one thing that made most sense to me to try and summarize all that Ionmar and I had spoken about. But as soon as my lips formed the final silent syllable, Faolan's eyes went round and I knew he understood what I had said. A flicker of an expression pulled his face into a frown before he smoothed his skin back into a solemn mask. He nodded once, a bare fraction of movement, and I swallowed hard.

His mouth moved, but no sound came from it – he was mouthing back to me.

Goodnight, Mol.

Goodnight, Faolan.

We both rolled over, turning away from each other. I lay awake for a long time after that, listening to the sounds coming through the window. Judging by the breathing in the room, I was not the only one.

Chapter Seven: Sides

Ai'Ilyn began to fade.

I thought at first I was imagining it. With the terrors of the Hunt behind us and the moon back in the sky the following night, life had returned to normal – or as normal as any of us really had a reason to expect. But several nights later, it was clear Ai'Ilyn wasn't the same.

I didn't understand what was happening, nor, it seemed, did any of the others. We watched her the rest of that night, after that first stumble when she'd had to catch herself, and saw that with each hour she seemed to grow weaker. She led us down into the depths of the Bower as the waxing moon was ascending in the sky, and then into the deep caverns for another bath in the hot sulfurous springs maintained by the Urden. We were cowed by then – even the resistance that Tristan offered was often token, as if he'd fallen into the role and was now unable to remove himself from it – so we went easily.

We followed her down the subterranean stair and into the cavern – this time close behind her, our eyes easily adjusting to the dark shadows even though we'd just come from the silver light of the braziers in the Hollowed Hall – and it happened halfway down the slope.

One of the others was at the front that night – one of the others that I didn't know yet – and at first I thought whoever it was had struck her from behind. She staggered, holding a hand to her side and throwing another out to brace herself against one of the rocky walls that formed the barriers on the side of our path opposite the distant pool.

Some of us watched with glee, Tristan and Blonde Girl, whose name I'd later learn was Igrin, chief among them, but I couldn't help but feel a rush of panic. I held no affection for her, but I knew her. I knew what set her off and how far away she had to be to make whispering safe, knew what to do to prevent her from punishing me. Who knew what the other Ilyn would do if they were charged with our keeping? Some of the other children we saw from time to time through the halls and at the moonlight gathering were constantly bruised, and the Ilyn who led them were brutal creatures who sometimes even tried to discipline us. Ai'Ilyn intervened when they tried, once pulling one of our boys out of a bigger Ilyn's reach – an Ilyn of a deep red color similar to hers but of an angry, bloody shade. As soon as she'd stood between the boy and the Ilyn, the bigger male had stopped what he was doing. His lips had twitched, as if he wanted to snarl but had forced himself to stop. He had nodded to Ai'Ilyn, a quick bob of the head that cut off abruptly, and then had turned and shouted at his children to keep moving, slapping one of them on the back.

Ai'Ilyn was as much our guardian as our jailer.

She recovered herself that time, standing back up and straightening herself, leading us down to the Urden and the pools. But her health grew worse as the night wore on, and she refused to acknowledge it when she stumbled, even when she fell to the floor completely; she refused all help as if it were a point of pride. Her skin began to flake off in strange chunks, but only the white. The red and pink remained steady and whole, but the white faded into gray, giving her a sickly cast that was unmistakable as illness.

She put us to bed one last time, and in the morning she was gone.

That was when I met Ite'Ilyn.

He introduced himself at the next moonrise by waking us up one by one in a soothing voice that was so jarringly different from Ai'Ilyn's growl that it might as well have been a shout. His skin was so heavily tinged with green, a deep forest color that was oddly soothing, that there was barely any white.

When we'd all woken, he spoke in a calm, simple tone of voice.

"My name is Ite'Ilyn."

He inclined his head, a courtesy that was shocking all on its own. I was still rubbing sleep out of my eyes, and the ache in my shoulders from constantly cleaning gave a nasty twinge and shot a line of pain up my neck into my head, where a dull throbbing began. But even through the fog of sleep and discomfort I was unnerved.

"Ai'Ilyn will be gone for a night," he continued, not even pausing to absorb our silence, simply treating it as a matter of course. "I will not answer questions about her absence; her business is her own, as it is with all Ilyn. You will notice that I am unlike the others – it is because I am one of the oldest. I have been here a very long time, and my time is coming. I understand that there are many rules that Ai'Ilyn may enforce with you – silence being one. I have no desire to enforce such a rule – it requires far too much effort on my part. What is important to me is that you perform your tasks and perform them well; that you go where I tell you to go, and do what I tell you to do; and that you understand my word is law. Should you be willing to follow these rules, you may speak to each other at any time."

He looked at us each in turn, and when his eyes reached me I realized that what he'd said about being old was not an exaggeration. The weight of many years rested behind the deep green irises, as did the weight of untold knowledge and memories.

"I will need an affirmative from each of you stating that you can agree to these terms before we leave this room."

He turned his eyes to the far side of the room, to Faolan, who immediately agreed in soft and quiet voice. The Ilyn's gaze then turned to the biggest of our group, the one who looked as though he had already advanced into the early stages of puberty but who still carried himself with a child's awkward innocence.

"Yes," the boy answered, his voice a surprisingly soft and gentle whisper.

Ite'Ilyn nodded and turned to the girl next to him.

"Yes."

He turned to the next.

"Yes."

He went through each of us, and received ten 'yes' replies.

"Very good – follow me."

Ite'Ilyn led us through our morning routine and took us to the dining hall. On the way, we barely spoke at all. I don't know their minds for sure, but I am nearly certain that they were all having the same thought as I: It was a trick. All of us by this point had felt the stinging slap of Ai'Ilyn's hand, and had no desire to test our luck.

All except Tristan of course.

"This is a tree."

His voice was rusty from disuse, but there were veins of excitement throughout the words. Ite'Ilyn, leading us, did not stop walking, did not turn around. There wasn't even a hitch in his step to show that he had heard us; in all honesty, it seemed as if he'd forgotten we were even there.

"Ha-HAH! WOOOOOOHOOOOO! What are you going to do?!"

I watched, shocked, as Tristan turned to the side and kicked the wall of the Bower. His bare foot made a solid slapping sound, and though it made no indent, scratch, or mark, we all flinched as though he'd torn the wall down.

"I knew you'd give in!" he shouted, his triumphant cry turning to the sickly-sweet baby voice he used when he spoke to the Ilyn, mocking even as he pretended he was nothing but an innocent child.

We had all stumbled to a halt, backing away from the black-haired boy who had thrown back his head and was crowing at the top of his voice, even performing some kind of dance in the middle of the corridor. His eyes were wide and flashing like a maniac's, and his face had split into a beaming smile, revealing rows of perfect, pearly white teeth.

"What?" he asked, spinning around to look at us. "Come on – we're free, MAKE NOISE!"

My mind recognized movement, but had no idea where it came from. All I knew was that one second Tristan was standing in the middle of the hallway, crowing at the top of his lungs, and then he was no longer on the ground, but instead held several feet above it. I blinked to try and understand what I was seeing, and when my eyes opened the fraction of a second later, I saw the coiled iron strength of Ite'Ilyn's arm, his almost-entirely-green skin blending shockingly well with the darkness so that he looked like a shadow come alive. The whites of his eyes were wide, and his mouth was open in a snarl.

"So this is how you repay the gift of freedom," he hissed at the boy, suddenly sounding very much like Ai'Ilyn. I tensed and backed a step away, an action mirrored by the others.

The beating would come next. It was inevitable; we all knew it. We grabbed at the wall behind us, trying to blend into the wood even though our off-white silk clothing made us stand out like grub inhabiting a fallen tree. I wasn't thinking clearly at that point – none of us were. We were just reacting – that was all we could do.

But the blows didn't fall. The snarling tirade did not continue. The tall Ilyn simply held the child up in the air by the throat, and Tristan began to choke.

The boy's eyes widened as he realized the Ilyn holding him was not about to let him go. It wasn't fear, only surprise. He began to gasp and struggle, but he kept his eyes locked on the Ilyn holding him, refusing to give in.

Ite'Ilyn simply continued to hold him, the tendons on the back of his deep forest-green hand standing out like the roots of a tree, his grip unbreakable. The strain of the action didn't even register on his face.

Time passed with all of us frozen in that tableau, and Tristan began to gasp for breath. I noticed movement up the hall the way we'd come – turned and saw that other Fae had stopped and were watching the scene with veiled expressions. I glanced the other way, the way we were going, and saw that still more had stopped on that side. There was room to go around us, or even through us, and some of them likely would have if we'd been with Ai'Ilyn – but they were all watching Ite'Ilyn, and it was clear that it was his presence that made the difference.

Tristan's cheeks had gone white, and his lips were bloodless lines of a snarling grimace that defied the Ilyn's power over him even as he was strangled.

"You are here at the courtesy of the Erlking," Ite'Ilyn said. His voice was quiet and orderly, the snarling quality gone out of it. It was a deadly purr now – full of violent expectation. "While you are here, you will treat this place and these halls with respect; if not for yourself, then because such respect is demanded of you."

Tristan's eyes were rolling in his head now; he was hanging on to consciousness through sheer force of will.

"There is no other option," Ite'Ilyn continued, voice devoid of all emotion now, completely monotone. "You will learn discipline, or it will be forced on you. You will learn respect, or it will be forced on you. You will learn your place, or it will be forced on you. Here you are held to a higher standard. Rise to meet it, or you will be raised."

The hand opened and the boy fell to the ground. He began coughing and sputtering, his limbs jerking out at odd angles as he grabbed at the smooth wood floor for purchase that didn't exist. The Ilyn turned to the rest of us.

"One of you failed the test – but you as a group have not. The rules are changed – you may speak only during meal times and at no other point. If any of you, including this one, disrespect the Bower, the Fae, or the Erlking again, that freedom will be taken away as well. You are here, you are alive, as a privilege; the only right you have is to expect in return what you give out. Prove that you deserve more, and it will be given. Prove that you deserve less, and that too will be given."

He turned to watch us each in turn, his face and voice expressionless but for the smallest tinge of weariness, as if he'd said this many times before and couldn't understand why he had to say it again.

He bent over Tristan, who was just regaining normal color in his face, his hoarse choking noises fading to labored breathing. There was a dark bruise spreading around his neck, and his eyes were bloodshot and watering.

"You have no power here," he said to the boy, just loud enough for all of us to hear as well. "You must accept that you will never have power again. Every time you grab for it, thinking that it is just out of your reach, your hand will be slapped away. Over and over again you'll try, and over and over we'll teach you this lesson, until we tire of the game and simply removed the hand."

He placed one of his bare feet on the boy's wrist and pressed down to make his point perfectly clear. Tristan winced in pain and tried to cry out or pull away, but his throat was too swollen to allow for it, and Ite'Ilyn too strong for him to pull away. He remained where he was, completely in the Ilyn's power.

"I hope I am understood."

The Ilyn stood and motioned to two of the other children in our group, the tall hulking boy and a lanky blonde boy next to him.

"Carry him," he said simply. "Keep up."

He turned and moved down the corridor, brushing past Faolan and me without so much as attempting to slow. The other Fae made a path for him, and then closed in around us and went about their business, barely noticing us, save for two Urden who grunted and buffeted a few out of their way with their massive shoulders.

We hurried after Ite'Ilyn. I was once again in the lead, and I could feel my heart beating in my throat with every step, every hair on my body standing on end as his words rang through my mind over and over again.

Prove that you deserve more, and it will be given.

We passed through the Hollowed Hall, and through the far side into the refectory where the children prepared the food for the other Ilyn and ate their own in the small pod-like chambers that honeycombed the space. Ite'Ilyn led us to the same one we'd eaten in since our arrival – our large bowls of roots, berries, nuts, and fruit were all full and waiting, the honey drizzled over them shining in the silvery light that came from the glowing stone set in the ceiling of the chamber.

"Eat; you do not have long," Ite'Ilyn said simply. He turned and left.

We all took our seats, Tristan collapsing into his as he pushed away the two boys who'd been carrying him without the smallest hint of gratitude.

There was a half beat of silence between us all as we looked at each other.

"We can speak during meals," I said.

Everyone stared at me, as if waiting for a root to come shooting out of the Bower wall and pull me into the hall where the Ilyn could beat me, but nothing happened. I bent my head, feeling my cheeks turn red, and began to eat. The food was delicious, as always, and covered in fresh dew that told me it had only just been picked from where it was grown.

"We don't have long," someone else said – the blonde boy that had helped carry Tristan. "We should tell our names."

Everyone nodded as they began to wolf down their food, and we all stared suspiciously as one another until I spoke, once again surprising myself with my own daring.

"Mol," I said. "My name."

No one said anything profound; they simply looked at me and seemed to relax. Then one by one they introduced themselves as well, speaking quickly between heavy bites of food.

Pinur Fe was the tall, broad-shouldered one who spoke gently and halting. Faolan I knew, though none of the others did, and everyone by now knew Tristan. The girl with blonde hair, the one who always took Tristan's side, was Igrin, and even as she introduced herself, beaming the self-indulgent smile of those told since infancy that they are pretty, I decided to hate her.

The others I knew on sight were Durst, the shorter blonde-haired boy, and Celin, the dark-haired, dark-skinned one who'd gotten in trouble with Tristan the day we'd arrived. The others, who'd all kept a low profile, were Gwenel, Brandel, and Aelyn. Six boys and four girls, all told. We ranged in height and size, color and complexion, but were all cut of the same general mold: children who'd reached ten years of age; children who'd been pulled from the streets of their homes by music that no one else could hear; children who found themselves players in a game they couldn't understand.

With the introductions finished, the questioning began. We had little time and we all knew it – when we were not shoveling food into our mouths, we were speaking to each other through honey-sticky lips, having three or four conversations at once. Many of them focused on me, the only one who'd had an extended conversation with one of the elder Fae.

"Did she tell you where we are?"

"No," I whispered, frightened by the attention.

"We're in a place called the Bower," another girl, Gwenel, reprimanded the first questioner, Celin. "She won't know anymore than we do."

"So what did the spider-woman tell her – anything useful?"

I swallowed hastily, the last of the food gone. I stuck a finger in my mouth to get the last of the honey before I spoke.

"Gwyn ap Nudd," I said, trying my best to say the words the way I'd heard them.

"Who's that?"

"You mean that's what happened? That's who was in the dark?"

"What were the noises?"

"Hunting," I said, trying to sum it all up in as little words as possible. I wanted their attention to be elsewhere – off of me.

I saw their faces cloud over with thought and anxiety at what I'd said, but before they could ask more, one of the others spoke:

"My mother used to tell stories about him," he said, the short blonde boy who'd introduced himself as Durst. "He comes in the night to take souls, and each new moon he hunts for those who killed heroes or lied or stole and takes them to the underworld."

"Whatever he is," said Tristan loudly, "he doesn't matter."

All of the other conversations stopped and we turned to look at him. He was scanning each of us intensely but quickly. Even he wasn't foolish enough to waste the time we'd been given.

"We have to work together," he said quickly, drawing us in with his words and face and piercing eyes. I was the only one who backed away, feeling repulsed by him for no reason I could put into words. He made my skin crawl, the very thought of him and how he acted.

"We must make an oath," he said, standing up proud and tall from where he'd sat at the table. The marks around his neck from his near-strangling, added to the most recent of his beating-induced bruises, gave him the look of a heroic martyr, recovered enough to carry on the noble fight he had begun. He was a beautiful boy – even to this day I remember how his skin glowed from within, and we all seemed to shine with reflected glory when he worked his charms.

"We must fight this tyranny," he continued. I could tell that he was very proud to use that word – likely something he'd overheard said at his father's table, something he'd been waiting for the proper moment to use. "They're treating us like slaves! Making us work and scrub and go to sleep when they want, and run through moonlight – we have to work together to fight it. They're trying to beat us and hurt us – we need to get away, and if we work together as a group, we can do it."

The others were caught up in his act, I could see it, but I was only further repulsed. The very idea made no sense to me. Fight what? Fight whom? The shadows themselves that seemed to give birth to more Fae along every corridor of the Bower? The music that had eradicated our thoughts and judgment and pulled us here regardless of our wishes? The Ilyn, the most noticeable enemy, who were faster, stronger, and more cunning than ten ten-year olds could ever hope to be? I have always been able to see through the lies of others – perhaps because I recognize something of myself in them, a dark commonality of disposition that goes deeper than blood ever could. But while I recognize the similarities, I have never felt kinship with those like Tristan, those who will use words and base desires to manipulate the innocent.

"Yes," one of the others said – Aelyn, I think.

"Yes," Igrin said at once, joining with Tristan as I'd known she would. I considered my hatred now well justified.

The others were all looking like they wanted to join on, casting surreptitious looks at the door, knowing that Ite'Ilyn would return at any second, but feeling caught up in this new idea that they could band together and fight back like heroes in a story.

"We'll have to be quick about it," Tristan said. 'Tonight, during the moonlight ceremony, if we –"

"No," I said.

Everyone looked at me, stunned that someone had the temerity to break this beautiful plan that had them on the way to some daring escape. Those with food halfway to their mouths forgot it, and the expressions of those who'd been staring, enraptured, at the charismatic Tristan puckered as if one of their sweet berries had revealed a horribly sour center.

Slowly, Tristan's eyes came to rest on me.

"I won't," I said simply, watching him, knowing that he was the only one that mattered. Some people forget how vicious children can be – how black and white their morality when it comes to what they want – but I have taken pains to remember it, perhaps because so much of what makes up a person's core is based on choices they made as children. For Tristan, the moment I'd spoken up I'd become the embodiment of everything that he was rallying the others against. I could see the darkening clouds in his black eyes as he gathered a mental storm against me, readying to break me with thunderous condemnations and floods of sweeping words.

"I won't fight," I continued, just before he spoke, suddenly absolutely sure I had to defend myself or else risk alienation not just from outside the group but also from within. "I won't fight because it's stupid to fight right now."

They were the first words I could think of, and I realized my argument was coming out all wrong. Tristan's upper lip twitched in contempt, but I pressed on, knowing I had to get as much out as I could before he started speaking again; I had to make sense to the others – I didn't have charm to blind them with, but if I kept them from siding with Tristan until Ite'Ilyn returned, maybe that would be enough.

"We just got here," I said, trying my best to run the words together the way I'd heard others do. My voice sounded terribly awkward, like a strange bird trying to mimic a cricket. "We don't know ... anything about it. We don't know ... where we are. They give food, and they give beds."

Some of the others, Pinur Fe and Gwenel among them, were watching me with interest. I felt my cheeks burning, but I continued on.

"I can't fight – because I can't go back."

I tried to put as much weight into my words as I could, tried to imbue the idea of back with everything it meant for me: back to a place where I lived on the whims of a irrational world, subject to fortune and nothing else. Back to a place where food was stolen, not laid out in earthenware bowls. Back to a place where backbreaking labor was rewarded not with beds and food but with coin that bought not nearly enough of either.

"Don't listen to a girl," Tristan sneered. "She's stupid – she wants to be a slave! No one rules me. I make my own rules."

"There are always rules – these make sense!"

He blinked once, and a shadow of confusion crossed his face for a fraction of a second, followed by the wide eyes of understanding. It was the final confirmation for me that he didn't care about us in the slightest – all he cared about was returning to his back, to his family, just as Ai'Ilyn had alluded to. He understood now that this was a new beginning for me, for some of the others, but that meant nothing to him.

Prove that you deserve more, and it will be given you.

I tried to find something else to say, but I didn't have the words. He shook his head and looked ready to say something else, to launch into another speech I despaired of following, but he was interrupted.

"I will not fight either," Faolan said, not looking up.

In the midst of all the questions I'd almost forgotten him, he'd been so silent. Every eye turned away from Tristan and myself and focused on the boy who hadn't looked up at either of us; unperturbed, he continued to eat from his bowl, cracking his way through a final few handfuls of nuts and berries. A strange sense of finality saturated his words, making them heavy with surprising weight. That was the first time we came to understand his ability to make his displeasure known through the sheer force of silence. Whereas Tristan worked his charms with words and smiles, Faolan existed in counterpoint: his silent, steady disregard of anything he deemed foolish or beneath him worked to make others look foolish and beneath him too.

Tristan's eyes flashed as they shifted from me to Faolan, suddenly wary. He'd figured me out, but Faolan was still an unknown.

"Mol's right," Faolan continued. He spoke with an easy fluency that told me that wherever he'd come from he'd at least had occasion to speak with others. He never looked up from his bowl; he didn't deign to grant Tristan anything close to a sign of understanding or acknowledgement. "We have a place here. There's a reason. Think about all the children. The Ilyn must be used to stopping them from running away. There's no way I'm leaving here to go back. There's no back for me."

He finished the last berry and finally looked up, but not at Tristan: at me.

"I eat more here than I ate outside in months. I sleep in the same place every night. I'm warm."

Unable to stop myself, I flicked my gaze to his cheeks, to the hollows that had been there, gaunt and tight, and realized he was telling the truth. He'd started out as malnourished as I had, but now his skin was smoother and his eyes peered out of sockets rounded with light gray shadows, not the deep black of true deprivation. He still looked like I'd felt all my life – like a rodent, half-drowned and scuttling about the world in a hopeless battle to stay alive – but the improvements were keenly noticeable. I couldn't help but wonder how he'd look given another week – could barely even fathom the idea that we might be able to live here with consistent food and sleep not just for weeks, not even for months, but for whole years.

It was more than I had ever dared to dream possible.

There was movement at the entrance, and we all fell silent as Ite'Ilyn appeared there. The silvery light of the moonstones made his skin look like the dappled shadows of leaves shifting beneath the light of a full moon.

"Stand. Your meal is over. Follow me and remain silent."

We did as told, fed and ready to start our night of cleaning, but as we approached the door I felt eyes boring into the back of my head, and I knew without looking that Tristan had marked me.

Our paths were set for each other in that moment.

Maybe they always were.

Chapter Eight: Prior Claim

The next night, Ite'Ilyn was gone and Ai'Ilyn had returned.

She woke us as she had done every moonrise save for the last, and I noticed that she was changed: her skin was redder than before. The change was slight, so small that it seemed almost a trick of the light or a wrinkle of the mind, but I knew it was there. What Ite'Ilyn had said the night before came back to me – that he was old, much older than the other Ilyn. Ite'Ilyn with his skin so green that nearly all the white was gone.

She'd aged. Somehow, for some reason, she'd gone away to age.

"Stand!"

The command snapped out of her mouth with its customary whip-like quality, and there was nothing we could do but obey. She slowly began to walk up and down before us. She was holding herself differently: her shoulders were more relaxed, her chest higher. Her back was still ramrod straight, and her stride contained the same purposeful sense of direction it always had, but she looked ... refreshed.

"You've now been here almost a full moon's cycle," she said once we'd all risen from out places in scrambles of limbs and blankets. I did a quick calculation in my head, thinking about the size of the moon the night before, and realized it was coming back close to full.

"If I had my way, I would continue holding you in silence for the full customary month."

My eyes flicked over the others, Ai'Ilyn's back turned to me, and saw they'd all stiffened with anticipation. She didn't speak again immediately, instead taking the time to examine us with her customary snarl.

"But Ite'Ilyn tells me that most of you conducted yourselves ... well."

She let more silence fall, filling up the space between us, filling the entire room save for the sounds of Fae in the field outside. None of us looked toward Tristan, but we all knew whom she'd left out by saying "most of you."

"So I will be lenient. You are allowed to speak at meal times – and only at meal times. At all other times, you will remain silent and speak only when spoken to. You are nestlings – do not even think of speaking to the greater Fae, or I will be the least of your problems."

She paced back to the beginning of the line.

"If I catch any of you speaking out, all of you lose the right to speak for another full moon's turn. If I catch you speaking to any of the other nestlings from the other groups, you will be punished and you will lose the right to speak for another full moon's turn. If you fail to follow a command, you will be punished and you will lose the right to speak for another full moon's turn. I think, if I am not mistaken, that this makes the trend of punishments abundantly clear."

She turned to me.

"Does it not ... Mol?"

My name, rolling from her mouth and through her pointed teeth made me shiver violently. I tried to stop the motion, suppressing it as best I could, but I know she saw it, and she knew I knew. She grinned, and then turned away.

She led us through the Bower again, going by one of several customary routes. Some of the turns now looked familiar, but only one in three at best, and even those I wasn't sure about. We crossed the Hollowed Hall, filled with Fae eating there, predominantly Paecsies, Urden, and Ilyn; and passed into the scullery, where finally we came to our eating room.

I attacked my bowl with my usual appetite, still not entirely convinced that they wouldn't decide this was my last meal before they threw me out or ran me off into the forest. It was only when I was halfway done that I realized the others were exercising their right to talk, and I quickly listened in.

"Isn't something different about her?"

"Besides the fact she's letting us talk?"

"Well, she isn't completely different; she still looks at us like something she'd like to scrape us off with a stick–"

"You mean her skin."

They all turned to me, the final one to speak, and stared as if I were trying to be funny. When they saw my face and realized I was being serious, they shifted uncomfortably.

"What skin?" one of the boys asked – the lankier blonde one. Brandel.

"Her skin is more red," I said softly, feeling the pressure of their eyes.

This answer seemed to satisfy them, and they turned away from me and began to talk amongst themselves again. I glanced down the table at Tristan, to see how he was responding, and saw that, while bruised and battered, he was smiling and joking with Celin and Igrin at his end of the table, making them laugh.

I returned to my food, but I kept my ears open, waiting for the sound of Tristan's voice, not knowing what I would do if I heard it.

There was no more talk of running that night. With Ai'Ilyn back, and the combined resistance of both Faolan and myself, it appeared that Tristan had not yet found the time or place to renew his call for action. The others seemed to have dismissed it from their thoughts – they were sharing personal details of the lives they'd lived, and Igrin and Aelyn were fast becoming friends via the kind of superficial, high-pitched conversation that I had sometimes heard in town squares from the women who ignored me as they walked past. Part of me wanted to join in – I'd never had another girl as a friend – but they weren't turned towards me and I didn't know how to break into the conversation without looking stupid. Then Celin and Tristan both devolved into baby voices and two girls started laughing at them and I gave up. I glanced across the table at Faolan and he caught my gaze. He rolled his eyes and focused on his food. I hid a smile and did the same.

The days passed into the old routine, the one with which we were all becoming comfortable, save for Tristan and Igrin, who I knew were both still thinking of when to run. I knew it because they spent too much time together, they and Aelyn and Celin. Everywhere we went, they were at the back of the line; every day we worked, they managed to be put in the same group; and at every meal they made references to "when they were back home." I felt unease twist in my chest like a compressed coil, but I didn't speak up. It was their plan, it was their problem.

But I still worried, and I couldn't make myself stop.

The only time I could let such thoughts go were when I danced with the older children. I'd been allowed to catch the moonlight with them every night since that first one, and it was so wonderful that there was no place for worry. It made me feel like I could fly, that I could leap and miss the earth and just go up and on forever, though of course I never did. We ran and jumped and twirled among each other, the only time when all the children were together and encouraged to interact. When we stepped into the moonlight I could feel the pulse beat faster in my chest and my head felt squeezed; my breath came faster and my muscles moved with perfect precision; I felt graceful for the first time in my life.

But with each night that passed, it became harder to pull back from the edge of the moonlit field when the time had passed and the bags of dew were full. As the moon grew bigger in the sky, the desire for the moonlight burrowed deeper into my heart, and soon all thoughts disappeared. When the dance was over, I felt like sobbing with the loss that echoed through me.

So when the night of the new full moon came, when the light was brightest in the fields outside as we worked to clean the rooms of the Bower, to scrub the hallways that always needed cleaning and evening as the living tree grew around us, I felt fear and desire war in my chest. Every time we passed a window, I found myself licking my lips, thinking of the taste of the dew; even just the memory was tonight so sweet that it made my teeth ache and my stomach churn.

But with the desire came fear of what a full moon would do to me. Would I be able to contain myself? Would we be able to keep from going mad?

Is it bad that the danger made me want it more?

"It won't happen," Brandel said when the topic came up during meal time. He was the most talkative of the group; he had an opinion on everything and felt very free to share it, though he was too spacy to be considered bossy or rude. "Think about it – it's been a month since we got here. That means more are coming tonight."

"What's it like?" Gwenel asked me again, staring at me with eyes half jealous and half admiring.

"She's already tried explaining it to you," Brandel chimed in, seamlessly switching topics while shoveling food into his mouth; berry juice and honey dripped down his chin, but no one said anything. He wouldn't wipe it away until he was done – we'd tried to get him to and he just wouldn't.

"So let her try again," Gwenel said, annoyed.

"Later," I said stiffly, not looking at either of them, simply eating my food, which was the same as it always was and thus had lost some of its novelty for the others. For me it was still as fantastic as always. I'd been near starving for the majority of my life – I'd need more than a month of steady meals before I started taking them for granted.

"They're coming tonight," Brandel said, picking up right where he'd left off as if worried someone else might get a word in before he'd finished. He had a big ball of food squirreled away in his cheek that continued to grow as he spoke. "That's why all the Fae are here."

I looked up at Faolan as he looked over at me, raising an eyebrow. It looked like we weren't the only ones who'd noticed something for a change.

"Which means that there's a lot of other things that –"

"By the blood, shut up, Brandel!"

We all cringed back from the outburst as Tristan looked up from his food. I glanced reflexively toward the twisted door-less entryway, but Ai'Ilyn didn't appear: either she hadn't heard, or she was choosing to ignore the outburst.

"Who cares?"

Tristan was being sulky. His moods were erratic, and it was this that made him, if possible, even more dangerous. The bruises he'd received had mostly healed, but his wounded pride had not, and he still watched Faolan and I with hatred when he thought we couldn't see. Some of the others seemed to feel bad for him – Celin and Igrin had become his two disciples, and they were always by his side trying to make him feel better, whispering good words. I don't know how they didn't realize they were being used. Maybe they did know and just didn't mind.

"Sorry, Tristan," Brandel said, looking hurt. He fell silent and swallowed the ball of food. The rest of the meal passed in silence.

When Ai'Ilyn came back, we all stood as one and walked out of the room in single-file, me leading as seemed to have become the custom.

"Stop."

I pulled up short. I looked around the scullery, confused, and saw that all of the other children groups had filed out ahead of us; the refectory, with the long storage-space mounds where the food was kept, stood unattended for the first time since we'd arrived. I caught a glimpse of one of the last children moving around the corner of the doorway that led to the Hollowed Hall, and then we were alone with Ai'Ilyn.

"Tonight is the Calling ceremony," she said, scrutinizing us one by one. When she got to me I flinched away. "That means that all the Fae of the Bower will be gathered here. Oberon will be here. Gwyn ap Nudd and the Wild Hunt will be here, and the Fae who live on the borders of the realm will have come just for this night."

She reached the last person in line – Durst, who also flinched away from her gaze, making me feel somewhat less craven – and then began to scan us again, as if she could imprint on us the importance of her speech through the power of her stare alone.

"You are to stay silent," she continued, speaking with the special softness she reserved for truly important threats, "or you will be punished."

I glanced at the others from the corner of my eye. I hadn't been inclined to give any trouble to begin with, but I hoped that whatever resistance Tristan, Igrin, or Celin had found it in them to retain had just been quashed. It wasn't that I cared for them so much – it was that if Ai'Ilyn was angry with them, she might revoke the speaking privileges of the entire group. That thought alone, of someone messing up what we'd just earned, was enough to set my teeth on edge.

"You will stay where I place you," she continued, still scanning us, the intensity of her stare like a hot brand held menacingly out toward us, "or you will be punished."

Back up the line.

"You will act with respect and deference to the Fae ... or you will be punished."

Back down the line.

"You will act as though your very life depends on you being good little boys and girls ... or you will be punished."

She stopped on me.

"Are you sensing the trend here, nestling?"

There was a long pause and I realized with growing panic that she expected me to answer her. I didn't know how to respond – should I nod and stay silent? Would that be considered rude? Should I speak?

"Answer me, nestling."

"Yes, Ilyn," I squeaked, my voice breaking even as I did my best to keep it level.

"Elucidate," she said. She almost purred it, like a cat toying with a mouse.

"If we break the rules," I said, trying to find all the right words and get them in the right place, "you'll punish us."

I flicked my eyes up to read her expression and saw her looking down at me still. She quirked an eyebrow at me, or at least the skin where an eyebrow should have been, and I realized she expected more. Panic once again floated up from the bottom of my stomach and began to inflate inside me.

"Severely," I added.

Ai'Ilyn's brow relaxed, and I was almost faint with relief until she knelt down before me and the fear came right back in.

"And if you do as I ask," she said, in a voice completely different from what I'd heard from her so far, a voice that was calm and simple, "what then?"

I swallowed, my mouth so dry I felt like I was choking on ashes, and tried to think of what she was trying to pull from me. Why me? Why was she asking me this question?

Prove that you deserve more, and it will be given you.

"You'll reward us," I said softly, looking her in the eye in a flash of understanding that overrode my fear.

She smiled, a full-on beaming grin. She looked at the others. It was as if she had become a different person – like watching black clouds dissipate in the middle of a thunderstorm. She was no longer sneering, no longer contemptuous – she looked ... excited.

"The choice is yours," she continued, containing some of the eagerness she'd exhibited and becoming neutral again. "Ignore this warning, and you'll be punished. Heed me ... and you'll be allowed to catch the moonlight."

It took a full beat of time for this pronouncement to sink in, but when it did the others all stood taller, even Tristan, as if strings attached to their heads had pulled them upright. I felt excitement, too, realizing I wouldn't be the only one of us out there, that they would experience it with me.

Ai'Ilyn turned on her heel and strode from the refectory. Immediately I was moving, and within two strides I had caught up to her and was following so closely I was almost stepping on her heels. I heard the others scramble into place behind me, and I wondered if Tristan had done so too. I didn't dare turn around and look, but the question burned in the back of my mind.

We left the room and filed into the Hollowed Hall, but nowhere near the center. Ai'Ilyn led us directly to the left and up a concealed incline that I hadn't even realized was there. We moved into a small rock tunnel somehow grown through and around branching root supports, and I saw several other groups ahead of us. When we broke back out into the open air of the Hall, we were several dozen feet higher up, and I realized that there were similar hidden outcroppings among the smooth Bower walls opposite us, where greater Fae were lining up, row upon row of creatures that I couldn't clearly see in the flickering of the moonlight fires. We were shifted still further out along the outer rim to the very front of the Hall. Other groups of children were led into chambers that branched off the main walkway we took, but our group only stopped when we'd reached the final chamber. We entered into the room and Ai'Ilyn led us up to a high railing at the far side that came up to our chests. With a single sweeping motion, she told us to come forward and stand along beside her in a line. I moved up directly next to her, careful not to touch her, and looked out of the corner of my eye to see the others line up directly to my side.

I looked down over the side of the ledge, pressing my hands against the cool wooden railing as I leaned forward, and realized now why we had never seen any of the other changelings when we'd arrived – there was no way we'd be seen up here unless those looking knew exactly what to look for. We were almost directly over the opening that led out to the field, and were tucked away in a secluded corner that was mostly concealed from the ground. We could see and be seen by leaning over to look, but if we leaned back we were cloaked in shadow.

Ai'Ilyn retreated, and I wanted nothing more than to look after her and she where she was going, but I kept my head locked in place, looking down over the side of the ledge. Her heavy footfalls moved back behind me, and stopped at the entrance of the small catacomb chamber in which we'd been stationed, watching us all.

I cut my eyes to the side, trying my best not to show that I was looking anywhere but forward, and caught sight of Tristan toward the end of the line, sandwiched in-between Igrin and Celin. All three of them were looking down, and I started to breathe easier.

I looked back out over the scene below us, and marveled at the spectacle.

Just as when we'd been called a month ago, there were Fae here of every shape and size imaginable. Some of them I could pick out now: the majority of them were Ilyn of a dozen different shades, Urden hulking in the shadows, Paecsies flitting back and forth over the heads of the others, and those that I knew now must be high ranking members of the Wild Hunt – nearly fifty of them clustered around Gwyn ap Nudd, who stood head and shoulders taller than the rest, clothed once again in leather and furs that gave him the appearance of a half-man half-beast. But there were others too, some that looked like moving trees and others like strange animals, but those not native to the Bower kept to the shadows.

Ai'Ilyn spoke from behind us, making us all flinch:

"When the music starts, it will be hard for you to resist. You have only been here for a short time, and as such you are only slightly older than the age when the Calling has the most effect. If you are able to successfully withstand its draw, then you will be allowed to participate in the moonlight ceremony, beginning tomorrow night."

I saw movement from the corner of my eye and knew one or two of the others had stirred in excitement – likely Brandel among that number. Ai'Ilyn ignored them.

"You must remain in this room," she continued. "You will want to leave, but you must resist. You will want to fight your way past me – you must resist."

The room suddenly made sense – her position behind us, too.

I began to sweat. The chamber was hot, and the heat of the gathered Fae spread out below us – there must have been thousands of them down there – was only making it worse. I started worrying about what would happen if I couldn't resist the music, but then I remembered I'd already experienced the moonlight, which meant I was better prepared than the others. I should be –

The music began, and my mind went blank.

It was as beautiful as I remembered it, and, without Ai'Ilyn's warning that we would be once again hopeless before it, I would have succumbed to its pull with laughable ease. The sound of it rose up, high and quavering, filling the room like water rushing to fill a new-made depression, and it washed over me in waves that had me thinking of the beautiful moonlight, of dancing among the other children –

I snapped out of the trance with a strange jerk and came back to myself. Fearful, I put hands to my chest, to my stomach and then my head, trying to determine whether or not I was being affected, whether or not I was in thrall to the music still and simply didn't know it.

But I felt perfectly fine.

Surprised, I forgot myself and looked toward the others, turning my whole head to do so, and it was this that might have saved Aelyn's life.

The girl was swaying dangerously beside me, and as I watched she placed her hands on the railing before us and lifted herself up off the floor.

"Wait – stop!"

She couldn't hear me, that much was immediately clear. Her green eyes were glazed over, seeing nothing but what the music had planted in her mind, and as I watched she crouched down, readying herself to jump straight over the side.

Instinct took over and I reacted without thinking – I reached up, grabbed the back of her shirt, and pulled with all my might. She fell backwards on top of me, and for a second I lost my breath as her weight – I was small for my age and she large – crushed me beneath her. She rolled off of me and stood, her eyes still glazed and sightless, but this time locked on Ai'Ilyn. Gasping, I levered myself to my knees just as she launched herself toward the opening.

I threw myself in her path, wrapping her knees in my arms, and tried to tackle her. Just as I did, another form shot over the top of us, landing on her back and taking her the rest of the way to the ground; a second later, my mind caught up to my eyes and I realized it was Faolan, who'd apparently fought through his own bout of music-madness. All three of us were tangled up together, a mess of limbs and twisted clothing. There was another flash of movement off to my left – I turned and saw, but there was no time –

"Pinur Fe, grab him!"

Pinur Fe was himself shaking off the effects of the music, swaying slightly but with feet firmly planted. When I said his name he broke out of it altogether, just as Celin broke away from the lip of the drop and raced for Ai'Ilyn. Pinur Fe reached out almost effortlessly and grabbed Celin around the chest with one of his huge hands, pulling him back. I saw that Celin's eyes were glazed over, and Pinur Fe saw it too. He snapped his fingers in front of the boy's face and then lightly slapped the side of his cheek. Celin blinked a few times and then seemed to return to himself. He blushed furiously and pushed Pinur Fe's hand off of him, then turned back to the ledge and stood, looking down at the ceremony as if daring anyone to remember that he'd tried to break away, his shoulders hunched against what he must have expected to be a disciplinary blow from Ai'Ilyn.

Aelyn had finally calmed as well. Faolan and I climbed up off of her, and she quickly got back to her feet, brushing off the front of her clothing, until slowly she stopped and looked up. Her eyes were big and round and she seemed to be questioning how she'd gotten to be where she was.

I looked over her shoulder and saw Ai'Ilyn watching us with stony-faced calm, but saw too that she had made no move to come forward. Faolan and I looked at each other, and then both seized one of Aelyn's arms and dragged her back to the line. She didn't protest, but instead seemed so relieved that she wasn't being punished that she turned to dead weight in our hands and we had to work twice as hard to move her.

Back in line, hearts pounding, we looked back over the side of the ledge. The music had continued to swell, and though I was no longer enthralled by it, the beauty was still heartwrenching. All of the Fae seemed to be moving to it, swaying where they stood as their voices rose up and up and up, filling the chamber, echoing the melody line that came from hidden instruments, reeds and strings and percussion.

I felt myself swaying again and realized that I was in danger of falling back into the trance. I shook my head and snapped my eyes into focus, squinting hard, and the mind-numbing effect faded to the background, though I could feel it trying to worm its way back inside me. I looked down the line again and saw the others swaying as well, and noticed that even Faolan's eyes were glassy.

There was shouting from down below, distant, indistinct words that I couldn't understand, but, before I had the chance to make them out, Aelyn stumbled backwards again. I reached for her once more, grabbing her silk clothing in a viselike grip that twisted the fabric into a hard rope in my hand, and her eyes focused on me and cleared again. She shook her head and then pressed her hands to her ears, and I nodded.

I saw Faolan take a step back and my heart leapt in my chest; I moved back behind the entire group, waiting to catch him, to catch any of them.

Faolan staggered and I held out a hand for him, my body so tense waiting to react that I felt like a wrung rag tied in knots. My bare feet were well positioned on the floor, and I'd lowered my shoulders, ready to throw my slight weight against anything that came my way. I had to make sure they didn't get through.

Why did I care? I think it was because this was different. If they chose to run, or to disobey, then that was on them. But there was a line here for me. It was thin and vague, and maybe just too big for my ten-year-old mind to grasp, but I knew that this was different; this was something they didn't have a choice about. They were my group – that meant I needed to help – didn't it? Didn't it mean – ?

Faolan turned and took a step toward me, his eyes glassy. Two others did as well, Brandel and Gwenel, but all three of them stopped and seemed to collect themselves. Brandel shivered violently as if dunked in cold water, and Gwenel was sweating all over her face and through the heavy silk fabric of her shirt. They both came out of it with strange jerking sensations, as if they'd been pulled back by something tethering them here. Faolan's eyes cleared a moment later, and they locked on me, the first image he saw when he came back.

But they didn't linger – they rose and looked up over my head. I felt a wave of fear rush through me.

Ai'Ilyn laid a hand on my shoulder.

I wanted to run, or turn around and fight, or maybe to throw myself over the edge of the railing to get away from her – but her hand had closed with an iron grip, and I knew I would never escape it.

"Turn back around," she said, and I realized she was speaking to the other children. Brandel swallowed and continued staring at me, and I realized he was still battling through the music, which was swelling even now, crescendoing as more shouts came from down below. Something was happening.

"Turn back around," Ai'Ilyn repeated, this time with greater force.

My eyes were still on Faolan, pleading with him, begging him not to leave me there, but I knew there was nothing he could do. Gwenel grabbed Brandel and they both turned back, and Faolan followed them, watching me until he was forced to turn his head.

Ai'Ilyn's hand shifted on my shoulder, and then there was pressure on me. I found myself turning and realized she was spinning me to face her, but slowly – not using the quick, decisive motions she did when doling out punishments, but slow, easy movements that were somehow calmer.

She knelt so that she was closer to eye-level with me, and encased both my arms in her iron hands.

"What you've done will be remembered," she said slowly, her eyes holding mine so that there was not even a thought of looking away. My breathing was harsh and shallow, and my belly was doing strange in-and-out quivers as I tried to fully catch my breath.

"What do you mean?" I asked her, knowing somehow that she expected me to ask, maybe seeing it in her eye, in her changed persona.

She smiled slightly, a small flaring of her lips and wrinkling of her inhuman eyes.

"You've begun to prove you deserve something better."

I frowned, unable to understand, unable to hold back my open emotions with her here, so close, dominating me so much that I couldn't even remember who I was. She smiled again, that small smile of excitement and promise, and then she stood and retreated to her post by the door, turning her back on me. When she was back in position, she turned toward us again, and her face was once more the contemptuous snarl of the Ilyn, only barely concealed beneath a stony façade.

The music stopped.

I swayed where I stood, suddenly unbalanced, and then turned back toward the ledge, shocked by how keenly I felt the music's absence. What was happening? All of the others were leaning against the ledge now, looking over, craning to see – what?

I moved back into position, curiosity driving me, and saw that a path had been cut through the center of the gathered Fae, and that a group of children were standing before the seat of the Erlking.

He was just as majestic as I remembered him, and I realized he had come forward and was speaking.

"Do any of the Fae assert prior claim?"

It was the same question he'd asked on the night he had Called us – the same question that seemed to run around and through the gathered Fae like a heavy wind, as they each turned to look at the others among them. None of them spoke, though – the whole room had fallen silent.

After another beat of time, Oberon nodded and opened his mouth to continue.

"Wait!"

The shout came from the back of the room, from a gathered group of Ilyn that stood close to the opening of the Hall. A figure detached itself from the crowd, a tall, thin Ilyn that had black coloring against the flaky white base layer. He moved forward, pushing past those in his way, his eyes fixed on the Erlking and the children. The Fae began to part before him in a wave, until his way was clear and he burst into the bubble of space around the throne.

"I claim her," the Ilyn said, pointing; his voice echoed clearly through the chamber. "I claim her."

"What claim do you lay?" Oberon asked, the question obviously part of some ritual.

"The claim of blood, as one of the Fae."

"Can you prove your claim?"

There was a brief hesitation here, and as I watched from the distance of the hall I managed to make out a sudden movement, like the Ilyn was reaching for –

The black-and-white hand touched one of the girls in the group, brushing the hair from her face, and a flare of silver light burst from the fingers, blinding all of us. There were shouts and cries, and then the light was gone and there was nothing left but the image of the male Ilyn holding the girl by the cheek, she looking up at him with fear and wonder.

"Your claim is proven," Oberon said, and I realized now that there were subtle strands of anger in his voice. "She is yours – so long as you take her from this place, as is your duty."

"I swear to do so, Erlking," the Ilyn said, dropping to a knee before him.

"Then be gone," he said, his arms held tensely by his sides.

The Ilyn stood, head still bowed, and grabbed the girl by the arm. He turned and began to walk back down the path between the Fae, and I watched, alarmed, as they all just let him go.

"He's taking her," I whispered to myself, unable to believe it.

They walked through the opening of the Bower and disappeared. My mind began to run wild with thoughts of what might happen to her, thoughts of where he was taking her, what was going to happen. What would it be like to live with one of the Ilyn? What was he going to do to her?

Stories I'd heard growing up of what happened to young girls in the wrong hands flashed through my mind, and I felt my stomach and hips clench, almost as if I were unconsciously trying to curl up into a ball.

"Are there any other claimants?"

I looked back over the ledge, up toward the Erlking, and waited along with the rest of the Fae, barely daring to breathe.

But the silence lasted less this time before he spoke again, and I felt certain it was because he didn't want to lose another one – didn't want any other claims fulfilled.

"Then they are mine."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the music started again and I felt that familiar pull in my mind, like a hook had been sunk behind my eyeballs and was reeling me forward. I gritted me teeth so hard that my head shook, and my mind seemed to pop loose of the hook, leaving me free. I looked at the others and saw each of them doing something similar – Gwenel and Brandel both covered their ears, and Faolan and several others pinched themselves hard enough to draw blood – and then Ai'Ilyn was speaking.

"The ceremony is over – come. It is time we return."

We moved jerkily away from the ledge, and, as everyone else shifted, I saw Tristan walking with stiff legs and wide eyes, blinking constantly as if having trouble seeing straight. But even this, after what I'd just seen, didn't give the thrill of satisfaction it normally would have. Where had that Ilyn taken that girl? What was going to happen to her? How could they –?

Ai'Ilyn put a hand to my chest, stopping me dead.

Terror spiked my blood, racing from brain to heart to hands where it pooled and began to tingle. I looked up, wondering what I had done wrong, already tensing for a blow. But Ai'Ilyn was simply looking at me. She raised her eyes and looked behind me – I turned and saw that she was watching Faolan.

"You are each permitted one question," she said to the two of us. I turned back to her so fast I cricked my neck, and I felt my eyes widen until I feared they would pop out of my head. "For helping save your fellow nestlings from disgrace, and for showing how easy it is for a determined mind to resist the pull of the music, you each may ask me one question. I will answer truthfully – none of the Ilyn lie."

She fell silent and watched us. The sounds of the other Fae leaving the Hall drifted up over the ledge, a massive shuffling of feet and beating of wings, all sounding in counterpoint to the still-playing music that seemed not the least bit softer.

A question. What could I ask? What did I need to ask? This might be my only chance, the only time something like this was ever offered. But what could I –?

"What does prior claim mean?"

I knew as I said it that it was what I needed to know. I knew somewhere in my bones that the answer to that question would settle for me once and for all how I felt about ... about all of this. About everything that was happening. The answer to that question ... it would tell me if I was in a nightmare or a dream.

Ai'Ilyn watched me for a long time, and I began to fear she wouldn't answer. My throat closed up and I willed her to speak, holding her eyes with mine, knowing that I must look frantic and pathetic, but not willing to back down.

Finally, she pursed her lips and opened her mouth.

"Should the Fae parent of a child wish to asset prior claim, they may do so. They are then responsible for seeing that child through to adulthood; they are responsible for tending to them, feeding them, securing their life. The child is theirs, so long as they can prove their claim."

I swallowed hard and felt numb.

I looked sideways at Faolan, who'd come up beside me. His hazel eyes were hard and bright, and I knew he'd come to the same conclusion I had. We both knew what this meant, maybe had known all along. This time when he looked up at Ai'Ilyn he didn't flinch away when she met his eyes.

"Does that mean each of us has a Fae parent? At least one?"

I saw a flicker of emotion tug at the corner of Ai'Ilyn's mouth, but couldn't make out what it was. She took another pause before answering, but shorter than before.

"Yes."

I heard gasps from of the others and barely stopped myself from reacting the same way. I realized I was absently picking at a spot on my pants and stopped. I heard Ai'Ilyn tell us that we were to follow her, and then remembered nothing at all of the journey back through the Bower save for snatches of the music that seemed to chase us mockingly up through the corridors.

I thought of the face of the girl as she'd watched with fear and awe as the Ilyn had taken her away. I thought of the anger on the Erlking's face. I thought of the way that Ai'Ilyn's pronouncement had startled me, and the way it had also confirmed something that I'd somehow known on a deeper level all along.

I tried to think of what it all meant. I tried to wrap my thoughts around what it meant for me, for Mol, the girl who'd never met either of her parents, who didn't even know for sure that the stories she'd heard of her mother's death were true. Was her mother still alive? Had I been born and left in the other world?

Had I been abandoned by one of the Ilyn?

It was this thought that filled me with revulsion. It couldn't be true, I wanted to shout, but I didn't, because I couldn't stop my mind there. I went deeper and realized I might be the child of one of the other Fae – one of the ones who didn't show themselves in the light, one of the ones who lived in the deepest caverns. One of the Paecsies or the Urden, or the Caelyr –

Some safety valve in my mind shut off the thoughts there and vented the tension out through my skin in a rush of sweat. I realized the blood had drained from my face and that I had fallen to the back of the group as we made our way through the Bower. I don't know what would have happened if I'd continued spiraling down like that, or where I would have ended up; I don't know if I'd ever have come out again.

But when we reached the nestle room and Ai'Ilyn had seen us into our beds, I found myself staring up at the sloped wooden ceiling, tracing the wood grains in my mind, running through it all again.

I should have been proud that I was able to so easily withstand the pull of the music, should have been proud that I had done something that had earned me the privilege of a question. But only one thought was going through my mind, over and over in a loop, twisting through every layer of my consciousness, crowding out any other concern:

Had my parents been in the Bower tonight?

Chapter Nine: Survive

For the next moon's cycle, I couldn't get the idea out of my head. Life went on, and though I tried to put the thoughts from my mind, tried to focus on what was expected of us children, I found the question of my parentage returning to me over and over again. I would manage to force it away for most of a night, but then it would come back as we lay down to sleep and keep me awake for hours. When finally I would manage to drown it out again with random thoughts of what we might be expected to do the following night, I would sleep only to wake realizing I'd thought about it in my dreams. Night after night passed that way as the moon grew smaller in the sky, coming down from its full ripeness to a thick wedge, then to a thin sliver, then disappearing entirely. The night of the new moon, when the howling and screaming returned, with so little time spent working and no moonlight to distract me, was by far the worst.

I was driving myself insane, and all because there was nothing to know.

I knew barely anything about my parents. The question of their identity had crossed my mind growing up, but orphans were not uncommon among those I lived and worked with, and, as such, the thoughts sealed themselves in the back of my mind, leaving only a thin scar to mark their place. But the night of the Calling had broken that scar open, and the wound was fresh and bloody again, refusing to scab over.

I remembered the old woman who'd cared for me telling me about my mother, saying my mother had died alone in childbirth, and that made sense to me. It was a story that had been told many times throughout the corner of the world from which I'd come: a woman taken by a man, either through force or cunning, and then abandoned the next day with a baby in her belly, a bastard that made her not fit for family or compassion.

Had I been that unwanted girl?

I wanted it to be the case that for however long they'd been together my parents had loved each other, but I had seen too much of reality to truly believe it. For every happy family, I'd seen ten ruined ones, and happy families did not lose their children and allow their daughters to wander the streets unloved and uncared for.

Had my father forced himself on my mother?

Had an Ilyn forced himself on my mother?

Or had the old woman lied? Had she told me my mother was dead to save me from the knowledge that I truly had been abandoned like others I'd known? Abandoned by a mother who couldn't be saddled with another mouth to feed...

I'd seen it once. I'd hidden at the end of an alleyway, cloaked in shadows thrown by the tall wooden walls of the town inn and mayor's house standing side-by-side, the only two-story buildings in the whole place. I'd run there looking for shelter, chased by wild dogs – that happened sometimes in bigger towns – and seen a woman, dirty and haggard, the lower half of her rags drenched with fluids I didn't want to think about, placing a bundle of some kind on the ground. Tears were running down her face, and she was sobbing and shaking, but when the bundle was down she ran away, limping in pain but never looking back. The bundle had started to cry, and I'd run forward, but then the dogs had been after me and so I had kept running, and the baby was left but the dogs stopped chasing me and I couldn't think about what had happened after I'd left the alley, couldn't think about why the dogs had stopped –

"Mol!"

My name, hissed by Faolan as he passed me with a pile of silken bed sheets, brought me back to reality. We'd been transferred to another Paecsie with the advent of the new lunar month – a Paecsie named Tilar, who was, to my surprise, male.

I quickened my pace, holding the pile of sheets that I was supposed to carry out into the corridor to where a waiting basket had been placed to hold the soiled silk. I dropped them in, hearing them rustle against themselves and feeling them slide easily off my well-calloused hands, the sensation momentarily warming my fingers. I felt the thoughts start to come back, gnawing at the edge of my mind, worrying away at my sanity like a dog with a bone.

I turned back to the room and was stopped at the door-less entryway by Tilar. He had the same pigmentation as all the other Paecsies: olive-yellowed skin and dark eyes, but with wings that were larger and thicker, and form-fitting clothing that showed the wider shoulders and slimmer waist that made him seem male.

"Stop," he said, his sharp teeth clacking at me as he held out a hand. He looked up over my shoulder and nodded. "They're ready."

I didn't need to turn around to know it was Ai'Ilyn who'd arrived. She'd begun to disappear when we were in the care of other Fae, though none of us could figure out where she went. The injunction against talking still held true, and the other Fae knew it: we were often watched over by other Ilyn or even one of the Urden, who didn't hesitate to enforce the rules Ai'Ilyn had left with them.

"Good," Ai'Ilyn said, her voice calm and controlled.

The others filed out to join me in the corridor, and soon we were walking through the maze. I thought I could recognize every other corridor, but I was soon lost all over again. The long wooden corridors and the passing Fae blurred and ran as my eyes unfocused and turned relentlessly inward again.

Which one of my parents had been a Fae?

When we arrived in the refectory and were placed into our side room for food, the others began to talk. I didn't join in – I rarely did. Faolan sat across from me as he always did, both of us at the end of the table closest to the door, and together we attacked our bowls of food. It was the same as every other day – roots and leaves, berries and fruit, honey and nuts. Some of the others complained about it, saying they wanted meat like the Ilyn got – something we'd all noticed by now – or a piece of fresh bread, warm and buttery.

I don't know how they expected me to join in with that. I'd never had a fresh loaf of bread in my life, and the stale ones had never come with butter. Mold sometimes, but that could really only count as a bad kind of cheese, which, while related to butter, really didn't fit into the same –

"MOL!"

Shocked, I looked up.

Sitting next to Faolan today was Gwenel. Her long, mousy brown hair was puffed up around the sides of her face, and though she'd pulled it back behind her head as much as she could with a stray piece of silk she'd been allowed to keep, it was too wily to be kept contained for long. Some of the thinner strands had already broken their confines and were laced about her head like fine spider weaving, and some of the bulkier ones hung boldly down before her eyes, boldly exhibiting their haughty protestation against their imprisonment. Her brown eyes were intent on me, her brow was furrowed, and her mouth open: clearly she was the one who'd just called my name.

A split second after I looked up and caught her eye, she swallowed and seemed to draw back, and I realized that I must be staring at her quite intensely. I tried to unknit my brow and moderate my frown, but I don't think I did very well. She still looked like a wary deer, ready to run at the first sign of sudden movement.

The room had gone quiet as everyone looked down the table at the two of us, but, when neither of us spoke again, they laughed, led in the chorus by Tristan, who did a passable impression of Gwenel's shriek followed by a heavy scowl that brought gales of laughter from Celin in particular, whom the others turned to and laughed at in turn.

The attention off of us, I turned back to Gwenel and continued to watch her, unsure why she'd yelled my name.

"She was trying to get your attention," said a voice to my right.

I tilted my head just far enough that I could see past the thick black curtain of my hair. Brandel was sitting there beside me, food once again squirreled into the pouch of his cheek as he earnestly observed the scene. I have never met anyone else, before or since, with such an open face or lesser capacity for guile.

He looked between Gwenel and me with frank curiosity, his uneven blonde hair swaying back and forth as he jerked his head between the two of us.

"Why?" I managed to ask. My voice still came out as a croak, and I immediately wished I hadn't said anything. I started to withdraw into myself again, thinking they'd mock me for the way I sounded, but the one word seemed to be all the encouragement Gwenel needed to break through her fear.

"I was asking you if you were all right," she explained, quirking her head to the side as she did. Her brown eyes were wide, and yet they had narrowed somehow, almost as if the pupils had tightened of their own accord. "You've been funny ... ever since the Calling ceremony. Is it because you have to share the moonlight with us now? Are you mad?"

My surprise must have been quite clear, because Gwenel held up her hands defensively. "I don't really like it," she said, admitting things she didn't need to in order to smooth over a problem that didn't exist. "If the Ilyn didn't make us, I probably wouldn't."

"I would," Brandel said, looking at Gwenel as if she'd gone insane, clearly not understanding what she was trying to do. "It's really great – and you said you did like it. Why are you lying?"

"Brandel," she hissed, her muddy brown eyes wide and angry, as she jutted her chin toward him with a pointed look.

"No," I said, surprised into speaking more than anything else. "No – I'm not ... no."

They absorbed this in a beat of silence, and then Brandel spoke.

"So then what is it?"

I shrank back away from the question, watching both of them in turn. What was this game they were playing? Were they trying to make me tell them something that would make me look stupid? Maybe they thought they could become part of Tristan's group – the distant side of the table laughed again as I thought of them, effortlessly taking up their cue – by making fun of me.

But they were both looking at me with worry very clear in their faces, and it was this that stopped the downward spiral of my suspicions. I swallowed and cleared my throat, trying to force myself to ignore that warning voice shouting in the back of my head that told me not to reveal anything about myself, not to speak, to simply fade into the background. They were both looking at me with honest, inquiring faces. Well, Gwenel was. Brandel was wearing that dispassionate bird face again. Even Faolan was watching me, though his expression was veiled.

"The other night," I said, then stopped when I realized my voice was too quiet. It felt like there was a latch in my throat that I couldn't unhinge. I cleared my throat as quietly as I could, keen to attract no attention from the Tristan side of the table, and opened my mouth to speak again. "The other night ... I was ... surprised."

Gwenel looked at Brandel with an 'I didn't get that, did you?' expression, and Brandel just continued to stare at me, slowly chewing on a piece of his stored food.

I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck roughly, then scraped my cheeks with my fingernails and set my hands in my lap.

"I was surprised that the ... the girl ... she left."

This time the muddy water of Gwenel's eyes lit up, and it was clear she was following me now. I opened my mouth to continue, but a huge wave of anxiety came crashing over me and shut my lips again with a strange ploof sound. I shifted on my seat and clawed my hands together into one ball.

"The Ilyn," Faolan concluded for me, watching with a soft and steady gaze. I felt the tension drain out of me as he said the words, relief that he'd gotten to the point.

"The Ilyn," I repeated, and was completely surprised when my voice came out straight and intent without its usual croak. I glanced over at Gwenel and Brandel and saw they had exchanged an excited glance. Brandel had begun to chew faster, this time even swallowing some, and Gwenel was leaning forward, rocking on her elbows as she licked her lips.

"We've been thinking about them too," she said quickly, though I had the impression Brandel was the one who most wanted to talk. He looked at her askance, and I could have sworn he sent her a nonverbal reproach for speaking, which slid right off of her. She was just as oblivious as he was.

"What about them?" Faolan asked, shifting his eyes from me to them. I didn't know what was more surprising about this meal – that I'd been drawn into a conversation or that Faolan had.

"Well," Brandel said, rubbing the bridge of his nose as a greasy strand of his thin blonde hair tickled him there, "we've been thinking about what it means that the Ilyn can be parents. It means that they must be a little bit like us – a little bit like people. I know they don't look like it, but it means that they must be, otherwise how could they ... well ... make babies?"

He blushed furiously red at this, and Gwenel smiled awkwardly, looking as though she wanted to giggle but couldn't quite bring herself to do so. Faolan rolled his eyes.

"But, also," Brandel continued quickly, eyeing Faolan, "it got me thinking about what happens outside the Bower. Think about it – where did that Ilyn take the boy? Where did they go? And what are all the Ilyn here for? What are all the Fae here for? What's the purpose of this place at all? Why don't all the children who come here just go to live with whoever their Fae parent is –?"

"Meal's over."

Brandel cut off abruptly and swallowed the huge lump of his food. I spun and saw Ai'Ilyn standing in the doorway, looking down on us imperiously. Her face was stony and silent, and I couldn't tell if she'd heard any of what we'd been talking about. We stood and filed out, Tristan with a swaggering reluctance that earned him a sharp slap and a fresh bruise, the rest of us with studied eagerness.

We didn't have a chance to speak more that day as we scrubbed more floors, but the questions Brandel had asked had infected my earlier thinking, and now new questions plagued my mind.

What did we really know about the Ilyn? They were vaguely human, that was true, but they were also clearly Fae. If one of them had managed to have a son, was it possible the others could too? How did he get out of the Bower and into the world outside if he was one of the Ilyn who took care of the children? Did it mean he'd had a child with someone while they were here? Had he only recently come to the Bower? Did Fae come and go all the time?

But time wore on and the questions were left unanswered. More weeks passed, and then another Calling ceremony where none of the children were claimed, and finally the questions faded. There was always more work to do. Ai'Ilyn kept us scrubbing floors until we were used to it – then she had us carrying bales of roots up from the deep caverns into the refectory, a chore that left my back a mass of tortured muscle – then she had us in the field, pulling rocks from the ground and tossing them into the forest – then she had us in the highest branches of the Bower picking berries from huge thorny brambles that grew all throughout the leaves of the tree, giving us several dozen prickle wounds each to add to our growing inventory of ailments. In the midst of all this, there was no time for idle thought.

By then, most of us had begun to follow the rules – even Tristan. He still acted out, using his sickly sweet baby voice to protest his innocence when he was caught, but his resistance was no longer the outright rebellion of his earlier days; it seemed instead a token show of protest. His moods changed as quickly as the moon, though, and each night found him in a different humor. He could be happy and smiling one minute, and then yelling at even Igrin or Celin, his most devoted followers, the next.

All told, the shock of our life at the Bower was wearing off. Our work changed night by night, but it was always there, bordered on either end with food and sleep. It rained a dozen, the heat rising high the night before and then breaking the night of, letting forth a downpour of water that seemed ready to flood out everything in the entire forest. But come the next moonrise, everything was still standing, the children were still set to work, and the Fae still moved about the Bower.

We had adjusted, each in our own way – all except for Durst.

For the first month, he'd borne up along with the rest of us. For the second month, he'd been withdrawn and often quiet, speaking neither with Tristan and his group, nor making an attempt to speak with Brandel and Gwenel who were outsiders but still more approachable than Faolan and I. He laughed at jokes Tristan made, and that made him tolerated, but none of us really knew him. We just knew he was there, silent and waiting.

Then he began to cry.

It started at night, when at first he thought no one would notice, or so I assumed. It was just sniffling at first, and I thought that maybe I was the only one to hear it. He slept in the nestle directly next to mine, and if I could barely hear it, then the chances were that Aelyn, who slept like the dead on the other side of him, never heard it at all. When he did get to sleep, he tossed and turned, and even whimpered, like an animal being whipped. He started going through the nights of work with bloodshot eyes that were sunken deep in his face, and though he'd never before been disciplined by any of the Ilyn, he began to make stupid mistakes, dropping a bucket of soapy water so that it spilled, ripping a new bed sheet so it had to be replaced, stumbling as he carried a load of the root-vegetables up from the caverns so that they fell into the dirt.

He began to fall to pieces on a regular basis. He was a very fair child, with pale skin, wispy white-blonde hair, and blue eyes, all so light of color that it seemed as though he was barely there at all, like he might suddenly disappear in a heavy gust of wind that would take the aggregate parts that had been carefully fitted together to make him and scatter them back into the world.

There was nothing we could do about it. He simply refused to go on. Ai'Ilyn tried everything, and so creative was she with her methods of motivation that I think nothing else was possible. The normal punishments wouldn't work on him – he never actually did anything wrong, it was that he didn't do anything that was the trouble. Ai'Ilyn tried to motivate him with fear, using threats, but that made him dig in harder. She used shame – trying to make him feel like his behavior was beneath him, berating and belittling him where we all could see and hear, but all he did was look at her through red-raw, tear-streaked eyes and refuse to budge. She used encouragement, telling him she'd seen him do this or that task before, telling him he was nearly done, but he shook his head, screwed up his face, and didn't or couldn't hear her. Finally, she took him away – simply took him elsewhere while we were working – and did who knows what, but when he returned he was unchanged, and if anything seemed more set in his temper. He began to cry openly at night and keep us all awake until Ai'Ilyn came in and dragged him out by the ear, pulling him down the hallway as he fought, his cries only growing dimmer when they'd disappeared deep, deep into the Bower. When walking through the corridors, he let his legs fall out from under him and threw tantrums like a two year old, only crying harder when she ordered him to be silent.

Faolan said it was because he was too sensitive, that he was sweet and kind and couldn't do what was being asked of him. He pitied the boy, almost like a younger brother. I was the only one who saw it for what it was:

He was a coward.

I hated him when I realized it, and when I saw that look in his eyes, that small piece of triumph that came the first time he was allowed to stay back after refusing to work, I hated him with my whole body, a visceral contraction that just raged through me until I could barely think about doing anything but slapping his stupid, smug face. What did he know about a hard life? He with his trimmed hair and nails, his white teeth and pudgy frame that showed he was well fed and loved. At the first sign of trouble, his instinct was to revert to childishness and force others to care for him. He'd rather give up, lie down, and let others play by the rules while he got around them. It wasn't defiance he was doing; it was something dirtier, something that revolted me.

Now I look back and pity him. But I was a different person then – we all were different then, and to my rigid mind he was despicable. Even Tristan wasn't that bad, I remember thinking – even Tristan wouldn't stoop that low.

But eventually Ai'Ilyn found a way. The Ilyn always found a way.

It happened after all of the others had begun to run through the field in the moonlight ceremony, and I was spared the effort of trying to describe it. Brandel summarized it better than I ever could have anyway: "racing against time for the prize of happiness," though Faolan said that was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. But he said it while nodding, and I think that maybe he agreed.

They were introduced to it one by one, and if they couldn't handle it they were taken out. It took several weeks for all of them to participate fully. Tristan was the first after me – I think Ai'Ilyn did it in an effort to push him off balance and knock him down a peg, but it didn't work. At first I'd thought it would – we'd all thought so, even Tristan. On the night Ai'Ilyn told him that he would dance the moonlight, his eyes grew big and wide with fear before he remembered to feign indifference. When we got to the field, I watched him carefully and saw his legs begin to shake around the knees as he bit his lower lip and watched the empty expanse of the field. The moon hit its mark above us, and I rushed past him, grinning madly, and looked back to see Ai'Ilyn push him forward, the black and silver leather bag thrown around his shoulders and bunched around his neck like a noose.

But after the first faltering step, he seemed to swell, and I realized with moonlight-induced clarity that of course he would have no trouble. He was Tristan – he was born for this kind of madness. I remember even in the euphoria of the shining light feeling the sour taste of disappointment fill my mouth as I watched him laugh and run with all the others, never faltering in the dance. He gloated for weeks that he had managed it on his first try, and was obligingly worshipped by Celin and Igrin, both of whom asked him for tips on how to run it better, never even thinking to ask me, the one who'd done it when I wasn't even supposed to.

But only Tristan and I were able to get it on the first try – even Faolan had trouble controlling himself his first night, and when the moon passed the zenith and the bathing light cut off, we saw him kneeling in the middle of the field crying, his face buried in his hands, his clothes smoking. He wouldn't talk about what had happened with the others, but the next night he made it through so they dropped the subject. None of the others did much better, and many of them actually did worse. Brandel confessed openly during dinner after his first attempt that he'd started seeing things and hearing voices as soon as he'd stepped into the field.

"I heard my mom," he said, and shuddered. I'd never seen him look affected like that before – hungry, curious, sometimes amused, but never sad or shaken. It was an odd thing, like watching a woodland animal talk about itself. Sadness and regret just didn't fit him. "She told me that she'd been looking for me ... told me that I needed to come back. That she was worried to death and that I needed to come home ..."

Gwenel went through something similar, but she didn't give us details. Celin wouldn't stop running when the moonlight was over – we had to run him down and tackle him, all while he laughed maniacally, like we'd been playing some life-or-death game of tag – and Igrin said that she felt weighed down as soon as she set foot on the field, like she was trying to move with lead tied to her arms. Pinur Fe we found trying to dig himself into the ground with his bare hands, and Aelyn was just lying there prone after her first run, staring at the sky, saying that she'd seen angels. I asked Faolan once to tell me what it was he went through, when we were carrying roots up from the caverns. Ai'Ilyn was far ahead of us with those more likely to cause trouble, and we'd been left back, either by accident or design, enough that we were out of earshot.

"What happens to you when you go through the moonlight?"

My voice shook once as I asked the question, hitching over the word moonlight, but otherwise came out smooth. It was easy to talk to Faolan – like talking to myself.

He glanced up ahead of him, shifting the woven basket of Fae-vegetables, these ones large, purple, and cylindrical, so that he could see me better. He did the accustomed Ilyn-check, the quick flick of his eyes to either side that all of us had mastered, and then settled on me as we continued up the slope.

"It just ... hurt."

"Hurt?"

"Really badly," he said, his voice strained with the effort of carrying the basket but clearly also the tension of the memory. "Like knives all over my body. Like someone was ... trying to cut off my skin."

"Oh. Does it still hurt?"

"Not if I keep moving," he said, "but I can't get it out of my head. Every time I'm convinced I'll feel the same pain again, and it makes it harder to go out there ..."

He broke off, shuddered, and I asked him nothing else. Left alone with my thoughts, I couldn't help but wonder:

Why had I never hesitated?

But whatever it was that was holding them back, somehow it grew less each time they tried. Faolan managed a full run by the third time through, coming back flushed and exultant, beaming and looking like some kind of conquering warrior. Brandel couldn't stop talking about it by the end of the week he finished, just going on and on over meals about the sensations he felt and trying to analyze each one until Faolan and I both told him to stop. The others were all the same, joining in when conversation turned to the moonlight, even Tristan, who usually tried to pretend nothing in the Bower was worth his notice, and Pinur Fe, who rarely even smiled.

All of us but Durst. He was the last.

It made me seethe when Ai'Ilyn told him he'd be allowed to do it. How could she let him do this, this thing that was for the children who followed the rules, this great thing that I somehow knew was tied up in what the Bower was really about, tied up in who we were and who the Fae were and what underlay everything? How could she let him be a part of that? A part of us?

But I never asked those questions out loud. I knew the rules.

When she told him, he looked at first as if he'd simply refuse again and throw another tantrum, and part of me wanted him to. I wanted him to prove that he didn't deserve this. I wanted Ai'Ilyn to see that she was wrong after all.

In the end, though, he did it. I saw his eyes light up when she told him he could; saw his ill-temper disappear and the feigned nervous ticks that he had picked up along the way fall forgotten as he stared with eager eyes at the field. When we'd all lined up, I wondered if he'd change his mind, and it almost looked like he would. He was nervously licking his lips and blinking, his whole face twitching.

The moon, that night a thin wedge on its way down from full, hit its peak, and the field ignited in silver fire. I lost sight of him in the mad rushing and dancing, and I didn't think about him again until everything was done. I lost myself in the ecstasy, the pure rush of running and dancing as every nerve was lit on fire with frenzied laughter.

When it was over and we'd given out bags to the waiting Ilyn as we always did, I remembered, and turned to look for the boy. I didn't see him with our group, didn't see Ai'Ilyn either –

They were on the other side of the field, where Durst was attacking one of the other children.

Shock rang through me and I took a step toward them without really thinking about why. What was I planning to do? Help Ai'Ilyn? Defend the child? Subdue Durst? Would I be punished for interfering?

But Durst pulled away as soon as shouts began to ring out for someone to "grab the boy." He stumbled back toward the center of the clearing framed by the high root-walls outside the Hollowed Hall, and I saw that he was holding a full bag of moonlight in his hands. As I watched, horrified, he ripped open the stitching with his bare hands, ripping as well two fingernails out of his skin, spraying a halo of blood around his feet. Everyone was shouting now, children yelling for him to stop, Ilyn yelling that someone needed to stop him, Ai'Ilyn rushing forward but two steps too far away.

He began to drink, gulping down the moonlit dew, a silver stream of liquid that ran over his face, his clothes, his entire body. I watched him shiver and saw his knees buckle and hit the ground. I saw his throat working, straining for every last drop it could take in, his shaking hands spilling the liquid as he quivered –

Ai'Ilyn pulled the bag away from him effortlessly, and he sat there for a moment, stunned. His cheeks and chin were streaked with lines of molten silver, and his chest was a gleaming mess of dew and off-white silk. His mouth was open in a dumbfounded "o" that made him look like a baby who'd just lost his bottle.

He slowly turned his head toward Ai'Ilyn, and then he began to convulse.

"GIVE IT TO ME!"

The shout cracked across the clearing in an alien voice like nothing I'd ever heard before. How it could have come from the boy's throat I didn't understand. He shot up, gaining his feet in a jerk that turned into a stumble, and then he launched himself at the Ilyn. She pulled the bag back behind her and caught the boy by the throat, her red and white hand holding him immobile. He let out a choked cry of despair, his bulging eyes focused only on the bag, his whole body jerking and shaking in strange waves and ripples.

"Gain control," Ai'Ilyn said to him, her voice calm but with an edge of danger.

"GIVE IT TO ME – I NEED IT!"

"Gain. Control."

"NO – NO – YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!"

Her hand closed tighter around his throat, and suddenly he had no air with which to speak or breathe. His bulging eyes bulged further, so far out now that I thought wildly that they might pop from his head and dangle there like ripe cherries. He tried to pull back, jerked with all his strength, but Ai'Ilyn held him effortlessly.

"Gain. Control."

He shook his head and rolled his eyes, stamped his feet and struggled with all his might to free himself. His fingers reached up to claw at her hand, his legs arched out to strike her side, her knees, anything he could reach. Ai'Ilyn bore it all with no complaint. Her eyes were fixed on his and nowhere else, two fiery orbs that would not be denied.

"Gain. Control."

"No!"

The word was no longer a shout but a rasping, ripping noise that flew from his mouth in a spray of spittle that mixed with the silvery dew and dripped down Ai'Ilyn's arm in thick, ropey lines.

Ai'Ilyn's jaw tightened and her lips twitched. She squeezed tighter, and I realized his time was up. His motions began to slow even as his lips and mouth opened and shut frantically, trying to gasp in the much-needed lungful of air that she was denying him. He tried once more to jerk back away from her, but it was a pitiful gesture that ended with him sliding to the floor, his knees buckling once more as the muscles lost their strength and went limp. Finally, his eyes rolled back up in his head and all motion ceased.

Immediately, Ai'Ilyn released her hold and dropped him to the ground.

He fell there, unmoving, and I watched with bated breath as she knelt over him. She raised her hand up to his face and parted his lips, held her ear to his mouth, laid a hand on his chest. She grimaced, pulled back, and rammed a fist against the ribs over his heart, sending a rippling thump through the clearing as the sound bounced off the high root-walls that surrounded the scene. She slapped his face, once, twice –

Durst pulled in a gasping breath, and then turned to the side and retched all over the grass, spilling watery, silver vomit over himself and everything within six feet. It was this that broke the spell holding the rest of us, both children and Ilyn, immobile. Everyone seemed to take a collective breath at the same time, and I realized that we'd all been transfixed by the scene. The usual ritual took over, and the Ilyn began to call for the children to follow them into the Hollowed Hall. I slowly walked across the field toward Ai'Ilyn, and felt the others following behind me.

She was holding Durst by the shoulders as he retched, the boy still convulsing and sending wave after wave of the moonlight back into the grass, where it stunk and shone, an abominative cousin of the pure dew it had been only moments before.

"Zal'Ilyn!" she called past us.

I turned and saw the male Ilyn who often looked over us when we ate. He was approaching by himself, and I wondered suddenly where his children were. He'd said he'd had them – hadn't he?

"Will you take them back to their nestle?"

"Of course. Where?"

"Same as always."

He smiled.

"Change can be good, you know."

Durst made a violent choking noise and brought up another wave of silver vomit, this one flecked with bits of undigested root and nuts. I heard someone gag behind me and turn away, and I only just avoided doing the same.

"Whatever works," she said, thumping Durst on the back with a look of resignation.

We followed Zal'Ilyn up to our room that night, and, I think sensing that we needed supervision, he set himself up leaning against the wall beside the twisted entryway and watched us as we lay in our nestles, his eyes questing over each of us in turn, one by one down the row, until he reached the end and repeated the process in reverse.

I couldn't sleep, and I don't think many of the others could either. I lay awake curled in my blankets, heart racing in my chest, lungs balled up into a tight curl of tension in my throat. Could that have happened to any of us? Was that what happened to those who didn't make it through? Would the boy survive? Maybe he was dying out there right now, dying in the moonlight –

There was motion at our door, and not a single one of us managed to keep from turning over to look at Ai'Ilyn and Durst as they re-entered the room. The boy was glassy-eyed and walked with the half-frozen gait of someone partially paralyzed. He dragged himself down the room, a cloud of stink following him all the way like a physical barrier that separated him from us, and then fell into his nestle, where he lay still and silent as the dead.

We turned as one back to Ai'Ilyn, unable to help but wonder what she would do next. She cocked an eyebrow at us – well, the skin where an eyebrow should be – and we all closed our eyes. I knew I wasn't the only one, though, who invested every ounce of consciousness into straining to hear the Ilyn's conversation.

"Thank you," Ai'Ilyn said softly to Zal'Ilyn.

"My pleasure. You have a good group."

Ai'Ilyn hissed at him, a low sound of displeasure that we were used to. Even now, when it wasn't directed at me, I seized up in my nestle, knowing what it meant.

"Fine, fine, I'm going."

I heard movement, the scratching of something hard against wood, and then the rustle of clothing ... and silence.

"Go to sleep," Ai'Ilyn said, loud enough that I winced back. She knew us well enough to know we'd been listening. "I'm here until you do."

I heard the sound of her settling on the floor, and knew she meant what she said. I rolled over and tried to do so, and soon found I could.

When we woke, Durst was gone, but Ai'Ilyn was not.

We went about the day wondering where he was – even going so far as to discuss it over our breakfast as a whole group, the popular Tristan side pulling in me, Faolan, Brandel and Gwen for one of our rare moments of social cohesion. Nothing came of it – we went round and round saying how any of us could disappear too, how any of us might have ended up like Durst, and then someone else would say that we hadn't, and someone else would say all that mattered was where he was now, but then someone would start back at the beginning saying wasn't it terrible that any of us could disappear, how any of us might have ended up like Durst ...

We didn't seem him all day, and Ai'Ilyn told us nothing about him. None of us were brave enough to ask her, though we'd likely have received a slap and a rebuke in lieu of answers even if we'd tried.

He did reappear, though only once that night. After we'd eaten dinner and were heading out into the field for the moonlight ceremony, we saw him waiting at the open entranceway next to Zal'Ilyn. He was heavily bandaged around the chest and neck, and the two fingers that had lost their nails were encased as well. He walked slowly and his breathing was high and wheezy, and he wouldn't look any of us in the eye as Zal'Ilyn pressed him forward to join us as we passed.

We all lined up for the moonlight, exchanging glances with each other, all of us together, once again in that strange social cohesion that appears when a group is collectively threatened, but Ai'Ilyn said nothing, and neither did Durst.

Was he going to run with us again?

Ai'Ilyn handed out our bags, going by each of us one by one ... and skipping Durst. I was watching carefully so that I saw her skip him, and saw too the expression on his face turn from cautious hope to pain and finally settle on abject misery. He began to shake where he stood, and when Ai'Ilyn was done handing out the bags she turned to Zal'Ilyn.

"Hold him," she said.

The moon hit the top of the sky, and we danced through the light. When it was over, I saw Durst staring at us like a thirsty man who sees water but is denied the chance to drink. Zal'Ilyn was holding tight to both the boy's arms, and though Durst was straining forward, it was clear he was going nowhere. When the moonlight cut off, he began to whimper like a kicked puppy, and then to cry. We could all sense the beginning of a tantrum, but Ai'Ilyn headed it off before it could start.

"Take him back," she said.

"You're cruel," Zal'Ilyn said with an admiring smile. Ai'Ilyn grimaced and said nothing. "Come on, boy," he said, "time to go."

He hadn't let go of Durst's arms, and so simply began to walk away, pulling the boy after him. Durst had no choice but to follow.

It was only then that I realized what Ai'Ilyn was doing.

Durst was back the next night just the same way, and again he was made to watch and then led away. The next night was the same, and the night after that, until he returned to us in his nestle one night on waking, his bandages gone and his bruises almost entirely healed, but his eyes haunted and staring. He ate with us, worked with us, but was held by Zal'Ilyn again that night during the ceremony as he strained to get into the moonlight. He was crying when we finished that time, and he had to be led away again.

Every night for the next week was the same.

Ai'Ilyn had found the way in. He'd happily gone through physical pain, through humiliation, through threats, through everything, but he was, at his root, a spoiled child who wanted what he wanted and knew not how to resist the call of the moonlight.

He lasted only to the end of the next full week. As if by magic, he suddenly could do all the things he'd wailed and cried and swore were impossible. He could scrub floors for hours at a time without crippling pains in his back; he could make multiple trips up and down the Bower with the Caelyr to fetch extra silk without wheezing; he could eat his entire bowl of food without grimacing or pulling a face.

Ai'Ilyn kept him out for another week, regardless.

He began to beg her. He didn't want us to hear, but I made sure I was close enough to listen. It was the only time that my relationship with Faolan became strained – one of the only things in my life of which I'm truly and deeply ashamed.

I enjoyed the boy's pain the way I'd enjoyed watching Tristan beaten. I am not, at heart, a good person, though thanks to him I've tried to be. I know now that it was a part of me that was tied up in the madness – tied up in who I was as a girl with Fae blood. It's part of why they did what they did, part of everything this memory is about. I wish I could have seen it then. I wish I could have known what they'd turned me away from and appreciated it.

Did I forget all of this because I didn't want to remember?

What matters, though, is that Durst taught me the lesson I needed to learn – taught us all the lesson we needed to learn. Everyone can be broken. It's what makes us people. Because they can always, always get to you. But what makes you smart, what made you a survivor, is if you play their game until you beat them at it. Dignity, rage, shame, guilt, all of that gets in the way. It makes it impossible for you to realize that one truth – you are disposable. The only person that cares for you is you – the only person responsible for your survival is you – the only person you can blame when you lose control or you get hurt is you. You are responsible for everything in your life – you hold in your hands the keys to happiness or pain.

Life has rules. Even Fae can't escape them.

Chapter Ten: Run

Life went smoothly after that, now that we were all running the moonlight. The work to which we'd been set was still terribly hard, and the skin of our hands, which had begun to crack and bleed during the first few weeks, was now thick and calloused, what Tristan began to call "heel hands" to gales of laughter from Celin and Igrin, and exasperation from Faolan and me.

Ai'Ilyn watched us carefully and still expected perfect discipline. She was clear in her instructions about when we could talk and when we had to be silent, when we had to rise and when we had to sleep. Her punishments never altered, and they were as inevitable as a force of nature, and dealt with by us in much the same way:

You can't fight rain, but you can stay indoors.

Because, harsh and unyielding as she was, she was also fair. Not once did she punish someone who was innocent of wrongdoing. A few times I thought she had – until, in the middle of the punishment, the offender had begun to sputter out an apology for lying to her. Lying made it worse – to be caught doing something wrong was bad. To be caught lying about it was suicide.

I don't know how she knew, but she always did. She would watch us speak with those red-rimmed eyes of hers, and when we were done explaining ourselves and stood there awaiting judgment, she would very calmly stand up straight, look us up and down, and tell us exactly what she was going to do and why she was going to do it.

Not once did she lie.

Those of us who followed the rules lived a generally good life. Tristan was the one most often chastised, and it was a rare day when he wasn't limping, cringing, or bruised during our daily tasks. Still, those like Faolan and me avoided most punishment. I was beaten twice over the course of that first year, both for failing to complete a task I was given, and both times the pain had only been short – a quick reminder that I was not allowed to slack off. Faolan's two beatings had come because Ai'Ilyn had caught him lying awake at night and staring at the night sky from the corner of the room, where it was just possible to see the tops of the trees and a sliver of the moon if you craned your neck just right. When I asked him why he'd done it, he told me in his soft, intense way that he didn't know; he'd just felt like he needed to.

I began sleeping through the night and waking refreshed. I looked forward to the food, which now came in a few varieties, though always in a root vegetable, fruit, and nuts combination. I had never really eaten meat – at least not meat that wasn't rotten – and so I didn't have much to miss. Faolan said he missed it, and Brandel too, but neither complained more than a single conversation about it. What they gave us was plenty, and we thrived on it.

I should have known it was too good to last, because it was. And one night, inevitably, it all fell apart.

That moonrise, as we ate our breakfast – we'd all begun to call it that, even though it did not occur in the morning, if there even was morning in the Bower – I noticed that Tristan was moving slow and ungainly, almost like he'd been dipped in something sticky and was forced to make extra effort to move his limbs. When he sat down at the table in front of his bowl – in the center of his group, where he loved to be – I saw that there were deep circles under his eyes and that the corners of his mouth were turned down in an exhausted frown. His gaze, however, was just as sharp as ever.

Every one of my senses was suddenly on guard and focused.

No one else seemed to notice – everyone was focused on his or her food, as we often were when we woke. The novelty of being allowed to talk at meals had worn off, particularly since we only had a bare handful of time to wolf down as much as we could. We'd learned the hard way that anything left in the bowl once Ai'Ilyn came to take us away would stay there.

Tristan took a deep breath and settled a smile on his face.

"I have a plan."

Everyone stopped eating. Some of them looked up at him; others looked at each other; Faolan and I caught each other's gaze across the table.

"I have a plan," he repeated, "to get us out of here."

His voice was breathless, the sound of a child revealing a present he'd received – one that was only for him, but that he was magnanimously willing to share with his lessers so that they too could appreciate his good fortune.

"What do you mean?" Igrin asked, also breathless. Her blonde hair still glowed with a halo of radiance from its most recent washing on the night of the last Calling, and her green eyes were eagerly bouncing from Tristan's eyes to his lips and back.

"I know when we can run – I've figured it all out."

He cut his eyes to the portal door through which we could hear the movement and din of the refectory, playing up the conspiratory aspect of what he was saying. There was no real fear or worry in that look – he was too full of excitement to leave room for anything else.

"We can't run," Faolan said. He was looking up at Tristan, examining him, which in and of itself meant that he'd been thrown off-guard. Rarely did Faolan spare a glance for anyone. "The Ilyn are always watching. Even if there are no other Fae around, they are always there. We are never alone."

Tristan smiled, and I tried not to scowl.

"Except at night."

The pieces of the puzzle came together for me: his tired expression, the sluggishness of his movements. How long he'd been staying awake at night I didn't know, but I was certain beyond a doubt that he had found a way to wander the Bower while the Fae slept.

"After Ai'Ilyn puts us in bed, she goes away," he continued, speaking quickly, keeping one eye on the door. "I stayed awake all night, and even went outside to check. There's no one there. The hallways are empty. All the Fae are sleeping when we sleep!"

His excitement had infected some of the others, and even Pinur Fe was following the boy's words with intent interest. I felt pressure building up inside my chest and realized I had to speak, had to say something. Maybe if I spoke up I could convince the others not to do this. I took a quick breath and tried not to think about what I was doing, tried not to think about the fact I'd be revealing myself.

"You put all of us in danger," I said. The words sounded better than they had the first time I'd spoken; I was getting used to stringing them together, though they still sounded like half a croak. "Don't ruin what we have."

He sneered at me.

"What we have isn't good enough for the lowest dog in my father's house. If you're too much of a coward, then that's fine, Croaker." That was his newest name for me – Celin giggled when he said it. "Stay if you want – I won't be treated like a servant. I'm not a maid. I'm going home – and when I get there, I'm going to my father. When I tell him about what's happened, he'll lead his men here and kill everyone."

Tendrils of energy shot from my heart to the tips of my fingers.

"Who is your father?" Igrin asked, looking awestruck.

"Someone important," Tristan said with a smirk, "and he'll lead his men here by the hundreds and burn this tree and the Fae, too."

A dreadful cold settled over me, and suddenly my whole perspective changed. I was no longer worried about the safety of the other children or myself; I was worried for the safety of the Bower. I'd lived in the world outside where men with power took what they wanted and burned what they didn't. I'd seen walls torn down, and once an entire city put to the torch, all of it sent up in flames. I'd smelled the terrible stench of burning flesh and heard the piercing cries of those trapped inside the blaze. One of them managed to escape in the end and run into the countryside, burning like a torch. He threw himself into the river where those who'd escaped had taken refuge. When he came out, his skin was sloughing from his body, and I could see his bones. The memory alone made my heart beat against my chest like a caged bird, and my hands were icy cold and sweating.

Fire destroyed everything. Fire was more powerful than men could ever be. What good was the strength of the Fae against something like that? Hadn't Ionmar said that the Fae had been driven to the Bower for safety?

Could Tristan manage to do that to the Bower?

"Stand."

All of us jumped, save Tristan, who looked like he'd been expecting an interruption all along. Ai'Ilyn had returned – breakfast was over. There was work to do.

"Yes, ma'am," Tristan said in his baby voice. "Leh's go-ah work!"

Loathing, the blind, all-consuming hatred of childhood, boiled up in me so strongly that I almost flew at him. I could see myself doing it – could feel my hands grabbing his coppery cheeks and slamming his head against something – something hard. My jaw cracked, and I realized I'd been grinding my back teeth together as I watched him leave at the head of the group, the spot I usually took.

I fell into line at the back, my mind whirring with activity.

Faolan and I were against him, that I knew. But the others ... would they listen to him? Would they help him? Igrin would. I knew that instinctively – she hung on his every word, and the one time Aelyn had teased her about it she had blushed bright red and been unable to stop giggling. She and he talked all the time. They always objected to everything with the kind of obstinacy that to this day sets my teeth on edge. Everything was always about how much better it was in the world outside the Bower, as if that mattered. Even the ones who lent a sympathetic ear – Celin, Durst, and Aelyn– knew that there was nothing that could be done. They could grouse all they wanted – it wouldn't change where we were or what we had to do.

But Tristan was charming, and Tristan was cunning. If he tried to go, some of them might try to go with him.

Maybe ... maybe that was okay.

I thought about a life in the Bower without Tristan, and then expanded the thought, thinking about life in the Bower without Igrin or Celin or Durst. The rest of us were meant to be there – we knew we were. Brandel and Gwenel, for all their quirks, knew it as well as Faolan and I. Pinur Fe would look interested, but he wouldn't leave ... Aelyn would be the same. What if it was just us? What if it was just us and we did so well for Ai'Ilyn that she let us talk all the time?

Images of talking openly with Faolan ran through my head, though no specific conversations came to mind. Images of him watching me, and me saying something that made his eyes light up like they did sometimes. It might even be nice to talk to Brandel and Gwen. My heart began to beat faster as we ascended the Bower toward the room we were working in that day, and not all of the beating was because of physical exertion. No, now there was a new thought, one that had never occurred to me before.

I could belong not just to a place, but to a people.

I barely saw where we were going. The smooth wooden walls and the strange Fae creatures – the creatures that were becoming less and less strange and more and more familiar and welcome – all blurred around me and seemed to cup me in an embrace. If it was just us ... if it was only us and none of the others ...

But what if Tristan failed?

The beautiful image in my mind curdled. Images of Ai'Ilyn's snarling face when she found out that the others were gone, images of what she might do to us if she found that some of us had tried to escape, that the others had known and never tried to stop them. Would she stop us running the moonlight? Would she come up with a worse punishment?

And what if, instead, Tristan succeeded, and he came back with fire?

All of the original fear came back to me, flooding into my chest, wave after wave of emotion roiling up in my stomach, filling me, rising in my chest, making me choke.

This strange kind of war consumed me the rest of the day. Every time I saw him talking to one of the others, every time I saw him smiling like he knew a secret I didn't, I became more and more certain that I couldn't let him go. I knew that Tristan leaving was wrong – it was wrong for him, it was wrong for us ... it was wrong, wasn't it? I was so confused. Perhaps I still am.

At dinner, no one broached the subject, and that was when I knew that things had already been decided. Tristan ate his meal in silence, as did we all, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that somehow he'd picked his people and was making his move that night. I knew it in a kind of full-body certainty, the same way I knew that I belonged in the Bower, the same way I knew we all belonged here, for reasons I couldn't put into words.

I wanted to say something to Faolan, maybe even to Brandel or Gwen, but I didn't. Some shred of self-doubt clung to me and kept me silent even when I had the chance to speak to them, to whisper something that might warn them about what I was sure I knew. But it was that certainty that I doubted. How was it possible to know something like that? How was it possible to know when I also felt so confused?

Ai'Ilyn led us to our nestles after we ran the moonlight, and when we settled into bed I knew that I wouldn't sleep. I had to know. Someone had to be watching in the night in case ... just in case.

When I knew she'd left, when the room was breathing deeply, I looked up over the side of my nestle and stared across the room at all the others laid out before me in their cut-out beds.

It felt like I stayed that way for hours, watching, my heart pounding in my throat, but nothing happened. They all appeared to be asleep – how was that possible? Had I been wrong after all? I rested my chin on the edge of the wooden rectangle and continued to watch, but despite my fear and my anxiety, my heart began to slow. I caught my eyes narrowing, and then my eyelids feeling heavy. They closed once, briefly, and I pried them open with a force of will that seemed enough to move mountains, but as soon as they were wide again they began to shut. It was like lifting lead weights – there was nothing I could do. I told myself I was still awake, I told myself that I was alert, I told myself that I needed to stop them for their own good ...

I woke with a start in the middle of the night. Lightning rushed through me with crackling intensity, and I was up and looking over the spaced-out nestles before me, looking at the far end, looking at where I knew Tristan should be sleeping.

My eyes fell on the empty nestle and it was like a bell had been rung somewhere deep in my core, a deep swelling vibration that tingled down my arms and legs.

I was on my feet before I knew what was happening. I raced across the room in a flash of movement and stood staring down at the empty space where Tristan should have been – and the spaces empty on either side of him, where should have slept Celin and Igrin.

I raced for the door.

I had to stop them – I had to – maybe I could find Ai'Ilyn and warn her – maybe she already knew – maybe she'd been waiting outside the room the whole time, aware that they would try something tonight –

There was no one in the hall: no Ilyn, no child, no single living soul.

I ran through the Bower blindly. I took turns that looked even the smallest bit familiar, hoping against hope that I would find my way down, hoping against hope that I could get to them before ... before ...

Before what? Why was I doing this?

My mind was knotted and there was no untangling it. I heard distantly the part of me that had survived in the outside world shouting at me, yelling that I should abandon this, that I should go back to the nestle, that I should never have left, that this was insanity –

But I raced through the Bower regardless, turning through corridors that all looked the same, trying to find the turnings that made sense, trying to move downward, always downward, toward the distant Hollowed Hall –

I fell across a final staircase and saw the long spaced tables, the unlit braziers, and realized I had made it.

I didn't stop – I threw myself down the stairs, taking each step so fast that my legs were a blur, so fast that I should have tripped and should have killed myself, but all such thoughts were out of my head and I was running against some unknowable clock that was counting how long it took me to get down there, to get to Tristan and Igrin and Celin –

I hit the level floor of the Hall and raced toward the distant opening that led to the field, knowing they'd gone that way. What would I do if they were gone already? What would I do if it was too late? What would I –?

I reached the large opening and stopped where the smooth wood floor met the dense grass of the clearing. I looked out, scanning madly – and saw three distant figures. My heart leapt into my throat as I realized they were almost all the way across the field, running for the trees – they'd almost made it there –

I was rushing through the clearing where we held the moonlight ceremony as fast as my legs could carry me. There was a stitch in my side that pulled with every gasping breath I took, and my feet and hands felt like numb, formless loads attached to the long, ungainly poles of my arms and legs. I had to get to them –

They disappeared into the forest and I let out a sob I couldn't understand. That other part of me was howling still, telling me to stop, shouting that it didn't matter, that I needed to get back inside before the Ilyn found me there, before they found me trying to escape –

"Stop!" I yelled after them, my voice a hoarse and panicked whisper. "Stop! You have to stop! Tristan – Igrin – Celin – they'll find you! You aren't supposed to leave!"

Something clicked into place as I ran, some piece of the puzzle I hadn't been able to understand until that moment. I wasn't worried about the Ilyn finding them – I wasn't worried about breaking Ai'Ilyn's rules, or any of the Ilyn's rules. I'd broken those rules before – the second full night here I'd run the moonlight ceremony against Ai'Ilyn's direct orders, but nothing had come of it because there was a deeper set of rules, rules like the moon rising and the rain falling, and it was one of those rules that they were breaking, one of the rules that permeated the Bower like the air itself – his rules. The rules that sang to me in my blood, that told me we needed to be here because ... because ...

"AHH!"

I slapped myself across the face and the stinging pain blocked out the train of thought, derailing it and sending it crashing away. I was almost at the forest – I needed to think – how was I going to bring them back?

"COME BACK!"

I pulled up short, peering into the shadows of the trees, breath wheezing in and out of my chest.

"COME BACK! YOU NEED TO COME BACK!"

I realized I was sobbing, and the thought idly crossed my mind that I'd actually gone insane, that all of this was just the beginning of me losing my mind. Or worse – maybe there was no Bower at all, maybe I'd been insane ever since I'd arrived.

Why are we here?

"COME BACK!!!"

Something ripped in my throat and I choked on a warm gush of something that tasted metallic and salty. I coughed and hacked and spat up a warm glob of bloody phlegm that slapped against a tree branch and glimmered darkly in the light of the setting moon and winking stars. I clutched a hand to my chest and gasped, then fell to one knee as my vision spun, skewing the world sideways and blacking out large circles that I couldn't blink away.

"Come back," I croaked again, but the words rasped in my throat and I could only speak barely louder than a whisper.

Movement in front of me.

I drew in a wheezing gasp and tried to focus. I fell forward, bracing myself with my hands as I did, trying to brace the shadows that hung draped from the bows and branches of the wooden sentinels that lined the clearing.

The movement came closer – it was a figure, oddly lopsided, with one huge shoulder that made no sense – a second figure next to it, and ... a third? Somewhere behind it?

Silvery light flared into existence from the shadows and I threw a hand up across my face to protect against the glow. I squinted and peered past it –

There were three Ilyn before me, each carrying a squirming child.

I blinked over and over again, some strange reaction I couldn't control, as if my brain thought the sight I was seeing was dirt caught in my eye, not an actual representation of reality. But between the shuttering blinks of my vision, I began to put the pieces together and saw that the Ilyn out in front was carrying a boy with coppery skin and black hair. The Ilyn had red-and-white skin with pink around the eyes and across the chin –

Ai'Ilyn carrying Tristan.

– and behind her was an Ilyn with so much green and so little white that it almost made him look like a walking piece of the forest; he was carrying a girl with blonde hair that covered her face, the left side of which was coated in a layer of smeared red –

Ite'Ilyn carrying Igrin.

– and next to her on the left was another red Ilyn, this one taller with deep red skin, broad shoulders and muscled arms, carrying a darker boy –

Zal'Ilyn carrying Celin.

– and they all stopped when they saw me kneeling there on all fours.

Ai'Ilyn was the first to come forward, holding the struggling Tristan over her shoulder like an awkward sack. She knelt down in front of me and held me with her alien eyes, her face curious but still threatening.

"Why are you here?" she asked, and I knew that she was reading me – doing whatever it was that she did to see if I was telling the truth. There was no chance to escape now – there was no choice but to speak.

"They have to come back," I said, mind still reeling, unable to put into words all of what I was feeling and the strength with which I was convinced of it.

"She was the one yelling," Zal'Ilyn said, looking at me with a much more open version of the curiosity that Ai'Ilyn was showing.

"She is the one that ran the moonlight the second night," Ite'Ilyn said, coming up and seeing me. "I'm not surprised she's here."

"Why do they have to come back?" Ai'Ilyn asked me, ignoring the others.

"Because," I said, all the thoughts from before crashing through my head again, none of them making sense. But I felt the rightness of it – I felt it in my gut. There was a reason we were there – there was. "Because they need to be here ... they ... there's a reason. There is! But I can't ... I can't ..."

I caught my head in my hands and shook, head to toe, unable to bring the thought fully to consciousness.

"Has she changed?" Zal'Ilyn asked suddenly, and the alarm in his voice made me look up at him, squinting against the light of the bright moonstone he held in his palm. Celin was still and silent under the Ilyn's other arm, and I wondered distantly what had happened to him to stop his perpetual movement.

"No," Ite'Ilyn replied. "But she's gifted. She'll be one of the first."

Ai'Ilyn grunted and stood up straight.

"Follow, nestling," she said, attempting a sneer but not quite getting there. Something else looked to be warring against her tough mask, making it hard. I fell into step behind her, in front of the other two Ilyn. They walked to the center of the field, where she turned to the others.

"I'll hold them," she said simply. "Bring the others. Spread the word."

I stood numbly while Zal'Ilyn handed Celin to Ite'Ilyn, who took him easily, like a sack of barley. The boy didn't protest, didn't even squirm. It was odd, seeing him this still, seeing him so quiet. His eyes were big and wide as if he knew that he'd crossed the line he wasn't supposed to cross and was wondering how he'd done it. Igrin looked like she'd seen a ghost. Ite'Ilyn set her on the ground so she was sitting, but continued to hold her by the collar of her shirt. She looked like a kitten grabbed by the scruff of its neck.

I don't know how long we were there, but it was enough time for the moon to truly set. I'd never been out this late before – and when the light dimmed I was immediately afraid that we'd miscalculated and it was the night of the new moon, the night of Gwyn ap Nudd –

But the soft sight of the stars above me, watching coldly from high up in a cloudless sky, was enough light when added to the lit moonstone that we could see a fair distance. It was not the true darkness of the new moon – this was just a temporary twilight, a crepuscular transition.

Finally, there was movement at the mouth of the Hall. Zal'Ilyn had returned ... and there were others with him. Children, it looked like – dozens of them with their associated Ilyn. And still more – not just dozens, hundreds, all pouring out of the Hollowed Hall with bleary eyes and stupefied expressions that turned to understanding and apprehension when they locked on us.

Ai'Ilyn waited until they all were present, and then I realized there were others as well – Fae who had come to watch. I expected sneers or glimmers of eagerness, even open excitement, but there was none of that. As if of one mind, all of the Fae had stony masks of disapproval and disappointment set firmly in place, their grave expressions silencing all conversation.

Last of all came Oberon.

The Erlking looked the same as ever, and when he stood at the entrance to the Hall the Fae on either side of him parted as if he exuded a metaphysical pressure that made being too close to him painful, like heat off a fire. Robin was with him, as he always was, and the Puck crouched down by the king's side in a squat, his golden eyes blank and dull. Even he found nothing funny in the situation, and that made me truly begin to worry.

"We are gathered," Oberon said quietly, though loud enough for all to hear.

Ai'Ilyn nodded.

"Three nestlings chose this night to run away," she said simply, her voice emotionless and unnaturally flat. "With the help of Zal'Ilyn and Ite'Ilyn, they were saved."

Oberon nodded slowly, and then his eyes fell on me.

"What about the fourth?"

All eyes turned to me and the concentration of energy was so intense that I felt as though I might go up in flames. I tried not to cower away from the stares, but I did, unable to help myself. I ducked my chin and let my long black hair cover my face, hoping it would hide me.

"Somehow she knew they were leaving, or at least suspected. She ran after them, shouting for them to come back. Shouting that they needed to come back. Shouting that they belonged here."

The way she quoted me forced me to look up, peering through the curtain of my hair. Ai'Ilyn was staring straight at Oberon, and I could tell that she expected her words to mean something. Why would they mean something?

I shifted my gaze to the king, whose eyes had widened just enough to show surprise. After a respectful pause, during which he said nothing, Ai'Ilyn continued.

"As such, I recommend that she not only be left unpunished, but that she be rewarded. She is not a perfect nestling – but this is only the latest in a long line of events that show great promise."

I swallowed hard.

"The decision is yours," Oberon responded. He didn't deign to notice me now – he continued to watch Ai'Ilyn.

"The others?"

"You caught them?"

"Yes, all trying to escape. All confessed ... one of them very proudly."

"Very well. They were given warning? They were told what would happen?"

"Yes. They were told. On more than one occasion."

"Then proceed. They are responsible for their actions."

I thought I saw a grimace pass over his face, but it must have been the shadow of the two shapes that emerged from behind him. They were two huge Urden, towering over the other Fae, their gray and green skin turning them into walking shadows. They each carried a leather whip.

A chill ran through my body and the words Ai'Ilyn had used came back to me.

If you run, you will be beaten within an inch of your life.

The three runaways saw the whips as well – and finally found their voices.

"No – no – no I didn't – no, I didn't run!"

"Please," Igrin said, dissolving into tears. "PLEASE no! I didn't mean to do it!"

"Stand away," Ai'Ilyn said to me and motioned to the side. I moved numbly the way she had motioned, stumbling over my own feet and catching myself with a hasty hand. The sudden movement jarred me from my stupor, and I took my reprieve and rushed away, realizing that Ai'Ilyn had motioned me to the others of my group, standing all in front of Zal'Ilyn who must have brought them. Faolan was among them, and his wide eyes were scanning me, looking me up and down. Beside him, Brandel and Gwen were staring with open mouths and horrified looks as the Urden crossed the field.

"They won't do it," Brandel whispered, completely unaware he'd spoken out loud. "They won't – no, they won't."

I slid into the last place on the line, next to Pinur Fe whose bulk blocked me from the others. All of the other children were watching too, but I saw grim looks on some of their faces and realized they were the older children, those who looked like they'd been here for some number of years. They weren't looking away, and they weren't surprised.

"Give the whips to me."

I turned back to see the Urden had reached Ai'Ilyn and Ite'Ilyn, both of whom were fighting against the children they held in their hands. Panic had overtaken Celin and Igrin completely, whom Ite'Ilyn held, and they were both screaming and crying, sounds that seemed both far too loud and terribly muted in the Bower field.

"You cannot do this to us! I am the son of a lord – you will regret your actions!"

Tristan was fighting against Ai'Ilyn's grip, but fighting in an effort to strike her, not to get free. She was holding him with both hands, almost embracing him, trapping his hands and legs against her body. His face was red and his eyes were wide; his lips were pulled back and he was sneering and spitting, shouting over and over again that they couldn't do this, that he would go to his father and bring back men and fire and burn them all.

One of the Urden picked up the boy by his shirt, cutting off his words in an indignant squawk as the fabric cut off his breathing. The gray-green Fae passed Ai'Ilyn the whip it carried. The second Urden went to Ite'Ilyn and calmly took the other two children, holding them just as easily. Ite'Ilyn walked away into the crowd as soon as the transaction had taken place, but Ai'Ilyn stayed where she was.

The two Urden turned so that they were facing the crowd of gathered Fae and children. Without hurry or any sense of their actions besides that they were doing them, the two giants held up the children so that their backs were to the gathered crowd and their feet were just barely touching the ground.

Ai'Ilyn came forward, rolling the leather whip in her hands. Her red eyes were focused on the black material with such intensity she could have been trying to memorize the contours of it.

Abruptly, she dropped the end of the whip, turned, and cracked it out.

The sound of it exploded across the clearing, accompanied by three shrill cries of terror, all combining in an echo that bounced off the high root-walls around us and assaulted us like a physical blow. We all cringed back as if it were us that had been whipped. It was Igrin who received that first blow – I remember seeing not the whip but the evidence of the strike. She was shaking, trying to get her footing, and a deep rent had appeared in her shirt where the whip had ripped through the fabric and struck a red line across her back.

Ai'Ilyn pulled the whip back and cracked it again, this time aiming at Celin. He cried out in pain as the whip slashed through the thin Caelyr fabric and struck the skin of his back.

"You were warned," Ai'Ilyn said, her face stony but lit from beneath by the glow of anger. "You were warned repeatedly."

The Ilyn cracked the whip again, and another line of bright red skin appeared in the ripped Caelyr clothing, this time on Tristan's back.

"You cannot leave," she continued, slashing another rent into Igrin's back. "You cannot – you cannot."

Another crack – a new line of pain across Celin's back, leaving a torn 'x' in the back of his shirt and angry red weals puffing up his skin.

"You must learn that there are consequences to your actions."

Tristan cried out in pain.

"You were told what would happen – now it is happening."

Igrin cried out and broke down in the Urden's hand, hanging limply as she sobbed. I felt bile rise up in the back of my throat.

"You are not above the way the world works."

Celin sobbed a choking cry.

"You cannot choose to participate in only what you like."

Tristan shouted.

"You were given rules, and you have broken them."

Igrin cried.

"I hope you learn."

Celin howled.

"I really hope you do."

It continued like that, over and over again. I couldn't look away, though I wanted to. I couldn't believe what I was seeing – I couldn't believe the brutality being shown to children.

And yet I could. I'd seen this done in the world outside. I'd seen much worse than this ... I'd seen what the world itself did. I saw what people did to each other. And in the end, life always won. In the end, the world did what it did, and you suffered through it. Wasn't that what these three were learning? Wasn't that a rule they'd never mistake again?

But if it was good, why did I feel so sick watching it happen? And if it was bad, then why was it necessary?

Finally, Ai'Ilyn dropped the lash.

Caelyr came forward out of the shadows. I don't know how long they'd been waiting there in the opening of the Hollowed Hall, but when the whipping was over they moved into action immediately. Two of them came to each of the children directly, and I felt a stupid kind of primal fear tell me that they were going to eat them, that this was what the final punishment would be; but all they did was pick them up, already tying off-white pieces of cloth around their torn backs, staunching the trickle of blood that now flowed from the few weals that had gone deeper and ripped the skin instead of bruising it.

They took them away, all alive and conscious and sobbing uncontrollably. I lost sight of them as the Caelyr retreated into the crowd, but the sound of them echoed in the clearing for a long time.

When they had all gone into the Hollowed Hall, Oberon turned and disappeared without a word. Robin stood slowly, looking with unfocused eyes at the spot where the whipping had occurred, and then he disappeared into the shadows too. The other Fae left after them, filing back into the Hall with a simple shuffling stride that held a strange measure of contemplation in it. Zal'Ilyn motioned for us to go in as well, but then stopped me before I could join the others.

I looked up at him and he slowly motioned with his chin toward the center of the field. I looked that way and saw Ai'Ilyn standing there, slowly curling the whip in her hand. She grabbed the leather hard, squeezing as though it were a living thing and she was pressing the life out of it, and then slowly pulled it in a tight circle around her shoulder and elbow before starting the process again. The others left and I was alone with her in the field, alone and unsure of both myself and her.

Should I have helped them escape after all?

"You are to be rewarded."

Ai'Ilyn's voice was soft and quiet, but the sound of it snapped at me as if she'd decided to strike me too. She didn't look at up, though; she just continued coiling the whip, running her hand down the leather, grasping it tight enough to make her knuckles strain against her red-tinged skin, and then wrapping it around her shoulder and elbow.

"You have one question," she continued. "Any that you want. I would offer you more, but ..."

She stopped and seemed to come back to herself. Her back stiffened and she turned to look at me, her eyes scanning me, piercing me, trying to see what I was thinking. I can quite honestly say that I was in shock. I didn't know what to think – didn't even know if I could think.

She spoke after a long pause, and again the words seemed unnaturally large and loud in the clearing. "Ask your question."

"Why can't we leave?"

Her expression never changed, but she stopped coiling the whip. Her hand had grasped the end of it now, the braided bit that gave it just enough weight to make it nearly deadly. Out of nowhere, heat rushed through me. I couldn't understand what was going on or even where I was. I felt as though I'd been disassociated from my body.

"Why can't we leave?"

Ai'Ilyn watched me for a long time, the corners of her mouth turned down in a frown and her thin nostrils flared. It was an ugly look, but somehow it turned her from the distant, strange creature I knew her to be into something almost human. Something about that frown and that glint in her eye, a look that swirled together anger and disappointment into a mask of resignation, made her human to me, if just for that second.

"Because it's my job to keep you alive. And here ... here you'll live."

She coiled the final length of rope around the circle of elbow and shoulder, and raised the whip to point toward the Bower.

"Time for sleep; tomorrow is a full night, as always."

But I didn't go.

"You need to watch him," I found myself saying. "He won't stop."

"He will." She looked completely certain, and that brought back the flutterings of fear. I had to convince her.

"You need to watch him," I repeated. I knew I was crossing a line, but knew too this was the only time I'd be allowed to say any of this. "He isn't like the rest of us, he's darker. He's not just misbehaving, he really wants to hurt things and hurt us –"

"Stop speaking," she said with the tone of firm finality. I closed my mouth with a snap and stood there, trembling, watching the whip in her hand. She seemed to consider it as well, drawn to look at it by the strength of my own concentration. She looked back at me.

"We've dealt with his kind before. Rare, but not unknown. We are always watching, and it is not your concern. Go to sleep – I will see you when the moon rises."

I went without protest then, the momentary strength gone out of me. She said she had it under control – maybe she did. Maybe she really had dealt with Tristans before. I had to trust her.

What other choice did I have?

Chapter Eleven: Here You'll Live

When I woke the next morning, my mind tried to rationalize what had happened into a dream. I remember my eyes flying open and my hands clutching convulsively at the sheets covering me, the words already running through my mind on a constant repeat: Must have been a dream – must have been a dream – must have been a dream.

I sat up and looked across the room at the three beds where should have slept Tristan, Celin, and Igrin, and saw nothing but rumpled sheets.

MUST HAVE BEEN A DREAM – MUST HAVE BEEN A DREAM –

But it had really happened. It really had.

Ai'Ilyn entered the room moments later, brisk and commanding as always, but with Celin, Igrin, and Tristan nowhere to be seen. I don't know why I expected them to be with her – I think I had hoped that they hadn't been as badly

– beaten –

punished as I'd thought. She didn't discuss it with us, though – and of course none of us were so foolish as to ask her about it without permission. She led us out of the room, through the Bower, to the Hall. When she left us to eat, none of us spoke. Even Brandel was quiet, something that told the rest of us all exactly how intense the prior night's experience had been.

We went through the rest of the night in a haze, or at least I did. I was exhausted from the night before, and still trying to absorb what had happened. It was as if a spell of silence had been placed over us all. Again during dinner we didn't speak, and after the moonlight ceremony we went to bed without comment. I was worried that I would stay awake all night, thinking too much as I always did, but the combination of the prior night's sleeplessness and the current night's full schedule of work soon had me asleep.

The next day was easier. It was as if we'd all taken a full day to digest the events, and were now able to go on about their lives. Brandel started it off the next morning – he made some odd comment about wondering if regular animals like squirrels and deer lived in the forest around the Bower – and then there was a table-wide debate on it. Even Pinur Fe joined in with a small comment about how he'd enjoy a squirrel if they could catch one. Aelyn agreed whole-heartedly, and then blushed and looked down. I don't know why – maybe she thought it was unladylike to want meat. I've never understood that. Food is food. I'm not very ladylike, though.

But that was it – the spell had been broken, the dark clouds dispersed, the thick silence cut and skewered. Even I found myself drawn into the conversations that followed – simple things that didn't matter. As the days passed we started using the whole of the benches on either side of the table, not leaving the empty spaces where Tristan and the others usually sat. Aelyn and Gwenel struck up a strange relationship where they talked about things Gwen desperately didn't care about (hair and nails and how they should have more baths) followed by equal time spent talking about things Aelyn desperately didn't care about (the arc the moon took through the sky, the way the moonstones produced light, the ratio of Ilyn to children to Fae throughout the Bower). It was one of the nicest truce relationships I'd ever seen. They even seemed to genuinely care about each other after a while.

Durst and Brandel started getting along, and they loved sitting with Pinur Fe, because he always listened. Actually listened – Faolan and I tried, but after a while we got glazy-eyed, and I think Brandel could tell. Pinur Fe actively listened – and both Durst and Brandel liked to talk at him, though they didn't seem to particularly care for each other.

But every so often the room would fall silent, and we'd realized our group was too small – our number too diminished. We were meant to be ten.

None of us knew where they'd been taken, and none of the Ilyn or greater Fae were willing to tell us anything about it. I broached the subject with Ionmar, when next I saw her, but even she shook her head, the glassy black orbs of her eyes reflecting back my face at me.

"I cannot." She turned away, paused, turned back but not all the way; her torso was away from me, her face at a strange angle. "It is not my business or yours. Respect them enough to understand that they are elsewhere thinking over what they've done. Let them be. They will return in time."

In the end, it was a full moon's cycle, what Brandel declared a month despite the funny way that time worked in the Bower, before we saw any of them again.

They returned in the same abrupt non-discussed way they'd left. One moonrise they were simply in their beds as if they always had been there. I thought vaguely when I saw them that I should be shocked or surprised, but I wasn't; I was curious. I wanted to know where they'd been, where they'd gone; I thought maybe that we could get the answers out of them that we hadn't been able to get out of the other Fae.

When Ai'Ilyn came and called us all to attention, I watched them surreptitiously from the corner of my eye, and was surprised to see they moved quickly. They made their beds, as did the rest of us, and then stood in the line as Ai'Ilyn moved up and down the room, examining us and our nestles. She barely spent any time at all on the three of them – but even the small flick of her eyes that settled her vision on each of them in turn was enough to elicit a response. Each of them flinched – even Tristan. Celin looked as though he was muttering something under his breath, but I realized that he was only mouthing words, and maybe not even that. Igrin was holding tightly to the hem of a new Caelyr-silk shirt – they must have received new clothing during the same once-a-month cleaning that we all went through – and was sinking her fingers into the fabric so fiercely that I wondered at the fact she wasn't shredding it to pieces.

But these new tics made sense to me – Tristan's didn't.

When Ai'Ilyn's eyes swept over him, he flinched like the others, and then looked straight at me.

A shock went through my body, jolting me from head to toe. His dark eyes found mine and then moved just as quickly away. The look wasn't one of anger or fear or anything I could recognize. I would have sworn that there was nothing there at all, in fact, just a blank canvas staring out at me, but I saw something behind his eyes, some spark of who he once was.

It was a promise that it wasn't over between us. We were bound together now, and he was letting me know.

Throughout that day I watched him whenever I could. He and the others all appeared unharmed – at least physically. They were now the first to respond to the Fae's commands, whether they came from Ilyn, Paecsie, or Urden, and when we sat down for meals they didn't speak at all. Brandel tried timidly to question them about where they'd gone, and they told us some, answering questions with simple 'yes'es and 'no'es but nothing else. They'd been with the Caelyr, who'd been treating their wounds, and they'd been visited by Ilyn, but they gave us no further details, and when the questions stopped so did the conversation.

Tristan sat in his accustomed spot at the end of the bench opposite the door, and he was the one of the three who didn't answer any questions at all. He focused on his bowl of food, and contributed nothing.

For all intents and purposes, he looked broken. The supervising Fae kept him, Celin, and Igrin in different groups, and none of them were paired with me. I suppose I was the unspoken fourth in that group – something that I hadn't thought of until they'd returned. I hadn't been punished, but I had proved that I was closer to them than I was to the others.

But over time, their self-isolation softened and they became part of our group again, and this time there was no natural separation that occurred. They still clustered together at meal times, but they spoke to the rest of us now, and as the moon cycled through the sky, the horrible night was forgotten, or at least suppressed. We went on as we always had, except that now Celin and Igrin spoke with the others when addressed.

I kept waiting for something else to happen – for Tristan to look at me again as he did that first night he'd been returned, to show me that spark that I suspected was still down deep inside him, but he didn't. In fact, he ignored me altogether after that first look, and I returned the sentiment.

Months passed that way. At least, they were months according to Brandel. We tried to keep track – Gwenel said she'd tried to make tallies in her nestle, but every time she returned after the moonlight ceremony the tallies were gone as if never there – but we couldn't, so we depended on Brandel and his memory. Nothing much changed – except for us.

We started growing, as children that age generally do. With all the activity we were put through and the constant and reliable food, we filled out and then began to shoot up. Pinur Fe shot up first and furthest, and it seemed like every day he was just a bit taller, just a bit broader across the shoulders.

We went through the other changes that adolescents go through – the awkward ones. We still saw each other naked when we were bathed once a month in the pools below the Bower, and soon those nights carried an electric charge that moved through all of us. We naturally separated on those days – girls to one side, boys to the other – but to say we never looked would be to say we were never human.

We all knew by some kind of unspoken acknowledgement that everyone had looked at everyone else, though we pretended, of course, that we hadn't. We all knew Celin had a mole on his upper thigh, and Pinur Fe had coarse black hair, and Aelyn had a scar along the side of her chest and Durst still had baby fat everywhere. I don't know what the others knew about me – I don't know what they fixed on. Maybe none of us knew what the others knew – I think we all kind of assumed no one looked at us, even though we all looked at everyone else.

I'd seen boys naked before the Bower – and I knew vaguely about the things you did when naked. I'd heard the sounds of it – I'd even seen the shapes of it silhouetted in the night in the real world. I'd found it disgusting then – and I knew it was dangerous. I knew men could be naked and force women to be naked too, but that was never the biggest danger – the biggest danger was being naked together and then being pregnant. The whole conception of it was wrapped up in fear for me – the fear I saw in women's faces as they whispered about it when they thought I couldn't hear, the fear that followed the weeks after people were naked together, the fear that came when bellies started to round and bulge.

Being naked for too long was a fearful thing, that's all I knew, and, I was convinced, all there was to know.

So when I looked across the pool one night and saw Faolan standing on the edge of the rocky shore, water dripping down his lean body and his hair in a messy tumble, I was completely unprepared for the tightness that pulled in my stomach and the heat that flushed my head and made me feel dizzy. I couldn't turn away, but instead watched as he turned to the pile of new clothing he'd just received from the Caelyr, and the light of the moonstones highlighted the lower half of his body, the firm muscles and the long lines.

He started to look up in my direction, and I immediately buried my head in the water and tried to scrub the thoughts away.

It was only the start then – slowly, everyone began developing, and the fact Ai'Ilyn and the Urden watched us when we bathed but didn't speak or make us not look added an element of excitement to it all, like we were getting away with something. We kept looking, and sometimes the boys stayed under water until the girls were out and dressed, and sometimes the girls were taken away and spoken to by the Caelyr.

That was halfway through our second year.

Things happened, like they always do. There were fights between us – petty things about someone saying something and someone else saying something else. There were weeks when one of us tired of the routine and acted out and were punished, and the whole group of us were subdued. I existed on the fringe of the group and stayed out of most of it, but sometimes even I got pulled in. The rifts between us opened up again and Igrin, Celin, and Tristan, this time with Durst and Aelyn, began to sit together on one side of the benches where they agreed with each other. I kept the same seat I'd always had, and stayed silent whenever I could.

On the occasions I did speak, it was usually to Faolan.

We rarely talked about the things the others did. Igrin and Aelyn spoke about the way things looked, commenting on how horrid it would be to be one of the Urden or Paecsies, while Gwenel spoke about esoteric topics and theories that had no practical application to our lives. Tristan and Durst would make jokes, and Celin would laugh obnoxiously. Pinur Fe just listened. Brandel was his polar opposite – speaking was almost like a compulsion for him. You could almost see the words being drawn out of him, like thought given sound and forced through his throat. And his favorite people to talk to were Faolan and I, because we were the only two who didn't tell him to shut up.

Well, I did. Routinely. But Faolan didn't – and Brandel took his silence for consent to keep speaking, which, in some cases, I think it might actually have been. So he played the odds and decided half-approval was better than the outright mockery he encountered from Tristan.

With Brandel came Gwenel, and with the fourth addition to our side of the group, we officially became the outcast minority. The others paid us little attention – Tristan and Igrin were once more pretty, funny, and cruel, so Celin, Durst, and Aelyn toed the popular line and acted as though we did not exist. Gwenel had been with them for a time, but only because she hadn't picked a side and thus landed there be default. When she corrected Igrin's use of the word "farther" in place of "further," she quickly found herself alone, and Brandel was only too happy to pull her along with him. The only truly odd man out was Pinur Fe, who was such a good listener that no one really found anything objectionable about him. I wished I could affect his dignified silence, but whenever I tried it Faolan quirked an eyebrow at me that quite clearly asked if I was somehow ill.

During meal times, Brandel would talk about anything and everything. One night he launched into a monologue about the quality of the wood grain in the Bower and how it proved definitively – he was very proud to use that word, like a boy with a shiny new toy – that the tree was living and, indeed, growing around us. He only stopped to let Gwenel correct any information that he may have misconstrued, and then he was off again, pontificating all over us.

But sometimes he spoke about something important, and when he did I knew to listen. He was seldom wrong about what he thought or saw, and both Faolan and I were in agreement that he, while utterly foolish, was the smartest of the group, save perhaps Gwenel. Tristan exceeded them in the kind of social cunning that comes from a sharp eye and a sharper tongue, but Brandel was in a category of his own when it came to smarts. So when he started talking about the Bower one night over our second meal, I made sure to listen.

He had been talking about something unrelated – it was amazing how many words he could fit into the bare handful of minutes we were given for eating – when he took a breath and fell silent, which in and of itself was like a night with two moons, and then looked directly at me.

"If the Fae are real," he said abruptly, "does that mean more of the stories are true?"

"I didn't hear many stories growing up," I responded, not knowing what kind of answer was required of me and not sure whether I was comfortable giving any at all. He had broached the one subject none of us had dared to talk about in months – ever since the half-answers Ionmar had given me so long ago now.

I glanced at the others, and saw both Faolan and Gwenel had stopped eating, food halfway to mouths and eyes wide in surprise.

"What about you, Faolan?"

He shook his head slowly, his hazel eyes watching Brandel with a sudden intensity. Gwenel looked at the opening that led back out to the refectory, probably wondering, as I was, whether Ai'Ilyn was close enough to hear us. Brandel shrugged, unperturbed, and continued at rapid-fire rate:

"It's strange, right? We live with the Fae. There were stories about them – some of them must have been true. Some of them, you see?"

I nodded slowly though I didn't see, hoping that the motion would encourage him to continue speaking. Faolan's sudden attentiveness was like a shout in a quiet room, and I hoped Brandel wouldn't hear it.

"And changelings," Brandel continued, directing his soliloquy at me since I'd been the one to nod. "In the stories, it's a child born in the Fae world and sent to live with humans until they're old enough to be called back."

"I never heard that one," Gwenel said, her mousy brown hair pulled back in the braid that she'd started wearing it in to keep it out of her face. I'd never seen her wash it. I tried to spend as little time contemplating that fact as I could.

"Oh, yes!" he said quickly. "Lots of stories my mother used to tell me – about all kinds of them. You never heard any? Not even about Gwyn ap Nudd? There's lots about him."

"I have," I started, then stopped when the other side of the table quieted. We all looked over and saw they were busy with something Tristan was drawing on the table with some of the water from his cup – when he was done they burst into laughter, and I couldn't help but think it was something crude.

"The Hunter," I continued, turning back to them. "I heard stories about that."

I glanced at Faolan. As usual, he said nothing, but as he looked back at Brandel, it was clear he was interested.

"There are others," Brandel encouraged. "Lots and lots – goblins, elves, sprites, trolls, gnomes, halflings, brownies – there are so many. But there are more here than that – so think about it ..."

He bent in closer to us, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

"What if all of the real versions of those stories come from here?"

"I've never heard of the Caelyr before," I said quietly.

"I have," said Gwenel, "but not by that name."

We all looked at her.

"There are a lot of stories about spiders coming to the aid of those in need and binding wounds or weaving flesh back together. It's something to do with eating the insects that try to get into open cuts, like flies. And the idea of women weavers who control life and death... that kind of fits."

"What about the Paecsies then?" I asked. My heart was suddenly beating so quickly in my chest that it felt as though it might burst out and start flopping around on the table.

"Pixies," Faolan said, modifying the word just the slightest bit so that it sounded entirely different. Excitement was just as clear in his voice as in mine. Brandel, catching onto our excitement, barreled ahead.

"Elves are missing, of course, and so are brownies and sprites and nymphs, but they wouldn't be here, I don't think – they don't ..."

He grimaced as he tried to find the right word. It was Faolan who supplied it:

"They don't fit."

We all looked at him, but his hazel eyes were far away.

"Exactly!" Brandel hissed. "Maybe they're like Gwyn ap Nudd and his Hunt – maybe they never swore to Oberon at all."

"Goblins," I said, saying the only name I'd heard before. "They're supposed to be vicious and ... they take things in the night, and punish ... punish children ..."

"Ilyn," Faolan said, once again putting it together before the rest of us could.

"Drop the first syllable," he said slowly, looking at us each in turn, causing even Brandel to fall silent and pay attention. "-lin. Add an extra 'i' in there at the front and you have il-in. Gob-il-in."

"Each of the Ilyn use the first syllable in front of the 'ilyn' as a name," Brandel said, no longer watching us but retreating into his own world. "It's completely conceivable that someone met one of them and thought it was all creatures like that. Met an Ilyn named –"

"Named Gob'Ilyn," Faolan finished.

"No," I said. "Rob'Ilyn – Robin. Robin Goodfellow."

They froze and looked at me, and simultaneously a chill went through us all. Brandel looked like he wanted to say something else, but even as he opened his mouth to do so, he closed it again and his eyes went glassy and far away. Faolan was nodding slightly, his eyes locked on me, and Gwenel was looking back and forth between us all with her mouth open and jaw slack.

That was the last time we spoke of it out loud. Ai'Ilyn came in very soon after, and we went about our night as always. At the next meal, we talked about something else, and then something else at the meal after it, but never returned to that original subject. We'd touched on something too deep – something that we weren't ready to face yet. Within the week, though, we were forced to reconsider.

It was next to impossible to get sick or become injured, another of the facts that we all knew about but didn't acknowledge. None of us ever woke up with a cough or a sneeze, and though we received bruises from the Ilyn, and aches and pains from the work we were put through, we never endured a serious injury until Brandel broke his leg during a trip and fall in the moonlight ceremony. He was quickly taken away by a number of Caelyr who seemed to materialize out of nowhere. He'd been crying out, clutching at his leg, which was twisted in an unnatural way that made me sick to look at it, and in a matter of seconds all that was left was the impression of the violence done, like an echo in a cave.

When we returned to our nestles after the ceremony was over and Ai'Ilyn was gone, there was a whispered conversation among us that speculated over where they might have taken him and what might have happened. We asked Celin, Igrin and Tristan where they were taken, but they refused to answer. I distinctly remember going to sleep that night and thinking I might not ever see the boy again.

But in the morning he was in his nestle, sleeping like a baby.

Ai'Ilyn woke us up as always, and we all stood up and snapped to attention, even Brandel. I kept cutting surreptitious glances toward him when Ai'Ilyn turned away from my direction, and I saw that his right leg from mid-thigh to ankle had been coated in a thick swath of Caelyr silk, much thicker than our clothing – almost yellow in color – and so tight that it outlined the entirety of his very skinny leg.

He moved on it easily, only limping slightly as we walked down to breakfast, and when Ai'Ilyn left us, he was bombarded immediately with questions; even Igrin, Celin, and Tristan joined in – they seemed to have forgotten their reluctance from the night before now that Brandel had returned, and were trying to compare the situation to their own treatment after the whipping, months and months ago now.

"The Caelyr set the bone and then one of them bit me," Brandel said, looking like a king holding court, drunk on his own power as the center of attention. "It hurt worse than the bone breaking – it was like something was trying to rip off my leg."

"Poison?" Celin asked, looking worried in his vague, wide-eyed way.

"Maybe venom," said Gwenel thoughtfully. "My mother used to use venom from spiders and snakes to numb wounds when she had to do something painful."

"And then," Brandel interrupted, his mouth pinched into a frown and his eyes glaring ill-thoughts at the girl for breaking into his no doubt well-crafted story. "And then there were dozens of them around me, all hissing and holding my leg. I tried to push them off because I was scared, but all they did was set the bone and then bind it in this cast."

"That's what they did to us," Igrin gushed suddenly, looking at us with color in her cheeks. She looked self-consciously at Tristan and Celin, but rushed ahead before they could say anything. "They wrapped us up entirely – head to toe – and they hung us ... somewhere. I only remember because I thought I was dead. I thought they were going to eat me – I was sure of it – I mean, wouldn't you be? They're spiders!"

The others nodded and joined in emphatically.

So was the case with every injury or illness. Combined with what Ionmar had told me about the Caelyr being in the Bower for their own safety, Brandel said it made sense that in return they must act as caretakers for the creatures of the Bower.

Which brought us all, as a whole group, back to the topic of the Fae.

This time we didn't give it up. It absorbed our conversations for that full night and for weeks to come. Driven by the newfound courage of Igrin to reveal what she and the two boys had gone through, and the insistence of Brandel, we talked round and round the subject every time we were left alone. We went over names again, then over what other stories we might have heard, then over what we could guess about the stories, then over what stories we might have half heard, until were talking in circles and ready to bite each other like a pack of wild dogs worrying over a bone already splintered, cracked, and bare.

But in the end one word remained and kept us talking – one word that always hung about the Bower just on the edge of hearing:

Changeling.

I had heard the word – some of the others had as well – in the lives we'd lived before the Bower, but that was all we knew. There were rumors and stories – of children who were stolen in the night, of those who went insane and were called the children of unholy demons – but we'd thought it all make-believe, and living here, living now, seeing the Fae, seeing that the children could never leave – the stories seemed uncanny. How could any of it be true? How could the stories have gotten out if no one could leave the Bower? How could the outside world know anything about this place?

And that was when we realized the older children had begun to disappear.

I don't know how it avoided us all. I don't know how we never questioned that there were no children more than a few years older than us, how there weren't any fifteen year olds, and young adults, and adults in general. We knew they weren't there, and I think we all just forgot about it because there were so many other Fae. But when the observation was made, we all sat open-mouthed at the glaring obviousness.

"What if the older children stop growing?" Brandel theorized one night, his blue eyes wild and thin blonde hair in disarray. "What if the older ones have been here for hundreds of years?"

"That's ridiculous," Durst said in his nervous, shifty way. "There are more that come every month during the Calling ceremony."

"He's right, Brandel – and there are never more than a few hundred children."

"The older ones have to go somewhere."

"When do they disappear?" I asked.

There was a long pause where Brandel looked around in a completely serious way as if convinced my voice had come from the wall. The rest of them all looked at me, and in the end he figured it out. Faolan had quirked that eyebrow of his again, but I tried to ignore it.

"When do they disappear?"

The second time I said it, the words came out softer and squeakier despite my strident internal commands that they be forceful and brave, but none of the others made fun of it, not even Tristan.

"Does anyone know?" Faolan asked softly. I looked over at him and saw him glance back and smile briefly. He was backing me up.

A chorus of "no"s answered him and I nodded, knowing all along this must be the answer – and knowing too that if we were to get to the bottom of this, we'd have to find a way to answer this basic question.

"What's your plan?"

I looked back up and almost swallowed my own tongue when I realized Faolan was looking at me again, quite clearly the one that had asked the question. For a brief second, my brain froze completely solid and a chill went through me that was so fierce I thought icicles might form along my extremities.

"Watch," I said.

The word slipped from my mouth before my jaws closed up, but I wanted to keep going. I swallowed hard and pushed through.

"Watch them. Who is the oldest?"

"Kyre."

All the heads swung toward the other side of the table, where sat Pinur Fe up against where the bench met the far earthen wall. He froze under our looks, and unlike me he seemed unwilling to continue, and looked as though he was already regretting participating in such a discussion.

"Who's Kyre?" Tristan asked.

"I know him," Aelyn said quickly, spots of bright pink flaming in her cheeks when she realized she'd spoken just slightly too quickly.

"Uh ... how?"

"He's just ... he's really noticeable," she said, the blush spreading to her neck and giving her a strange glow.

"Is that the big guy?" Durst asked, squinting to call up an image of him while simultaneously worrying his lower lip between his teeth. "The one who kind of looks like Pinur Fe but older?"

Aelyn blushed even more and nodded, just one quick jerk of her head.

"Watch him," I said, trying to make my point before Tristan sidetracked us by making fun of Aelyn. He was already looking at her with a predatory gaze, and I could see his mind working on the best way to tease her about it. "Watch him – and figure out when he goes."

"Time's up," Gwenel said, and we all resumed our positions at our bowls and affected an air of nonchalance. Regular as the moon in the sky, Ai'Ilyn appeared at the door just seconds later, and whisked us away for our night of work and moonlight.

It was easy to watch Kyre – and once we saw him, we realized we all had seen him before. He truly was hard to miss. He was huge, and his skin, which I remembered as white like most of the children save the odd copper or darker hue, now seemed to look oddly gray. I saw him the first time after our discussion at the moonlight ceremony that night – saw him standing in the shadows, hulking behind his group. He did look a little like Pinur Fe – and with a shock I realized that he couldn't be more than a year older than us.

Vertigo swirled me around as I realized how long we'd been in the Bower, but I firmly set the thought aside for later consideration. We had lots of time, I remember thinking. In a lot of ways I was like every other child – I thought I'd never change.

I remember hoping Kyre wouldn't disappear at all. I hoped it so hard that I had dreams about it – dreams where he came and found us and smiled and we all realized he wasn't really quite so big, and then he told us that we'd all been mistaken, that Ai'Ilyn had come to him and explained it all and that there actually were adults in the Bower, they just lived really high up in the tree, higher than we'd ever gone. In the dream, that was when I looked up and saw that all the leaves of the tree so high above us were all made up of faces – all the faces of the nestlings

– changelings –

that had disappeared, and they were all smiling down at me.

Kyre was gone by the next full moon.

When it happened, we all knew it. We'd seen his absence at the moonlight ceremony, and we knew what it meant. That night, when Ai'Ilyn left us, we had a whispered conversation in which we all confirmed that we hadn't seen him that day. We agreed to wait – at least a few days more. Maybe he was with the Caelyr – maybe he was simply being punished for something and wasn't allowed to run the moonlight.

We waited – and never saw him again.

It changed us, almost overnight. When we went to breakfast the next morning, there was a sense of something in the air with us that we wouldn't address, like another member of our group that we'd never realized was there, an eleventh child that grew younger as we grew older – a child that would disappear when our time was up.

We decided to watch some of the others – some of the other children in Kyre's group. One by one, they disappeared as well. There was no rhyme or reason to it – they simply disappeared. It didn't happen all in the same month, nor the same week. A few of the children from the group below that group disappeared first, and then more from the older group, and then one from the group two below ... then one from the group only one month ahead of us.

We all began to feel like we were on a ride that we couldn't stop, one that would take us straight over the edge of a hidden cliff. We started snapping at each other for no reason, and some like Brandel and Durst started speaking with stress clear in their voices. We even contemplated asking Ai'Ilyn about it, but that motion was quickly shot down.

I started lying awake at night, and I know I wasn't the only one. I couldn't stop my thoughts from racing around in endless laps, just continually tracing and retracing its old steps, wearing a path around the inside of my skull like the well-worn ruts wheels make on heavily-travelled roads. The questions that had plagued me since we'd arrived – even the question of why we were here at all – faded into the background like sand through a sieve. Nothing else felt as important now, not even the bliss that still came from running the moonlight or the fear of the dark that came with the new moon.

Where did they go?

We never came up with an answer. None of us even came close to one. Tristan made fun of us for caring so much – using his baby voice to mock us each in turn. Durst started crying again, not out of rebellion or anything else, simply out of fear and nervousness come to a head. Faolan brooded even more, and I spoke less than I had since the day we'd arrived.

The life that had seemed to stretch out before us in an unending, unbroken line suddenly had an ending. Now each week that passed brought more and more missing children in the ranks above us. Suddenly we were physically bigger than most of the other children – bigger especially than the small ones who were gathered in every month at the Calling, the small ones who came...

To replace us.

Ai'Ilyn was with us all the time now – never leaving us unattended while we worked, even standing in the doorway when we ate. There were dark circles forming under her eyes, and she snapped at us all when we stepped so much as a single toe out of line. One night, I woke from a fitful dream and rolled over to see her standing at the door, watching us all. Her head was nodding, but she shook it and shook herself, standing up straighter and focusing on us once more.

The tension built to a head until finally something had to go, like water boiling over the edge of a pot. The sense of foreboding we had began to couple with a sense of inevitability, and a sense that once it began to happen, nothing would be the same.

We were right. When it happened, everything changed.

Everything.

Chapter Twelve: Iron and Fire

It started with Tristan, as I should have known it would.

None of us knew how long we'd been in the Bower, though Brandel and Gwenel's best guess at that point put us close to three years. Three years undergoing the same routine over and over again, having the same rules drilled into us by constant repetition.

Three years – and in all of that time Tristan and I had never been friends, not even close. Most of the others either adored him or feared him – and even he and Faolan had established an uneasy truce. But neither he nor I had any interest in even attempting the everyday niceties the others used with each other. That spark I'd seen when he'd returned from his punishment for running away, that promise, that small remnant of the contemptuous rebel he'd been – it only flared up when he looked at me. And if it was anything like the instinctive rush of anger I felt when I so much as heard his voice, I understood it all too well.

I never forgave him for putting us all at risk.

He never forgave me for trying to make him stay.

I can't have been the only one who saw through him, saw through him to his core and understood who he was, but I knew for certain I was the only one who really cared. At least one of the others must have known as well – maybe Pinur Fe, who treated us all with the same kind of directionless amiability that covered up those eyes that saw too much – that understood too much about all of us.

But maybe not. Maybe I really was the only one who knew he was rotten through and through, the only one who saw the way his smile never touched his eyes when he was beaming at Igrin or Celin or any of the others. The only one who saw his true smile, the one that he tried to hide when the others were beaten or punished and he got to watch.

The one I hated because I understood it.

It started getting worse as that third year began. Darkness began to follow him like a cloud, a sense of menace like a physical force, and every move he made, every word he uttered, felt wrong, felt dangerous. He remained, as ever, the cruel leader of the others, but even they seemed to sense his turning nature, and soon only Igrin kept to his side during meals and at work. She still smiled and bounced her beautiful golden locks, but I knew that her demeanor was forced from the way her shoulders rose when Tristan turned toward her, his black hair covering his eyes.

His laugh became biting – like the feel of cold wind scraping against your cheeks. When one of us was hurt or chastised by the Ilyn, he started watching openly, not even trying to hide his eagerness. He would grin as the punishment occurred, or as one of us lay on the ground bleeding from a cut or a crushed foot, until the Caelyr came and took us away, and then his face would turn to disappointment, and his manic smile would fade to a burning scowl.

He began again to actively seek out trouble. Nearly every day Ai'Ilyn or one of the other Fae reprimanded him for intentional slights. Nothing Celin, Igrin, or any of us said could pull him back from such reckless behavior. Even Brandel tried, in his roundabout talking-to-the-wall kind of way, and he was nearly thrown to the ground and beaten for his troubles. Tristan's little-boy charisma was still there, but it had begun to mature and deepen into something frightening. He snarled insults at every opportunity, at anyone, even the Ilyn; and hardly a day went by when he was not bruised and smiling through it.

He had lucid periods where he came out of whatever it was that was slowly coiling itself through his being, slowly squeezing any conscience from his soul. For a few days he was back to his old self – charming the others, using his baby voice with any of the Fae who wished to speak with him, pretending he knew nothing at all, that he was as innocent as the day he'd been born.

But still it worsened.

One night, when we were taken outside as a group to clear away debris that had fallen along the edge of the sentinel trees that ringed the Bower, I saw him staring off into the forest.

I don't know what it was about that simple act that told me there was something wrong, but I remember the image very clearly. He stood, back straight, hair swept behind his ears and down to his shoulders, eyes narrowed to slits. He was breathing in deeply, his broadening chest swelling beneath his shirt, and it was as though he were trying to suck something out of the air and pull it into himself. I heard wind in my mind even though there was none, and felt the flaring heat of fire though I hadn't seen true flame in years.

Tristan began to walk toward the forest line as if in a trance, and I immediately moved to cross his path. There was no doubt in my mind that I needed to do it – no doubt that I had to stop him just as I had before. My mind reeled and I was back to that night a year and more ago when I had chased him across the field.

He didn't see me as I moved toward him, didn't even stop to look around when I was at his side and clearly visible – so I stepped in front of him.

Finally, he stopped. His chin lowered by increments until his black eyes were watching me with the contempt he reserved especially for me.

"Go back," I said quietly.

His upper lip twitched up to reveal his teeth, but then his mouth went slack and his eyes rose up over me – over my head. With a shock, I realized I had been completely forgotten. Something else had consumed him, had totally grabbed hold of his mind. I turned and looked over my shoulder and saw nothing but the dark shadows of the forest and the towering columns of the sentinel trees – nothing I hadn't seen before. But Tristan saw something – something he was squinting at to make out. He took a step forward and his lips drew back and began to quiver, not in contempt or disgust but in yearning. His eyes rolled in his head and he almost lost his balance and fell on the grass, but caught himself with another step forward.

"Tristan," I said, trying to force my voice to come out strong, but I was so unnerved I could barely form the word at all. This wasn't Tristan being Tristan – this was something more. This was something worse even than the wrongness I'd felt coming from him over the past few days – something darker that was somehow calling to him.

Desperate, I shot a look over at Ai'Ilyn, hoping that she'd seen us and was on her way to reprimand us both, and almost went faint with relief when I saw her finishing her conversation with the Urden supervising us and turning to see where we had gotten to.

Tristan took another step forward and held out his hand toward my shoulder, trying to push me aside so he could go around. The feel of the sudden pressure against my skin sent a rush of strength and fear through me, and I shoved him away from the edge of the forest, knocking him back several steps. He caught himself and his eyes cleared immediately.

"You're dead," he said, and I knew by his eyes he meant it.

Faolan caught him in midstride. The dark shape of the slighter boy – Tristan had grown strong while Faolan had grown tall and lean – appeared as if from nowhere, and I sucked in a full lungful of air in surprise. He grabbed both of Tristan's arms and twisted them behind his back, shocking the boy so much that he barely struggled. Faolan turned him away from the forest edge and spoke quickly, his voice coming in clipped syllables that wasted no time or effort.

"Ai'Ilyn is watching. I don't care what you do to yourself, but I care what you do when we're all at risk. If you do something stupid while we're all here, we'll all be punished. Pick up that branch – now."

And for a wonder, Tristan did exactly as he'd been told.

Faolan released him as Tristan bent to the ground and picked up the branch, then Faolan bent to the ground himself and picked up a handful of rocks and started throwing them casually into the tree line. I was almost too late – but just in time I stooped down as well and pried free a large weed choking the grass and purple bell-shaped flowers around it, pulling it up roots and all as we'd been instructed.

Ai'Ilyn passed behind us, watching carefully but with no reprimand, heading in the direction of the other Urden who separated us on the other side from another group of children just beyond. When she was gone, we rounded on Tristan once more.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Faolan hissed.

"Don't you feel it?" he asked, stopping in the act of picking up a rock.

"Feel what?"

Tristan slowly stood, rolling up from his crouched position one vertebrae at a time. He turned and once more looked over my shoulder. "There's something right there in the trees – something in the ground. It's ... it's calling to me."

Faolan looked at me, and I shook my head.

"I don't feel anything –"

The sensation of a finger running down my spine made me shiver uncontrollably. I stumbled back a step, almost crossing the barrier of the trees and falling into the forest. I spun around to look behind me, so alarmed that I didn't realize until after that I was standing beside Tristan, looking exactly where he was.

There was something there.

I could feel waves of it, like sound but deeper, rolling toward me from a single point. My shoulders tensed up and my hands balled into fists against my will. I gritted my teeth together and found myself taking a step back.

Immediately I felt lighter. I took another step back and the sensation faded away entirely, dissipating enough that I could hear someone making a faint whining sound, like a dog might make when in distress.

It was me.

I stopped and shook my head. Faolan had come up beside me and I saw him staring out into the forest as well, the same look on his face. He was breathing heavily and his pupils had dilated. I grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him back, and we both stumbled away from the forest.

What was in there?

"Stop!"

All three of us jumped nearly a foot in the air, but it wasn't us Ai'Ilyn was yelling at. She was calling to the whole group, casually over her shoulder, and was motioning for us to return to the Bower. I glanced up into the sky and saw that the moon had almost reached its peak.

Faolan and I both laid a hand on Tristan's arms, and he let us lead him away. With each step the feeling dissipated more, until I felt as if I'd almost imagined it. Tristan shrugged out of our hands abruptly, and we let him go. He was shaking his head and muttering to himself, but he was going the right way, toward the Bower. We followed him, but I kept casting glances over my shoulder, and Faolan fell into step beside me.

"What just happened?"

His voice was thin and rough around the edges.

"I don't know," I mumbled back, "but Tristan does."

Faolan flicked his hazel eyes up to the boy who was, for once, walking in front of us. He was swaying slightly with each step, and he seemed distracted. He kept looking back over his shoulder, the same way I'd been looking, not even noticing.

"Something's going to happen," I whispered.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know," I said through gritted teeth. "I wish I did."

"He can't do anything with Ai'Ilyn watching us."

"He can at night," I said, remembering.

"He's learned his lesson about that," Faolan replied calmly, and though I didn't voice my contrary opinion, I knew that Faolan was wrong. Tristan didn't learn lessons. Tristan would throw himself against the walls of his confinement until he broke through or broke himself.

We entered the Bower through the wide opening and found Fae eating at the tables nearest us – Ilyn, Urden, Paecsies, wispy white-haired creatures I remembered vaguely might be called Sylphs, a few beautiful women that had flowing hair made of flowers and vines, and a number of others I couldn't make out, all mixed in together. They looked up at us as we entered, and I felt a chill go through me followed by a sharp heat.

Why did I keep thinking of fire?

As we moved toward the far corner of the Hall that would lead us to the refectory, I watched Tristan. His movement was erratic – normally he stayed with Igrin or Celin and joked or made rude gestures at the backs of the other Fae when he couldn't be seen – but tonight he was quiet, almost serene.

We ate dinner in silence – everyone was too tired to speak after the day's work in the clearing. I was the only one who seemed not entirely focused on the bowl in front of me. Faolan, sitting across from me, noticed I was still watching Tristan, but made no comment, aloud or by gesture, only held my gaze until I looked away to Tristan and then looked back. He looked toward the boy as well and finally nodded, just a slight bob of his head that would have gone unnoticed had I not been looking for it. His point was clear – he saw no danger now, but if I did, he would trust my judgment. I wondered then if I truly was going crazy; I looked again at Tristan and tried to judge objectively.

He was eating like the others, and though his motions seemed oddly wooden, as if he were performing them by rote, there was no open evidence that he was anything but normal. So why was I unable to shake the feeling of dread that had settled in the pit of my stomach?

When we went out to dance the moonlight, I couldn't help but look in the direction of the tree line, even though, of course, there was nothing to see.

"Ready!" called Celin, now one of the oldest and most enthusiastic runners.

When the moon reached the top of the sky and the dewy grass at our feet broke into a thousand reflected motes of light, Tristan was already in the midst of the field. The others and I raced in after him, the pure ecstasy of being in the moonlight temporarily blinding out all other thoughts. Tristan ran almost as fast as I did, yelping and shouting with abandon. I wove in with him, drawn by his recklessness, laughing openly at him and at everything, and he laughed back, free of malice. He saw me and ducked behind me, playfully ruffling my hair as he raced past, and I rushed after him, scooping up handful after handful of the dew, wondering at the change that had come over him. He dodged by the other children with barely millimeters to spare, filling his bag up first and drinking huge gulps of it, only to fill it again, laughing and shouting along with the rest of us.

But when the light passed overhead and the ceremony ended, he looked stunned, as if he'd been hit upside the head. I realized then that he'd been weeping – there were trails of tears leading from his eyes down his cheeks – and that I'd mistaken the wetness for spilled dew. The echoes of the pleasure from running in the moonlight still raced through my body, thrilling me with each heartbeat, but the cold dread that I had temporarily abandoned returned once more and took up residence in the pit of my stomach, resting there like a lead weight.

Igrin and Celin went to speak to him, taking the bag full of moonlight from him and handing it to Durst, who took it with his own to Ai'Ilyn. At the sight of his friends, Tristan's face seemed to transform, and he fell into his normal charming routine, teasing Igrin and Celin and speaking acidly to the others while the Ilyn were preoccupied. But there was a gleam in his eye that was off, and as if beckoned by my thoughts, he looked up and caught my gaze. My heart pounded in my chest, but I didn't look away. The temporary camaraderie we'd had – the only such experience with him I'd had in our entire time in the Bower – was over, and his look made that very clear.

I shivered. Why had it felt so right to dance with him?

"Follow."

We turned at the sound of Ai'Ilyn's voice and fell into line, me at the front, and within a dozen steps I realized that this time it wasn't me tracking Tristan's movements – it was him following mine. I suppressed a shudder as we entered the Hollowed Hall and began to ascend to our room.

We entered and were told to go to our nestles. We obeyed without comment, as was expected of us, and slid beneath our thick silk blankets. Ai'Ilyn watched us, and when she was satisfied she turned and left the room, dimming the moonstones sunk in the walls as she went. The only light left was the fading moon as it crawled down the other side of the sky, leaving shadows that crept through the high window and up along the walls.

My heart was slowly and steadily throbbing against the inside of my ribs, pumping blood and anxiety through me as I tried to shut my brain down and find sleep.

Tristan wouldn't be so foolish as to do something tonight – not with Ai'Ilyn watching us so closely. But that didn't mean I wasn't worried.

I started thinking about what might be in the forest, waiting for us. The sickness I'd felt earlier that night in the field ... what could possibly have caused it? What was out there – what was ... what was out...?

I dreamed of death.

There was a blinding white light that seared my eyes, and then sunlight – real true sunlight, like the light of my past life in the world outside the Bower. It was all around me, warm against my skin, but then the heat was too much – it was too hot. I started to burn like a piece of parchment – the sides of me going first, turning black and crisping and fading away to ash as I screamed and screamed. Waves of sickness rolled over me, and there was a metal taste in my mouth that I tried to spit out, but I couldn't – the heat had reached my mouth, my eyes – it was burning me, every inch of my skin, stripping me away like ruined paper, leaving me cracked and bleeding and raw –

I sat up in bed with a heaving gasp and shuddered so hard that my vision doubled. I moaned out loud and grabbed my stomach, and realized I had doubled over in pain. My whole body burst out in sweat, and then I was suddenly burning up with fever. That wave of sickness rolled over me again, and I shook my head, cracking my neck as I violently tried to throw off whatever had a hold on me.

The feeling passed, and I began to cry with shock and relief.

The cool air of night pressed against my skin and smoothed away the dimpled droplets of sweat along my body. I turned and saw Tristan.

He was drenched the same as me, and staring at the wall of the Bower with eyes that didn't see, eyes that I knew somehow were pointed directly at the spot in the forest.

That single moment hangs suspended in my memory, the center point of the two halves of my life. The two of us sitting up in bed, somehow connected in something neither of us could understand, something I still cannot explain. For an eternity we sat there, rivals since we'd arrived, each knowing that something was about to be done that could never be undone, not for as long as we lived. This night would change one or both of us forever – and there was no going back.

This time we would finish what we'd started.

He was up and moving first, and I jerked up out of bed and spun toward the door, but was far too slow. My stomach cramped again and I cried out, eliciting snorts and responding cries of alarm as I woke some of the others, but by then I'd managed to force myself to my feet and I was once again after him, racing through the Bower in what felt like a piece of memory doubled back over.

I threw myself out of the door into the hallway and saw a brief flash of light to my right. I turned to it and saw Tristan touching the wall of the Bower. His hand seemed to glow and I thought my mind was playing tricks on me.

He opened his palm and on it lay a moonstone giving off silvery light.

Shivers ran through my body. How had he done that? The children couldn't control the moonstones – only the Fae. How had he done that?

I took a step forward and the bottom of my foot brushed against the wood floor, so soft that it barely made a sound.

Tristan jerked around and looked right at me, his eyes no longer blank but full of understanding and terrible knowing – like he'd finally grasped some hidden truth.

He smiled, and ran.

I was after him immediately, and only then realized that I was shouting at the top of my lungs. I was yelling names – any and all of them that I could remember – everyone from Ai'Ilyn and Faolan to Ionmar and Robin, even shouting for the Erlking himself. I rushed through the darkness, hoping that someone came after us, hoping that whatever Tristan was about to do could be stopped.

And knowing that this time there was only me.

I rushed around a corner I could barely see, but it didn't matter. I knew these halls like the back of my hand now – I'd scrubbed these floors and polished these walls for years. I thought wildly that there must be Ilyn in the hall, tried to tell myself that I would have help in stopping him, in holding him back, but in direct counterpoint to those thoughts came a shout of surprise and then a heavy thud from up in front of me. I rounded a bend and saw a form lying on the ground, carrying a moonstone of its own that was slowly dying.

An Ilyn, green and white, her eyes glazed over and unseeing.

The shock of it tore me in two, but I couldn't stop. He was in front of me, glowing with silvery light that had outlined his entire body in a halo, and I had to follow him. He rounded another corner, laughing hysterically, disappearing from my sight; I raced after him, yelling my head off, slapping the hard wood walls of the Bower as I went as if that would somehow help, trying not to think about the fact he'd taken down an Ilyn, that he'd managed to light one of the moonstones, trying not to think about what it meant.

We descended, me always just behind him, and panic was beginning to take me over, crushing my throat and making it impossible to breathe. How was I going to catch him? If he could take down one of the Ilyn, how could I stop him when I didn't even know what he was going to do? I couldn't do this on my own – I was just an orphan girl, an urchin – I wasn't a true Fae, I couldn't stop it, I couldn't –

From one step to the next, the sickness came back, and then changed into something that I would come to know all too well. It started at the base of my head then oozed down my spine like molten lead. I crashed to the floor in mid-step, unable to make my legs work, and I heard, far off in the distance, someone calling my name. I couldn't make out the words, and I didn't care. Heat engulfed me, penetrating through my skin and into my muscles, then my bones, until I felt energy rushing through me in waves.

The heat disappeared and silence rang in my head. My mind was blank, totally thoughtless and controlled. My eyes opened and I rolled over to see that Tristan had made his way down the spiral staircase that was the last obstacle in the path to the Hollowed Hall, and he was now rushing between the tables, going right for the entrance that would lead him out to the forest.

I picked myself up, and as I moved energy rushed through my body and set my limbs on fire, giving my legs and arms speed and strength I hadn't known I'd had. I raced down the stairs, ripping a moonstone from the wall as I went in the vain hope that I'd find someway to light it as the boy disappeared ahead of me and the light disappeared with him, leaving me in the maze of tables that crowded the Hall.

"Stop!"

The shout echoed to either side of me, and I heard distant shouts from further up the Bower, maybe even from the alarm I'd raised, but I didn't stop to listen.

Rushing forward I began shaking the moonstone desperately in my hand, clenching my fist around it so hard I thought I might break it. I had no idea how it worked or even why this one was cold and dark, why all of them were cold and dark save for the one Tristan held. What did the Fae do to light them? What was the trick?

I crashed into one of the long wooden tables, folding my stomach around the solid edge, and the wind was punched from my chest. My vision narrowed and I squinted, unable to make out where I was. The only light left now came from the dim reflection of the setting moon as slivers of its light reflected through the Bower opening. My head was spinning from lack of air, but I pushed myself upright and kept going, forcing myself to feel around the edges of the solid table, forcing my lungs and diaphragm to pull air through choking coughs even as stars winked along the edges of my vision.

"Give me light!"

Moonlight bloomed from my clutched left hand like the first tentative petals of a night flower, and my stomach jumped in shock and disbelief. I opened my hand and saw the moonstone glowing, and something in my head seemed to shift, like a piece of a puzzle long stuck but now rotated into place. The world seemed to narrow around me, and suddenly I had too much air in my chest – I felt as though I was about to explode.

I looked up and saw Tristan rushing across the clearing.

I ran.

The moonstone lit my way and I was certain I would catch him, certain that this time no one else would interfere. I knew what he was going to do too, I knew it – I was the only one who'd believed it all along, the only one who'd known that he was capable of what he said. He and I were linked somehow; he knew I would follow.

My heart was beating against my ribs like a booted foot trying to break open a set of doors. I was running so fast that I was barely touching the ground, my arms pumping against my sides in huge propelling swings. We raced across the field – I was gaining. He crashed through the trees into the forest. My head and chest both seemed to squeeze at the same time, and my vision narrowed on the tree line and the gap right before me through the huge sentinels.

The trees approached at breakneck speed as wind whistled in and out of my mouth, cold night air rubbing raw my throat and making my nose run. I narrowly dodged a low-lying root, and then shot past the patch of field where we'd been working earlier that night.

Familiar waves of pain and nausea rolled over me as I raced after the running form of the boy, toward whatever it was that was waiting there on the other side –

I broke the barrier of the clearing and crashed through tree branches to find a narrow path beaten through the brush, barely visible even with the glowing silver light streaming from my hand. I raced along it, hearing noise from ahead. I stumbled over a root, pitched forward in the darkness and rolled over my shoulder, twisted and wrenched myself back to my feet, breaking through another clump of branches, racing over a small mound –

I stopped. I had emerged into another, smaller clearing lit by thousands of stars streaming light down from above us. There was more light, too – light from the moonstone Tristan held in his hand as he ascended a tumble of boulders that looked as though they'd been recently broken up.

Vertigo hit me and I couldn't reconcile what I was seeing with what I thought should actually be there. The ground was rippled all around, as if it had been rent apart, and the jut of black rock was thrusting up into the clearing, made of hard straight lines that didn't fit among the trees and grass and flowers –

A patch of that black rock gleamed in the night, brighter than the rest, and my mind saw it as an evil eye winking, laughing that I had come so close. My stomach heaved, and though I held myself together I knew that the waves of nausea were rolling from that rock – from whatever that rock contained. The world seemed to tilt improbably around me, and I couldn't form coherent thoughts. I stumbled forward, dry-heaving as the nausea increased.

I forced my eyes to focus and saw Tristan grab the edge of the rock and slip, cutting his hand. Bright red blood sprayed and a sound that wasn't a sound ripped through the night and tore at the edges of my mind, a sound of swords and shouting and the screams of children. My body spasmed uncontrollably, but the fever that had propelled me here burned hotter still, to the point where I couldn't understand how every motion I made wasn't igniting the greenery around me.

Tristan was laughing, a keening wail that repeated over and over again, and he pulled himself up and onto the rock, toward the higher end where the shining piece, the winking eye, rose to a single edged spike. The moonstone in his hand glowed fitfully now, like a candle in a high wind, sputtering and coughing, but his iron grip seemed to preclude any possibility that the light might go out. I stumbled forward farther, throwing a hand out to the ground when I stumbled, losing hold of my own moonstone, which rolled away into the grass and winked out. Tristan pulled himself the final distance and raised the moonstone high in his hand, holding it over the spike.

"STOP!"

My shout echoed through the trees and bounced back on us from every side as if we were in an enclosed arena. Tristan didn't twitch or jerk in surprise, but he did pause, and slowly his head creaked around, almost inhumanly far, until he could look me in the eye.

"You," he snarled.

"Me," I hissed back.

I'd seen the inhumanity in his eyes – I'd seen the sick and diseased soul he carried around that was not Fae nor human but part of something that was all and only him. But tonight was different – tonight it went deeper.

I saw insanity, exhibited in the furrowed brow and the grinning, snarling teeth; the eyes that were round and wide as river rocks and the light that seemed to glow from them – the light that spread around him and engulfed his body in a white halo that made no sense, a halo that didn't exist but somehow did; the split lip that he had chewed through himself; the rips and rents he'd made in his own shirt and pants, scraping away skin, mixing blood and sweat.

I stumbled forward and got one foot on the base of the rock spear; he spun back around and raised the moonstone high; I launched myself at him and grabbed his foot out from under him.

Tristan lost his balance and crashed against the rock as he fell. I slid back down, unable to find any purchase, and watched as the stolen moonstone crashed down on the rock, and Tristan hit the shining spike of metal.

The spike snapped off at the base and went spinning into the clearing, and Tristan went plunging after it. Caught up in my own momentum, I fell backwards over my head, crashed my shoulder into something that made me scream in pain as something popped loose inside my skin, and then I was on the cool grass, dew beading on my face.

I tried to rise and fell back down, screaming. I realized I was sobbing and that I couldn't feel the pain that I knew should be there, but I was screaming anyway because I knew how bad the pain should be. I used my other arm to pull myself up and look across the clearing, and saw Tristan only an arm's length away from the shining grey spike.

I lunged for my feet through the haze of shock and growing pain, determined to stop him, but made it only to my knees. He stirred and looked up, saw the broken blade-like spike, and pulled himself toward it. I threw myself into a shambling half-crawl, grabbing fistfuls of dirt as I launched myself across the clearing, racing. He reached out a hand, only just an arm's length away – I lunged one final time –

I knocked his hand aside.

My hand fell on the broken slice of ore and closed convulsively around it. The pain was sudden and complete – my hand burn as if dipped in acid. I shouted and cried out, my mind reeling with shock, but enough of me hung onto my intention that I pulled the spike from the dirt where it had landed and threw into the tress, where it rolled into dewy grass, polluting the droplets there that were still fat with moonlight.

I gasped in pain and triumph, but the sound died in my throat.

The blade rolled one last time, and struck the fallen moonstone.

I watched in horror as the silver light flared, touched the blade, and sparked, shooting off in a violent reaction that I couldn't understand. There was a blinding flash, a muffled percussive pounding, and then flame caught in the grass – and caught in the flowers that grew at the base of the trees, turning the blue and purple and yellow into flickering orange, into true light that came only from all-consuming flame.

A tree trunk caught next, and the ore was thrown by the moonstone across the tree line and back out into the clearing around the Bower, the clearing that I could just see here along the trail we'd taken to come to the rock. Smoke billowed into the sky all around us, but the source of the fire itself winked out with no pretense, the moonstone breaking into two halves and falling apart, the light and power gone.

I scrambled to my feet, and Tristan did the same behind me. I made it first, and spun to throw my knee into his temple as he rose up. He let out a cry and stumbled to the side, and I grabbed him by the hair and pulled him after me; he was so dazed he didn't even protest.

I raced through the burning trees, dragging him behind me with supernatural strength. Smoke invaded my nose and mouth and eyes, but I kept going, knowing I couldn't stop. To be trapped in fire was death – I'd known that all my life. My stomach heaved again, and I started coughing and retching as I shambled forward. I needed to breathe to move, needed to breathe more to pull him with me – and with each breath I took in more and more smoke, until my head was spinning and my eyes felt as though they were coated with broken glass.

I broke through the tree line, stumbled forward a dozen more paces, and hacked up globs of black phlegm, ripping my throat raw.

Tristan gained his feet, pushing me away, but I grabbed him again and threw him to the ground. I stood over him, one arm hanging limp and useless by my side, the other grabbing his shirt in a claw-like fist. I stared down into his dark eyes, and I could feel the fever burning me up, giving me strength I shouldn't have had. I pulled back my good hand, the one at the end of the arm that wasn't hanging by a limp connection of torn ligaments and dislocated bone, and formed it into a fist.

I had to end it.

"No – changeling – STOP!"

It was Ai'Ilyn, running from the entrance to the Bower, racing across the clearing toward where I had dragged Tristan from the line of burning trees. Numbly I realized there were Urden rushing alongside her, dozens of them – looking like huge boulders and trees in motion. They ran for the forest, and by the time Ai'Ilyn was halfway across the clearing they were already quenching the fire with dirt that they pulled from the ground with their huge flat hands. My eyes rolled wildly in my head, jerking uncontrollably in fevered shock, and in the mad swirling of my vision I saw Faolan beside her, and knew that he had woken when I'd left; he'd been the one to find her, to bring her here.

Ai'Ilyn. The one I'd warned. The one I'd told to watch Tristan.

I cleared my throat, not knowing what I wanted to say, but feeling so many emotions deep in my gut fighting for a way out that if I didn't say something I would simply explode with them.

"He tried to burn the Bower!"

She didn't pause as she raced toward me, but I knew she'd heard.

"He tried to burn the Bower!"

She reached us and grabbed at me and at Tristan, and fury took me by the throat. She was trying to get him away from me – she wanted to punish him, or maybe even heal him from his burns – and he didn't deserve it.

The blood pounded in my veins, and I grabbed her and threw her off of me.

The figure of the Ilyn went flying through the air to crash into the turf several yards away. Another cry went up, and I realized that there were more Ilyn coming now from behind her, following the first wave of Urden who had mostly quenched the fire.

I resumed dragging Tristan toward the Bower, not knowing why I was going there, not really thinking about anything at all but the horror of what had almost been accomplished by this boy.

I saw out of the corner of my eye Ai'Ilyn get back to her feet, but her steps were uneven, and her pace was slow. She stumbled toward me, her expression creased in equal parts fear and anger, and I turned around to face her, dropping Tristan to the ground.

"You never believed he would do it!"

She stopped in her tracks, and the fear in her eyes grew, overtaking and drowning out the anger.

"I told you to watch him – I told you that he would do it if he could!"

Others had gathered around us, but none seemed daring enough to approach. An invisible bubble had formed around me, into which none of the Fae dared enter.

And then another voice was speaking, coming from the boy on the ground behind me. I turned and saw that he had propped himself up on one elbow and was glaring at me with his black eyes, the tips of his hair standing on end, slicked into points by sweat and dew.

"You will regret this!" he was sobbing at me. His face was a mess of blood, snot, and tears, a primal mask through which he'd lost all dignity. "No matter how long it takes, I will see this place burn. You have not stopped me – you haven't! I will destroy it! I will burn it! I WILL KILL YOU! I WILL KILL THE FAE! I WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING!"

The tether holding me to sanity broke, and the fever burned me with its rage.

I remember only still-frame images of what happened next. I remember smashing my fist over and over into something that felt as hard as rock, but which eventually gave way with a sharp crack. I remember seeing moonlight surge forward, likely the moonstones the Fae were holding, and then I remember it being over, and coming back to myself as I stood over a broken body. I was breathing hard, so hard that my chest hurt, and I realized my good hand was on fire. I looked down and saw the skin was broken and bleeding, and saw too chips of pure white bone visible where I'd sheared away muscle and flesh entirely with the force of my blows.

I think I fell down. The stars above tilted, and then there were shining silver lights all around me, and many voices, some that sounded like Caelyr, others that hissed and snarled like Ilyn, and still more the deep bass of the Urden.

"She's been touched – her hand stinks of it."

"What about the other?"

"He's beyond our help."

"Get the Erlking."

"Is that necessary?"

"We lost one of the children, of course it's necessary!"

"I can't get there fast enough –"

"This Urden will do so."

"Good – go! Search the forest – we need to find the source!"

"Watch her arm!"

"What –?"

A hissing sound, like disapproval, and there was more movement; I was tilted backwards and then my shoulder was on fire with pain at it was forced back into its socket with a sharp twist. This brought me back to full consciousness, and when my eyes sprang open I realized I was leaving the field, that they were taking me into the Bower.

"NO! STOP IT! LET ME GO!"

I fought free of them, and they let me go with hissing cries. I fell on something wet and hard, and rolled away from it, coming to my feet.

I looked down and let out a sob.

I stumbled backward, away from the broken and bloodied form, and turned around in a daze, my eyes sliding over all the gathered Fae and changelings, seeing Faolan and the others watching me with wide, terrified eyes, and then I felt a change in the group, and the Fae parted.

I spun and found Oberon there, the silver crown of leaves in his dark, curling hair, the beautiful lines of his face made up into a look of shock that I had never expected to see on his face.

"I had to," I said. I don't know if I was trying to convince myself or him. The words seemed to echo in my ears, accompanied by a ringing sound that came from everywhere and nowhere.

He took a step forward, and a murmur went through the gathered Fae, accompanied by a rustle of shifting wings and creaking limbs.

"Why?"

His deep voice boomed out and sent waves of happiness through me, even as I began to cough and gag once more as my smoke-burned lungs protested their usage. Just the sound of him, the musicality of his existence, was enough to make me proud of what I'd done.

"You fed me. You gave me clothes. You let me sleep."

I was trying to come up with the right answer, and I felt that I was stumbling toward it. I took a step toward him, moving around Tristan, what I had done to him slipping from my mind.

"You gave me a home."

The last word that came out was so forceful and intense I felt as though I'd shouted it. I swayed where I was standing, then looked down for a moment, my eyes unfocused, as I tried to relate it to the boy. The fever was still burning me up, and my thoughts could only slip through the heat in small bursts.

"He threatened my home," I said, only making sense of what had happened as the words came out of my mouth. "He threatened me. He threatened us. He didn't understand."

I swallowed hard and remembered that Ai'Ilyn's warnings had been more than just warnings; there had been a promise in them as well, one that held out a bright hope to me that I couldn't help but reach for.

"Ite'Ilyn and Ai'Ilyn said that if we gave you respect – if we learned discipline and practiced it every day – that we would earn respect in return. They said that it is our right. We have the right to expect in return what we give to the other Fae."

I gestured at Tristan.

"He didn't understand. He gave hate and fear. He lied to Celin and Igrin and made them go with him the first time and they got hurt."

I was trying to articulate something for which I had no words, trying to force my mind to expand in ways I'd never had to think before.

"He gave hurt. I gave it back."

There was a murmur among the Fae, and I turned to look at them, my actions still jerky and my limbs still unwieldy. My arm seemed to work, but it burned every time I moved it.

"But why did you do it?"

"Because the Bower must be safe. Because the Fae must be safe."

Oberon's eyes never left my face, and he didn't join in the whispered conversation. He moved forward and his silver crown began to glow, pure moonlight radiating out around him like a halo, and the Fae fell silent, staring open-mouthed.

"You don't understand all that you have done – don't understand that you have saved many lives this night, nor, I think, even why or how those lives were in danger. But that you were willing to put our lives before yours with so little certainty tells me that you are truly one of us. We owe you a debt, and it shall never be forgotten."

He placed a leg behind him, bent at the waist, and inclined his head.

Utter silence echoed through the clearing, and then the Fae all did as he had done. They bowed to me in waves, each of them bending, even the Urden who did so with limbs that creaked and the Paecsies that stilled their wings and bent them forward over their heads.

He straightened again, and held me with his gaze.

"She is ready," he said simply, and I realized he was speaking to Ai'Ilyn over his shoulder. "She has changed – I can feel it in her. Take her to her new quarters once the Caelyr have healed her."

He took a step forward and addressed me directly.

"I am honored to have you here. I am honored to count you among my children. And I am sorry for all we had to put you through."

He left. My knees buckled and I sank to the dewy grass, mind blank. Ai'Ilyn emerged from behind him, rushing toward me with her powerful strides, and I didn't react, couldn't even bring myself to hold up my hands. I knew she was about to strike me, knew she was going to chastise me for what I'd done –

"You wonderful girl," she whispered as she reached for me.

The words made no sense. Her hands grabbed me and pulled me to her and I didn't resist beyond turning my head away, staring back at what had been Tristan.

Caelyr came to me, their legs hissing through the grass, and I felt teeth bite into my arm, my neck, my leg. There was pain, a huge surge of it, and then numbness that consumed me and dragged me into darkness.

Chapter Thirteen: Changeling

I woke a few times, but I remember little.

I do remember that Ionmar was the one who cared for me. I remember too that Ai'Ilyn came by once, to see me but not to talk. When I woke and saw her standing above me, her expression was veiled, and she had Caelyr silk bound about her wrist and side. When she saw me watching her she nodded and then left. Ionmar came into my vision then and knelt to gently take my arm and send me back into oblivion.

When I came to full consciousness for the first time, it was only Ionmar who was with me. She was weaving by my side, six of her eight legs tucked beneath her while her human hands and spider forelegs crocheted something so complex it hurt to think about.

I tried to speak but realized my whole body, everything expect for my eyes, was covered in Caelyr silk. I tried to wriggle back and forth, and I managed enough of it that Ionmar looked up from what she was doing, her black orb-eyes reflecting back an image of me cocooned from head to toe. She reached out a hand and touched the side of my head through the thick silk, slowly stroking me like I'd imagine a mother would.

"Sleep now," she said softly. "The answers are coming."

When next I woke I was in my nestle, snug beneath the warm, soft blankets I had so often been forced to change and wash. The moonlight was bright, much brighter than I was used to. It didn't really make sense – the window was at the wrong angle for the light to shine directly on me. What was happening?

I blinked a few times and realized two things. The first was that the window was in the wrong section of the wall. It was too low, and much too close. I thought for a wild moment that I'd been placed in the wrong nestle, that someone had switched me with someone further down the line, but then I realized that there were no other cut-outs in the floor. The room was much smaller than it should be, and the walls were too close on either side of me.

And I was alone.

I sat up and saw that the door was the same odd twisted passage that all the others were, but that the entrance to it was barely a pace away from the edge of my cut-out. I was in a room that was just big enough to sleep in, with no room left over.

It was the first time I'd been truly alone in three years.

I stood, letting the soft blankets fall, and realized that my clothing had been changed – I was no longer wearing the blood-soaked shirt and pants from the night I remembered, but instead newly-spun Caelyr silk. It felt cool against my body, and I absently rubbed my chest through the thin layer, pressing it close as if to confirm my own reality.

I crossed to the window, amazed that it was at the level of my eyes. I slowed and gaped in awe.

I could see the entire Bower clearing laid out below me: the huge rippling roots and wide field of swaying grass and flowers radiated from the base of the tree. I didn't understand it – couldn't understand why or how I was up so high. There was a patch of darkened trees ahead and to the left, and I realized with a jolt that there was the evidence of what had happened the night I last remembered. The burned area looked much smaller than I would have thought.

I grabbed the wooden sides of the window, wide enough that I could have fit my entire chest through, and leaned out. Everything was in motion – the children were down there, put to work by the Ilyn and the Urden, clearing away more of the field, and some of them were in the darkened section of trees as well, clearing away debris. But only the Urden were deep inside – the children looked to be only on the edges. I wondered what they were doing about the rock, if it was still there –

"You're awake – excellent."

I cringed instinctively at the sound of Ai'Ilyn's voice and retreated from the window, ducking my head down and turning, assuming the neutral stance she required.

"That's not necessary anymore," she said.

Confused, I didn't move.

"Look at me, changeling. You don't need to be afraid anymore."

I did as she asked, slowly raising my head so that my long black hair fell out of my face.

I gasped.

She was beautiful.

The Ai'Ilyn I had known had disappeared, and in her place stood a woman with long red-blonde hair that fell down her back in a waterfall of color, with high cheekbones and dark, piercing eyes that had red-tinged irises. That was the only reason I believed my ears, in truth: the eyes were still the same, mocking and watching.

"Done staring?"

She stepped forward into the room; I noticed the graceful sway in her walk and the way she wore barely any clothing covering her skin – just as she had as one of the Ilyn. Her chest was still bare, and unlike I'd seen her before, there was certainly evidence of her femininity on display, high and firm on her pale chest.

Her skin was no longer flaky white and red, but was instead smooth and tight. The short red spines along her back were gone, replaced by a light pattern of scars that had faded almost to invisibility.

"You have permission to speak freely. You've earned it. More than earned it."

I swallowed hard, trying to think of anything I might say, but nothing came to mind. She continued to watch me with her haughty smile, but I saw traces of unease beneath it, and flashes of something else around the tight muscles of her jaw.

"Am I dreaming?"

Ai'Ilyn snorted. "No – you're not dreaming. You've been asleep for almost a month, though. The iron you found in the forest ... some of it was embedded in your hand. We were able to get it out, but not before it did a good deal of harm to you. It took a long time for you to recover – and much help from the Caelyr was required."

I realized I was staring blankly at her face, only really listening to every other word. I couldn't understand.

"You ... how are you ...?"

"We'll get there," she said gently – a tone of voice which was much stranger than her change in appearance. "But that only makes sense after I explain the rest."

"But you're still ... you're Ai'Ilyn?"

"Yes. My name is Ai, and I'm an Ilyn."

"Oh ... all right."

Silence, as she let me absorb this. I found myself looking blankly at a wall, and then the floor, and finally I realized I should be asking more questions. Everything seemed so surreal – was this really happening?

"You said ... iron?"

Ai'Ilyn's face darkened, but she responded easily enough.

"Yes. Iron ore in the rock you found. We don't know how it got there, but it happens. Iron is ... it's poison. It reacts to Fae blood, making it extremely dangerous for anyone with Fae ancestry. It's part of how we were driven out of the human world. It's part of why no humans are allowed here. Iron and fire ... they are the workings of men, and they can bind us. Men by nature are physically weak, but they are smart, and they know what tools to use to level the field and even tilt it in their favor."

"But how did it get there?"

"That ... is harder to explain. The Bower doesn't move – it is anchored. It is here and it will always be here. The Erlking did it somehow long, long ago; it was something that had never been done before. But while the Bower stays, the forest changes. Everything beyond the first line of trees comes and goes as it will. The Erlking can control it when he needs to, and the stronger of us can as well, which is how we move about the outside world, but when left alone ... the forest moves itself. The world itself is part Fae, at least the older parts, and it is not to be held down as men are."

"Oh," I said lamely. We fell silent for a time and she just watched me and I watched her back, too disoriented to feel fear or much of anything at all. "So then what ... happened?"

Ai'Ilyn nodded but didn't speak. She took a step further into the room, coming up to the side of my new nestle, and then lowered herself smoothly down onto the edge of it, where she gestured for me to sit across from her. I did.

"It happens to all of us," she said with a grim smile. "All the changelings."

"The – all of us?"

"Where did you think we all went?" Her eyes were wide with interest, and I had to look down and away; the intensity of that look was too much, like staring into a bright light. "Really, I want to know – all the new changelings come up with the wildest theories. What was yours?"

"I – I thought everyone – they all left. I thought you kicked them out."

She smiled, revealing straight white teeth, none of which had been filed to a point. But then she became serious and the Ai'Ilyn I remembered was back: Her brow furrowed in the same way and the eyes narrowed.

"A good number do, but a good number don't. Each changeling is given a choice. They can stay here, become one of the Ilyn and live with the Erlking under his protection ... or they can go."

She took a quick breath, and I could see that what she was about to say next did not please her. She looked away from me, pursed her heavy, pouting lips, and then looked back.

"Those who stay remember everything. We know who we are, we know the Bower. We can travel the forests, can visit the ruins of the world that still remember the Fae, still remember the world before iron and fire, and we can move from shadow to shadow and visit the world of men, if only briefly.

"But those who choose to leave, forget. Everything. If we step out of the shadows for too long, our memories are taken from us. If you should choose to leave, then everything you've been through here will be taken from you. All memory of me, all memory of the other changelings –"

"And him?"

She arched an eyebrow at me over the interruption, but that time I didn't let myself feel cowed. I watched her right back, though I'm sure my face was twitching with the effort.

"You would forget him too," she said.

I swallowed and took a breath, flicking my eyes away from her face and focusing on her hands, which lay curled together in her lap. They were tough and worn, and the nails were red.

"Then why the Ilyn?"

"The changelings who stay cannot give the game away," she said simply, speaking slowly. "Part of staying is to help the others that come. There's much more than that, but for those of us who can, we help. There are always changelings – the Fae owe allegiance to the Bower, but the changelings that leave still have children, and the Fae who go outside are outside the King's realm and he can do very little about it. All Fae have sanctuary here if they swear allegiance, but if you leave the forests, if you leave the edges of the world where the moonlight is strong, you begin to forget, and you are on your own."

"So all this time," I said, staring at her in wonder, "you were one of us? You – you treated us the way you did even knowing that –"

And suddenly I was furious. Rage rose up in me and gripped me by the throat. My vision went sideways and then came back into focus; my hands balled into fists, and blood pounded in my ears. Somehow this was worse, so much worse. This wasn't what I'd come to understand – these weren't the rules I knew. We had to obey the Ilyn because they wanted to hurt us, because they were just there like water or fire, something we had to go through, a trial, not people who were like us, people who knew what it was to be in our position, people who understood the pain they were putting us through.

"You beat us, knowing who we were?"

All traces of a smile were gone from Ai'Ilyn's face, and I knew she'd seen the anger flooding through me. Very slowly, she cocked her head to the side, watching me.

"Yes," she said simply. "Why do you think I did?"

I could barely breathe. Somehow the thought entered my mind that she hadn't invited me to sit with her so that we could talk, she'd moved to block the entrance to the room and make it harder for me to escape.

"Because you like it."

The words left my mouth with a vicious crack, and I was surprised that Ai'Ilyn didn't flinch under their blow. She didn't move at all, just continued to watch me with a veiled expression. Those red eyes were just the same – pitiless and hard.

And then it was happening again. I felt a soaring in my stomach, and everything seemed to go white for a flash of time. The world contracted, and everything came into sharp focus. My forehead warmed and the fever swept over me, consuming me in a roaring blaze that made it hard to see. My thoughts sped up until they were crashing into one another, and I was thinking a thousand things in the space of a second, wondering about what she'd really felt when she was beating us, if she'd liked it, if she was even telling me the truth now, on and on forever.

The madness was pouring through me, a well that had been only temporarily sealed over when I'd fallen into unconsciousness after Tristan's death –

Tristan.

I was on my feet, stumbling backwards, the images of his body, the way my hands felt as I clawed open his chest, the blood so red and then black, the sounds he made as I beat him, the sounds his body made as I ripped it open to protect the Bower, to keep this place safe –

I felt a pain in my legs, and my elbow, and then realized the room was at the wrong height. Somehow I was on the floor again, somehow I was staring at Ai'Ilyn's feet, and the next thing I knew she was in front of me, kneeling there, her flowing red hair tickling my nose as she leaned down to grab me by the shoulders.

"I know you're angry, and we can deal with that later. You're in the grip of the madness – you have to calm it. You have to push it down, you have to control it and make it work for you. Don't let it control you, don't let it take you over. It's like the moonlight – remember how to dance."

I couldn't breathe, couldn't understand what she was trying to tell me. The words washed over me, meaningless sound, as the fever continued to mount, burning me and hollowing me out from the inside. She was still talking, but now even the sound of it was fading away. The idea of Tristan was what held sway in my mind, not her, not me. I was drowning in fire, going deep inside myself.

I was losing my mind.

"BREATHE, CHANGELING!"

A hand struck my face and instinct took over. The iron-hard voice of the woman who'd run my life for the better part of three years pulled me up and out of the pit into which I'd fallen. I found myself responding to her command even before I knew what I was doing: Air shuddered into my mouth and down my throat, filling my lungs. I gasped, hacking through what felt like a mouth full of phlegm.

"Good! Once more!"

But I was falling down again, down the dark hole into the pit –

"BREATHE!"

Again the voice, again the sharp pain as she struck my cheek and rocked my face to the side. I obeyed, sucking in a huge lungful of air. A hand caught my chin and pulled me around so that I was looking into a pair of eyes rimmed with red.

"Stay with me, girl. I will not lose the most promising changeling in my group because you felt like having a hissy-fit."

I could understand some of the words, but others didn't make sense at all; they just flowed around me. I recognized distantly that my elbow was bleeding from where I'd scraped it against the hard wood floor of the Bower. I heard the soft splash of a drop of blood as it fell.

"Stay with me. Come back – control your thoughts. Remember everything you went through – all those times I punished you or I punished Faolan and you wanted to react, but you didn't. Remember every time one of the other Ilyn said something to you that you had to ignore. Every time one of the Paecsies struck you for being too slow ... remember holding back, remember the breath you'd take to keep yourself from reacting."

Slowly my breathing became rhythmic and easy again. The image of her eyes took over and encompassed my mind, and what I'd done to Tristan began to fade away. The memories were still there, but they did not dominate my mind.

"That's right, girl. That's right. We did it to teach you. We did it to keep you sane. All the groundwork is there already; you just have to use it. Remember the moonlight – remembering running through the madness, always moving. Don't let it hold you down to one spot – let your mind keep flowing."

My breathing was normal again, if ragged, and I pushed myself back and away from my former tormentor. My elbow was throbbing and my hip was burning from where I'd fallen to the floor, but I was sane and alive. I could feel the madness still – it wasn't gone, it was simply contained, in the box that I had used for my emotions, the one I'd used to survive the years I'd been a part of the Bower.

"That's why changelings choose to go," I said, anger still racking me but under control.

We did it to teach you. We did it to keep you sane.

"They can't accept what you've done to us."

Parts of my body were still out of control: my lips were curling up into a snarl against my will, my fingernails were digging into my palms, and my eyes kept shivering in their sockets.

"What have we done to you?"

Ai'Ilyn's face was still close to mine, and I had to fight back the urge to spit in it.

"You beat us."

"When?"

"All the time!"

"No!" Ai'Ilyn growled, shaking her head and grimacing. "Don't play that game – you were the one who figured it out, you were the first one. You knew all along, I could see it in your eyes. You barely even needed my help – if I'd left you alone you damn well could have gone through the madness yourself! Don't act like a sullen child, it doesn't become you. Why did we do it?"

I remembered how certain I'd been that there had to be a purpose to everything we were going through; I remembered how intensely I had rebelled against Tristan and the others who wanted to leave; I remembered how certain I'd been that we belonged here.

"You were training us," I said.

The words left my mouth and took the last of my anger with them. The tension drained from my body and my muscles relaxed. Ai'Ilyn was nodding.

"Damn right, girl. I trained you just the way they trained me when I came here."

She sat back on her haunches, still watching me closely, hands up and warding as if ready to catch me. I saw again that she was positioned between the door and me.

"I have questions," I said numbly.

"When don't you?" she grumbled. I ignored that.

"You did what you did – all these years – you did it to help me?"

A nod. I swallowed hard, trying to connect the pieces of my reality, trying to come up with a complete picture.

"If you hadn't done it, what would have happened?"

"The details are different for each changeling, but the result is nearly always the same: insanity, rage, and then death."

I stared at her in silence for a long moment.

"You're sure?"

"Nine out of ten die if they aren't brought here," she said, her voice free from inflection, her eyes never leaving mine. "You could have been the one to survive, but I wouldn't take those odds if I were you."

"They die? How?"

"They go mad," she responded immediately, not pausing to collect herself, only trying to answer my questions as quickly as she could. "They go like Tristan, and there's no one there to stop them. They feel entitled to anything they want, so they try to take it. Some feel entitled to a man or a woman, so they take them. Some feel entitled to power, so they take that. Some feel entitled to kill, so they do that. It's Fae blood that drives them to it, Fae blood undirected that drives them mad. And then, if they don't die of exhaustion or lose their mind forever when the fit passes, whomever they've wronged takes care of the job for them. It's why men still tell stories of us ... of demons in the night. It's why if changelings aren't brought here they go mad and men burn them, or hang them, or kill them in their sleep. Without proper guidance, without the Bower, there's no way around it. I've seen it happen – I didn't believe at first, so they showed me. They took me through the forests to a land where live Fae that owe no allegiance to the Erlking, and it's a land of depravity where Fae are cruel and do as they please. It's ... it's not pretty."

When she fell silent, I tried to digest what she had said, but found that most of it simply wouldn't fit into my head. One thing, however, seemed clear.

"So you ... you saved my life."

Ai'Ilyn stared at me for a long time.

"In a manner of speaking," she said finally. "But I only do what the Erlking says. We all do – he's the one who knows when to push us and when to hold us back. They say he's tried many different ways, and that this is the one that keeps the most of us alive. He's been here – the Bower has been here – for as long as any of the Fae can remember. He's done everything he can to help the Fae, and to help the changelings."

My mind was slowly working its way back up to full speed, and I kept picking at the tangled mess of my understanding, trying to see what could be pulled loose.

"The cleaning?"

"Humility," she said immediately. "Without it, the madness turns to killing rage – no one is beneath you."

"The beatings?"

"Consequences," she said, speaking again as soon as the words were out of my mouth. "When the madness hits you feel like there are no rules, that you can do anything to anyone and that you have a right to do it. You need to learn otherwise."

"The moonlight?"

"Ecstasy," she said. "The pure light induces a mild form of the madness. And also, we need the moonlight. The Ilyn could catch it, but it's much harder once you've gone through the madness. The other Fae need it, too – it's what helps sustain us. It's in our water and it's what we use to grow our food."

I fell silent, trying to think of anything else I could ask her but feeling completely wrecked. It felt like even shifting my eyes back and forth between either side of her face was akin to lifting boulders.

"And what about now? What ... happens now?"

Ai'Ilyn continued to watch me for a long moment, and I knew that she was still watching whatever evidence of the madness was in my eyes to see if I was truly in control. Finally she nodded, just a tiny bob of her head, and then relaxed, sitting back on the ground and crossing her legs in front of her. I imitated her, realizing I was still sprawled out on the ground.

"What happens now is what happens to every changeling after they've experienced the madness. What happens now is you begin to make a choice."

I stared blankly ahead, not even trying to meet her eyes.

"I need you to listen to me," she said, and I felt the pull of her gaze. "I need to know that you're hearing me as I say this. Look at me."

The tone of command in her final words shook me to anger again, but it was a bright flare that sputtered out even as it kindled. I met her gaze.

"You've made it through the madness, but you are not yet accustomed to it. You will have training, from me and from the other Ilyn, and from any of the other Fae you wish to seek out, if they will have you. Within a year, you should have suitable control over it. I expect that for you it will go much faster. At that point, you must make your decision. A year from today – no more, no less. You choose to stay here, or you choose to go. If you stay, you'll be a full member of the Bower. No more cleaning, no more cooking, no more hauling food and water or forced bathing. You'll be a full member of the Ilyn, with equal rights to the other Fae. If you go ... you forget, and you live a life apart as a human. With the madness under control, you won't be a danger."

She fell silent and watched me, waiting for questions. I tried to think of one, but I couldn't. Finally, she stood and moved toward the twisted doorway.

"I'll be back tomorrow."

"You will?"

"Yes."

"What about the others?"

"Did you never wonder where I went when you were working with the other Fae?" she asked, looking amused. "Changelings go through the madness all the time. We're on constant watch – any of you might go at any time."

"Like Tristan."

Her face darkened and I could tell that I'd said something wrong.

"Yes," she said, almost hissing like her old self. "Like him."

"He died because he wasted the training ... didn't he? That's why he went mad. He couldn't control it."

Ai'Ilyn watched me for a long time, saying nothing, and I realized this time I would get no answer out of her.

"I apologize for asking, Ilyn," I said, falling back on the routine I'd learned so well. I hated myself for doing it the moment the words were out of my mouth – what was it for, now that I knew the truth? – but as soon as I'd fallen silent Ai'Ilyn spoke back to me.

"I apologize that I cannot answer, changeling."

She left the room. I sat where I was, staring at where she'd been.

Eventually I slept. I never left my new room that first night – I don't even know if I had the strength to do so. I didn't even really think about what Ai'Ilyn had said once she'd left. I just stared off into the distance until I realized the moonlight had disappeared and the only light left coming through my window was from the stars that spangled the sky.

When I awoke the next morning it was once again to moonlight streaming through my window. I sat up, amazed all over again that I was alone. I'd never been alone in my entire life – there had always been people. I'd never had a room that was just mine, never lived in a house – I'd slept in buildings, but in a pile of my fellow urchins, or with the rest of the work crew if I was lucky enough to have fallen in with one. Ever since coming to the Bower I'd been with the other children – the only time I'd been alone was when I relieved myself, and even then Ai'Ilyn had been waiting just around the bend of the doorway.

I moved out of my nestle, and my hand fell on something soft.

New clothing was laid out for me in a neat pile. I pushed aside the shirt on top; it caught and separated, and I realized it was cut differently than the one I was wearing. I stared at it stupidly for a minute and then decided to change.

I left my nestling clothing in a pile and slowly pulled the new changeling clothing on. The pants were basically the same, tight at the waist and wide throughout the hips and legs, but the shirt was cut so that my arms and stomach were bare and the rest of the fabric was pulled tight across my chest and down my sides, the silk making my skin tingle as it rubbed against my body.

I stood in the middle of the room for a time, thinking that Ai'Ilyn had said she would return today, but a seed of the anger I'd felt the night before pushed me and told me not to wait for her. She seemed to have implied that I was one of them now, one of the Ilyn, or at least that I was becoming one. The Ilyn didn't have to do anything they didn't want to – the ones who took care of the children did, but there were other Ilyn throughout the Bower who were never seen in the company of children, who obviously had been chosen for other pursuits.

I walked out into the Bower alone for the first time since I'd arrived. I was determined to go to the Hall, but as soon as I stepped out of my room I found myself paralyzed with fear. A sudden paranoid fantasy took hold of me and refused to let me go: that the first Ilyn who turned the corner would see me, strike me down, and lead me to deep cells under the earth where I'd be kept captive for the rest of my life.

So I just stood there, frozen, for so long that my knees began to cramp as I watched the Fae go past me. Their looks further rooted me to the spot: I was used to being ignored, but now I was being seen. The Urden who passed me nodded their heavy-jawed heads and rumbled gravelly grunts of acknowledgement; Paecsies scuttled or flew by with their rainbow-wings and yellow skin and smiled at me, baring sharp teeth; creatures I'd never seen before, some so thin they looked emaciated, others short and fat, all acknowledged me as they passed, and some even watched me with curiosity until they were hidden from view.

An Ilyn turned the corner.

Fear rushed through me with an all-encompassing might. This wasn't the human form that Ai'Ilyn had revealed to me last night – this was an Ilyn as I remembered them, with multi-hued skin, long thick fingers, and filed teeth. I wanted to run, I wanted to say something, I wanted to fight, and I did none of it. I just stood there, staring blankly at the molted face, this one bearing deep midnight blue marks that looked almost black, obscuring the left side of his body so that he looked only half-made.

He saw me, his eyes catching mine, and the image of an Ilyn disappeared.

In its place stood a man not unlike what Faolan might become in fifteen years. He had shaggy dark hair that fell across his eyes and down around his neck, and he walked with a simple, unassuming manner. Everything about him that I knew should be terrifying was simply gone, the illusion no longer able to keep reality from my mind. He saw me staring and changed his course, coming toward me instead of continuing on his way down the corridor. He stopped only a few feet away, looking down at me with hazel eyes.

I opened my mouth to apologize for standing idly in this hallway, my body acting on autopilot, but he spoke before I could.

"How are you faring?"

I opened and closed my mouth a few times, trying to come up with words.

"It's a shock for all of us," he said quietly, his mouth drawn into a grim line. "But the world isn't fair. Being brought here lets us live."

I listened to the soft growl of his voice and blinked a few times, trying to work thoughts into my brain, to mold those thoughts into words.

"What if it's not worth it?" I finally asked.

He frowned, but I saw that it wasn't at my question, but at something he was thinking – maybe something he was remembering.

"We all think that when it happens," he said quietly. "We all look back on three years of torture and think there's no way forward. But there is. You'll see."

He smiled suddenly, lighting up his face and his beautiful hazel eyes.

"By the blood, you'll see," he repeated.

He ruffled my hair like I was a kid he'd known since childhood. He laughed, a short bark of sound, and then he'd moved on, continuing about whatever his business had been. As soon as he was several paces away, whatever illusion that cloaked the older changelings returned and changed him once more into an Ilyn, the color of his molting skin taking on the color of his hair in the silvery light of the moonstones, spines growing from his back the same color as the hazel of his eyes.

He turned the corner and disappeared from sight; I turned right back around and disappeared into my room.

When I was there again, I didn't know what to do. What did people do in a room they had to themselves? What were you supposed to do when you were alone?

I walked back across the space in a daze, moving toward the window, but I never got there. I was halfway across the room when I started to shake uncontrollably and a wave of dizziness swept over me.

I only realized I'd sunk to the ground when I felt pain crack through my knees as they hit the unyielding floor of the Bower. The world was spinning and I was shivering. I hugged myself tight, wrapping my arms around my new garments and pressing the silk against my chest. The silk smelled like the Caelyr – like a dark, musty corner.

"You can cry if you want to."

Ai'Ilyn's voice penetrated the fog that had engulfed me, but only the words, not their meaning. I wasn't crying, I was just shaking. I must be cold, or else scared.

My face felt strange. I raised a hand to my cheek and felt wetness. The muscles beneath the tears were clenched in a raised sob, and I realized I was crying.

Movement on my right – and then the face of Ai'Ilyn in front of me, sitting with her knees folded beneath her, her beautiful auburn hair spread out around her head like a halo – like one of those angels I'd heard the old woman of my childhood talk to when she thought no one was listening.

"How are you feeling?"

I stared at her with a blank, thoughtless expression, and then I started laughing. It started off as a chuckle, and then it worked its way into a strange snorting, and then to an all-out bellow of mirth, my whole body shaking just as it had when I'd been sobbing. It was just as strange as knowing I'd been crying – but at least I understood why I was laughing.

How absurd it was to ask someone who was sobbing how they felt. How utterly ridiculous a thing to do.

"Well," Ai'Ilyn said, looking me up and down with a wry smile. "That's two things I haven't seen you do the whole time you've been here."

I was still laughing, but the ripples of it were dying down. Eventually it faded away altogether, and I just sat there, not really seeing any reason to speak at all.

Ai'Ilyn raised an eyebrow.

"Done?"

I shrugged, non-committal. I felt justified in reserving the right to lose my mind again if I so chose, but I didn't plan on doing it again right that minute.

"How are you feeling?"

This time the question didn't seem funny – it sounded like something she was trying to force on me. Like I was her patient and she was trying to corner me into giving a self-diagnosis.

I shrugged again.

"Uh-uh," she said, shaking her head, and immediately I cringed, ready for her to strike me for doing something wrong. But the blow didn't come, and my cringe was for nothing. She ignored the motion. "I need you to answer the question. You've got to talk to me, girl."

"No I don't," I said sullenly.

Ai'Ilyn rolled her eyes.

"Fine. But until you answer, you can't leave the room."

"I just did."

"I know – but now there's an Urden there that I brought with me."

"So I'm trapped here."

"Until you answer the question, yes."

"I thought changelings were free to do what they wanted when they went through the madness?"

She laughed at me, a quick convulsion and exhalation of breath as if she were anxious even to get the laugh over and done with.

"Look, you're a danger to yourself and to everyone in the Bower when you're untrained. The madness can come at any time, and while you can control it, that doesn't mean you'll be able to. After what happened with Tristan, I think you of all people should know that we have to take precautions."

I glared at her, my mouth clamped shut.

She shrugged and stood.

"Fine. I'll come back tomorrow. Don't try to leave – the Urden will just pin you down and sit on you if you do."

"What if I use the madness to get out?"

She arched an eyebrow at me.

"Go ahead and try it."

She moved toward the door and out.

"I have to leave for food," I said, just as she was about to turn the corner.

Ai'Ilyn stopped and looked over her shoulder at me – she was just far enough away that her face was half Ilyn and half human, a combination that made me sick to my stomach.

"I'd worry more about what you're going to have to do when you need to pee, but I guess that's just me. You have a window. I hope your aim is good."

She left. Panic hit me as I realized she was right, and I dashed forward.

"Wait!" I called out, thinking I was already too late but that I had to try.

I turned the corner of the doorway and saw she was standing just beyond it, leaning casually against the wooden wall next to a hulking Urden, who gave me one curious look and then turned away. Ai'Ilyn gave me a look that was neither curious nor amused.

"You're the most pragmatic of the bunch we got," she said, "where did all of that go? You're sullen and moody now? That'll do nothing for you, as you well know."

I swallowed hard, and realized she was right. All the time I'd spent here trying to figure out the rules, trying to play by them so that I could be a part of this world. It had all turned out exactly the way I'd wanted it to – I was right, after all the arguments with Tristan, after all the questions Faolan had posed to me that I'd never been able to answer. I'd been right, there had been a reason.

"I guess I'm feeling ... off."

Ai'Ilyn snorted another quick laugh, that same simple convulsive exhalation of breath, and rolled her eyes.

"You'll have to do better than that."

She pushed herself off the wall and brushed past me, moving back into my room. I followed, steeling myself.

The questions were simple. How was I feeling, had I had any nightmares, what had been my first thought when I'd woken up. I answered them as honestly as I could – something that turned out not to be very hard at all, considering I was already used to answering Ai'Ilyn's questions in such a manner. Something else that made sense now.

When we were done, she said that there was one last thing to do.

"There is something very simple that we need to do," she said. "Part of the why what we put you through is so effective is that the incoming nestlings don't know what happens after the children change and disappear."

She placed me in the center of the room, and then moved to the window. With a quick twist, she hit some hidden latch and a membranous film appeared from one side of the frame. She stretched it across the window, and the silver light all but disappeared, plunging us into darkness.

"This is to be your first lesson in using the madness. It is simple – barely any effort is required. The one important thing you must remember, however, is that you cannot let it drop."

My heart was beating with sharp, sickly thumps as I listened to her, trying to calm myself though I could barely see. She was moving around, I knew that much by the location of her voice, but my eyes were taking too long to adjust to the new darkness, and I couldn't make out more than that.

"Let what drop?"

"The illusion that will make you look like an Ilyn."

My heart jumped into my throat.

"What?"

A silver light flared into life, and I saw Ai'Ilyn raising a moonstone in her left hand, watching me from above.

"The other children cannot know what happens to them. Some of the older Ilyn remember a time when the Erlking allowed it ... and they remember that many more children did not survive the transition."

She stooped down so that she was lower than me now, but closer to my eye-line.

"No matter what you want to tell them, you cannot see the others in your group." My mind went to Faolan, even to Brandel and Gwen; I took in a shaky breath, but Ai'Ilyn didn't give me time to respond. "The illusion comes as much from me as from you – but you alone are the one who must sustain it. That madness – the fever that you felt, that heat that made you ache? – is always inside you. It's the part of you that's Fae, the part of you connected to the moonlight. It is what allows you to do what I'm about to show you."

She took a deep breath that made her chest rise, and closed her eyes. She let the breath out, and I felt something about her change or grow. There was no visible sign of it, but it was there, like a smell, or the sense of heat when you're close to flame.

She opened her eyes again and speared me with her vision.

"Grab the madness." Her voice was different – charged, like lightning clouds.

"I don't know –"

"Don't think," she hissed. "Just grab it – let the fever take you. It already wants to – just let it."

Her voice compelled me, and something in the heat radiating from her and that metaphysical sense of something more, made it easy, and I realized that I wanted to do it, wanted to feel that way again. I licked my lips and did as she told me to, remembering the feel of the fever, remembering the way it made my mind race, the way it made me shiver with painful ecstasy.

It came almost immediately, called up from wherever it waited deep inside me, and suddenly it was roaring to life, a huge inferno that was ready to consume me entirely. I staggered backwards and let out a whimper, but I didn't want to let it go. I knew it was too much – I was pulling too much of it out – but the pleasure of it made me writhe and my knees began to buckle.

"Control it!"

The sharp lash of her words broke through the spell and my body responded even though my mind couldn't. The grip of the fever lessened though it didn't loose me entirely, and I found myself gasping and shivering. I grabbed my arms and held myself; my skin was burning to touch and very dry.

"Good," Ai'Ilyn hissed, and I saw her Ilyn mask flicker in and out of sight, and then abruptly her face was half human and half Ilyn, split directly down the middle. "Now hold it there – hold it at that level. Concentrate – it's like breathing, you just let your body do it."

I took a deep shuddering breath, and the fever ratcheted up again. The air hissed out of my mouth, past my chattering teeth, and the process reversed itself.

"Good, good!"

Ai'Ilyn looked different. Her face was darker and the moonstone now on the floor between us was dimmer, like the shadows were closing in around us. Her arms snapped out straight, landing her hands to either side of my head, hovering an inch from the skin. I could feel that same sense of not-really-there heat radiating from her, and a current jumped through me that made me twitch.

"This is a simple process," she said slowly, but I could detect strain in her voice. "It is the basis of much that we do with the madness."

The room grew darker still, and it felt suddenly colder even though I was burning up inside.

"We call it the madness because that is what waits for us if we lose control of it. It connects us to the word and expands our minds – it comes from the Fae blood. It is a connection especially to moonlight and the shadows of the night."

The moonstone went out entirely and I gasped as we were plunged into pitch-black darkness.

"Quiet! You're fine." The voice came from nothing, ringing out in the small room, bouncing around my head. Her hands were still to either side of my head, and I could still feel the current of energy passing through them and through me.

"The illusion we are making is made of these shadows."

I felt something cool touch my left hand, and then felt my fingers engulfed by it. I wanted to scream, to pull back and run, but I was frozen to the spot by fear or something more I could not tell. The coldness ran up my arm and across my chest, pulling my skin together and making it dimple in rolling waves. I knew Ai'Ilyn was doing it, whatever it was, but I couldn't sense anything more than that. It rolled down my other arm, then back to my chest and up over my shoulders to my back, then down, tracing the line of my spine, snaking fingers along my stomach, meeting between my legs, rushing to my feet.

"It's almost done. I'm going to hand it to you – you have to finish it."

"No – no, I can't! I have no idea what –"

"You have no choice. I'm going to hand it to you. When I touch my hands to your head, you will feel the fever spike – it is your madness grabbing onto what I've woven over you. You must accept it. If you reject it, then we'll have to start all over again, and we'll both have a nasty set of bruises from being thrown across the room."

"But – how – but how do I – ?"

"You'll know how. It's just like breathing – you have to let your body do it. It's like dancing the moonlight – you did it earlier than any of the others. Remember how that felt, remember how easy it was to step into the light? This is the same. You've been trained for this – trust yourself."

I was panting hard, trying to keep the fever at the right level, trying not to break away from Ai'Ilyn...

"Here ... we ... go!"

Her burning hands grabbed either side of my face and the cold thing covering me contracted. The fever spiked within me, burning me up as I desperately wrestled back control of it. I took in a deep breath, and let go.

The cold disappeared. The moonstone blossomed once more with silver light, lying on the floor at Ai'Ilyn's knee, and she released me from her grip. I swayed dangerously, and then caught myself with one hand braced against the floor.

"Not ... bad."

I looked up and realized both Ai'Ilyn and I were panting. A faint sheen of sweat had broken out across her forehead, and I could feel a matching gleam rising on my own. The fever was still with me, but it was deep now, back to where it lay dormant. My skin no longer burned, but instead seemed to be popping out all over in beads of sweat.

"Did it work?"

Ai'Ilyn nodded and smiled, triumphant and beaming. I looked down at my hands and gasped.

I could see my real hands – my human hands – but they were covered in a tight mirage of what looked like another set of hands set directly over them. These new hands were only visible as outlines, and they showed hands like the Ilyn I had seen: long fingers tipped with sharp nails, and slim, strong palms that were tightly muscled.

I reached up and touched my face, but nothing felt different.

"The difference is only visible to others," Ai'Ilyn said, looking me up and down with a critical eye. "When you're not connected to the madness, you'll see the Ilyn mirage around the other changelings who passed their changing. Remember – don't let it down around the nestlings. I need your word on that."

"How do I keep it in place? What if I let it go on accident?"

"You won't – the only way you'll let it down is if you grab the madness and push the illusion away, dispelling the shadows. As long as you don't do that, you'll stay cloaked. Does that make sense?"

I nodded numbly. "I won't show myself to the others."

"Good." Ai'Ilyn stood. "Now it's time for me to get back to them."

"Wait – how ... are they?"

She cocked an eyebrow at me.

"They're the same as always. None of them have changed yet, but that's not uncommon. I knew you'd be the first, but the rest of them have time yet. I didn't know that the boy –"

She broke off and grimaced, shook her head.

"Nevermind. The rest of the day is yours to do with as you see fit. I'd recommend you eat – you haven't for a while. Soon I'll check in on you and we'll talk more. For now, work on holding the madness. Work on gathering it, pulling it in, and letting it go again."

She turned to go but stopped at the door.

"Oh," she said, "and good job not dying."

Her smile was feral as she left.

For a moment I just stood there, not at all sure about what to do. I felt awkward and stiff, not being told what to do or when to do it. I was too used to orders.

In the end, I summoned my courage and went to the Hall, this time making it past the first paralyzing step. I moved easily through the corridors, slipping between the other Fae and taking the most likely turns, the ones that led consistently down, having no idea where I was in this upper level. I quickly found my bearings, though, and realized I wasn't that far off from one of the large meeting halls the nestlings often scrubbed. As I passed it, I looked in and saw a number of Ilyn, Paecsies, and several other Fae that were oddly wispy and white, clustered around a table, talking to each other in low voices and gesturing to a number of things I couldn't see laid out on the table. When I paused to look, they turned to me and I froze.

But all they saw was the Ilyn illusion in place around me – or else the outline of it, like the outline I'd seen of my hands or around Ai'Ilyn when she was farther than a few feet away. One or two of them nodded, and then they returned to their work, ignoring me. I moved on, descending to the Hall.

I moved through the tables unthinkingly, heading for the distant earthen room where I had gone for three years straight, and only stopped when I saw a small girl dart in front of me, trying to catch up to the rest of her group as they passed through the door, led by an Ilyn with bright gold markings. Her hair was tangled and knotted, and there were leaves in it. I wondered idly where they'd been working – and then realized that I couldn't eat in there.

Where was I going to eat?

"Over here," said a voice behind me.

I turned and saw a young man, several months older than me by the look of his face and the comfortable way he walked in his changeling clothing. He was tall, very tall, with broad shoulders and dark hair –

I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach: It was Kyre, the young man we'd been watching when we first realized the changelings disappeared.

"Get your food from there," he said, pointing to the refectory, speaking in a deep voice and saying only what was needed. "Don't go to any of the little rooms – go straight to the Ilyn in charge. It's Hulir'Ilyn today. He'll get you food."

Numbly, I nodded and did as he suggested. Soon I was back in the Hall with a bowl full of the usual fruit, roots, nuts, and honey, but with a slice of freshly cooked meat as well. My mouth watered at the smell of it.

I didn't know anyone, and I couldn't find Kyre again, so I went to my own table, a shorter one closer to the opening that led out onto the field of the clearing. I ate there alone, watching everything that happened. Some children came and went, led by various Ilyn; Urden hulked around, carrying large objects or else heading out into the fields; Paecsies flitted by and chattered with each other or whomever they were with.

The meat was just as good as it smelled, and the rest of the food was delicious as always. The water I'd been given tasted different, and I remembered what Ai'Ilyn had said about the moonlight. I looked at the cup suspiciously for a minute, but then abruptly drank it all anyway. As soon as the last drop was gone, I felt suddenly invigorated, like some of the fatigue from the nights before had been washed away.

I looked down at my hands again and saw that though most of the Ilyn-illusion skin was flaky white, there was a deep midnight blue patch near my right thumb. I looked down at my stomach and my chest, and saw patches there as well when I concentrated enough to bring the Ilyn-skin into sight.

I sat there for hours, not knowing what else to do.

Eventually, I watched the moonlight ceremony that first night and didn't participate. I thought about how much I'd enjoyed it, the running through the grass. Now, though, the moon seemed shockingly bright, and the heat that rolled off that field startled me. When I stepped out into the field, holding the madness and trying to control it as Ai'Ilyn had said, the fever suddenly spiked, and I felt my skin flush. The world leapt into focus, and my heart began pumping blood through me with a riotous fury. I heard thumping all around me, coming in and out, and realized with a shock it was the hearts of the children lined up and waiting. A breeze whistled through the clearing, and I saw the exact path it took, down to the individual strands of grass buffeted by its passing.

I staggered back inside and let the madness go, but not all the way. I went back to the room I'd been given without watching the end of the ceremony and collapsed in my nestle, my head spinning.

I woke when Ai'Ilyn returned and shook me.

"We need to talk about who you'll tutor with."

"What?" I sat up too quickly – the room spun as I tried to rub the sleep from my eyes.

"A tutor," Ai'Ilyn repeated gently. "To help you better control the madness."

"You want me ... a tutor? But I thought – you are my tutor, aren't you?"

"I'm in charge of the others in your group," she said, not unkindly. The earlier snap was gone, but she still spoke briskly. "I'm only here to ease the transition. After we settle on the right tutor, you won't see much of me anymore."

I had very mixed feelings about that – relief and fear, excitement and reluctance, all piled together. I don't think I'll ever figure out how I felt about that woman. And I think, maybe, that was the point.

"But then why do you go away? Once every month you go away and you come back after shedding –"

"Mmm," Ai'Ilyn said, nodding. "What did you think it was?"

"That you aged... because every time you came back you had more red – and when Ite'Ilyn looked over us the first time, he said that he had been here for a long time, and he's mostly green –"

"You're surprisingly close," she said, eyeing me with interest. "Once a month the enchantment has to be redone – but every time we redo it, part of the outermost layer flakes away to reveal color underneath. It's damn tricky to do, and sometimes the days leading up to it can be ... unpleasant. No one knows why. But that's not what we're here to talk about."

She looked at me pointedly and I shifted, uncomfortable. I stood, an abrupt movement that seemed to startle me more than her, and then rested my hands on my hips, then changed my mind and crossed them in front of me, beneath my chest.

"Do I have a choice?"

"Of course – you can choose anyone."

"Anyone?"

"As long as they agree."

"But ... I only know you."

"Don't be stupid – you know Zal'Ilyn and Ite'Ilyn, neither of whom have a group of children right now, and both of whom would be interested in taking you."

"They – are?"

"Yes. Shall I tell them you'll take them up on the offer?"

"Well, I – I don't –"

"You need a tutor, someone who can give you more training in the madness. You've barely scratched the surface of what you can do. Ite'Ilyn would be good for you."

"All – right?"

The next morning, I found a Fae outside my door. He was small and stick-like, and though he looked vaguely human, he was brown as a nut and equally hairless. I'd never seen one like him before – and I think that was evident in the surprise I showed when I recoiled from his appearance.

"No need to gape," he said, not trying to hide his disdain for me. He sniffed officiously, thrust his nose up into the air, and then turned and left. I scrambled after him, and we went up several levels and to the other side of the Bower.

We stopped in front of a twisted doorway. He stood at attention beside it, and I stood there watching him, waiting for further instruction.

"Go in," he said finally, as if I was being intentionally obtuse and he had no patience for it.

I rolled my eyes, not bothering to hide my exasperation though he made a good show of ignoring it. I moved forward through the doorway and passed into a narrow room very similar to mine, though easily three times the size. There was a single figure across the room, and I squinted against the suddenly blinding moonlight to try and make it out, taking a step further into the room as I raised a hand to shield my eyes.

It was Ite'Ilyn, who I'd seen periodically since he'd come to take control of our group so long ago. The Ilyn façade was still in place around him, and I could see that even more of him was covered with deep green skin now. He was facing away from me, turned toward the window, and his broad but wrinkled shoulders were silhouetted against the strong silver light coming in from the heavy moon that was sinking into the horizon before him, pouring in so much light that it seemed almost as bright as day.

"Good evening," he said, turning to look at me.

The wide eyes and ferocious face disappeared as he turned, swirling and fading away even though the distance between us hadn't closed. The broad Ilyn shoulders gave way and revealed the slim and slightly-stooped shoulders of old age, and the green skin swirled into two bright points of light that became green eyes looking out of an ancient face that stretched across a strong chin and proud cheekbones.

"How ... did you do that?"

He smiled at me, close-lipped, and his green eyes narrowed into kindly slits.

"There are many things you can do when you learn to control the madness."

"Control?" I asked, feeling stupid.

He smiled again. "Yes."

An awkward silence fell between us, and I knew he was waiting for me to fill it.

"The other Ilyn can't do that," I blurted out. "Can't control the illusion – it's just there or it isn't."

"They could if they wanted to," he said, nodding as he watched me, scanning me up and down as if categorizing every little detail. "But no, they often don't. They chose to let the illusions be set by one of the more skilled Ilyn so that they don't run the risk of unraveling. It happens, for those who do not have the best grip of what they're doing. It becomes part of them, controlled by them, but they can't release it without help."

He fell silent again, waiting for me speak. I licked my lips nervously, not knowing how to respond.

"I'm here to learn to ... control the madness. Right?"

He smiled. "Yes."

"Should ... should we start?"

"You need to ask me."

"What?"

"You need to ask me. Ritual is important – you need to know why you've come here, and you need to ask me for my help. Every night you come, we will start like this."

I swallowed and cleared my raw throat. All the talking I'd done recently was almost more than I'd done in the three years total before the change.

"Ite'Ilyn – will you teach me? To ... um ... to control the madness?"

He smiled.

The tasks seemed simple when he explained them: bend a twig without breaking it, walk over leaves without making noise, stand a small rock on its point. I knew there were tricks to them – of course there were, otherwise why would I need training to accomplish them – but I had no idea how impossible they would be.

The twigs always snapped in half, no matter how I bent them, and Ite'Ilyn seemed to have an endless supply. The leaves were even more frustrating – dry and dead, there was absolutely no way to step on them without making them crack as they broke. And the stone, of course, didn't even have a point to stand on.

For the first moon's cycle I spent with him, I accomplished absolutely nothing, and for the large majority of that time I kept my anger and frustration in check. Every time I took a deep breath to keep myself from bursting out when I'd failed yet again he would raise an eyebrow at me, pretend to hide his smile, and tell me to try again.

When I finally did lose my temper, the fever flared up inside me and took me over. I lost a patch of time, and when I came back to my senses, Ite'Ilyn was standing over me. I found that the twig I'd been holding had formed into a perfect, unbroken circle, both ends meeting and growing into each other as if plucked from the tree that way.

He seemed encouraged, and he changed his tactics, now forcing me to resort to the madness. When I was able to stand the stone up, he blew it over deliberately. When I was trying to focus on walking across the leaves, he would creep up behind me and shout in my ear. When I tried to bend the twigs, he'd come over and slap them out of my hands so that I had to move and evade him while he came after me.

I never understood what I really did when I embraced the madness, but I don't think its possible to understand it. Ai'Ilyn had said it best – the madness just was.

I started coming to him whenever I could, and I realized I was addicted to the feeling it gave me. Ai'Ilyn was right – it was like the moonlight. The trainings weren't scheduled – there really weren't any schedules in the Bower, save the ones dictated by the cycle of the moon.

That second month was harder. He made it a struggle each time, fighting me with his own madness, which seemed to show him the perfect way to thwart me. I fell unconscious at least a dozen times, either knocking myself out by crashing into a wall after going mad, or else finding myself unable to breathe, the fever burning me up and choking me before I could get control of it.

But he stayed with me the entire time, and he always seemed available. His voice became such a part of me that every time I reached for the madness I heard him.

And then the others began to change.

It was Pinur Fe who went first. I had been watching them all from afar whenever I had the chance to do so, and though I had been secretly hoping Faolan would be next to go, it was Pinur Fe who broke down one day and started trying to pull boulders from the ground.

The scary thing was that he managed it and almost crushed Durst before Ai'Ilyn knocked him out.

He recovered much more quickly than I did – which, really, was to be expected since I'd been torn and bloody – and when he saw me for the first time after getting Ai'Ilyn's speech about being a changeling, he gave me the biggest smile I think I'd ever seen him give. He rushed forward and wrapped me up in his huge arms, squeezing the air completely out of me. He told me as we ate that Faolan had told them all about what he'd seen the night he'd found Ai'Ilyn and brought her to me and Tristan on the edge of the clearing, and that since then they'd been wondering what had happened to me.

His quiet nature returned very quickly, however, and we began to see each other only rarely. His skin had begun to take on a grayish hue, and he told me once that he wasn't taking lessons from any of the Ilyn in how to control the madness – that he was taking lessons with the Urden instead.

"Not all changelings are the same," Ionmar explained to me when I asked her about it. In my spare time, I had made it a habit to visit her in the Caelyr Weaving Room, which was open to any so long as they didn't get in the way of the work. Having gotten over my initial fear of the spider-people and my aversion to the racket of the enormous loom, I couldn't understand why more changelings didn't interact with the Caelyr, who were among the kindest people, Fae or otherwise, I had ever met.

"How are they different?"

"Some have different parents," she said, hands weaving something I couldn't discern as she spoke to me. She was always doing that – she was so talented at what she did that she barely ever had to focus on it entirely. "To be a changeling is to have both human and Fae blood in you. Some of you are from different Fae – some of you have Ilyn blood, which is the most common, but I would be much surprised if none of you had the blood of Urden or Paecsies, or even one of the less common Fae like the variety of Sylphs and Naiads that live along the borders of Arden."

"Arden?"

"The forest that surrounds us; the forest that leads to all other forests throughout the human world. It is an old name – older even than the Erlking."

"So you think Pinur Fe is an Urden?"

"I think he has the choice to be one."

"The choice?"

She stopped what she was doing and turned to look at me directly, her black orb eyes ponderous.

"Not all Fae are one thing or another," she said slowly. "Such black and white thinking is much too simple. But we have madness in our souls, each of us in different ways, and with that madness we can bend ourselves to be what we wish, so long as we have sufficient background to get there. If Pinur Fe chooses the Urden, they will help him purge his human blood, and he will become one of them entirely. They value servitude above all else, and deem it the highest good any can achieve to be protectors and guardians. They believe there can be no self in this – and as such the human side of all who wish to join them must be taken away."

"But he can choose," I said quietly, thinking about it distantly. "They'll let him choose?"

Ionmar nodded and resumed her weaving.

"Coming to the Bower is not a choice," she said quietly. "Staying here until the madness comes is not a choice. But now that you have passed the threshold, now that you will live, your future is your decision. It is ... a terrible thing we have to do to keep you alive. If there were no reason for it, it would be despicable. If you were only human and we raised you like this, we would be truly monsters. But you are Fae – you are cursed and blessed with power and madness, and, in the end, when the choice is to force you to suffer or else to let you die, is that really a choice at all?"

We sat in silence as I thought through what she'd said.

"Go now," she said after a time, with a kindly smile and a soft touch on my shoulder. I realized she was done with what she'd been weaving and that her spider's forelegs were neatly creasing it into a tight, folded bundle. "I have responsibilities elsewhere tonight. And soon you'll have others of your group to interest you – they should be changing any day now."

She was right – Gwenel and Brandel went by the end of that moon's cycle.

They reacted similarly to Pinur Fe when they found out I was alive. Brandel kept telling Gwen that he had known there was something to it after what Faolan had told them, and she kept rolling her eyes at him and saying she'd already admitted he'd been right.

"I wish we could tell Faolan, though," she said one day as the three of us walked down the corridor that led to the upper levels of the Bower, where our tutors all were. Both of them had been given to different Ilyn than Ite'Ilyn, but we were all in the same area and we went there together after meals.

"Why?" I asked, suddenly at full attention.

"He started out convinced that you were still alive, but now that we're all disappearing.... He was certain that he would be next after you. He wanted it very badly. But then it was Pinur Fe, and now the two of us ... and none of the changelings ever come back, so he will never know."

"He will when he changes," I said quickly, but I knew by looking at them this wasn't enough of an explanation.

"What if he doesn't?"

It was Brandel who said it, and his normal intense curiosity was not present; he instead was very somber.

"That's not possible, though," I protested, looking to Gwen for support. But she was looking down away from me, and as I appealed to her she grimaced and wouldn't meet my eye. A heavy block of fear settled in the pit of my stomach, and I confronted Brandel. "What aren't you telling me?"

He swallowed and took a step back, glancing around. We had stopped and were to the side of one of the main corridors that twisted and weaved through the upper levels. Other Fae were passing us, but not many.

"I'm saying what happens if he never does?" His voice was quiet and intense, and he wouldn't look me in the eye.

"But he has to, we all go through it, we're all changelings."

"Some of them don't."

"That's – no – how can you know that?"

"We heard Ai'Ilyn talking to Zal'Ilyn," Gwen said. I shifted my attention to her, and this time she didn't shrink back under my defiant glare. "Zal was telling her that he had begun to worry some of us wouldn't change since we were taking so long. She told him that was ridiculous, that we all would, but he reminded her that it had happened before that some didn't – that some don't have enough Fae blood to induce the madness. He said she had to be ready in case we didn't. That she ... had to be ready to deal with us if we didn't."

I looked between them both, but found I couldn't say anything for a time. The thought that the madness would never come to some of us had never even crossed my mind.

"But she did imply it's a very small chance," Brandel said quickly with some of his old enthusiasm. He even attempted a smile. "It's just that Faolan must be really worried and we can't get to him to tell him not to be."

I nodded, but stayed silent. After an awkward pause, we continued on our way, and then separated for our tutors.

The next few months were an agony of waiting.

I managed most of the time to suppress the thought that Faolan wouldn't change, and it was only when the moon set and I lay awake that the thoughts would come back, and even then I tried not to let them in. I had a kind of unacknowledged, superstitious dread about it – as if just letting the thoughts exist in my mind would make the fears come true, so I stamped them out.

I wanted to broach the subject with Ai'Ilyn, to ask her straight out about it, but I found I couldn't. I was too frightened of the answer I would get – so I chose to assume the best and ignore the possibility of anything else. But with every moon cycle that came and went, it became harder and harder to do so.

By that time, several months had passed and most of the others had gone through the changing. There was variety, of course. None of us were the same – that was clear as we continued to grow. Most of us were Ilyn – Gwen, Brandel, and I the clearest examples by that point – but though we all received Ilyn-illusion disguises, it was clear that not all of us would remain as such. None of us knew where Celin came from, but after the change he became, almost overnight, so fascinated with the earth that Brandel and Gwen were convinced he was the child of something with an affinity for growing. Before long, when the madness was on him, he could cup flowers in his hands and make them bloom. Pinur Fe had a physical intelligence unlike anyone else. The Urden were strong beyond understanding, and all bulky in the kind of a way a heavily muscled man would be, so much so that they seemed to exist as boulders or gnarled trees in motion. Pinur Fe was like that, and became more so every night with his tutoring at the hands of the gray-green giants.

When the madness took Durst, it was clear that he was a child of the sylphs, a group of Fae air sprites that looked like Ilyn but were insubstantial as clouds. He became thinner and almost frail-looking, and nothing could hold him down. He would move about the room like a wind devil, touching us and rushing away before we even realized what had happened. His hair and skin began to whiten, and his temperament was extremely erratic – so much so that, when we were not combined as one group in the midst of the madness, I found myself more than once actively wishing I could thrash him like Ai'Ilyn had when he'd first refused to work.

That was the Fae in me – the part that clearly came from the Ilyn or something like them. The same part of me that finally decided, after nearly half of my year was up, that I had to see Faolan.

I told myself the reason I needed to do it was that he needed know I was still alive. It was for him that I went, so I thought. I wanted him to know that we were all still alive, and that he didn't have to worry after all. So I snuck into the old room one night – a task easy enough to do now that I could hold the madness and walk the Bower without making a sound.

It was just as I remembered, and the first step I made into the room forced old images and feelings back through me as I looked down at my nestle. The sheets were perfectly straight, empty and flat, waiting for the next changeling who would use it. The next changeling who would be woken here by Ai'Ilyn or one of the others.

Maybe even by me.

I looked further up the row. He and Aelyn were the only ones left, and there had already been whispers that she would soon turn, that she had been acting oddly. I moved across the room, making no noise, wrapped in the madness as I was, barely even needing to breathe as the fever-heat washed over and through me. I stopped over him and turned back to look at the door – no form standing there watching me, no sense of alarm at all. We were safe.

I let go of the illusion that shrouded me, letting the image of the Ilyn fade away. It had taken a week's worth of practice to find out how to do it, but finally I'd managed, and now it was as easy as pulling off a piece of clothing. I took a deep breath to steady myself, trying to keep a hard grip on the madness. My thoughts were scattered and random, jumping from point to point, and I was shaking slightly.

I touched his firm shoulder.

He woke and was out of his nestle in seconds, swiping his arm around him in a huge swing as if fending off an attack. It was child's play for me to dodge in time, deep as I was in the madness, but still it took me by surprise.

As soon as the swing was completed I came forward, letting the madness direct me, letting my thoughts flow together without conscious direction. I grabbed him by the waist and threw a hand up to stop his other arm from coming down in a second swing.

I felt him more than saw him stop. At my touch he froze and held himself still. The moon had set, and what little light the stars gave was almost nonexistent in the room. I realized only then how close we were. My only thought had been stopping him from making noise and keeping him from waking Aelyn, but now my arm was around his thin waist, my hand holding his lean, muscular arm, and our faces were so close that I could smell the scent of honey on his breath.

He shifted and I recoiled a step, slipping out of his immediate reach. I pulled a moonstone out of my pocket, one that I had secreted away from a distant corner of the Bower weeks ago, and let the moonlight in it rise to a dim glow, just bright enough that he could see me.

We stared at each other, not knowing what to do or say. After all the time we'd spent apart, it was like we'd been together the whole time. It felt like everything we could have said to each other we both already knew. Any apologies we might have made for not finding a way to see each other or to exchange words in passing seemed laughably pointless now that I was looking into his face.

"Faolan," muttered Aelyn sleepily, "what are you doing?"

I held my breath, waiting for Faolan to respond, urging him to keep his wits about him.

"Nothing," he replied, his voice tight and controlled. My heart was beating wildly inside my chest, but the sound of his voice made it skip a beat. "A bad dream."

Aelyn grunted and rolled over and went back to sleep.

"Where did you go?" he mouthed to me, staring wide-eyed. "What happened?"

I wanted to tell him everything. My shoulders relaxed as tension simply drained out of me as I soaked him in. I could tell him – I could tell him everything that the Ilyn had told me after I'd gone through the madness. I could save him from some of the pain – I could tell him that I'd been right, and maybe then he could brace himself –

Or maybe it would ruin everything.

My body went cold and my hands went numb. This was what it was like. This was what it was like to be on the other side of the question. I'd been so angry at Ai'Ilyn for keeping the truth from me, trying to force me into compliance with some crazy plan that I hadn't agreed to, but when it was my turn, when it was my choice to hide the truth or expose it, risking Faolan's life, I knew without a doubt that I would never tell him. There was nothing that would make me put his life at risk.

I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him. The heat of my body increased, and I grabbed tight to the madness, desperately trying to keep it under control.

"It's all worth it," I whispered, my lips brushing the edges of his ear. "There really is a reason ... and I'll see you soon."

I slipped away before he could respond, making for the door. He watched me go with wide eyes, and I felt his gaze on me long after I'd left.

As soon as I was beyond the turn of the twisted doorway, I let the madness rise up and cover me, feeling the Ilyn illusion sweep over my body, pressing down against my skin. My mind turned to Faolan and I gasped as the sensation turned to painful pleasure. I kept walking, and only stopped when I was several turns away and two levels higher.

My heart was racing and I couldn't calm it. The fever had swept over me, this time with a power and persistence I could not resist. The ecstasy of it was greater than I'd ever felt, and it rolled over me in wave after wave as I shivered. I tried to walk again, but the pleasure rolled over me and I almost moaned. I stumbled and caught myself against the wooden walk of the Bower, and felt the wood pulsing under my hand, as if I could feel the life of the huge ever-growing tree.

I shivered again, more violently, and clutched my arms around myself. I realized I was smiling and the thought crossed my mind that I was losing myself. I had to pull back, had to put the pieces of myself back together. I shouldn't have gone to Faolan.

But just the thought of him brought the feelings back, and the heat swept over me, settling in place and making my knees weak. I lost control completely and gasped, turning to catch myself against the sill of a high window that looked out over the Bower field.

A glimmer caught my eye, a sharp sudden flash of silver through the window. I looked, wondering through the haze of heat who might be out in the field at this time of night.

Oberon and Robin Goodfellow were crossing the field, leaving the Bower.
Chapter Fourteen: Her

There is something profound that runs through the Fae. It is something like instinct, but deeper, and it is this that draws the madness out. It is a perfect alignment of desire and action, and a complete subversion of conscience. When deeply in the madness, when in the full grip of it, those with Fae blood do what they want, not what they should.

I only came back to myself after I had raced down the Bower, through the Hollowed Hall, and out across the clearing. The first memory I have of seeing the world instead of experiencing it was when I saw a flash of movement, perhaps the swirl of a cloak or the disappearing heel of a boot, at the very edge of the tree line. I raced toward it, breathing lightly, strength surging through me. I was grinning like a lunatic, and only in the dim recesses of my mind did I realize that somehow I had gone too deep, somehow I was in the grip of real, true madness.

I shivered again with the ecstasy of it and barely suppressed a sigh.

I pierced the tree line in a rush, and looked around quickly for a sign of my quarry.

Two shapes moved off to my left. I raced forward, my feet making no sound on the forest floor, and threw myself into a roll that landed me at the foot of a willow tree. I held completely still as I watched them move, and did something I didn't quite understand. I dropped the Ilyn mask hiding me, and instead wrapped myself in something else.

The shadows of the dark forest seemed to writhe around me, and suddenly they sprang up and covered my hands and arms, my chest, flowing along my skin like cool, refreshing water. The touch of it against my fevered skin was almost too much for me to handle, and I squeezed my legs together and hugged myself.

And then Robin and Oberon rounded the tree only a dozen paces away.

I froze, not moving, not breathing.

Robin's eyes raked over where I hid, blazing as if he knew someone was here. I pulled as much of the madness around me as I could, to the point where I felt light-headed from the heat that had swelled up inside me, pounding wave after wave against my skin, like a fire licking me from the inside.

His eyes slid past.

"Did you feel that?" he asked quietly to Oberon.

"Yes," the Erlking replied quietly, not looking. "But we are still near the Bower."

"Usually it does not throw off waves like that. It felt like the madness."

"The Bower was made with the madness. You'd be surprised what it feels like."

The Puck looked ready to argue, but when Oberon continued walking, he grimaced and dropped the argument. I followed them as soon as they were at the edge of sight. I was so pleased with myself that I had to stuff a fist into my mouth to keep from laughing.

"How much longer?" Robin asked suddenly.

I took an extra step to get closer to them, excited at the prospect of eavesdropping.

"I assume you don't mean distance."

"You know I don't."

"Does your service chafe you?" he replied, his gray-green eyes mocking the smaller man. "I thought after what I did for you you'd be more grateful."

"This humble servant thanks you," Robin said with a mordant bow. "But I was never meant to be here. I may be one of the first Fae of the Bower, but while the others bear the name of Ilyn after me, you know as well as I that I am not a changeling."

Oberon stopped and turned to him, his face cold and expressionless in the moonlight. I hid behind a tree and barely dared to breathe.

"Yes," the king admitted finally. The word came out sounding like wind through trees, and it was an admission that startled me, even in the madness. The word even seemed to surprise Oberon himself.

Robin stared at the king, incredulity painted openly across his face. His gaze flicked back and forth between the two points of razor-sharpness that were his master's eyes, and the open acknowledgement of the admission seemed to shock and astound him.

"So it's true," he whispered, voice so quiet he might have been talking to himself. "It was true all along and you denied it."

"I denied nothing."

"You denied the knowledge of my birth."

"You mistook me. I denied knowledge of your upbringing, which I still do – the two are very different. But the point remains that you were brought to me for safekeeping."

"Safekeeping? From what?"

"Now is not the time," the master said, settling his arms deeper beneath his sable cloak, the hood of which was pulled up to cover his chestnut hair and his silver crown. "Your service is not done. No matter how you came here, you are here now, and you owe me a debt that only I can decide is paid."

Part of me, the wild part in control, understood none of this, but was instead only disappointed they weren't still moving so I could chase them. The deeper part of me, the part that was riding behind the madness as a helpless passenger, was shocked to hear such open antagonism. The Puck was the Erlking's right hand. To speak of Robin Goodfellow was to speak of Oberon.

He was a prisoner?

Robin's golden eyes were glowing with ill-concealed anger, and the beginnings of what I knew instantly to be hatred. My heart began to knock against my ribs, and despite the reason I'd come, despite the knowledge that my safety might depend on staying silent, staying hidden, I almost came out of the madness and threw myself forward to warn Oberon.

But with a savage, silent snarl, the Fae-maddened part of me ripped that urge in half and disposed of it. This was the man who ruled a fantastical kingdom beyond the edge of human understanding, a man who couldn't lift a finger without a hundred creatures of several savage races coming to ask what they could do to serve him. The idea that he would need help from me, now or ever, was laughable.

A version of the same thought seemed to go through Robin's mind as well. That flicker of hatred hidden amidst the blaze of anger dimmed. A veil seemed to pass over his face, and in the next instant his expression was back to the normal mask of amused contempt.

"Another time then," he said, nonchalant.

Oberon did not respond, only continued forward silently. Robin fell into step with him and I followed them both, trying as I did to quell the sudden swell of sickness that had settled in my stomach. The fever of the madness had turned from light to dark in a way I couldn't understand. I started to come back to myself as the joy faded, and I realized something as my thoughts resurfaced:

I was far away from the Bower in the middle of a forest I couldn't navigate, and the only way back was to follow the two Fae that were quickly distancing themselves from me. I scrabbled mentally for the madness and caught the edge of it just as it was about to fall back into my subconscious. I shivered as the fever was replaced by chills and then once again by heat, but this time subdued. Stifling a gasp of relief, I hurried after them, desperately muffling my steps as Ite'Ilyn had taught me.

I moved as quickly as I dared and as silently as I could. I was using every scrap of the madness I could harness and still it wasn't enough.

They were moving faster now, so fast in fact that I began to suspect that they were almost running. I was walking in such long strides that I was practically lunging across the forest floor, but I felt somehow certain that if I broke into a run to follow them I wouldn't be able to continue concealing myself.

I looked up and realized I could barely make them out, and panic started to take me over, drowning out the good-will mania of the madness. There were too many trees between us – flashes of green in a hundred different shades, and brown and black and gray mottled in between it all – the distant impressions of Robin's black hair and Oberon's shadowed cloak only distinguishable because of the movement they made –

I was silently gasping for breath and moving with all the speed I could muster, trying with all my might to stay within distance. My whole world narrowed in on that – dodging trees, jumping cracked and bending branches, stepping between strewn sheets of fallen leaves.

I broke into a run, bearing down on my back teeth in anxiety, every ounce of willpower going into finding ways to force the madness to keep up with me, to keep me as silent as possible, but as my first foot fell to the ground the madness shook and quaked in my mind. The sound of leaves crunching beneath me crackled and stirred and broke through the madness, and I almost cried out in dismay. My next step snapped a branch, so loud to my ears it was like a boulder rolling down hill or a spike of lightning spearing the sky with an echoing cry of thunder.

But I ran faster, and the madness, shaking and morphing inside me, began to expand too. I rushed noiselessly over leaves that should have crackled, then broke a branch that fell to the ground loudly. I crashed into a tree as I slipped on the muddy side of a small hill, and almost sobbed in happiness as the sound of it was taken by the madness.

I looked up and saw them ahead of me, and hoped desperately I was too far away to be heard. I wrapped myself in the madness and the shadows as much as I could and dashed across a flat piece of grass, caught a glimpse of them –

They had pulled up short and stopped.

I crashed to a halt, purposefully flinging myself into the side of a tree to halt my momentum, and threw everything I had into the madness to stop the sound of it carrying to them through what remained of the forest.

Silence echoed through the trees but for a single twitch of a falling leaf that glided silently, slowly, to touch the ground with the barest whisper of sound.

Oberon turned.

I dropped to the floor the instant before his burning eyes raked across my exposed face, and held my breath with the fevered anxiety of a hunted refugee. The thought of what they would do if they caught me crossed my mind, and I couldn't help scenes of beating, torture, even death, flashing through my mind. Running away was one thing – but who knew what they were out here to do?

I was a fool to have followed them.

Silence still rang through the clearing, and I readied myself to run, so wrapped up in my certainty that he had seen me that I didn't even think to notice where I was or in which direction I should go.

"She is near," Robin whispered.

I almost sobbed in fear, but stopped at the last second, stuffing a fist in my mouth to stifle the sound even as something about the way he'd spoken caught at a hole in my fear-riddled mind.

He wasn't talking about me. The way he had said the word, the way he had referenced "she," told me that I was the farthest thing from his mind. He had spoken the single syllable with as close to reverence and fear as Robin Goodfellow could come. He would never speak about me that way – he would never speak of a changeling with anything but scorn.

"And as late as ever," Robin continued. I could see him smiling in just the sound of his voice, and the image of his wolfish grin forced itself into my mind. "Is that part of what drove you away? Would annoy the hell out of me, too."

Oberon, to my complete surprise, chuckled.

It was this more than anything else that convinced me they had no idea I was present, despite the horrible risks I'd taken as I followed them, crashing through the wood. The chuckle was full of indulgence, and it was an acknowledgement of a strange bond I hadn't known existed between the two of them. It was something soft and yielding, two things I had never known the king could be; two things that he would never willingly reveal to anyone.

Anyone besides Robin, it seemed.

But what did it say about their earlier conversation?

I shifted my stance and craned my neck around the side of the tree trunk that had become my refuge. I knew, even as I did, that this was the epitome of stupid risks. I was much too close to them now, much too revealed if they happened to turn and look. But I had to see them – I had to know what he looked like when he laughed like that.

The tableau that greeted me was something out of a painting by a grand master of a classic age. The taller man, his crown of silver leaves high upon the flowing waterfall of his chestnut hair, clothed in swaths of forest green and pitch black, was smiling down on the smaller, slighter form of Robin, clad in his simple leathers, his black hair shorter and free of the older man's dignified silver streaks, the planes of his square chin and face hit by rays of moonlight as he grinned like a wolf up at the King. It was a perfect picture.

"Well," Robin said, still grinning like an oft-indulged child, "shall we?"

Oberon whispered something in response, and they disappeared.

Shock was the first thing that I remember feeling, and then panic. I had become so used to the power that the madness brought me, the certainty and the knowledge that came with being a changeling, that the possibility of being shrugged off like a child had never occurred to me. Why had I never imagined that they had powers I simply couldn't grasp or even fathom?

And somehow, as soon as they disappeared from sight, I knew that I was truly alone. They weren't circling through the forest, they weren't going to sneak up and find me hidden behind this tree. They were waiting for whoever was coming.

I stumbled away from the tree, and by some miracle made no sound. The madness was gone, just as quickly as it had come, and I was on my own. I picked my way through the trees as quickly as I could, but my pace was nothing more than a shambling walk. I didn't know where I was going or what I was doing, I just knew I had to leave. A sense of foreboding had gripped me, and it was so strong that my stomach roiled and my eyes unfocused, sliding and spilling over the shadow-darkened world around me.

I don't know how far I went, or when I stopped, but I can only guess now that somehow I circled the small clearing where Oberon and Robin had stopped. I remember thinking that the world looked somehow strange, like something out of a memory I couldn't place. I felt warmth on my face, and a prickling along the edges of my hairline and under my arms. The light was off – it was different, and it hurt. The bark of trees, gray and tan, ruddy brown and sandy, dappled white, popped out at me, and the turquoise leaves turned to emerald green and were outlined with sharp borders.

I stepped forward into sunlight.

The understanding penetrated my mind with a sharp, cutting jab, and I pulled up short, stunned. All those years in a world of moonlight and shadows, of cool, damp softness that gleamed and shone with care and danger, seemed to collapse inward and disappear as golden radiance warmed my skin.

The light seemed to come from all around, but mostly from the sky, where I knew, in some forgotten corner of my mind, that the sun should be. My eyes were narrowed into squinted slits against the terrible brightness of it, and my head began to pound. I felt suddenly desiccated, my lips chapped and skin parched. When my eyes had adjusted enough to make of the world something other than a long, smeared blur of gold, I began to see that some of the shapes among the forest were not trees at all. They moved, like people do, and as I focused on them I realized that they were creatures completely unlike those found in the Bower.

Their faces were thin and smiling, and they all shown with an inner light of beauty and radiance. They came in many shapes and sizes, some short and thin, others tall and thickly muscled. But all of them, down to the smallest member of her train, were clearly otherworldly.

And She led them.

I don't know how to describe her, except to say that I think all of us have seen her in a dream. She exists as an embodiment of tranquil, peaceful beauty the way Oberon exists as an embodiment of harsh, unruly freedom.

Long red hair fell about her head as soft as down, the color of fire and sunlight seen through skin. Her eyes were beautiful green gems, sunk in a perfect white face that was utterly flawless. Her body was clothed in a thin white gown, so sheer that every contour of her figure was clearly visible in its perfect slope and curve. She towered over me, slight as I was, and when she approached I felt as though I should kneel.

That same thought led to Oberon, and the dazzling spell her appearance had cast on me broke. I came back to myself with a snap, as everything happening in strange, slow motion now went at normal speed. The sunlight still hurt my eyes, and my whole body was on edge with tension, but my critical faculties returned.

I took a step back, away from the sunny faces, and that alone felt as though I were attempting a feat of super-human strength. I tried to turn away, but before I could, she spoke:

"Stop."

That single word echoed through the forest around me, in direct counterpoint to how I knew Oberon's voice would have rung. I was so used to hearing him now, even though he never spoke to me directly, that this was like hearing birdsong sung backwards. The power behind that word was so great that all in her train ceased all movement, and even the small breeze that stirred the leaves at our feet and the lock of hair pulled free of the dazzling diadem that crowned her seemed to ebb away.

But I found myself free. The strange incongruity of hearing that word come out wrong, come out in essence backwards, was enough that I managed to escape it. I turned completely, raking my eyes along the trees behind me, already trying to find the best route to run, when the madness came upon me again.

The world sped up as the fever rushed over me, and I ran before I could give the situation another thought. I heard gasps from behind me echoing through the sudden silence, and also the sound of leather creaking, but I paid it no mind. If I could reach the shadow of that tree, I could –

"STOP!"

This time the strangeness of the word did not help me avoid its power. Even with the madness holding me tightly in its grip, I staggered and pulled up short.

I heard sound behind me, a simple light tread, and then hands were pulling at my clothing, lifting me off the ground, turning me. I was moved some distance, and then I fell to the forest floor, deposited at her feet.

Unable to help myself, I looked up into her beautiful face. Her emerald eyes cored me. Everything that I was dropped away beneath the fire of her stare.

"You don't belong with him," she said quietly, and I knew immediately of whom she spoke. Who else could there be? He was the moon to her sun; she was the day to his night.

"You deserve to be part of the world," she said, her eyes full of such compassion that the constant cold reserve He has instilled in me began to thaw, leaving me defenseless. "You are not cursed, you are gifted. Come with me and I can bring you back to your life. You will have freedom with me – you will be able to live the life you wish to live! You can escape his rules and his mindless discipline – you deserve compassion and love."

She held out her hand, but I did not reach out to it. She stood looking down on me: benevolent, kind, full of compassion and warmth, a symbol of everything that I had once ever wanted from a caregiver – from a mother.

"What life?" I hissed out, surprising even myself with my vehemence. "What world? There was nothing good in my life until He came to take me in, until He sheltered me. He brought me to a place that I could call my home."

There were gasps, a chorus of them from the figures standing by, all of them with their high cheekbones and vulpine faces regarding me with shock. But she did not falter, did not change her tone.

"There is sunlight in my realm – there is beauty and trust. You do not belong in the darkness, under the unfeeling eyes of the moon. None of you do!"

The madness swelled up higher within me, burning, and I saw behind her kindness something else, something that sent daggers of fear slicing through my stomach. I had the sense of something rushing toward me that I couldn't escape, something that I was too reckless to see or understand fully.

"Stand away from my child – now."

His voice broke through the spell her eyes had cast, and the circle that had formed around me broke as her followers fell back, hissing like ... Ilyn.

Slowly, deliberately slowly, she turned her head up and away from me, allowing her auburn flow of hair to fall over her shoulder carelessly. She smiled seductively, the way a woman does to a man, but with a mocking twist that showed deep disdain.

"Hello, lover."

I felt hands on me, and then I was moving, being dragged back through the grass. I realized it was Robin a second later, at the same time that she turned to look down. A look of surprise crossed her face during the brief second before her haughty mask returned. She made to come after us, but his words rang out before she could.

"Do not move another step toward the child or my Puck," Oberon said calmly. "Or I shall call the Urden to escort you back to your edge of Arden."

Her green eyes widened and blazed with anger.

"Escort me? Have you lost your mind?"

"No," he said, full of calm composition, "but you have clearly lost yours. This is the edge of my realm, and not only were you arrogant enough to bring sunlight and a hundred companions with you, but you attempted to take one of my changelings for your own. Have we not had an accord, ever since that first boy so many years ago? Apparently you think it no longer applies."

The Queen's companions tensed, and more than a few unsheathed bows from cases on their backs. The Queen shifted, but made no motion to attack.

"Do you not remember how many of your children I was able to take from you when you thought you could rule this world by yourself?" Oberon snarled at her. I stared at him, almost uncomprehending. Gone was the cool composure of only moments before, the calm, kingly poise that he had held himself with ever since that first night I had met him. His gray-green eyes were blazing out of all control, and even Robin was looking at him in surprise and alarm.

"They belong with me," she hissed at him, shining with the golden light of day.

"They belong with the one who can raise them."

"I am their mother, they belong with me!"

"You are no more a woman than I am a man."

"That changes nothing."

"You cannot care for them – you have never been able to care for them!"

"I am the Queen of the Fae, and it is my right –"

"You are the Queen of daylight and elves, Queen of the land of milk and honey. But you are no Queen of the Fae."

"Then you are no King!"

"I am the protector of my children – I have never claimed to be anything more."

"You torment them! You have them beaten and punished!"

"I SAVE THEIR LIVES!"

The viciousness in his voice forced her back a step, and now he was glowing too, silver rays of moonlight shining from the leaves of his crown, shadows rippling from his feet.

"I save so many that those in my Bower outnumber yours ten to one when all are called to account. I do what I do because they need to come out the other side alive. What has your coddling bought them? How many in your realm die when the madness hits them, unprepared as they are? Unprepared as you have left them?"

"Do not test me," she snarled.

"I have tested you many times, and every time found you wanting."

She looked as though she'd been slapped, and the blood drained for her already-pale face, only to come rushing back as she flushed with rage. She shouted out a word I could not understand, and sunlight blazed down from the heavens, knifing through the trees. I threw myself back away from it, knowing it meant to do me harm.

Silver light and billowing shadows exploded outward, and I was thrown on my back, the wind knocked out of me. Gasping, feeling as though a thousand knives had pierced my chest and drained every last bit of breath from my lungs, I looked up and saw that Oberon had thrown his hands out to either side and that his fingers were curled into claw-like cups from which issued moonlight in wave after wave. The bright golden sunlight broke against him and was rebuffed, sending the Queen staggering back. I saw an expression of shock open her mouth in a wide "o" and saw her eyes wide and staring, but then a figure blocked my sight.

Robin's rough hands and strong fingers bruised my arms as he pulled me away. I looked over my shoulder and saw the vulpine faces of those in the queen's train snarling at Oberon, their bows strung and arrows nocked, and then I was in a grove of thick-grown trees.

"Grab the madness," he hissed to me, breathing quickly. "The Erlking is alone and cannot stand so long – he needs me – grab the madness so you'll be safe, and run!"

I did as he told me.

The world burst into light as I saw through the shadows, and I pushed myself out of Robin's arms. He dropped me as soon as I did so, then went down on one knee, turned to the nearest tree, and slapped his hand against the bark.

A pulse emanated from him and rippled through the forest, rushing through and past me like a wind. I stumbled as I was buffeted by it, and then I was running as Robin had told me. I heard sounds from the direction I was heading, shouting and bellowing, and I saw trees moving.

I blinked and realized I'd been wrong – they were Urden, not trees. They'd been here waiting all along. I threw myself to the side and hid in the shelter of a thick, low-set oak, as the Urden crashed past me in the direction of Robin and the Erlking. My breathing ripped through my chest like fire, and I staggered back to my feet and kept running, moving through the forest.

There was more sound, and then an explosion of light that sent a percussive wave through the forest and knocked me to the ground, where my face slammed into dirt and my ribs cracked against a thick root.

Pain exploded in my chest and the air was pushed out of me in a rush. I tried to stand again, but with no air in me my mind reeled and I lost control of the madness and myself. My legs gave out and I crashed down once more, this time at the foot of a tree. I crawled into the nest of thick roots the ancient oak had grown, and curled into a ball, gasping for breath and hanging onto consciousness with the bare fingernails of my will.

I stayed there, unable to think, unable to move, as ringing filled my head. The blast of sound had knocked out my hearing, and as it slowly returned I could make out distant rumbling, and then shouts, and then finally silence punctuated only by the wild winging beats of my own heart.

I saw figures move in the forest in front of me and scrambled back against the roots, trying to grab for the madness and wrap the shadows around me as I had done before, but failing, my mind too scattered.

The looming figures appeared, coming from the shadows, and revealed themselves as Urden. I felt the tension drain out of me, but not entirely, and then I saw Oberon striding behind them. I thought they all might walk by me, not seeing where I'd chosen to hide, but this time the Erlking scanned the trees and saw me immediately. He strode toward me and my anxiety peaked again.

He stopped, knelt down on one knee, and looked through the roots and shadows to where I hid.

"Here," he said calmly, gesturing to me that I should come to him. I did, unable to stop myself from shaking. I clenched my fists tight to try and hide my fear, but I knew he saw it. He didn't mention it, though – perhaps he thought well of me for trying to control it.

"Where is Robin?"

"I don't know – he wasn't here – he went back for you –"

I realized a second too late that I had forgotten to address him as the Erlking, but he didn't seem to care. His eyes were scanning the forest around us with a measured intensity, and I realized that I was not his main concern.

I looked around too, turning in place, but I saw no sign of him. I tried half-heartedly to grab the madness again, but knew even before I did that I wouldn't be able to grasp it. I was too spent.

There was a sound to my left, toward where She had been, and I turned around to peer through the shadows of the trees.

"Robin," Oberon said; I thought I almost caught a hint of relief in his voice. He brushed past me and I quickly followed him.

The Puck was stumbling toward us with none of his usual grace, and I saw an Urden at his side, helping him along.

"This Urden thinks he is well," said the hulking figure, bowing his head slightly as he addressed Oberon. "He was dazed – this Urden did not see a blow, but he was on his back. There were Sun creatures near him, but they ran when this Urden came after them."

Robin pushed himself away from the hulking Fae and shook his head. Oberon went to his side, and to my shock he reached out and grabbed Robin by the shoulders, placing one hand gently beside his head.

"My gentle Puck," he said softly. "You are not free to leave me yet."

Robin shook off the King's hands with a grimace of pain, but also a wry chuckle. Oberon turned to the Urden and spoke to it, telling it to gather the others and giving it details of where to patrol, so that he didn't see what happened next.

Robin looked up at the Erlking and his eyes flashed a deeper gold; in their depths I saw a spark of hatred light a flame that roared across his face. The strength of it, the power and vehemence, was so intense that it was like a flash of lightning. It was tenfold what I had seen before, and equally more dangerous, as if the hatred he had held coming into the forest had been distilled and fortified.

And then it was gone, seamlessly tucked away as if it had never been. Robin's eyes continued their journey past the King's face and came to land on me, where they froze, and I froze with them. In that instant an understanding passed between us: we both knew that I had seen that look, and we both knew that if I ever spoke of it, I would not live to see another day.

He looked away, engaging with the Erlking, and I had to stop my knees from buckling. What was happening? Into what had I been thrust? Why did Robin now hate Oberon more than he had before? Who was She?

"Go," Oberon said to the Urden, dismissing them. His voice brought me out of my stupor and I looked up to see him looking down. For a long moment he simply held my gaze, and I realized he must be deciding what to do with me. The forest's temporarily imposed silence was over now, and the chirping of insects and the distant cry of an owl passed between us and filled the air.

"Follow me," he said finally, and left in a swirl of his dark cloak.

I did as commanded, falling into step behind him, Robin at his right shoulder and I at his left. I was so close that I could have reached out and touched his cloak if I had wanted to. My fingers itched to do it.

"You're ... not going to punish me?"

"How could he?" Robin smirked, his usual demeanor returned. It was as if nothing had happened – as if he'd always been the cheerful, jovial fool that Oberon seemed to expect him to be. "You just accomplished for him what he's been trying to do for ages – provoked her to breach the Treaty. It isn't broken, but now Gwyn will have to side with us and she'll be the odd one out."

"What?"

"Never mind," Oberon said. "And no – I will not punish you for curiosity. You're a changeling – it's in your blood."

"Besides," Robin said with a grin, "the Ilyn will tan your hide as it is for shirking your responsibilities. Whatever chore you left undone so you could follow us will come back to haunt you in the end."

"I don't have chores anymore," I said haughtily, resenting the implication that I was a lackluster member of the Bower. "Otherwise I would not have come."

Both men stopped and turned to look down at me. I had grown, but I would never be a tall woman, and though Robin was only of moderate height, both men still loomed over me. A long moment passed as they regarded me with incredulity and amusement; I tried not to blush with embarrassment under their scrutiny, but instead stood there looking back at them with square shoulders and a set jaw.

"She's changed," the Puck said, his voice neutral but his expression dark. What could he be thinking?

"Robin," Oberon said abruptly. "Go on ahead."

"Certainly, shadowy king of shadowiness. Come along, changeling."

"Leave the girl with me."

Both Robin and I looked at the Erlking in surprise, neither of us quite believing he had said what we thought he'd said. A moment passed that way, with all of us frozen in place, and then Robin and I looked at each other. Once again the understanding passed between us: His eyes held my death in them if I spoke of what I'd seen, and that was enough reason for me to stay quiet.

"As the King of Shadows commands," he said abruptly, sweeping a mock-bow to Oberon and then blowing a raspberry when he was in the depths of it. The Erlking smiled indulgently, and then the Puck was gone, disappearing into the shadows.

I swallowed, unable to understand why I had been asked to stay behind.

"As I said," Oberon spoke, his voice calm and solemn, all fire gone out of it, "your curiosity is what makes you mine. Speak – you have until we return to the Bower to ask whatever questions you have. You have done me a great service today – unintentional though your involvement may have been – and the fact you withstood her pull shows me that not only are you strong, but that you truly wish to be part of my world and not a part of hers. Ask. You have little time."

I swallowed again, my throat dry. Was this really happening? Was I in the middle of a fever dream and didn't realize it? What would I ask? What was most important? Where this place was, who that woman was, who he was, what the changelings were, what the madness was or where it came from, how he'd brought me here to begin with – No. More important than how –

"Why? Why did you bring me here?"

A ghost of a smile crossed the moonlit skin of his face and pulled at the corners of his dark lips. He turned his head slightly in his high-collared finery and looked down at me.

"You belong with us," was his only reply.

His gaze was steady and open, and I was drawn to continue.

"One of my parents...?"

He didn't nod, didn't say a thing. But his smile deepened the smallest fraction it could, and that was all the confirmation I needed. A thousand more questions blossomed in my mind, everything from who my parents might have been to why they hadn't kept me, but I knew that there was only so much time left before this font of knowledge was closed to me again. I had to order my thoughts; I had to ask the questions that needed to be answered.

"Why did I come to you and not to ... her?"

I didn't need to specify of whom I spoke. I think that if I ever have the chance to speak to him again, if I ever remember all of this and the way it ends and how to return to the Bower, he would still know who it was I meant if I said that word alone. She existed in the trees around us as we walked like a phantasmal specter, and I don't doubt that we both felt her presence. Looking back, I think maybe it was always like that for him. She was part of what defined him – she was his antithesis. They together formed a whole, their opposition giving weight and purpose each to other, and how he kept separate and away from her I will never know. Maybe that's why he rules the Bower – he has a strength of mind that none but he can understand.

He didn't respond at first, besides to look up and away. I thought maybe he would revoke his offer of answers, and I cursed myself for not asking more innocuous questions first. Having seen him lose control in that clearing should have been enough for me to realize that where she was concerned there were no guarantees that he would remain who he was.

I looked away and down at the path beneath my feet, trying to conceal my disappointment. The leaves crackled beneath me as we walked, and I realized that some of them were orange and red. I glanced up and saw that some of the leaves in the trees above us had turned color as if struck by sudden autumn. It hadn't been so when we'd come this way before. I thought of what Ai'Ilyn had said – that the forests changed beyond the clearing of the Bower.

"There are many creatures that exist along the fringes of the world. And there are others, not like us."

When he spoke I barely even heard the words enough to make sense of them, but was instead simply overwhelmed with a rushing sense of relief. When I focused on the words, I realized he was hardly speaking to me at all, and was caught in something akin to a private soliloquy, trapped in the box of his own thoughts and trying to give me what pieces I might understand.

"We were here at the same time everything else was. We're part of the world, but we were forced out of it. Now all that is left are realms that we made, realms that we control. Realms that others cannot enter."s

His gray-green eyes were far distant, and his pace had slowed. I could hardly breathe, barely dared to even try lest I disrupt him and bring him back to reality where he might realize what he was saying so openly.

"When men came, they took the land with iron and fire. Some of us fought, and when we did we were called demons and monsters and forced off our land into the deep forests. We fought back from the shadows, and they were forced to leave us be – I was young then. I was one of many, one of the pure Fae who had yet to intermingle with humanity."

His eyes were far away, but slowly he was coming back.

"Others did not fight. Others pretended to capitulate, and they joined to drive us deeper into the shadows, embracing the light instead, before they began to prey on the men when least suspected. It became a threefold war ... one that was never finished."

He blinked and shook his head.

"Those that you saw tonight are the others, the ones who did not fight with me," he said simply. He increased his speed to what it had been as we finished the final leg of the journey back to the Bower. The comforting starlight washed my skin and made me breathe easier, but my heart still thrummed a sharp staccato beat as I contemplated the question that he had left open, the one I had truly wanted to ask ever since I'd seen her. I took a shaky breath to steady myself, and imagined I even saw him tense as if waiting for a blow he had seen coming a long ways off, a blow he could deflect but one he allowed to land.

"But who is she?"

My voice came out squeaky and so small that I knew he could read my fear in the spaces between the words, and, more than that, could hear my ardent and anxious interest. I have never been good at concealing my emotions, and he missed none of them.

"She is the other half of my soul."

The answer, so simple and honest, at first made no sense to me. Surely a man like this, king of an otherworldly realm, would never say such a thing about someone he so obviously loathed and who hated him in return. But then I saw a flicker of pain cross his face, and the whole story came to me in solid outline:

He had loved her ... and he still loved her.

"Is?"

The single word question was out of my mouth before I could think through the implications of asking it, but when it was out there was nothing I could do but let it stand, cold and naked in the moonlight.

He stopped moving, and I tensed, sucking a quick rush of air into my lungs, every nerve on fire as I waited. But he didn't look at me at all, only stared out ahead of him.

I followed his gaze and saw that we had returned to the Bower. The moon was rising in the sky on the horizon, hanging full and heavy like a ripe melon. The enormous tree and all its strange inhabitants were gathering in the Hollowed Hall, the night's work about to begin. Children would soon be filing out of their rooms and moving about the Bower as the Ilyn and other Fae went about their business. A small breeze blew and stirred the edges of the scene to give it life and light, like a painting made to breathe. He was staring out at all of this with unwavering intensity, and his normally impassive face was changed. A line had creased his forehead, a vertical line that went between his brows and made the smooth, unwrinkled skin pucker. It wasn't worry, nor fear, I am certain of that: it was the burning gaze of an ardent father who has been shown the face of the one who threatens his child, a father who had been made to remember that those he has raised and cared for are not safe – shown that wolves circle the pastures and bandits line the roads.

That was the first time I wondered if he himself had children, or if all that this was, all that the Bower had been created as, was a substitute for what his misguided love had never given him.

"Is."

The word came out like a hiss, but with rounded tones beneath that told me it was not anger that had narrowed his lips but a return to stoicism, a return to the closed nature of the Erlking, almost as much a symbol of his office as the crown of silver leaves that rested on his brow.

I had one more question, and having come this far, I knew I had to ask it.

"What is she called?"

An even longer silence extended between us, and this time I truly thought I would get no response. It was almost as if he hadn't even heard me – he just continued to stare at the Bower, silent and brooding.

I took an awkward step forward, shuffling far around him to the side, and began to make my way toward the Hollowed Hall.

"She calls herself Titania."

I froze.

"And if she had her way, most of you would be dead."

I turned back to look at him, and his eyes found mine, burning me where I stood.

"You and all that set foot here are hunted creatures. The Bower is a sanctuary – it is our temple to who we are, and rebellion against the rule of those who think that the sun and daylight should be the only powers in the world."

I didn't know what he meant then, but I understand it now. And even then, the way he said it, the sound of the words rolling off his tongue made me shiver, though the night was balmy and the brief breeze had died away; the skin all over my body dimpled with goose bumps, and I shivered against my will.

"All who seek refuge here are my children," he continued, each word warming me, holding me. "And I keep them here, for their own protection, until they are prepared to confront her on their own: to fight her if they can; to flee her if they must."

He knelt down, bringing his eyes level with mine.

"You are mine. Your curiosity is your power; the madness is your strength. Do not let thoughts of the sun drown out your love of the night, and do not let anyone convince you that gold is somehow purer than silver. You belong in the moonlight – all who come here do – and so long as you stay, I will protect you with my dying breath."

He rose up and walked away, leaving me where I was. He didn't even look back to see if I would follow him. There was no need – he knew I would.

I belonged in the moonlight.

I belonged in the darkness.

I belonged with him.

Chapter Fifteen: Faolan

When I returned to my room in the Bower tree, I sat down slowly and looked out the window. From this vantage point, I could see over the tops of the trees of the forest – of Arden – to the distant skies, to mountains that rose up, also covered with trees, and hills that seemed to roll on forever, fading away into the shadowy darkness that cloaked them. I knew now, with the undeniable certainty, that we weren't treated the way we were without reason.

Ionmar and Ai'Ilyn had given me the first glimpses of the answer, but I knew now that the true answer was one that we were supposed to discover for ourselves. That was why some left: they couldn't come to grips with knowing that we'd been saved from ourselves, knowing that without the Bower and our time as nestlings we never would have survived the madness.

It explained why Tristan had been consumed by it.

It explained why I'd survived.

For days after, I reveled in the knowledge that I belonged in the darkness. It was strange to think that anyone would want to live in the light, would want to live exposed and blinded. The shadows were comforting, and now clung to me like old familiar friends. Part of me had always been ashamed of that – the part of me that had grown up with the peasant families that shuffled me around. Crude and downtrodden as they had been, they had always spoke of light as good and darkness as evil, and I had always felt a wrenching in my stomach when I wanted to speak back but didn't.

I began to speak to the other Fae with none of the reticence that I'd first exhibited and was greeted with smiles and fierce congratulations. Some still handled me cautiously, mostly older Ilyn who had no doubt seen many like me leave when the deciding year was up, but even they watched me with growing approval.

I started to talk to others outside my group. The Urden were hard to speak with, and generally remained silent, but some of the Ilyn were talkative during meals. I asked them about what I might be able to do if I stayed in the Bower – and they gave me the answers readily, with eager excitement.

Some of them helped maintain and protect the forests, and others searched the world beyond for other changelings who might have been lost. Many helped run the Bower – organizing the Fae, repairing damage, training changelings. Some worked on the highest levels, the ones to which I'd never been, and though they were the most close-lipped about their experiences, they told me in broad terms that they explored the madness and of what it, and we, were capable.

Still more trained as warriors in the caverns below the Hall, and it was these that drew me most. They said they use staves and short wooden clubs, and one of them showed me a huge purple bruise forming along his upper arm. The only point when they grew silent was when I asked what it was they fought. One of them looked up over my shoulder, and I followed the gaze.

Ai'Ilyn stood behind me, and I felt the familiar cringe of fear in my stomach; but it was less than it had been, and I realized that it was quickly fading away entirely.

"What do we fight?" she asked, eyeing me sternly. She reached out a hand and I flinched back, but she was too quick. She caught me in a headlock and held me tightly. I fought back, reaching out to the madness, trying desperately to bring it to me –

"We fight nosy little changelings like you!"

She knuckled her fist against my head and made my hair stand up on end, then let me go with a playful push. I fell back against the table, shocked and breathing heavily, to the laughter of the older Ilyn. She winked at me and turned to go, and I saw her moving back toward the kitchens, where I knew Faolan and Aelyn must be eating.

Those changelings who had stayed, those children who we'd thought had disappeared, had of course not disappeared at all, and I met a handful of them. Some had left, that was true – some had been unable to accept the reality of the world into which they'd been born, and they'd left cursing their parents or cursing Oberon, or sometimes both; but others had left intentionally, left to guard against those who would intrude against the Bower, who intended to do it harm. When they told me about that, I could hear the name of the Queen in the background behind the words, but I never let on that I knew that she existed. It seemed that this was something I was still not to know, and for once I was content to let it lie.

Some had gone to join Gwyn ap Nudd and the Wild Hunt; others had gone far abroad, travelling wherever the madness took them and returning to taste the moonlight when they'd done so. I met one of these, a Fae who had the blood of a sylph, one of the insubstantial wind sprites from which Durst and others came. His name was Alon, and he faded constantly in and out of sight as we spoke, his words like wind playing over reeds. He told me that the forests of the whole world were connected, like a single living being, and that the Erlking ruled the deeper parts, the parts where shadow and moonlight reigned, and that other parts were covered in sunlight, and still others in pitch-black darkness.

I became engrossed with the Bower itself.

Something about the madness put me and all the other Fae in tune with the giant tree. When the fever was on me, or when I had summoned it up, I could place my hand against the wood and feel a deep, steady throbbing like a pulsing heartbeat. I ran through the corridors sometimes, seeking out unused passages when the moonlight ceremony was happening, or sneaking away from the Calling ceremony while everyone was engaged, so that I could race from top to bottom with no obstruction, my heart pounding and chest tight. The wood was thick and steady beneath my bare feet, and the air made my skin feel smooth and tight.

I started going to sleep at night grinning uncontrollably, imagining the future, imagining the possibilities of my life. It was strange, thinking back to how I'd felt only several months before, thinking back to how angry I'd been at Ai'Ilyn when she'd first told me the truth. I thought myself very mature for getting over all of that nonsense.

I was somewhere on the far side of thirteen by that point, possibly even fourteen already – I don't know exactly when I was born. Each of us who'd gone through the madness had matured – the boys growing taller and wider about the shoulders, girls about the hips and chest – and I was no exception. There were times when I'd find myself wandering around unable to understand what was missing, why I felt like I'd forgotten something when I left my room, why it felt like I was missing an arm or a leg when I was walking through the upper pathways of the Bower, exploring where I'd never been allowed to go before.

I think a part of me always knew it was Faolan, but until then I'd forced the idea to the back of my mind and left it there to gather dust. When we'd first arrived we'd been ten years old and worried for our lives – I doubt either of us had ever thought of anything but the day in front of us.

But now I knew my future. Now I knew that I would live here in the Bower – I knew the answers to the questions that had so long plagued me, about where I would go, about what I would grow up into, about where I belonged in a world that seemed to have no place carved out for me.

And I wanted him to know those answers too. I wanted to share all of that with him and talk about what we were going to do.

But I couldn't.

Aelyn went through the madness a few days after my trip through Arden with the Erlking and Robin, but despite all speculation that Faolan would come soon after, weeks later he remained by far the oldest nestling. As time stretched out and he continued as he was, there was talk that made my skin itch from the inside.

Nothing overt was said. Even though the new changelings were all accepted among the Ilyn and other Fae now, we were still kept in the dark about certain things. It was made quite clear that should we stay after our year was up – one year, no more no less – and our decision to stay was made official, we would be privy to all the knowledge the others had. There was no menace to them now, besides the natural annoyances that come with different personalities, and no animosity.

But still, the sense of uneasiness about Faolan prevailed.

Every time he was brought up in conversation between Gwen, Brandel, and me, some of the Ilyn would look at each other and pass between them a glance they thought we couldn't see. I became an expert at catching such looks from the corner of my eye, and soon Gwen and Brandel were seeing them too. They both seemed less and less certain with each passing day that everything was going to be fine with him, but neither of them wanted to discuss it openly.

"We have to trust them," Gwen said stubbornly.

"Brandel, you don't think that way too, right?"

"Well ... I think I do."

"That's ridiculous! You're curious about everything –"

"Mol, stop it!"

I fell silent and drew back into myself, realizing that I'd been speaking far too loudly. Brandel grimaced and looked to Gwen, then looked back at me, his long blonde hair pulled back behind his head so that his clear blue eyes could better protrude from their wide sockets.

"There's nothing to do," he said quietly, much more intensely than he usually spoke. "Think about what would have happened if we'd tried to do something before we went through the madness. We would have ruined everything, right? What happens if we do something like go tell him and it turns out that's the reason he doesn't change? Maybe the secrecy really is all part of it, and maybe it's a really important part of it."

I felt a cold fist of dread settle in the pit of my stomach but I swallowed hard and shook my head, banishing the feeling.

"That can't be it."

"I know, it sounds stupid," he admitted, looking a little guilty for coming up with something even he didn't think was really plausible. "The point is the same – we need to trust them."

"But if we could just –"

"Are you sure you don't just want to see him?"

I froze in mid-sentence as Igrin's voice came from behind me. Gwen's eyes went very wide and Brandel choked on the grape he was eating. I turned slowly to see that she was eating at the table behind us with Aelyn and a number of older Ilyn I didn't know yet. She looked amused, but not in the way she would have been if Tristan were still around.

"You have a big thing for him, and we all know it. I bet even he knows. He should unless he's totally blind."

Total mortification washed over me.

"That's not it at all," I protested immediately, my cheeks warming with a different kind of fever. "He's my friend and I want him to be all right."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Just don't be stupid. You know everything they do is for a reason – you always told us that and you were right, so ... yeah."

I didn't know what to say, so I did the only thing that seemed logical: I walked away. She was right; I knew she was. But it was Igrin. I wouldn't admit she was right if my life depended on it.

The year I'd been given to make my decision was almost up by then – I had two months and a few days left. Faolan was the only one still unchanged. I started watching him when I could, trying to find evidence that the madness would come soon. At least, that's what I told myself. I think I even believed it. The best excuses are the ones we give ourselves.

He was beautiful. Boys aren't supposed to be beautiful, but he was. I don't know why it took distance for me to see it. The other girls talked about it too, and the boys made fun of them, but it wasn't just our group. The other changelings saw him too, and soon he was known almost universally. I don't know if he ever knew that he was talked about that way. He was all alone, completely isolated, and Ai'Ilyn devoted her whole being to him. Knowing what I knew, I could see that she was getting desperate as well. She worked him harder, pushed him to gather more moonlight, corrected his smallest mistakes. He took it all with a stoicism that even I might not have managed, and still he didn't change.

I knew that I could see him again. I'd been to the old room once, and now that Aelyn was changed he was alone at night. The thought of it made me flush, and I made sure not to let it happen when I was around others. I was scared of the possibility too, because I knew if I found a night when Ai'Ilyn was away and I snuck in, there would be nothing to make me leave again. I thought about it over and over again, alternately consumed and repelled by the idea, thinking it was so far beneath me to do something like that, thinking that he may not even have the same thoughts ...

Thinking that he was running out of time.

No one spoke clearly to us about what would happen if he didn't go through the madness, but there seemed to be a consensus that if he didn't, he would disappear. The more dire of the rumors I dismissed – those that said he was to be killed or taken with Gwyn ap Nudd to the realm of the dead – but the idea that he might be taken back to the human realm and released there seemed like a very real possibility to me.

I felt as though two versions of me were fighting a battle inside my head, to the point where I'd lay awake at night, stand up and go to the door, turn back, go to the window, walk out the door, turn back and get into bed, get up and a punch a wall, go back to bed, sit up and think some more. I remembered the feel of his breath on my neck as I whispered into his ear that we would see each other again soon, the way we'd been so close, the way he'd look at me with his hazel eyes. I would feel so warm I'd have to push the blankets off of me and lay in the cold air, burning like a furnace. I analyzed every moment we'd spent together with a kind of feverish intensity, like an alchemist trying to find the way to turn lead into gold; I was hopelessly unable to decipher his silent looks and his quiet smiles. I could read him like a book in every way but this.

I was out of my bed and at the door before I'd realized I'd made a decision. The air was cold enough that I shivered in my thin silk clothing, feeling it pull against my chest and press against my skin. I tried to ignore the steady ache that seemed to have encompassed me.

I turned back half a dozen times. I knew my plan was terribly half-baked. If I was caught I might be punished, changeling or no changeling; but every time I turned back, I couldn't take more than two steps before I was once more on my way.

With every step my heart beat harder. My lips felt cold and tight and my bare feet were numb against the Bower floor, even as my head felt far too hot.

I reached the long hallway I remembered so well and paused only once more. There was no one there; Ai'Ilyn had gone off wherever she went at night. She might return the next minute, or she might be several hours.

A lot could happen in several hours.

I blinked and was in front of the curved doorway. I stopped only long enough to take a deep breath. I dropped the Ilyn illusion that covered me, letting the flaky white skin with the blue-black patches fade away, and stepped through the passageway, turned into the room.

He was sitting up, staring at me.

I froze. All thought blanked out and I was left with only sensations. There was just enough light coming through the high window that we could make out the vague impression of each other's faces. His eyes widened when he saw me enter, but otherwise he remained still.

"Why are you awake?" was what finally came out of my mouth.

"I was thinking about you."

Coils of white-hot energy shot through my body, racing around the curves of my fingertips and lancing straight back into the hot center of my chest, catching my heart off guard and forcing it to skip a beat. I swayed slightly, knowing now that if I stepped toward him what I wanted to happen would happen.

He took the choice away from me. He came forward as silent as a shadow, not even hesitating. His eyes were gathering the starlight and I saw a flash of deep gold-green before he was too close and my eyes had to unfocus.

When he reached for me I didn't protest. One hand went to my cheek and I almost melted at the touch, heat rushing through me from his fingers. All I saw were his eyes burning in the dying light. His other hand touched the bare skin my changeling clothing revealed, his fingers trailing to the top of my hips.

I grabbed a handful of his hair as he kissed me.

His lips burned against mine and the breath was pulled from my lungs. I pressed myself against him, feeling the rough pads of his fingers stroking the curve of my neck and his other hand moving down my back, over my waist, and down again, clutching me to him with a desperation that I returned with equal intensity. His shoulders were hard beneath his silk clothing and I clung to them, clutching at his back as I pulled his lips against my mine.

Noise.

I broke away from him immediately, pushing his hands down and away. He stepped away from me, looking wildly at the door. I reached out for the madness and the Ilyn disguise snapped into place around me.

Faolan stumbled back, shocked, and I felt cold dread settle over me. I dove into the corner of the room and did what I'd only done once before, when following Oberon and Puck: I wrapped myself in the dark shadows that cloaked the room, and disappeared from sight completely.

A figure came through the door, and my heart almost stopped.

"Ai'Ilyn," Faolan said, bowing his head to her in deference.

"Nestling," she said, watching him. She paused, confused, and I realized that if I didn't leave that instant, she was sure to find me. She would search every corner, I knew she would.

"What are you doing?"

"I ... I'm not sure, Ilyn. I ... think I was sleeping."

She was far enough away from the door that I slipped past her, my heart pounding in my throat. I heard her speaking more to him, and him saying something back, but then I was too far away and trying to calm my thoughts.

I slept not at all that night. Alternating waves of horror at what I'd revealed and intense desire to return and finish what I'd started warred inside me. I thought of what Brandel had said and tried to dismiss it. It couldn't hurt him that I'd revealed I was one of the Ilyn. It couldn't – the madness was in his blood. It had to come out.

The next day I went to see Ite'Ilyn as usual and could barely concentrate. I was utterly exhausted, and Ite'Ilyn told me to leave early, clearly disappointed in my progress. I didn't particularly care, though – he seemed to have nothing new to teach me. He only kept repeating the same lessons over and over again, insisting I could do them better.

I made my way down to the Hall in a haze of exhaustion that was not helped by the lightheaded feeling that came every time I thought of Faolan. I went to the refectory to gather my bowl of food and glass of water. None of the others were out of their own lessons yet, so I found a table on the far side of the Hall beneath the overhanging ledges of the hidden rooms that lined the walls and ate absently.

He entered from the cavern.

Ai'Ilyn was in front of him, and he was carrying a heavy basket strapped to his back. His face was grimy and dirty from the work of carrying the load up the long dirt inclines of the caverns below, but the exertion had brought a flush to his cheeks and the muscles of his arms stood out in sharp lines under the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt.

"Faolan," I whispered to myself.

I felt fever break over me, and the madness swirled out past my lips, taking the word. I broke the connection immediately, shocked and breathing heavily. He staggered suddenly under the weight of the load he carried, and his head turned toward me as if drawn by a magnet.

A pulse went through me as his eyes touched mine, and I knew that he recognized me, even with the Ilyn disguise in place. His nostrils flared and his eyes widened, but then Ai'Ilyn was calling him to hurry up and follow, and he was gone, disappearing into the kitchen.

I stood before I even thought about what I was doing.

I walked as casually as I could back toward the refectory, my finished bowl hanging in one hand. Every movement I made was awkward, and I thought everyone who looked at me knew exactly what I was thinking, though of course no one paid me so much as a second glance.

I moved through the door of the kitchen and handed my bowl to a nestling who passed me and called me "Ilyn." I moved toward the door to the eating place the children used, and saw that Ai'Ilyn wasn't outside. I looked over to the long rows of storage burrows and saw she was getting food there.

I moved as if in a dream. I was at the door of the room, and I looked in.

He looked up at me with no surprise at all.

My heart began to hammer inside my chest, and heat rushed through my body.

"Tonight after the Calling ceremony," I said quickly. "Come to the field. The spot we cleared that first night, back in the roots, the alcove. You remember?"

He nodded, a sharp jab of his head, his eyes never leaving mine.

"Meet me there."

I turned and left without a second look.

I watched the Calling ceremony that night with less than disinterest. I couldn't seem to hold a single coherent thought in my mind, but just slipped from one moment to the next. I stood with the changelings in my group, Brandel and Gwen and all the others, and we watched and listened as the Fae sang and danced. We still did not join – we still couldn't understand the words, though they hovered on the edge of understanding, and every month they became clearer and clearer. I knew that if we chose to stay, we would be one with it, and we'd make the music as well.

I know that Oberon called the children; I know that he asked the questions; I remember none of it. All that comes back are flashes: the singing, the raised sound of his voice, the singing again, and then the Fae splintering away into the night.

The next of what I remember, I was in the field, moving through the grass.

It had begun to rain. It happened sometimes in the Bower, often when the heat and humidity gathered and built and became so unbearable that something had to break. The water droplets hissed down from the sky, cloudy with moonlight, looking like falling stars. The trees stirred in a slight breeze, and the moon broke through the clouds now and again, the hot, sparkling shafts of light so intense on the night of the full moon that I could barely stand to look at them.

I moved around the side of the tree toward the place I had told Faolan about. The first night we'd been brought out to the field by Ai'Ilyn, the two of us had stumbled on a natural alcove that had been formed from the giant roots cascading over each other in beautiful symmetry. A mound of grass and dirt hid the entrance, but beyond them was a small, secluded spot overhung with roots that dripped moss and latticed overhead in a kind of roof.

I reached into my pocket and brought out the moonstone I carried with me. I touched the madness and ran my thumb over the stone's smooth surface, lighting it. The silver light cast stark shadows that moved with me.

I reached the turn and moved toward it, climbing the small mound and ducking beneath the arching root. I wondered if he'd even come – I wondered if he was already there – I wondered if I would wait in the rain and darkness and never hear from him again. I was almost sick with the anticipation, and I knew that this time we wouldn't stop, that this time there was no one to stop us, even though this whole scheme was madness.

But we were Fae. Madness was in our blood.

I ducked the final root, rose up into the clearing, and raised my moonstone high.

The silver light fell on Robin Goodfellow.

There is a hole in my memory here, full only with the deepest sense of loss that I can remember feeling. I still remember it, like a knife severing a major artery, the pooling sensation of something filling my body, drowning me as my own lungs rebelled and refused to fill with air. I remember the sensation of falling, though I was still standing. I remember the sight of his blood, black in the night but red where the moonlight from the stone touched it.

Robin was standing over a figure draped in the off-white clothing of a nestling. Black hair fell over the figure's head, and the legs and arms were splayed out in an unnatural way. In the light of the moonstone I held I could see dark stains on the body – stains that glistened red and matched the dark smears on Robin's clothing and hands.

Robin moved first, grabbing Faolan's body.

"Leave him! PUT HIM DOWN!"

The madness consumed me body and soul. It roared up and into my head and burnt away any last barrier I had that might keep it back. I didn't know what I was doing, but the words took on a life of their own and leapt from my mouth, rushing across the cloistered corner of the field; Robin was picked up and thrown backward into the heavy root-wall behind him. I heard him utter a muffled oath, more of surprise than anything else, and then I was running to the body.

I grabbed him in my arms. The blood was still warm. I looked up.

"Stay back," I hissed at Robin.

I saw him flinch, as if the words had actually struck him, but he kept his eyes on me and came forward again anyway.

"You need to leave," Robin said to me, savagely, "you need to leave now."

I couldn't speak, couldn't say anything. All throughout me the same thought just kept repeating itself over and over again.

He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. He's dead.

Rough hands grabbed my chin and lifted it so that I was staring into Robin's golden eyes. Something about the motion or the eyes pulled me out of my trance and I could hear what he was saying, could hear the words that he was repeating yet again.

"You need to leave. You weren't supposed to see this – I don't know what he'll make me do if he knows you saw. You need to go – you need to run as quickly as you can."

"DON'T TOUCH ME! YOU KILLED HIM!"

Golden light flashed in his eyes, and he snarled at me and threw his hands up over his head. A force rushed through me and crashed into him, but he spun and sliced through it, sending it rocketing past to crash against the sides of the alcove, and then the Puck was rushing at me and screaming right back, his face filling my vision.

"I would never have killed him – HE made me do it!"

"Faolan – Faolan would never –!"

"Not Faolan, you idiot, the KING!"

For the second time, my mind couldn't seem to absorb what was happening, and the next few seconds are lost to me. I don't remember seeing anything, don't remember feeling the rain that continued to fall on us through the latticed canopy though I knew later that all these things had happened because I was soaking wet and covered in blood.

"You need to go," Robin hissed again.

I remember saying something back, but the details are lost on me. All I really remember after that was Robin's voice, telling me over and over again to go, that I wasn't supposed to see this, that I shouldn't be here.

His fingers pried my hands away from the body, and I let Faolan fall to the grass. The moonlight that had illuminated his face not so long ago was gone; there was no luminescence to him now, no sign that he had meant something once. I pulled back. My hands made whispering noises as they ruffled his clothing, and the soft syllables mingled with the patter of the rain. My fingers missed his warmth immediately, but I did not stop the smooth motion of withdrawing from his empty body. He would cool soon, anyway. I stepped back, my bare feet squishing in the dirt that had turned to mud.

Robin stepped between me and the body and forced me out of the alcove.

I listened to the rain. There was no other noise.

Chapter Sixteen: Puck

Robin Goodfellow held my arm the entire way back to the Hall.

"Where is your room?" he asked, voice low and serious. I didn't answer; I don't know if I could have. "Where is it?" Still I said nothing. The question barely even registered with me. I knew he was speaking, but that was all.

"Damn it, girl!"

We ascended a staircase I didn't know that led to passages I'd never seen. I realized I was cold, and then also that we were both covered in blood and mud and rain. We arrived at a room somewhere high in the Bower, higher than I'd ever been before. It was much wider and fuller, with a nestle easily twice the size of mine.

Robin abruptly released me.

"Stay here," he said before he left again.

I don't know how long he was gone. I do know that when he came back he was in different clothing, and that there was another set in his arms.

"Change."

I did, not even thinking about the fact I was stripping naked in front of him until much later. When I was done, he took the clothes from me and bundled them inside out so that the mud and blood were on the inside. He walked to the side of the room and laid a hand against the smooth wood wall. He said something that had a peculiar sound, a sound that echoed the wind and rain outside, and then a small outline began to glow with silver light mixed through with veins of gold the color of his eyes. A piece of bark fell away and revealed a hole behind it. Robin shoved the clothing into it, then held the piece of wood up to where it had come from and the outline flamed back to life. When he released it and stepped back, the broken panel was once more part of the wall, without even a scar in the wooden flesh to show where the cut was made.

"Sleep here for the night," he said with ill-concealed annoyance.

"No," I whispered.

His golden eyes flashed and he turned to face me.

"Why were you there?" I asked.

"What?"

"I told him to meet me there. I told him we would meet ... why were you there?"

"I followed him," Robin said slowly, still watching me. I couldn't understand the strange look he was giving me, couldn't understand why his usually arrogant demeanor had turned to one of intense caution. And then something changed, something flickered inside him and he turned away. His shoulders tightened and he stood up straight, and the air of the room changed.

"Why did you follow him?"

He turned back to me, and now the air of caution was gone. Something had been decided.

"Because he was past his time," Robin said softly. "It was a mistake to bring him here. He will never go through the madness – he has Fae in him, but not enough that he can stay. The Erlking has no use for those who do not fit his perfect mold."

"He ... Oberon told you to kill ..."

My voice caught on the final word and I trailed off. I swayed dangerously and caught myself against the wall of the Bower.

"Stay here," he said softly. "The boy died in shadows, but the light will find him in the morning. I need to take care of it now, while it is still dark."

"No – I'm coming."

"No," he said sharply, standing up to his full height again, looking down his nose at me. His lips twitched, but he held himself together. "You're going to stay here. You'll only get in my way."

"I followed you," I said suddenly. "I've followed you before, too, remember?"

His eyes narrowed but he didn't speak further; he only watched me, suddenly wary.

"I know you want to leave," I continued, pressing my advantage, "I know it. I heard what you said to him – I heard him say he was keeping you here."

Surprise flashed over his face, sending his brows up and blinking his eyes, and then he narrowed in again, turning to anger, and I felt the first real emotion I'd had since seeing Faolan: fear.

This was Robin Goodfellow, the Puck, Oberon's right hand. What was I doing?

"I owe him allegiance," he said simply. "Nothing more. And it is none of your business."

"You're just his servant. His plaything. Just a murderer!"

"SHUT UP!"

The shout rocked me back on my heels and his eyes were blazing at me, his face drawn up in sharp lines that I was sure would somehow cut me if he came too close. His hands had balled into fists and he advanced on me, was so close now that if he chose to strike me he would knock me to the ground with little effort.

But at the last second he regained control. A shiver washed over him, throwing his black hair over his eyes and veiling his face from me. I realized he was embracing the madness, or else regaining control of it. He shook himself again, the thick black hair falling back, and then rolled his shoulders and his head, cracking his neck.

He spoke as he turned to go:

"I don't belong here. That is all you need to know."

"Then I don't belong here either!"

"Yes, you do." He stopped and turned back to me, looking me straight in the eye again and holding me with the intensity of his gaze. "You certainly do belong here."

"I need to leave," I pleaded. I don't know when I'd decided it, but I had. I wanted to run that very minute, wanted to leave and never look back. "I don't care whether or not I belong here – I don't want to be here, no more than you do!"

"Then leave!" he sneered at me, looking both amused and somehow achingly sad. "You'll be back in a matter of days, you'll get the beating, and you'll never try to leave again. No matter how far you go, no matter how fast you run, they will find you, like they always find everyone who runs, and that will be the end of it. All thoughts of flight will be long gone from your head, then. You spend a year deciding, no more no less. You can run when your time is up – not before."

"I want to run so that they won't catch me. There has to be a way. I can't stay here anymore – I can't!"

"There is no way," Robin said, shaking his head. "Now stay here. I have things to deal with."

He left before I could say another word. I ran across the room after him, but just before I was through the door, he slapped his hand to the side of the wall and whispered something in those hissing words I couldn't understand. The wall moved and snapped the doorway closed in front of me, trapping me in his quarters.

I slammed my fists against the wall and shouted at him, tearing my throat with the viciousness of the cry. I slammed my body into it, first my shoulder then my palms, then my feet, my elbows, everything over and over again until my skin was torn and bloody in a dozen places. I started crying at some point, sobbing, and then I remember sinking to the floor.

Faolan was dead.

I started howling again, trying to reject what I knew was true. I'd seen it, I'd seen Robin standing over him ...

Seen Robin doing what the Erlking had told him to do.

Sickness washed through me and I almost retched. I thought of him giving that order – the same Oberon that had told me he would save any who would come to his Bower – the same Oberon that had helped us through the madness –

The same Oberon that had been accused by the Queen of savagery.

He did it. Robin was the tool he used, but he was the one who'd killed Faolan. It was what they'd all been whispering about, what they all had refrained from telling us. It was the final secret, the one they'd keep hidden until we chose to join them and then we'd have no way to leave.

Some of the children never went through the madness.

I was on my feet and pacing about the room as the black thoughts swirled through me with gusting force. I could barely take a full breath – it felt as though my diaphragm had contracted so that my lungs were only half their normal size.

I thought of kissing Faolan, thought of how much I wanted him.

I screamed at the top of my lungs and slammed myself against the nearest wall.

I had to see it. I had to see the body. I had to know it was real. I had to see it again. I had to know. I had to – had to be there – I had to –

The rambling in my head turned to madness as the fever encompassed me, roaring up to turn my skin into a blazing furnace. I blinked, and suddenly the fire was in my eyes, where it had never been before. At first I didn't understand it, and then I saw the details of the Bower. The wood was no longer just wood – it crawled with life and power. The grains were swirling currents in a huge rushing river of madness, just waiting to be directed, just waiting for me to jump into the river and be carried away.

I reached out and touched the wall that blocked the doorway.

Heat left my hand in a rush and melted into the wood, but then came rushing back. There was a music to it, a song that sounded like what the Fae sang at the Calling ceremony. It was wind and rain and growing trees, rustling leaves, all of it wrapped up together, a song that drove the spheres and echoed through my blood.

I opened my mouth and sounds came out that made no sense, sounds that were wrapped around the haunting, terrible melody.

The wood shifted, then retracted into the wall, leaving my way free.

I ran through the Bower, rushing for the Hall. I passed through it all without seeing, and then burst out into the field. The rain had stopped and the clouds were dissipating. I thought wildly about how long I'd been trapped in Robin's room and realized I had no sense of the time I'd lost, had no sense of really anything.

I lit my moonstone and ran again for the alcove, my whole body aching.

Robin was there – but Faolan was gone.

"Where is he?" I hissed immediately, rushing forward.

Robin jumped back, shock crashing through the carefully neutral mask he'd been wearing just seconds before, and I actually felt him grab the madness inside himself. It was like there was suddenly more to him – like he had more weight.

"How did you – how are you –?"

"Where is he?!"

"He's gone!"

"No – NO! Show me the body. I don't believe you that he's dead. He can't be dead!"

I rushed him and tried to slam my fist into his face. He stepped aside easily and threw me to the ground. He slammed his own fist into the place where the ribs meet on my chest, knocking the wind out of my body.

I rolled over, gasping for breath, stars winking at the edges of my vision.

He began to walk away, and I scrambled to my knees.

"Stop following me."

"No – no! If he's dead then – then we need to do something!"

"There is nothing we can do."

"He made you do it – the King – it's his fault."

"Yes, but it doesn't matter."

"He needs to pay!"

Robin spun around and faced me again, and I realized in the brief second it took for him to respond that I truly meant what I'd said. All the respect and wonder and even love I'd felt for the Erlking was gone, replaced by blinding hatred. I think he saw it in my eyes, and I think the force of it scared even him.

"No," he said. "You have no idea who he is."

My heart was pounding in my throat. I grasped desperately for the madness, but it wouldn't come – it had gone with my breath. It came and went as it wanted – I was its servant, not its master.

He knows something about Oberon – he knows something!

"Who is he, then?"

He made no move or sound, only continued to watch me. I gasped and continued, pushing on as best I could.

"Where is he from? Is he truly the father of all the others, or is he just a changeling, like us?"

Robin's whole body tensed, and he rushed forward. His hands grabbed me and pulled me close, and a sudden pure sense of violence consumed me. His breath was hot on my face, and his golden eyes were all I could see.

"I am not a changeling."

His fury was palpable. I was too shocked even to think – he was so close and the danger in his eyes so clear that all I knew was that I had to escape. I pulled back against his arms with all my strength, but he held me as easily as he might a struggling kitten. I could tell from his eyes and from his posture that I was almost nothing to him – less than nothing. What I had said, though ... what I had said certainly seemed to be important.

"I am not a changeling. I am not one of his children. I don't belong here – I never belonged here – and don't for a second think that somehow that fact brings us closer. You are an ant to me, a worm, and while Oberon may have power over me, it is only because I choose to allow him such!"

He released me and I stumbled away.

"I keep my word, even if it's given to someone not worthy of my service."

Gasping, I clutched at my neck, trying to massage away the pain that encircled my throat like a fiery vice.

"I knew it," I gasped. "I knew you wanted to escape."

His eyes widened in surprise, and I couldn't help but feel surprised as well. Where had that come from? I realized that the healthy fear I'd always harbored toward Robin had been momentarily pushed aside by the shock of what he'd done, and I realized too that if I was to ever have a chance of getting answers from him, answers of whatever kind they might be, I had to continue, or he wouldn't wait for me to run away to see me beaten to a bloody pulp.

"He killed Faolan," I said, my voice catching. I bore down on my back teeth to stop the tears that threatened to flow. "And he couldn't even do it himself! He sent someone else to do it! I don't know what you are, but you just told the truth. I'm one of the changelings, I know that. But you're not. You weren't meant to be someone's boy, even if that person is the Erlking. I don't know what you are – but you're more than that. Aren't you? Aren't you?"

He was staring at me now, transfixed, and I felt the words continue to pour out of me, a huge rushing torrent unlike anything I'd ever spoken.

"And the only thing that is keeping you here is something I don't understand. I've been turning it over and over in my head ever since I saw you. You don't fit. The Ilyn fit, the Urden fit, the Sylphs fit, even the Paecsies and the Caelyr fit, but you don't. And you want to leave – I can see it. I can see you hate him, it's all over you– I know you want to leave, I know it down in my body somewhere like I know how to breathe! So that means you can't. You can't leave, and that makes no sense because I've seen what you can do – I saw you mock Gwyn ap Nudd without even thinking about it! So there has to be something you can't do. There's something you need someone else for."

I stopped, gasping for breath, my raw throat burning and swollen. He was staring at me as if he'd never seen me before, and I couldn't let up. I knew that I'd hit on something in the midst of my rambling. The madness still hadn't come to help me, but I didn't need it now. I knew what to do, knew what to say, because I'd already figured it out, all on my own.

"You need a changeling," I continued, slower now, marveling at the knowledge. As soon as I'd said the words, his face twitched, almost as if I'd struck him.

"You need a changeling to help you break whatever promise you made," I said, breath slowing but only at a glacier's pace as I started to bring myself under control. "The promise that keeps you bound to Oberon. You need a changeling to help you break it – you need one of us to do something you can't do."

Robin's eyes had narrowed and he stood impassive. He'd regained control of his composure as I fell silent, and his face had become completely inscrutable. I wished again for the madness, but I wasn't even sure that would help. Whatever Robin was, he must have some way around the madness to keep him unreadable.

"You swear that he made you do this?" I asked, forcing the words out.

Robin's face twitched again and settled into a mask of disdain so deep I couldn't begin to fathom it.

"You overheard us talking when you followed us?"

"Yes."

"Then you know he did. I do whatever he tells me. Whatever he tells me."

"Then he needs to pay."

His golden eyes were gleaming in the moonlight, and I stared right back at him. The fear and apprehension were gone completely; they had been leeched from me when Faolan died. I would never be afraid like that again – I would rather die than be afraid.

"What are you prepared to do?" he asked.

The question came with no preamble – nothing about his impassive demeanor changed; his lips had barely even moved as the words came forth, almost drawn from the air itself.

"Whatever is necessary," I said, never breaking eye contact.

He continued to regard me with impersonal detachment, a giant studying a mildly interesting insect. Slowly his eyes moved from my eyes downward, but he wasn't looking at my body. I could feel his gaze on the inside of my skin, like heat building inside a closed room, trying to get out.

"You can't help me like you are," he said, his mouth twisted in more than slight contempt. "You don't have nearly enough control of the madness. You're not even holding it now."

"You can't hold it all the time," I spat at him, not bothering to control the venom in my voice.

"I do," he spat back, mocking me by imitating my voice. The heat of his gaze blazed hotter and I realized he was telling the truth. He looked me up and down again, faster this time, simply confirming what he'd seen. "You're half-trained at best. You've been coddled by the Ilyn."

"I've been trained by Ite'Ilyn himself."

"The best half-wit is still a half-wit."

"Then you train me."

His eyes tightened at the edges and I felt the thrill of victory as he paused. He was considering it. "There are two months left until my year is up," I said. "You can teach me whatever I need to know. Whatever it is, I'll learn it."

"Some things are impossible for changelings," he said.

I took another step, staring him down.

"Not – for – me."

A long moment passed between us, and I knew by the fact he hadn't left that he was thinking everything over, examining my proposal from every angle, looking for flaws. But the silence lengthened, and I felt a thrill of hope rush through my blood as he continued to stare. My eyes began to water, but I didn't dare blink. He may have been devoted to mischief and mockery, but his cleverness, cunning, and sheer determination were what made him powerful – what made him devious.

"Grab hold of the madness," he said suddenly.

Unquestioning, I did it. I felt the pressure on the sides of my head, the soaring in the pit of my stomach, and the jittery energy in my lungs that wouldn't allow me to take a full breath.

"Hold out your hands."

He held out his own, upper arms bent at his sides, forearms perpendicular to his body, palms facing up. I copied him.

He stepped forward and reached a hand inside his sleeve.

Pain slashed both my hands, and blood began to flow from two slim, shallow cuts running across my palms. I gasped and flinched in surprise, but whatever he'd used to do the cutting disappeared in the same quick motion and I held my ground.

My blood glistened in the moonlight like dew.

"Swear that you will tell no one what has happened this night," he said.

"I swear I will tell no one."

Robin held out his own hands and I saw his skin gape open of its own accord in the same slim cuts he'd carved in my skin. His hands descended on mine, mingling our blood, and a flare of heat passed between us that left me gasping. I looked up into his eyes, and saw him staring at me with a gaze so intense it was like looking at the sun.

"Swear that you will tell no one of this conversation, any conversation that shall follow between us, and nothing of what we plan to do."

I swallowed hard.

"Only if you swear I'll have revenge for Faolan."

Something behind Robin's eyes shifted, and his hands curled around mine until he was gripping me so tightly that it hurt.

"You don't trust me?" he murmured.

"No," I said back.

"I swear you'll have your revenge," he said. "Now you."

I paused, but then pushed on recklessly.

"I swear I will tell nothing of us or what we plan."

Heat rushed through me in one huge wave, sweeping from my head to the tips of my fingers and toes, before pooling in my chest where it coiled around my heart. As soon as the heat had left my extremities, an equally shocking cold set in, making me shiver uncontrollably.

Robin stepped forward, still grasping my hands in his. He was now so close that I could smell the raw masculine scent of him. I was shaking, the tremors of the vow we'd taken together still rushing through my body like earthquake aftershocks.

"I will work you until you would rather die than live another minute," he said. "You will come to me every day, and every day I will work on you until you either improve or you are reduced to the sniveling pile of useless flesh I still suspect you are."

"And then?" I asked, investing the question with as much arrogance as I could muster, as if his threats hadn't shaken me to the core, as if I wasn't doubting the wisdom of what I'd just done.

A small smile quirked the corner of his mouth.

"And then we kill a king."

Chapter Seventeen: Apprentice

I did as Robin said.

For the next two months I did not think of anything but pushing myself. I stopped going to Ite'Ilyn, save for one last time when I told him that I'd found another tutor. He looked confused, but then nodded and wished me luck. I don't know how he really felt about it – I don't know how often such things happened. I wasn't in much of a frame of mind to care.

I saw Robin every day, sometimes twice.

The training could not have been more different. Ite'Ilyn was kind, patient, and pleased with any progress I made. He demanded of me only what I could handle, and only pushed me when he knew I could be pushed. He treated me like a prized doll that, with careful handling, would become tempered to the point where it need not be handled with delicate care.

Robin never spent a single moment with me in which he did not attempt to break me. The first day I entered his room he struck me in the back and sent me sprawling to the floor. In the next instant he was on top of me, holding me down.

"That was laughably easy," he said, digging his knee into my back. I gasped at the pain and dug my nails into the wood of the floor. "What you and I are attempting to do is something that will have us strung up and killed if we fail. There will be no beating for us, no punishment. And if you continue to walk around without holding the madness there's no chance we'll be able to do any of it."

He stood up, releasing me, and I pushed myself to my feet. As soon as I was standing, he swept my legs out from under me and deposited me back on the floor.

"Are you deaf or stupid?" He was sneering down at me, and my apprehension and fear disappeared in a quick flare of anger. I grabbed for the madness and felt the fever wash over me. I knocked his leg aside, rolling out of his range, and came to my feet on the other side of the room.

"Better," he grunted. He turned to the door and slapped his hand against the wooden side. Holding the madness as I was, I saw the Bower's energy flow into him and his energy flow out to it, and then the wood flowed and moved, growing over the entrance to the room and sealing us in, covering the window behind us, and also lighting the room's moonstones to give us light.

"What does Ite'Ilyn do with you?"

His voice was flat and bored – the question was perfunctory, as if he didn't care but knew he had to ask.

"Control," I said slowly, still on guard. "He teaches how to control the madness and how to walk softly and bend twigs without breaking them –"

"Oh, by the blood, no wonder you're awful."

He came forward until he was too close to me, but I didn't move back.

"You don't have to control the madness," he said, his voice a soft whisper as he caressed the words, "the madness is a part of you. You don't have to control the fact you have eyes, you just use them. You don't control breathing, you just breathe."

I didn't respond but watched him carefully, ready for him to turn violent again at any moment. He watched me for another few breaths, and then with no further preamble turned away and walked back across the room.

"You'll understand or you won't. It makes no difference. Let's begin."

I nodded, breathing easier now that he was across the room from me.

"Ite'Ilyn has me begin with –"

"Fuck Ite'Ilyn."

He turned back to me, the danger in his voice silencing me and putting every nerve in my body on edge. I felt like a raw piece of flesh after everything I'd gone through, and I knew it would only get worse.

But the only way out was through.

"Hit me," he said, still standing with his weight off-center on one leg, looking completely bored.

I swallowed hard and rolled my shoulders. Fine – he wanted me to hit him, I'd bloody hit him. I came forward slowly, watching him, waiting for him to move, but he just examined his fingernails and rolled his eyes.

"By the blood, I don't have all night. Either do it or go play with some dolls."

My blood boiled and I rushed him, throwing a fist in the vague direction of his face. He barely even moved aside, just shifted his weight and stuck out his knee. I went flying into the wall behind him and slammed my face into the wood. Pain blossomed in my nose and I cursed loudly, trying to feel if I'd broken anything. My nose sent out a nasty jolt of pain when I touched it, but everything seemed to be intact.

"You're too slow. Try again."

He'd moved to the center of the room, where he stood straddling the cutout where rested his extra wide bed. I rushed at him again, and once more he slipped away to the side and sent me flying with barely any effort.

"It's good that you're angry," he said, speaking softly and almost to himself. "He made me kill your friend. He's made me kill many people ... and I'm angry too."

I rushed him once more, yelling and screaming now, clawing at the air. He dodged back, but this time I kept after him, slowing up just in time. He dodged again, took a hold of my shirt, and threw me sprawling to the ground.

He continued as if nothing had happened. "I've been angry for as long as I can remember. And I'll be angry until I get my revenge, just like you want to have yours. But if you act out of anger, the madness takes over."

He picked me up by the scruff of my thin shirt, digging it into my chest so that it hurt terribly. I thought for a minute that he would rip it off to humiliate me, but he only used it to right me and then send me stumbling away as he gave me a sharp push.

"Insanity is an excellent servant, but a horrible master."

I turned back to him, breathing heavily, not knowing what to do. There was a huge well of emotions in me that were all confused and jumbled up together. The image of Faolan kept flashing across my mind, and I felt simultaneously like screaming and sobbing.

"You're seeing him now, aren't you?"

I didn't respond.

"It's good. You need to remember his face. You need to remember the blood that soaked your shirt, the way his body started to cool in your arms."

"And how about the person who actually killed him?" I snarled.

"I would never have been there if I hadn't been forced to do it," he snarled back.

"You haven't proven any of what you're saying."

"You have the proof – you saw and heard the proof when you followed us! I can't do anything without his permission. I am a puppet, bound to him for however long he wishes to pull my strings."

We were glaring at each other from across the length of the room, but as he fell silent we both took a deep breath and calmed ourselves. And still the image of Faolan flashed before me, refusing to leave me be.

"But I'm willing to fight to cut those strings now," he said quietly. "Are you?"

"I could just wait two months and he'll let me go," I said.

"You really think he will?" Robin smirked at me, and the new thought caught me off guard. He was right. What guarantee did I have that we really could go? The Erlking had said we could leave, and the Ilyn said it too, but none ever returned. Where was the proof?

"There's the thought you needed to have," Robin said, watching me carefully. "There's the real thing that's missing. You know who pulls my strings, you know what I want. But you don't know what Oberon really wants, now do you? Why would he take all these children in? Why would he really try to save them all? It's his pride. And he can't let anyone know he failed. So those that don't work out, those that try to leave, he let's them leave ... and then sends me to make sure they don't come back."

I had nothing to say in response. What was there to say? It made such terrible sense, much more sense than the idea of a Fae saving children for noble reasons. The world was a dark and terrible place – everything I'd ever learned before coming here had shown me that. Why would this place be any different?

"Come at me again," he said. "And control the anger, channel it. Narrow it to a point and stab me with it."

I rushed him again, and many more times throughout that night.

For that first month there was rarely a time I slept easily. I was often so bruised and battered by Robin's ministrations that I could never find a comfortable way to lie. Once it was even so bad that I went to Ionmar in the dead of night and asked her to heal me. She asked questions, and I told her I couldn't explain. For a wonder, she accepted that. Maybe it was the way I said it. Something in her black orb eyes seemed to shrink back from me when I looked at her. She wrapped me in the healing Caelyr silk and followed me back to my chamber, where she bit me and left me to drift off into dreamless sleep.

The Caelyr venom was one of the only things that could give me peace. The few times I did manage to fall asleep ended with dreams of Faolan staring at me with eyes that should have been hazel but were now dead, black voids that watched me from the blood-streaked mask of his face. I'd be forced up out of my bed by simple inertia, and I'd only be able to banish the cold sweat that shrouded me by grabbing tight to the madness and letting it burn away the anger and the fear that were eating away at my mind.

I began avoiding the others in my changeling group. I took meals at irregular hours, sometimes getting food myself from the large storage burrows in the refectory because no one else was up and about. I stayed away from the Ilyn, too, and avoided crowds of any size. I wanted to be nowhere near to people that might sway me from my newfound purpose.

I developed much faster than I could have thought possible. I'd been convinced from the lessons Ite'Ilyn had given me that there was no faster way to learn to control the madness. I'd been wrong.

"You're too slow," Robin repeated for the hundredth time. "Your movements are inefficient – you're wasting far too much effort. You're erratic."

"I don't understand what that means," I growled at him, coming back to my feet. "Explain it better!"

He grinned at me.

"I already have explained it. You're so smart, figure it out."

He came at me again. I blanked out my mind and let the madness flood me. He threw a punch at my stomach that I turned away, then tried to sweep my legs out from under me. My mind told me to block the sweep, tried to develop a quick rational plan, but then something clicked.

I simply reacted. I jumped over the sweeping leg and struck out my own. I fell, smashing the top of my foot into Robin's cheek as I descended to the ground. I started to curl to turn the fall into a roll, but my rational mind turned back on the next instant and fought me for control. I fell flat on my face with such force that my head began to throb immediately.

"Now that," Robin said, pulling me to my feet, rubbing his cheek, "is what I mean."

It became easier and easier. Robin was right: it was about embracing the madness, not controlling it; it was about letting it run wild. He did other things with me then – had me wrap myself in shadows and run through the halls in the dead of night, chasing me so that I couldn't stop. He had me follow him as he ran through the Ilyn corridors shouting his head off so that I was forced to use the madness to quiet the sounds lest the Ilyn awake and find me there. He made me stand on one hand to catch and avoid stones he hurled at me in the fields in the dead of night, when there was so little light that I had to work with feeling and no sight at all.

It was torturous, but it worked. I was able to go for longer and longer periods of time embracing the madness, until the only time I had to let it go was when I slept, and even then I woke with it already pounding in my blood, surging and powerful but ready to go where I pointed.

If I barely slept before, after I was able to touch the madness at will I found I often didn't need to at all. Sourceless energy seemed to have possessed me, controlling my limbs like a demon. I began to lie awake at night thinking about a million things, but mostly about how I would avenge Faolan, and what I would do when the Erlking was in my power.

Fear was an alien feeling to me by then. I think that the introduction of Robin into my life had somehow lobotomized that sense of wonder and dread I had felt about Oberon before. Now when I thought of him I felt only a sick and churning hatred in my stomach. I saw what he'd done as the ultimate betrayal.

Some of the others did seek me out, despite my noted absence from most places of gathering. One night Gwenel and Brandel came to me together when I was eating, early as always, so that we were the only three in the Hall aside from a pair of Urden. They were perhaps under the mistaken impression that together they could do what each might have been unable to accomplish separately. Spending as much time in the madness as I now did, when they sat down across from me I couldn't help but notice how awkwardly they moved and how slowly they seemed to speak.

"Mol," Brandel said. "We want to talk to you."

I continued eating and tried not to roll my eyes.

"Um," he said when I didn't speak, "do you mind?"

Again I said nothing, just continued to eat. I felt them look at each other and it seemed I was confirming whatever their worst suspicion had been.

"Mol," Gwenel said, "where have you been?"

"Training," I said.

"With Ite'Ilyn?"

"Yes," I said, knowing the lie would go past them. Robin had taught me how to lie by telling half-truths, something that made it impossible for the changelings and Ilyn to spot a lie. I had been training with Ite'Ilyn – just not with him exclusively.

"What has he been doing to you?"

I looked up from my bowls – I ate prodigiously now, another reason to come when no one was around – and cocked an eyebrow at the boy. I hadn't seen him in a while, but he hadn't changed much. He was longer and lankier, but that was mostly it. He was from Ilyn stock, like Gwenel and I. It didn't really explain his extremely loquacious nature, but it explained the way so much of the Bower made sense to him.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

They exchanged a look that communicated quite clearly again that I was as bad off as they had feared.

"You've got bruises on your face," Gwenel said, speaking very rationally to me, as if I were a small child that hadn't yet grasped that two plus two was four. "You barely see anyone – and when you do see us, it's at all hours of the night. When do you sleep?"

"I don't," I said simply. They were both watching me, and I knew they were trying to detect a lie, but when none came they looked more confused than before.

"You don't?" Brandel asked.

"You're ... joking, right?" Gwenel added, alarmed.

I continued to attack my food.

"No," I said simply.

"But how did you get those bruises?" Brandel asked.

"Training."

"Ite'Ilyn did that?"

"No."

"Then who did?"

"They're from training."

"That's not what he asked," Gwenel said quickly, stepping on the part of the argument like a piece of trailing thread that might unravel my whole story.

"But it's what I answered," I said.

"We've heard that you've been seen going into the Puck's quarters," Brandel said, the words spilling out of him in a rush. Gwenel winced, and I wondered if she was wishing that she'd chosen to approach me with someone who possessed a bit more tact. He leaned forward, trying to catch my eye, but I didn't look up.

"Mol, no one trains with Robin. I spoke with the other Ilyn, and they said he's never trained anyone. He's too important – he runs errands for Oberon half the time, and the other half of the time he's just gone, doing whatever it is that he does. How did you get him to train you? What did you say?"

I pushed the bowls away from me, finished with both, downed the rest of the water in the cup, and stood.

"Mol," Gwenel started," wait – we don't mean to pry –"

"Then don't."

"\- but we're worried about you."

I stopped, set my fists on the table and leaned toward them, looking at them both now.

"You don't need to be," I said simply, quietly.

Brandel swallowed hard, but Gwenel wasn't one to be intimidated. She leaned forward, her courage only failing her when she reached out to grab my hand and at the last second changed her mind, thinking, correctly, that if she touched me, then any moment we might be sharing would be completely ruined.

"I don't know what happened," she said, speaking quickly, "none of us do. All we know is that he disappeared."

"He has a name," I growled at her.

"Faolan," she amended quickly. "Faolan – he's gone, and no one knows what happened. All we heard were rumors that – that he was ...."

She trailed off, waiting for me to acknowledge that I'd heard it too: the rumors that Faolan had been killed.

"That he was what?" I asked, throwing it back in her face.

"We don't know," Brandel said quickly. "But with you acting so strangely, we thought that maybe you –"

I stood up and left without another word, leaving the bowls and cup where I'd been. They both stared after me until I was gone from the room, but I didn't care.

I went back to Robin. I kept careful track of the time now, and we had only a few weeks left before I would have to make my decision.

"Where is he?" I asked that night, after the bout of training when I was supposed to leave. Robin had once again managed to thwart everything I'd tried to do with the madness, but it had taken him longer this time. I was growing stronger – we both could feel it. My growing prowess emboldened me, and my state of body and mind was such that I no longer had a sense of what I should or should not do.

"What?"

"Oberon. Where is he? Why do I never see him?"

Robin snorted and turned away again. He was doing something with a section of the Bower wall, and I saw something light up and then the bark fell away. He reached into the dark hole he'd revealed and pulled out a long piece of cloth that I realized was Caelyr silk somehow done up to make a towel. He used it to wipe himself down, ignoring me until he was done.

"He lives in the highest room – the first one that he used the madness to make."

"Where?"

"The top of the Bower – you didn't get that from 'highest room'?"

"How do we get there?"

"We don't."

"What?"

I realized that I'd developed a concept in my mind of a grand confrontation, where Robin and I would one night go to Oberon and force him to admit to what he'd done. I'd assumed we would trap him.

"We don't get there – no one can get there without him guiding us."

"What does that mean?"

"By the blood, you're thick today. Did you hit your head?" He threw the towel back into the wall and sealed up what I was coming to realize was a closet of some kind that he had hollowed out using the madness. "It means that I've only been there once, and he took me there himself. We won't go there."

"Then what are we going to do?"

"That's my business."

"You need my help."

"Indeed."

He turned to me with that familiar look of contempt, and I realized now it was as much for himself as it was for me. The idea that he couldn't do this on his own rankled him, and he hated me for seeing him like this.

"So how do I help?"

"You do what I tell you. And you'll know no more about it until the night in question."

"When?"

"When I tell you."

I wanted to scream at him and punch him, but I did neither. It was obvious I would get no answers out of him, and to keep trying would be an exercise in futility. I moved toward the door but stopped before leaving.

I felt odd in that moment, and I think I might have realized somehow in the midst of everything that this was the last moment we would have like this. Time seemed to slow, as if I'd hit a pocket of dead air that somehow was detached from the rest of the world. My mind turned in an odd way, and suddenly I was seeing myself from the outside, as if I were floating up and behind myself, looking down. I saw Robin too, saw him exactly as he was – a broken man, full of grief and pain that I might never fully understand. I saw what we were about to do, and I had the first honest reaction to it since we'd bled together in the alcove the night of Faolan's death:

I hated Oberon because I loved him.

I turned back to say something, and Robin turned to me at the same time. I could tell from the look in his eyes that he had been feeling something very similar to me. His face was relaxed, and he had neither his mocking grin nor his contemptuous sneer in place. He was just looking at me, his consciousness unfettered, for perhaps the first time since we'd met.

I realized he felt the same as I did, and I think he recognized it in me. I think it's why we both felt so broken, why we both felt so wretched, because behind it all he looked just as I did. His eyes, usually bright and lively, were sunken and heavy-lidded, and his face looked more gaunt than usual, his cheekbones standing out high and heavy.

"I wish he was as good as he'd said he was," I said quietly. It was almost a whisper. "The dream was so beautiful."

Robin watched me with that dreadfully bare face, those stripped, raw eyes, and said nothing. He didn't need to – I probably hadn't even needed to.

There are some disappointments that are only cheapened by words.

Chapter Eighteen: He Who Rules the Darkness

The last time I met with Robin was barely a week before my year was up – a week before I had to decide whether I would stay or go. When I entered the room, he was looking out the window, as usual.

"I'm here," I said before closing the doorway. It was easy now, almost laughably so, to touch the life of the Bower and ask it through the madness to flow and change. I palmed the heavily grained wood and felt the echoing heat. The wood flowed and closed the door, and I moved forward into the room.

"Tomorrow night," he said.

I froze.

"What?"

"You heard me – don't make me repeat it."

"But tomorrow is a new moon," I said, confused. "We can't do anything that night – going outside would be suicide."

"We won't be out there," he said, "you will be."

"What?"

"You'll be gone long before the Hunter arrives," he said, still not looking at me.

"Are you insane? You want me out there tomorrow night when the moon goes down?"

"Yes."

"Where will you be?"

"In a much more dangerous place than that," he said softly. I wanted to ask him more, but I knew that I would get nothing else out of him – if he had wanted to tell me, he would have, and any further questions would only turn into him mocking me.

"This is the only chance we have," he said. "I can't tell you more."

"Yes you can, but you won't."

"No, I mean I can't. I mean I've figured out what to do, figured out how to draw him out, how to confront him. But it involves something I can't speak about, something about which I'm sworn to silence."

He turned around to face me finally, and he looked as though he'd aged overnight. His already gaunt face now had fine lines around the mouth and eyes and across his forehead, and I couldn't help but feel shocked.

"What happened?"

"Nothing," he grunted. He moved away from the window and approached me. I tensed, more worried about his presence now than I could remember being for a long time. It was not a sense of physical danger, but of something intangible, something that made me feel sick to my stomach.

"We won't train tonight." Now that he was even closer, I could feel the wrongness about him like a cloud of stink, and I almost didn't hear what he was saying. "Go – come here tomorrow night and we'll begin."

"Wait – what am I going to do now?"

"Say your goodbyes. We're not coming back."

I left without another word, and as soon as I was out of the room I felt a hundred times better. The sickness passed, and I pushed it from my mind.

Then what he'd said truly sank in.

We're not coming back.

I started walking in the vague direction of my own room as the realization came crashing down on me. I had been so consumed with the thought of taking my revenge that I hadn't even thought about what it would mean – hadn't thought about what would come after or how it would affect the others.

Without Oberon, there was no Bower.

I ended up in the Hall. I don't remember trying to get there, but I think it was the right place for me to go. That had been happening to me lately – I'd been skipping time, simply forgetting what had happened and somehow appearing at my destination as if by magic.

I sat down at the nearest table, which was deserted. The early evening meal had finished, and most of the Fae were about their work, such as it was on a night before the new moon.

The new moon ... the night of the Wild Hunt.

Was that where Robin had been? Had he been wherever it was that Gwyn ap Nudd ruled? Was that the sense of something more that I had felt about him when I'd entered the room, the smell that had made me sick? I'd never encountered the Hunter while holding the madness, but I did not think it out of place for me to have such a strong reaction.

I blinked and the tables were suddenly full of Ilyn.

Shocked, I stood up and stumbled backward, shaking off the fog of sleep. I realized distantly that I'd let go of the madness for the first time in weeks, and that as soon as it was gone I'd fallen into a deep slumber that my body no doubt desperately needed. I don't know how long I'd been there, but my whole body ached and my legs and hips were tingling with pins and needles as blood rushed back through the muscles.

Some of the Ilyn nearby looked up at me in surprise, almost as if they were confused how I'd gotten there, and I turned away quickly. The surprise rippled through the room and I knew that someone who knew me would see me if I didn't leave quickly. I couldn't talk to any of them – not that night.

I turned the first corner of the stairwell that led up in the direction of my room, and my head spun. My vision was cracked and splintered like a broken mirror, and though I staggered onward I was weighed down by the leaden pull of long-neglected sleep. Weeks worth of madness-induced mania had kept me awake and functioning, and now that the support was gone I had fallen straight through the floor of exhaustion.

I barely made it to my chamber. I had to apologize to a number of Fae on the way there whom I walked into or fell against as I staggered along. The whole time I was reaching for the madness, trying to get it back, but it was as if that part of me had been erased. It was just no longer there inside me.

I collapsed finally into the nestle in my room, and as soon as I hit the sheets I fell into unconsciousness.

I had disturbing dreams. I dreamt of Titania coming for me in the night, taking me and the other children away, dreamt that I convinced the others that we should go with her only to have her slaughter us one by one like pigs at the edge of the forest, the vulpine faces of the elf-Fae that followed her coldly watching as our blood drained from our necks. I dreamt of Robin killing Oberon, dreamt he clawed the Erlking's face open with his bare hands, and then he turned to me and said "we are the same – you did the same to Tristan." I dreamt of the Erlking watching me with horrified and confused eyes as I threw him to the ground and shouted accusations down at him, dreamt that I cried as I did what needed to be done. I dreamt of Brandel and Gwenel crying as the Bower broke apart and fell down around them, leaving them homeless and aimless. I dreamt of Faolan kissing me and telling me he'd been killed because I'd told him who I was, smiling as he said it was all my fault and I was the one who should be ended.

I woke up screaming, in a cold sweat. There was light on me, and I could see that the moon was where it was when I'd fallen into bed. I was confused – what night was it? Had I been out for a full night or for less than a handful of minutes?

There was movement behind me, and I realized I'd been woken by a voice not my own.

"Where were you? I told you to come to me tonight."

I turned and clawed my way out of bed. By reflex, I opened myself to the madness, and this time it flowed through me easily, infusing my body with fever and energy. The last cobwebs of sleep were cleared from before my eyes, and I focused on Robin.

He was back to his normal self. The lines around his face were gone and the heavy sense of burden had been lifted. There was a lightness to his step and a grin about his face and eyes that confused me. Where had this Robin been the night before?

"How long was I ... why did I –?"

"You let go of the madness," he said, examining me more carefully. "It happens – your body forces you to. Even I let go sometimes. What do you remember?"

"Leaving you, going to the Hall, then falling asleep ... waking up, coming here ... dreams ... lots of dreams."

"Nightmares." It wasn't a question.

"Is that normal?"

"Yes. You can grab it now, though, I can feel it in you. Can you hold it?"

"Yes."

"Good. Then we'll wait here until it's time."

"When's that?"

"When it is." He smirked at me and I knew I'd get no more from him. I watched him for a moment, standing there awkwardly, and then he moved to the window, where he watched the bare sliver of moon just passing through the height of its arc. Not knowing what to do, I began to pace.

"Stop that," Robin said immediately. I continued anyway. It was a measure of his own tension that he didn't try to stop me again.

"Why does it have to be tonight?" I asked abruptly, thinking again of the moon. It would be gone by the time it hit the horizon.

"Because it does," he said, not looking at me.

I whirled on him, my anxiety making me bold.

"What is it we're doing? What is your plan?"

Slowly, he turned his golden gaze to me, the fire banked and held back, ready to burst into life again but currently restrained. I didn't retreat but held my stance, unwilling or unable to back down now.

"To break him," softly said the Puck, "as I told you."

I whirled away and again resumed my pacing, making a measured tread up and down the room. The sleep had refreshed me, and the effect of the madness amplified my newly restored energy.

Five paces up, five paces back – five paces up, five paces –

"How?" I asked, turning back to him.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Then explain it to me – if we're going to be waiting here forever then you might as well talk to me. What use am I if I don't know anything?"

"Fine."

I watched him in surprise, and saw that he was looking far away, nodding his head slowly as if to a silent beat, almost as if he were counting something.

"I'm going to break his power," Robin said, "by taking away what he rules."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm going to use Gwyn against him. And when Oberon is distracted ... he dies."

I felt dread rush through me at the mention of the leader of the Wild Hunt.

"How?"

"Oberon rules the shadows," Robin said. "Gwyn rules the darkness."

"What's the difference?" I asked. I realized that I'd gone from pacing to trailing my index finger along the wood grain of the Bower wall. I couldn't keep my hands still – they kept clutching things at random, and as I walked along the wall I found a thick knot in the grain. I began to pick at it in earnest, my mind drawn to this superficial task like metal to a magnet.

"Shadows are cast by light," Robin said, speaking almost absently, completely absorbed in whatever he was thinking. "Sunlight and moonlight both cast shadows, but the shadows of moonlight are much stronger. Oberon is the King of Moonlight – he rules the strongest shadows. Darkness is an absence of light altogether. If there is enough of it, it is a power of its own. Oberon rules the shadows because he rules the moonlight – Gwyn ap Nudd rules the darkness, because he and his kind don't need the light at all."

"But they're still Fae," I said, still prying at the knot.

"They are, but of a darker kind. Just as those who follow Titania are of a lighter kind – a purer kind."

"Lighter doesn't mean purer," I said.

He didn't respond. A thick slab of wood suddenly came loose, and I stumbled back, feeling a little stupid. It flickered in my hand and I realized I'd accidentally touched the Bower wall with the madness. Robin shifted and I dropped the piece of bark and plunged my hand into my pants pockets. If he'd noticed the movement, he didn't comment on it.

"It's time," he said quietly.

He pushed himself off the wall and I glanced out the window. The moon was just past its zenith. The last moonlight ceremony of the lunar month – if the warped time of the Bower could be construed in such a way – was over.

Robin stopped at the entrance and turned back to me.

"Take this," he said, holding out his hand.

I reached for it and felt my skin turn warm when it touched his, like my hand had been pressed up against a slowly heating stove. I opened my hand and saw inside a moonstone, one much newer than the one I carried.

"I cannot take it out with me," he said. "You need to fill it."

"I ... I don't know ..."

"The moonlight fires," he said impatiently. "The ones that burn in the Hollowed Hall. As you pass them, hold the stone over them. The fire will dim for a moment, and then the stone will begin to glow."

"Why can't you take it yourself?"

"Because I need to do something first," he said. "And where I'm going, I can't bring that. Stay here until I'm gone. Meet me in the field – in the alcove where all this started."

He turned away before I could ask more questions, and moved off. I waited until he had disappeared around the deserted corridor and then followed, doing my best to slow my pace.

When I reached the Hall, the children were being ushered into the Bower and led up to their nestles, where they would be safe from the coming Hunt. The rest of the Fae were retreating as well, going up into the higher reaches of the Bower tree where Gwyn ap Nudd and his followers would not venture. There were guards, of course: Half a dozen Urden were stationed on either side of the Hall's main entrance to make sure that no one left as night began to fall, and to make sure that everyone came back inside.

I waited at the top of the stairs, picking my spot carefully, barely daring to breathe, as hundreds of feet passed by me, their owners none the wiser that I was hiding in the dark corner cloaked in shadow. Once the bulk of them had passed by, sneaking past the rest was child's play after all that Robin had taught me. Once everyone was up the stairs, I moved down them. There were still Ilyn there, but none of them saw me. They were talking to each other, obviously without nestlings to look after, and once they'd passed by I breathed easier.

I moved to the nearest fire, feeling the weight of the stones in my pocket. I reached in and pulled out the larger one, the one he'd given me, and held it in my palm as I crouched beside the silver fire in the large brazier. I heard movement, slow and lumbering, and knew that Urden were coming up from the depths after checking that none of the children had gone that way.

I wondered where Robin was, but knew I'd never know.

I timed it perfectly – as soon as the Urden were behind one of the fires further down the hall, I threw my hand over the brazier in a quick dash of movement. The flames flickered and seemed to dim, as a thin tendril of the moonlight reached out and connected with the stone. It grew hot in my hand, so hot that I feared I'd be burned, and I dropped the stone to the floor, where it clattered once before coming to a stop.

I threw myself back under the nearest table without hesitation.

The tread of the Urden stopped ... and started up again, coming straight for me. I looked out and saw the stone lying not three feet from me, but plainly out in the open. If they saw it, they'd search the tables, and I had no idea if the same tricks I'd learned from Robin about fooling Ilyn would be able to fool the Urden.

I grabbed onto the underside of the table and skidded myself out to the stone. I grabbed it at a full arm's length, hooked my other arm down under the table again, and pulled myself back with all my might.

My shirt caught and pulled up around me, choking me and almost coming off completely, just as the Urden turned down the row I was in. Trying to control my breathing, blinded and constrained by the shirt up around my head, I stayed completely still. The Urden lumbered down the row, looking around, and then went past.

I stifled a sigh of relief and crawled to the end of the table, holding hard to the madness and keeping it wrapped around me like a second skin. I wrenched the shirt down so I could see again, got to my feet, looked to see the Urden checking another row, and then ran as silently as I could for the foot of the hall. I was bent over so low that my knees were up around my ears as I wildly tried to keep my balance.

I heard the Urden stop.

I froze and tried not to breathe. I saw the shadow of one of them bend down and look around the base of the brazier, and then saw it straighten again, the green-gray skin looking like a moss-covered boulder in the flickering light.

"This Urden sees nothing," the creature rumbled. One of its companions grunted in response, and then they had moved off, up the aisle and away from me.

I let out a ragged breath as quietly as I could and began to move along the underside of the far tables for the entrance. I thrust the moonstone back into my pocket, feeling it clink against the one I carried with me. My shoulders were burning with the effort of wrenching my shirt back into place under the awkward angle of the table, and my feet made clammy footmarks on the floor behind me.

I snuck past the Ilyn stationed at the door, cloaking myself easily in the abundant shadows, and then simply disappeared from view around the side of the Bower once I was outside. I scaled one of the roots, the madness making such a thing easy, and then dropped to the grassy ground.

I looked up; the moon was sinking with its slow, measured pace.

Something nagged the back of my mind, but when I tried grasp it, it was gone, and as the night watch of Urden and Ilyn passed me on their final sweep through the clearing, I was forced to move. With the sure, confident tread of my feet came sure, confident thoughts that shouldered my temporary doubt away.

I glanced up at the tree as I rounded it, looking through the tall branches toward the top that was always hidden what seemed like miles away, thinking that Oberon was up there even now, thinking that tonight was the night I would confront him.

I felt a wave of unease wash over me and I pushed the thought away.

When I'd lost sight and hearing of the Urden-Ilyn groups, I moved up the side of one of the tall Bower roots, ducking between two of them that branched overhead like rock formations, and then slipped through the opening they made into the small alcove. I leaned against the trunk of the tree to wait, knowing that no one would find me here unless they knew where to look.

I tried not to think about the last time I'd come here, but of course I did. The memories came, and I found myself looking at the patch of earth where I'd found Faolan. It was overgrown now with grass, all uneven levels, with small mushrooms that grew beside the roots in the eternal shade there, where even moonlight couldn't touch them. The sound of crickets filled my ears, distant and muted here, and I knew then that the Bower had settled in for the night.

I don't know how long I waited. Long enough for my heart to still and my breathing to ease, but not long enough that the chill of the evening and the shade could begin to sink into my skin.

When I heard movement at the entrance to the alcove, I moved into the shadows, feeling the press of the mushrooms against my legs, the high grass tickling through my thin silk clothing. I crouched down, trying to make myself as small as possible, and once more drew the shadows around me.

The figure that emerged from the opening was not one I recognized.

My breath caught in my throat, but I made no sound or movement. The Ilyn who'd come in was tall and broad of shoulder, with skin that was almost entirely a pale gold, like the plumage of a rare bird. He moved into the alcove, looking about him with a smooth, simple motion that forced recognition on me, though it did nothing to control my crazily beating heart, which continued to pound against my chest like a mad carpenter trying to rearrange my ribs.

"Robin," I said, standing.

If my sudden appearance startled him, he gave no sign of it. He completed his glance around the alcove, his golden eyes combing through every shadow, pulling them apart like strands of hair to reveal the bare skin of the world. When his eyes came to me and locked on my face, the Ilyn façade he'd pulled over his body faded, and he stood revealed, his handsome face made even more beautiful by the contrast of moonlight and shadows playing about him.

He came to me quickly, wasting no movement, saying nothing. The only sound he made was the soft whisk of feet passing through the dewy grass, wetting the ends of his pants. The memory of Faolan's blood came back to me with the force of a blow, and I only just avoided it by clinging to the madness, burying myself in the heat.

"Here," I said, slipping the first moonstone into his hand, the one he'd told me to bring. He took it without a word and concealed it beneath his clothing; light flared then dimmed as he touched the smooth surface. "What now?"

"Now you go to the middle of the field," he told me, rummaging beneath the long silk over-shirt he wore. It was different from his normal clothing – bulkier, split down the middle, and seemingly full of pockets.

"But where are you going?"

"Just do what I tell you," he growled, his golden eyes flashing. He examined me, looking me up and down in one quick flick of motion. Whatever he saw displeased him. He closed the distance between us, which was already a little too close for comfort.

"Two Ilyn will pass back to the Bower as the moon begins to set," he breathed into my face. "I need you to make sure they do not report what they have seen. They cannot make it to the Bower – they cannot pass you. Do you understand?"

I took a step back, trying to see him more clearly. Was he asking me to...?

"When you've done that," he continued, his breath hot and sweet, like melted licorice root, "you will stay there and watch for any others. There may be more. Your part in all of this is to stop them from reaching the Bower – stop them from reaching the throne."

"The throne?" I was whispering, so intense was his look and bearing.

"You will stay in the field until I return for you," he continued, ignoring my question as if I'd never spoken. "You must stay in the field."

"I will."

"Swear it," he said, unyielding. "Grab the madness and swear to me you will not leave that field until I return."

I swallowed hard, every inch of me saying that I shouldn't do this. Suddenly the whole foundation of what we were doing cracked and I thought of the way Oberon had stood before us all the night we'd first arrived. I thought of the way he'd taken us in, how the Ilyn had been terribly harsh, but also fair. How all of us save Tristan had survived the madness –

Save Tristan and Faolan.

I became aware again of where we were and realized why Robin had told me to meet him here. He wanted me to remember my hatred, but it now seemed small and shrunken. It was as if I'd used too much of it up too fast. Coming back had made me realize exactly what I was doing and forced me to question it.

"He killed Faolan," Robin said to me, and I felt my skin crawl as he spoke in response to my thoughts. "He forced me to come out here and gut him."

It was the spark of anger in his voice that relit the anger in me. My head felt hot, and I realized my fingernails were digging into my palms. The madness was rushing through me, a raging river that I could barely control.

"You will have your revenge," Robin said, again seeming to read my mind. His voice was coming out in haste now, words clipping against me like a rushing tide. "Swear that you will not move until I come for you. You must be there or all is ruined – those Ilyn must not reach the throne."

"I swear I will not move until you come for me."

I felt the truth of the words ring through me, lost in the madness as I was. There was no turning back now – not here where Faolan's blood had soaked into the very ground. Robin smiled, and I shivered.

"Follow."

He left the alcove and I did as he bade me, following him a few paces behind. We moved quickly and silently, nothing more than shadows.

There was no one left out in the field – none of the Ilyn, none of the Urden, no one and nothing in sight except the distant trees that lined the field and the glimmering dew-coated strands of grass and flowers.

Robin walked toward the tree line directly in front of the opening to the Bower, and I couldn't help but think this was too risky. Surely it didn't matter where we entered the trees – surely we could go around the far side. But I held my tongue, knowing that if I spoke my question would go unanswered.

He stopped, and I stopped as well, both of our bodies falling still at the same time, me mirroring him exactly without even needing to try.

"Stay here."

A quick jolt of energy pounded through me once and then disappeared as I clamped down on my heart, forcing its beats to come out slow and measured.

"For how long?"

"As long as I require," he said, turning to face me, his golden eyes watching me from beneath the hood of the new garment he wore. His face was entirely in shadow, but still those eyes shone out at me and I had to suppress the thrill of fear they caused.

"You still haven't told me –"

"I've told what you need to know," he said simply, speaking in measured sentences that belied frustration at the time I was wasting. "I need you here. That is all."

The moon above me was sinking slowly toward the horizon, and if it fell before he returned, then I would be outside on the night of Darkness, when Oberon no longer controlled the Bower. When it no longer meant something to be one of his children.

"What if you are gone until the moon is down?" I barely kept the panic from my voice.

"I will return before darkness falls," he said to me, sounding annoyed, as if the fact I needed reassurance just proved my incompetence.

I swallowed hard. He turned and disappeared in a swirl of motion, leaving me alone. I crouched down in the grass, making myself as small as possible. The wind whipped at my face and then died down again, settling into a heavy humidity.

The Ilyn came soon after.

In the middle of the field as I was, there were no shadows to cloak myself in, but the grass was tall and kept me hidden until they were only twenty yards away. They saw me and paused, and I noticed that they were both young – almost completely white, with only a few patches of purple on either of their bare chests.

"What are you doing out here, changeling?"

One of them was looking at me seriously, while the other just looked impatient.

"The Puck told us we were needed inside," he said to the other, ignoring me, but the one who'd spoken first shrugged off the comment. When the silence between us lengthened, he came closer with easy steps.

I let go of my mind and let the madness flow. I felt myself close the distance, and then I was spinning to strike the leg out from beneath the Ilyn to my right, the one looking past me into the Bower. He collapsed to the ground in a heap, where I struck his head with the bare heel of my foot. His eyes went blank and he lay still.

A hand grabbed my shoulder, thick nails digging into my skin through the silk of my shirt. I tried to spin away from it, but the Ilyn followed me, and I was forced to change direction, smacking into his legs, locking out his knees and tripping him. He fell over me easily, turning the motion into a roll, from which he emerged unscathed. I came after him, feeling the whispery-lightness of the grass against me feet and the dew slicking and weighing down the ends of my pants.

The solemn Ilyn watched me come, and crouched at the last second, trying to use my momentum to throw me. I spun and threw my legs into the air, arching over him to crash into the ground, my knees pounding down painfully even through the cushion of grass. He turned, and I stuck a foot out in a powerful side kick. He gasped as I found purchase in the center of his stomach, and my hard heel pushed the air out of him. He staggered back and I rushed him, feinting left. He blocked a blow that never landed, and I swung around the other way to crash my heel into his temple. He fell to the ground and lay still, his face buried in the grass.

I tried to calm my breathing, but it wouldn't be calmed. My mind slowly came back to me as I emerged from the madness and realized what I'd done. Standing over the Ilyn I couldn't help but feel as though I'd betrayed more than just the Erlking.

But then I remembered all the beatings I'd suffered, all the degradation, and I hated them both all over again, even though I didn't know them. They were Ilyn – they were just like Ai'Ilyn and all the others – just as bad as Oberon for letting Faolan die when he didn't live up to what they expected us to be.

Ilyn who were once changelings themselves.

I tried to tell myself that made it worse – tried to tell myself that they were complicit in this then, that they had condoned the very thing they should have tried to fight against, but my mind turned to Brandel and Gwenel and the fact that they soon would be Ilyn themselves, that they would train future generations and help them through the trials they would face –

"Help them by beating them senseless," I snarled under my breath to no one.

I turned away from the fallen forms and stared out into the forest, feeling sick to my stomach. My foot ached, but not badly. Suddenly I was homesick. The feeling rushed over me in a rolling wave, drowning me beneath the power of it before I could even think to muster a defense. I felt a sob welling up in me, but I forced it down, denying it purchase inside my heart and voice in the cooling air of the dying night.

I hated the thing I loved, and it was tearing me apart.

Breathing heavily, I turned back to the Bower, looked into the yawning mouth of the Hollowed Hall, now dark and empty. But the beauty of it was too much, so I turned back to scan the tree line, going from one patch of shadow to another, one by one, trying to make out which, if any of them, might contain the Puck.

I looked up into the sky, at the last timid sliver of the crescent moon that would soon be made new when it dipped beneath the horizon line. It was much farther down the side of the sky than I'd imagined possible – one of the strange time quirks that made the Bower so hard to understand.

I tried to still the rising panic that threatened to engulf me, but it was useless. I tried to reach out to the madness, but I found no refuge there either. I looked back to the tree line, searching back and forth, but saw nothing.

Time began to trip forward in odd leaps and spurts. I glanced up at the moon periodically and managed to convince myself that it was going very slowly, that I had plenty of time. I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I winced and tasted blood. I looked back at the Ilyn, suddenly thinking that maybe they would wake, wondering what I would do.

Robin would return. I had to believe it. I had to believe in someone. I couldn't believe in Oberon, couldn't believe in Faolan, but Robin I could believe in. We shared a hate – and that was stronger than anything else.

I looked up at the sky once more and barely stifled a moan. The moon was only just above the tree line on the far right side of the field. I looked back to where Robin had disappeared, but still saw nothing. I began to hope that one of the other Ilyn or even an Urden would make their way back toward the Bower. Robin had said there might be more – he'd said that –

The quality of the light changed and I watched the sliver of moon disappear over the edge of the trees. Some of its light still shown through the leaves, scattering beams that were weak and sickly, the last dying tendrils of this month's light.

On reflex I grabbed for the madness, and it came.

I crouched down in the grass, letting my mind go free, trying to find a way out of this, but unable to do so. I was trying to make myself as small as possible, as hidden as I could be, but I knew it would be useless.

Soon, the stars were all the light there was to illuminate the scene, and as such they barely illuminated a thing. The humidity dropped away with each passing second, and a chill filled the air as it dried, the moisture drained away by some unseen force. I could make out nothing but vague shapes all around me; moving shadows and the noise of wind seemed to come from every side, buffeting me, questing through my hair, stinging my cheeks and bringing tears to my eyes.

I was as deep in the madness as I could go, but it was useless. The oath I'd sworn to Puck forced me to stay in the field. Even the thought of going back was too much for me, and I began to sweat and shake as if with sickness. I turned around, swinging one leg behind the other, and my stomach cramped so violently that the blood drained from my face, sweat burst free of my skin, and I almost lost control of my bowels.

I remember thinking that something had gone wrong. I don't know how I was still so naïve – I don't know how I hadn't figured it out the moment I was left there. But I was convinced, beyond a single shred of doubt, that something had happened to Robin. Somehow he'd been found out by one of the Ilyn – or maybe the Urden had been called – or maybe Oberon himself –

And as my thoughts ran wild, the light faded and died.

Darkness fell, so complete that I couldn't see an inch in front of my face. Wind began to blow ceaselessly, moaning and wailing and bringing with it the distant sound of trumpets and drums.

I thrust my hand into my pocket, reaching for my moonstone. My hands were cold and numb from the sudden wind, and panic raced through me as I feared I'd lost it, but finally I felt the familiar surface, hard and smooth. I grabbed it and thrust it above my head. The stone burst into light, shining and beating back the darkness –

Figures moved out from the trees, dozens of them, scores, too many for me to count – and leading them, detaching himself from the from the head of the group and making his way straight for me with two hounds snarling at his side, was the Hunter himself. He passed the chains holding the huge black creatures to the one I recognized vaguely as his brother, and came forward alone, until he was just outside the ring of immediate light cast by my stone. Then, very deliberately, he took a step forward, violating the barrier of the moonlight circle.

Gwyn ap Nudd towered over me, the low cheekbones of his face, his prominent brow, and the sickly yellow eyes of a rabid wolf, all illuminated in sharp contrast to the darkness of which he seemed made. His lips pulled back, revealing yellowed teeth and releasing the stench of rotting meat. I gagged and recoiled, but he followed me. I turned to run, but from the depths of the madness I could feel shadows moving behind me and I knew that his followers had surrounded me, blocking off my retreat.

A hand grabbed my hair and pulled me off my feet. Pain exploded in my head and I felt like the skin of my scalp was about to be torn off. I stumbled as the hand turned me around, using my hair as a handle, controlling me. Fear was pounding through my body, sickening white lines of it that pulsed through me and tried to break through my tight-fisted control. I had to get away, I had to –

The moonstone was knocked from my hands to the ground, where it flickered and died, plunging my whole world into darkness. I felt hot, stinking breath on my face. Hands grabbed at me and held me tight.

Terror encompassed me; I began to scream.

Gwyn ap Nudd began to laugh.

Chapter Nineteen: Broken

I surrendered to the madness totally and completely.

Light bloomed in the center of my chest and spread to the tips of my fingers; my head felt squeezed and my thoughts began to run together, coming so quickly that one could not be distinguished from the next. I felt the hands on my arms, heard the breathing all around me, and suddenly the shadows took on shape and size. My fear was pushed away and I knew that these were mortal creatures that were holding me, not phantoms.

Acting on instinct, I sagged in their arms, and they cried out in surprise. My bare feet hit the ground, and I immediately rebounded, pushing myself off the grass with all the power I could bring to bear.

I shot upward, breaking the grip of those who held me, and felt my knee connect with a solid chin. I heard curses, and then there were hands in my hair again, trying to hold me by it. I twisted my head around and struck out in all directions, moving as Robin had shown me, letting the madness direct me.

I couldn't see at all, but I could smell and hear and feel, and the madness made each of those senses count for double. I spun and kicked and punched and hit; I was grabbed up off the ground and I heard shouts for help, and then I felt flesh between my teeth and I was ripping through it, tearing skin and hair and muscle, tasting blood. I was dropped again, and this time I rolled. A boot landed inches from my face, whipping me with the wind of its passage. I curled and threw my body behind my feet and smashed them into the creature above me, knocking it away as it cried in pain.

I scrambled up. There were trumpets and drums in my ear, and shouting and jeering, and the crowd backed away. I felt the absence of them, and then the presence of someone in front of me.

Gwyn ap Nudd.

The madness told me to move and I did, dodging something heavy that slammed through the air above me, and then I struck out wildly and felt my closed fist smash into the underside of his chin and snap his head back. He stumbled away and I followed, the madness directing me, all rational thought long since gone. I threw my hand out with an open fisted strike and my palm smashed the bridge of his nose. I felt blood spray out over me and heard it patter onto the ground, where I could smell it burning in the grass.

Hands grabbed me from behind. I fought them off, breaking a wrist, twisting out of a grab – but there were too many of them this time. My arms were wrenched back behind me and my head was pulled back by my hair, exposing my throat.

I couldn't see in front of me, but I could smell him coming. I imagined I could even smell his anger – his hatred at this girl who had struck him, the King of the Night.

Gwyn's hand ripped across my face as he struck me, and I felt his nails break the skin of my cheek and burn as they slashed through the top layer of muscle. I rolled with the blow as much as I could, but the shadowed hunters holding me kept me in their solid grip and I couldn't escape.

Through the madness I heard the sprayed beads of my blood hit the ground next to his, the droplets breaking open like popped bubbles as they were impaled on the long stalks of grass. I knew vaguely, in a very distant way, that this was the end. Gwyn ruled this night, and any who were caught out in it became part of the Hunt, servants to the Hunter and his men. The madness ebbed as time seemed to slow. This was the end.

And then a wave of sickness washed over me.

I heard cries from all around, on every side, and the hands on my arms loosened. I heard choking and retching, and then felt another wave of the sickness, and then another still stronger. I heard the sounds of sickness and smelled the acrid stink of vomit, and then found myself on all fours, choking and spitting up blood as I tried to breathe.

The world exploded.

The sky above me ripped down the center like a torn piece of parchment, and half of it fell away to reveal a bright blue sky. The stars came back, popping into existence, but then they seemed to tilt and fall, and then an orb appeared in the sky opposite them, an orb in the patch of blue sky that continued to grow brighter and brighter, beaming down golden light on the world –

"AHHH!"

The Hunters were screaming in pain as the exposed places of their hands and face burned and blistered before my eyes. I caught sight of Gwyn ap Nudd and saw that half the skin of his face had been pulled away in bloody furrows and I could only stare in horror at what I'd done. He was shouting to his men, throwing out a hand toward the Bower, telling them to make for the Hall. Those who were still under the part of the field bathed in starlight ran for their lives, while those on the border – a place that made no sense, a place split by a clean line that cleaved the world into the night of the Bower and the intruding day of some other world – were only able to stagger after them, doing their best to move despite terrible burns. I stumbled back with them, looking down at my hands. Blood coated them and there was flesh beneath my nails. The smell of burning skin and hair filled the air around me, coating my throat and nose, as those who'd been caught fully in the sunlight fell to the ground screaming, only yards in front of me. Horror and revulsion rose up inside me, and it was only my grip on the strange chaotic-clarity of the madness that kept me moving.

We made it into the Hall, no one paying attention to me. The lesser hunters cleared away the tables, throwing them to the side to clear room, and the wounded men were thrown on the ground for examination. The hounds that they had brought were let loose to run where they would, and I saw that they were dead black with burning coals for eyes; but despite their fearsome appearance they ran straight for the far corner of the room and cowered there, tails between their legs.

I was stunned into inaction and found myself simply staring around the room, unable to understand what had happened. It had to do with Robin – Robin had done this all somehow. But what had he done?

I whirled back to look out at the field and saw that the daylight was still increasing in brightness. The sun was rising – the sun, when had I last seen the sun?! – over the tops of the towering trees, but its rays did not seem able to penetrate the thick barrier of shadows that still clung to the Bower, taking up the inner half of the clearing. I went to the opening of the Hall and looked up. The stars still spangled half the sky, but their light was almost nothing compared to the light of the sun.

Was this what Robin had planned all along?

I spun back to look at the Hunters, and my eyes caught the ones that were most burned, whole patches of their skin sloughing off as their fellows tried to help them, tried to bind what wounds they could.

Would this happen to the others?

Terrible dread filled me. I hadn't wanted to destroy the Bower – I'd wanted to destroy Oberon. I'd thought that with him gone the others would simply leave – the Ilyn, the Urden, all the others, the Fae at large, would just go – but what if they couldn't? What would happen if the sunlight touched them? Touched Gwen and Brandel and all the others?

"Mol?!"

The sound of the voice broke through my panic and I stopped all motion, mental and physical. How did I know that voice? How was it so familiar and yet so distant?

I turned toward where Gwyn and his Hunters had retreated, and saw one of the men detach themselves and move toward me. He stepped into the light of the brightening moonstone fires and I saw black hair, a leather gabardine, and hazel eyes that brought back memories of heat and stolen kisses –

"Faolan?!"

The shock was too much for me to understand. Suddenly it was like we'd never been separated. We ran for each other and grabbed each other's faces like idiots, trying to confirm what we knew couldn't be true –

"You're dead!"

"What? You're dead!"

"I'm – no I'm not –"

"What are you saying? Why would you think –?"

"But the night I changed," Faolan gasped, staring at me with horror and wonder all wrapped up together, "the night I changed – I killed you! That's where all the blood came from, that's what happened when I was unconscious. The Puck told me that –"

"What?! You were dead! I came to meet you but Robin had already killed you – he did what Oberon told him to –"

"That's – no, that's not –!"

"SHUT UP, BOTH OF YOU!"

I spun around at the cracked and rusty voice, and saw that it was Gwyn ap Nudd who'd come up behind us. I immediately reached for the madness and felt it blaze up inside me.

"Faolan – stand back!"

"No, Mol, stop!"

Faolan moved from my side and went to Gwyn.

"Father – what's happened?"

Another hollow note of impossibility rang through me and my vision swam.

Father?

Images flashed through my mind – Faolan up in the night staring at the moon, Faolan sobbing and smoking as if burned when he first went through the moonlight, Faolan covered in blood and dead at Robin's feet –

"The Treaty is broken," Gwyn was growling through his broken face. I hadn't realized how much damage I'd truly done, but now that I could see him, I saw that I'd certainly broken his nose, and the left side of his face was torn and bloody.

"Treaty?" I asked numbly. There was too much happening – too much of my world had just been turned upside down.

"My father rules the night of the new moon," Faolan said, speaking quickly, staring at me again as if he couldn't believe his eyes. "Titania, the Queen, was part of it – she rules the daylight, Oberon rules the moonlight, and Gwyn rules the darkness."

"Titania – how do you know about her?"

"How do you know about her?"

"That doesn't matter! If the daylight is here," Gwyn growled, his voice heavily tinged with pain, "then the Treaty is broken. It is the only way she can enter the Bower."

I thought back to what Robin had said – that we would break the power of Oberon forever. My mind kept churning as I tried to piece together what had happened: Robin had trained me, Robin had told me I had a purpose; told me that he needed me in order to destroy the King, destroy the one who had killed Faolan –

But Faolan was alive.

"How?" I gasped, turning back to him. It was the final question that kept everything from being clear, the final impossibility. I'd seen him die, I'd seen it! All that had happened, all that I'd done, had been predicated on Faolan's death. The knowledge that Oberon had killed him – that Oberon killed the changelings that didn't come out the way he wanted them to – that was what had been driving me forward, that was what had propelled me here. But if that first assumption was wrong, if Faolan hadn't been killed ...

I felt the blood drain from my face.

"Faolan, you're dead, you're supposed to be dead –"

"I told you, Robin found me – I was waiting for you, and someone came – the moon was out and I – the madness –"

"You went through the madness?"

The whole patchwork of my mind, the whole sewn-together quilt of suppositions and half-truths that had formed my understanding of the past two months came apart at the seams.

"All with Gwyn's blood go through the madness," Faolan said. "When the full moon comes, that's when it happens –"

"Robin was there – you were there – you were dead! I saw you – he was standing over you –"

"I attacked someone," Faolan said just as quickly. "That's all I remember – I attacked someone, and all I remember after that is waking up covered in blood, and Robin was standing over me with blood all over him, and he pointed to the side –"

"Rob-Robin?"

Faolan was reeling as badly as I was. He was convulsively clutching at my forearms, just squeezing them over and over again, so hard it hurt.

"It was you," he continued, his hazel eyes wider than I'd ever seen them. "He told me that I'd killed you, that you were there when I – and then he said I had to run, that if I didn't Oberon would kill me for killing a changeling – he told me the only place I could go was to the Hunt with my father –"

His voice broke and he cut off, but my mind kept the story going, kept the scene rolling in my head, unfolding it in its natural progression.

Robin in the fields when Faolan turned – Robin there to stop Faolan – Robin standing over him covered in the blood of their fight when I came – Robin telling me he'd killed Faolan – me leaving with Robin – Faolan waking up – Robin retuning to tell him that the blood he was covered in came from me, that Faolan had killed me – Robin telling Faolan to run, knowing Gwyn would find him – Robin coming back to me –

"He told us both the same lie," I gasped.

"Why?" Faolan was looking between both my eyes, his thoughts racing alongside mine, both of us rushing toward the final picture.

"He made me hate Oberon," I said. I heard movement from Gwyn, saw him stir, and realized he was following us very closely now, listening to everything I said, but I was too focused on Faolan, too focused on the story we were piecing together.

"He made me hate him too." Faolan glanced over at his father – by the blood, he's the son of Gwyn ap Nudd! – and began breathing heavily. "He told me who my true father was and told me to go to him – he sent me out of the Bower that same night, saying Oberon would kill me if he found me, that Oberon had waited too long and it was his fault that I'd killed you in the madness."

Sound came in through the Bower opening behind us and I knew that everything was happening too quickly.

I grabbed the madness and let myself go, drowning myself in its current, letting it pull me where it would. I swayed and distantly felt Faolan grab me and shout something in my ear, then heard the accompanying voice of Gwyn ap Nudd growling something back to him followed by a stunned silence and Faolan releasing my arms. I stumbled backward, almost crashing to the ground, but I didn't care. My mind was racing in the way that Robin had taught me, the way he'd trained me.

He trained me – why did he train me?

He said he needed me in the field – he said he needed me there to break Oberon – he said that he would come for me long before the night truly fell – set both Faolan and I against Oberon – Oberon who wanted nothing but to save us – Oberon who had kept us here in the Bower for our own safety – Oberon who held Robin here as well –

It all came together, and in a rush I came back to myself, blinking hard in the bright moonlight that lit the Bower Hall.

"Robin is working with Titania," I said. "He was all along."

"Took you long enough," said the voice of the Puck from behind me. I whirled and heard Faolan and Gwyn both snarl with voices that were somehow inhuman. Robin Goodfellow had draped himself over Oberon's throne, his legs over one arm and his body leaned back casually against the other as he fondled something in his hands.

A silver-leafed crown.

Chapter Twenty: Robin Goodfellow

I don't remember how I crossed the room, nor much of what happened immediately after, but I do know that I attacked Robin. He came down off the gem-encrusted throne to meet me, leaving the silver crown behind, and we crashed together at the top of the Hall.

It was like the times we'd fought in training, but with stakes that were infinitely higher. I'd never been able to beat him – and we both knew it. But I fought this time with my hatred directed at him, and that's what made it different. He'd lied – and that knowledge festered in my chest like a weeks-old sore, infecting my blood and driving me mad with a fever that spoke of anger and desperation.

I was yelling at him as we fought, as we struck each other and flowed through our intricate dance with perfect finesse, but I cannot remember the words. I don't even know if there were words – all I know is that he'd taken something from me by hiding the truth, and that I was angry not just with him but with myself for believing it. I went truly mad – I lost everything in the surging power of my rage.

I don't know how I did it, I don't know how I won, but somehow I did. The first image I truly remember after rushing him was turning aside a blow and catching him by the throat. He grabbed at my hand, but I twisted in and kneed him in the gut, pushing the air from his lungs and throwing him to the floor, where I followed him, hand still clutching his neck. I pulled back my other hand, ready to end him as I had ended Tristan. He stared up at me with shock and surprise, and I paused.

Sound came to me then – shouting from behind me, a chorused voice of distress. Other details came then too – the feeling of a hand trying to grab me, and light – light all around us, silver and glowing.

He began to laugh as I held where I was, began to laugh because he and I both realized that I couldn't do it – I couldn't kill him.

The hesitation was enough for him to take back the advantage. He convulsed beneath me so that I was thrown up and over his head to crash into the stone-hard dais. There was more shouting then, and I realized as I lay on my back, looking up at the ceiling, that I lay at the foot of the throne.

A wave of sickness rolled over me and made my stomach roil. I choked and started coughing, and then Robin was attacking me, brandishing something in his hand that flashed with a silver light very different from the light of the moon – a silver light that was dark, reflected off a blade almost black ...

Iron.

"MOL!"

"Stay back, he has iron!"

The Hunters who had closed in around us, Faolan at their head ready to intervene, pulled back together in fear, leaving Robin and me alone before the throne. I tried to stand, but he struck the horn hilt of the dagger against my temple, and stars crashed through the roof of my vision, burning my sight away and leaving me in sooty darkness. I stumbled back, trying to gain my feet and failing, the sickness driving the fever out of me, severing me from the madness so that I was alone and helpless.

He stood over me, hand raised high, and I saw again the silver of the dagger, the dark silver that hurt my eyes. He was snarling, ready to end it.

I reached out desperately behind me and grabbed hold of something that bit deeply into the skin of my hand. I turned to look and saw the silver leaves of Oberon's crown digging into my palm, drawing blood that wept down the side of the silver curves.

I heard sound behind me and knew it was Robin. He pulled me toward him, flipped me over, and straddled me so that I couldn't move. He raised the dagger again, and this time he couldn't miss.

I pulled the crown to me, interposing it between us, and said the only thing that came to mind:

"Oberon – help!"

Robin stared at the crown for half a second, his face melting into disbelief, and then silver light blinded me, and the last image I saw was Robin recoiling, throwing up his hands in front of his face, and then the weight of him was off of me.

I was rolled to the side, completely in the power of some intense buffeting force. The crown was throwing silver light over the whole Hall, shining like the moon itself. It began to burn my skin, but I didn't dare let go. I held it up before me and staggered to my feet. The sickness had passed, and now I felt the madness waiting for me once again.

Robin had been thrown on his back, and the iron dagger lay beside his hand. I rushed over and kicked it away. A jolt of the sickness went through me again and I cringed back, but the dagger still skittered away into the distance, skipping over the Bower floor to rest under a table further up the Hall.

I turned to Robin and put a foot on his chest, holding him down, though, dazed as he was, he didn't seem able to make much in the way of resistance. He held up and a hand and grabbed my leg, trying to push it off.

Another wave of sickness rolled through me and I almost lost the madness again, more in shock than anything else. I'd kicked the dagger away – was there still iron on him? I looked down at the hand grabbing my leg and saw it was bandaged, and that blood had soaked through it. My mind went back, unbidden, to the oath we'd made, the way he'd opened the cuts on his hands in order to make a vow ... And the way Tristan's wounds had looked, gaping and sick, after he'd been wounded by the iron.

He'd used iron to bind me to him.

I dug my foot harder into his chest, holding the crown up so that the silver light washed over him and me in equal measure, calming me and clearing my mind while seeming to hurt him.

"What have you done?" I demanded. "Tell me."

"Mol," said a voice to my right, a voice I knew to be Faolan but which I still couldn't believe I was hearing. "Mol, wait, you –"

"No!" I shouted, not looking, focused entirely on Robin. "I will not wait! What did you do? No, don't do that – look at me, you PUCK! What did you do? How did you break the Bower?"

Robin was squirming under my feet, gaining in strength, but I held him down still, leaning the full amount of my weight against his chest and pinning him like a bug.

"Mol'Ilyn," said a different voice, a deeper voice that sent a vibration through me and made me shiver. "I will deal with him. Please return my crown."

I turned slowly and saw Oberon standing behind me.

"Where were you?" I asked. "I thought he'd – I though that –"

"He didn't," the Erlking said gently, stepping forward again, watching me with wariness bordered with surprise and something else, something deeper I couldn't understand or place.

I realized I was still holding the crown in my hand, realized that it was still shining like a minor sun, bathing the whole room in silver light that had all the Hunters cowering back against the wall, covering their faces with their hands and cloaks, blinding them though not hurting them.

"Time is short," he said brusquely, and I realized that the deeper thing I hadn't understood was fear, something I had never thought to see cross his face. "The Bower is broken, and we must act quickly to defend it."

Whatever trance was holding me broke and I staggered forward and held out the crown. He took it from me carefully, and as soon as it was out of my hands the silver light cut off and the only light left in the room was the lesser moonlight that came from the brazier fires that lined the Hall.

Oberon looked the crown over and I saw tension arc through his shoulders as he noticed my blood on the leaf that had cut me. He glanced at me, then glanced down behind me at Robin, and something came together in his mind, some conclusion that turned his face from confusion, shock, and fear, into resignation and understanding.

He wiped away the blood with his cloak, and placed the crown on his head.

Immediately, silver light flared up and then settled down again, and the Bower around me seemed to flex like a live creature limbering its muscles. There was a distant thudding, a rumbling, and then Urden were flowing up from the entrance to the underground caverns.

"Awake the Fae," he said to them in clipped, no-nonsense words. "They should be able to leave their chambers now. Bring them here; we gather for war."

The Urden as one let out a bellowing cry, and dozens of them streaked off into the dark gloom of the Bower, shouting for the upper levels to awake and gather. Others retreated down into the caverns, bellowing all the same, and still more moved toward the entrance to the Hall and looked out onto the field.

Oberon strode forward and looked down at Robin, his face unreadable. Then in one quick motion he bent and ran his hand over the smaller man's face.

"Sleep," he said simply.

Robin relaxed completely, tension leaving him in a huge rush. Oberon grabbed him up and turned, depositing the Puck at the foot of the throne and turning back to the Hall at large.

"Gwyn," Oberon said, turning to the Hunter, who had come forward and looked already better – his wounds had begun to close themselves and were already smaller and looked days if not weeks old.

"Oberon," he growled, anger clear in his voice, "where have you been?"

"Sealed away," he said, something that seemed to confuse Gwyn as much as it confused me. He shot a glance at me. "Though no longer."

An Urden – a huge hulking gray-green mountain – emerged from the deep caverns and I couldn't help but stare. Its skin was bare and showed hundreds of ritualistic scars that formed perfect lines and patterns that seemed to dance in the flickering moonlight of the silver fires. The creature's eyes were a deep black with silver slits for pupils, and it bowed as it approached the Erlking.

"This Urden was sent for."

"Yes – the Bower is under attack."

"What must this Urden do?"

"The barrier holds for now, but it will fail. The greater enchantment containing the Bower outside the realm of men has been broken – she has brought sunlight, and it will continue to advance."

"How long does this Urden have?"

"She will come soon – we have little time."

"How long needs my king?"

"I will come to the field – hold until then."

The Urden nodded, stood, and moved off up the hall, followed by a long line of others. They gathered speed and broke into a run, pushing aside the tables that remained, throwing them against the wall so hard they burst into kindling. The leader let out a deafening bellow, and the others followed suit behind it, rushing up out of the deep cavern in a huge wave of gray-green bodies that looked like flesh and muscle stretched over boulders and gnarled roots. They raced toward the distant wood, spreading out as they went, and then disappeared into the trees with battle cries that woke birds and Sylphs and sent them spiraling into the sky.

There was noise from above us then, and other Fae began to emerge from the higher levels, Ilyn and Paecsies and all the others, even the Caelyr. The Erlking gave more orders, organizing the chaos, until everything was in motion.

"Gwyn!" Oberon called, motioning him forward, from where he'd gone to check over his Hunters. Some of them, too, had begun to heal, and those who hadn't were being tended to by the Caelyr now. My eye was drawn to Faolan almost immediately, and I saw him mirroring the actions of Gwyn ... of his father.

The Hunter turned and moved through the crowd of flowing Fae to Oberon's side, Faolan just behind him, and I moved that way as well, entering the clear space at the foot of the throne dais that none but the three of us and the Erlking seemed to dare enter.

"What happened – tell me everything, Gwyn."

"I only know pieces."

"Give me what you can – any differences we may have are gone until she is safely away again."

"Agreed."

"Start with what you know."

"Her," Gwyn said immediately, gesturing to me. I swallowed hard and suddenly questioned the wisdom of coming forward. What would they do to me? I'd helped Robin. Even though I'd been tricked, I'd helped him plan everything for months now. I was part of whatever had happened.

Oberon turned to me and speared me with his gaze.

"What about her?"

"I tried to take her – she was in the field during the night. She was mine by right, by the accord we made, so I –"

"Indeed," Oberon interjected, looking back at Gwyn. "Why is this important?"

"Because she distracted him while I broke the Treaty," said someone else behind us.

Oberon froze in place for a long second, and I felt the tension in the room ratchet up several notches, if such a thing were even possible. It was Robin who had spoken; we all turned to see him pulling himself to his feet, shaking off the effects of the Erlking's spell. He was glaring Oberon, his eyes blazing with hatred.

"Didn't you realize that? Father?"

I remember thinking quite clearly that I didn't understand who he was addressing, so uncomprehending was I when he said that word. Then slowly I followed his gaze to Oberon.

The blood had drained from the Erlking's face.

"What?" Robin asked, his tone mocking. "You didn't think I'd find out eventually? You thought you could keep me here, bound to you, like a slave? Your own son?!"

"How did you find out?"

I quickly glanced around the area of the throne and realized there were hundreds of Fae and Hunters there with us, all staring at the scene unfolding before them as they girded for battle. A few of them had forgotten what they were doing and were staring at us, clearly having heard. Whispers spread through the Hall, and suddenly the silence deepened even as others farther down continued to move out into the field.

I had to say something.

"Titania," I said, before Robin could continue. Oberon's head jerked back to me, and I forced myself to continue, even under that gaze, which made me want to cower back, to run and never look at him again – this man who'd saved me, this man I had betrayed. "He tricked me and told me you killed Faolan, and then he told me that he was going to ... to help me get revenge ... but I didn't know! I thought you'd done it!"

Oberon was staring at me as if he couldn't understand the words I was using.

"He was working with her the whole time! Robin forced me to stay in the field after training me so that I could put up a fight. When Gwyn came, I fought back and he had to focus on me, and the Hunters did too – it gave Robin time to – I don't know what he did – to do something –"

The Erlking's expression hadn't changed, and I felt a watery feeling in my bowels that I realized distantly was shame so deep and all-consuming that it was threatening to take me over. But I had to get the whole story out, I had to do my best to give him the full picture, so he would understand –

"When you saved me in the forest," I forced out, "Robin was there, and he got left behind – and when he came back, he was looking at you like he hated you –"

Robin began to laugh, a high cackle that made the hairs on my neck stand on end. It was the laugh of a madman, and it was this that finally silenced me.

"It's so perfect!"

He was looking at me now, gazing at me like a fond teacher.

"She knew! She knew all along! She could have stopped it! So many times! She could have stopped it all – and all she wanted to do was help me. All she wanted to do in the end ... was ... haha ... all she wanted to do was kill you!"

Oberon was looking back and forth between the two of us with wide eyes and more emotion than I'd seen on his face the entire time that I had lived in the Bower.

A series of crashes from outside drew our attention to the Bower entrance, and I saw trees there swaying in agitation. I turned back in time to see Oberon stride to the throne and turn to stand before it, the crown of silver leaves shining in his auburn hair.

"The Bower is under attack!"

His voice rolled over us, somehow amplified, and I was sure that all the Fae throughout the entire Bower could hear him.

"The Bower is under attack by the forces of the Faerie Queen – she has brought sunlight into our realm and she is poised to invade our home! We shall not let her do so. Let every Fae gird themselves for battle and hie thee out unto the plains, where we shall meet our ancient foe in strength. We fight for the safety of our homes and our way of life – stand ready to do battle!"

A ragged cheer went up, and the gathered Fae scattered, though more than one cast a look over their shoulder toward Robin, still at the foot of the throne and unable to stand. Gwyn and his Hunters stayed, but the other Fae disappeared into the depths of the Bower, or else went straight out to the field.

"We're running out of time," Gwyn said harshly.

"I know," Oberon said, striding forward. "But there's something I need your help with."

"What?"

"Not yet – I need to know more. You."

He pointed in my direction and I had to stop myself from shaking.

"Come here."

I came.

"Speak. How did you help him?"

"He trained me," I said quickly, speaking so fast that I was tripping over the words, trying to make my tongue work the way it should. "I – I saw him kill Faolan, and he said you'd made him do it –"

Oberon's face blazed with sudden fury, melting the cold composure that had defined him even now in the middle of a crisis. He turned back to Robin and moved toward him, and silver light suddenly burst into life around the younger man, closing in on him, holding him immobile, and causing the Puck to cry out in pain.

"You killed a changeling?"

"No!"

We all turned back to the other side of the gathering and there was Faolan – beautiful as ever, his dark hair now bound behind his head with a strip of rawhide, and his hazel eyes shining from his face. He strode forward from where he'd been standing next to Gwyn and spoke directly to the Erlking. There was no fear or subservience in his bearing now – all traces of it had disappeared, and it had transformed him into a young man.

"He didn't kill me."

There was noise from outside, the sound of distant roars and what sounded like the snapping of trees and the crashing booms of heavy bodies falling to the ground.

"Explain," Oberon snapped.

"I went through the madness," he said quickly. "Two months ago, during the last full moon. I was outside after the Calling ceremony – Robin followed me, and when I stepped into the moonlight I – I lost my mind. I attacked him – he threw me down, but I came at him again – he broke my nose, but I kept coming. There was blood everywhere and I could – I could taste it in the air –"

"Then he knocked him out," I broke in. "That's when I found him – that's when I came out to meet Faolan, and he was there on the ground, and Robin was covered in blood. Robin saw me and he said he'd killed Faolan because you'd made him do it –"

"Why?" Oberon broke in addressing Robin.

"Because I wanted to hurt her," Robin growled back at him, his face pulled back in a rictus of pain and satisfaction. "Because you liked her and I wanted to hurt her!"

"Then why did you use me afterwards?" I asked, at a loss. "You could have left it there – what did you use me for? Why was I in the field?"

Robin grinned through a face full of blood and matted hair.

"Because Gwyn can't hurt Oberon's blood."

I stared at him for a long moment, a strange ringing echoing in my ears. I took a step back as I felt the floor sway beneath me, and realized I had turned to look at the Erlking, who had turned to look at me. I don't know how I looked, but I'm fairly certain the expression of shock and disbelief that I must have assumed was mirrored on the face of the Faerie King.

"I have not been with another woman," the Erlking said simply, and then he turned back to Robin. "She is not mine."

Robin held up his hands and I saw again the bandage over the cut on his left hand, and now too the gaping wound that he had allowed to open on his right.

"But I am," he said with a grin. "And we swore an Oath of Binding. She carries my blood – she carries your blood. And when Gwyn threatened her, he spilled her blood and my blood, and at the edge of the Arden, right on the line that divides us, I spilt my blood as well, cutting myself with iron. It negated the Treaty – it broke everything."

Another flood of Ilyn rushed through the Hollowed Hall, this group dressed in heavy leather armor and bearing wicked clubs and carved staves. There was more noise from outside – more roars, more snapping branches – and then the Urden burst from the trees, retreating before an oncoming wave of creatures that shone like the sun.

"Erlking, we're out of time!"

Gwyn had moved so that he could see better through the Hall out into the field, and his face was grim. "We have no choice," he continued in his wolfish growl. "We need to meet her in the field."

"The sunlight will be there," Oberon said, glancing at the other Hunters. "My children can withstand it, but you will not be able to fight without risking death to you and your Hunt."

"To stop her," Gwyn growled, "we'll risk it."

The Hunters around the Hall raised bronze spears, axes, and bows and shouted a triple cry of agreement, a shout that echoed around the Hall. The Ilyn were rushing past them, already spreading out into the field, and I saw the forms of Caelyr crawling down as well, moving toward the back of the hall with huge spools of woven silk, rolling entire balls of it, readying bandages.

"Wait!" I shouted over the noise, motioning to Robin where he lay, still bound to the throne by the silver light the Erlking had cast. "We can't leave him like this!"

"She's right!" Gwyn said. "Titania's here for him as much as she is to destroy the Bower. If he gets loose –"

"He's under a new compulsion," Oberon said. "It's written all through him. It's been festering for a while, but under the surface."

"That's impossible – it would have to erase yours."

"It's Titania's work," Oberon replied quickly, watching me even as he spoke to his fellow king. "She got to him when last we went to meet with her – when Robin was separated from me. I didn't see it until now – I had no reason to look for it."

"How is that possible – you had him under compulsion to stay with you! You said he was loyal!"

"I knew it!" Robin shrieked in triumph. "She told me you had compelled me to stay with you – she told me that my real place was with her!"

"She lied to you," Gwyn snarled, startling Robin. "How on earth could you believe that? You ungrateful little –?"

"Leave him be," Oberon said. "He cannot take responsibility for what he doesn't know."

"So tell him! There might not be any goddam time left!"

"She told me you'd try to trick me with lies," Robin sneered. "She warned me that you would try to keep me with you. You've always tried to keep me here – I'm supposed to be with her, I'm supposed to be pure, I belong in the light of day!"

"You belong with me!" Oberon shouted frantically, his desperation bleeding through his voice and forcing me back a step as I watched him with fear. He was close to breaking. "I won't lose you again – I won't let her take you like this!"

He threw out his hands toward Robin and grabbed his head, holding it in place. Robin struggled madly against the grip but couldn't free himself.

"You're right, Gwyn. Damn the consequences - she broke the Treaty. There's nothing holding us back from telling him the truth. Will you help me?"

"My pleasure."

Gwyn threw out the hand not blistered and burned by the sunlight, and pure streaks of midnight black intertwined with the silvery moonlight that flowed from Oberon's crown. Together the strands wrapped around Robin, pulling him closer to the rival kings. Robin threw back his head and began to scream wordlessly, and the ends of the strands wove together and plunged into his open mouth, rushing in like smoke pulled through a chimney.

Faolan and I stood by, helpless, as more and more Fae rushed by, watching the proceedings with something akin to horror, but still following their kings' commands and making for the field, to stand between the Queen and their home. Robin's screams cut off, though his body continued to twist and writhe in agony, and both Oberon and Gwyn ap Nudd looked to be straining against invisible forces that pressed down on them from all sides.

"By the blood!" Gwyn growled, barely able to stand. "The compulsion is woven in with your original one, we need to free him from both if we free him from one!"

"We can't break the original compulsion – he can't remember this!"

"Why not?"

"Because he'll remember what she did to him! He'll remember what she tried to do to purify him; he'll remember losing his mind!"

I watched on, unable to look away, feeling Faolan's equal amazement at the open display of emotion. Oberon's face had fallen into deep lines of desperation, and the moonlight he'd been weaving around his son lit his face from below and made him look like an ancient statue.

The whole reason for all that he had done now lay open and on display before me – everything from the Bower to Robin to gathering the changelings every year to the way the training had been created. It was about him and his son – about never allowing anyone else to suffer through the pain his son had.

"Father!" roared Faolan, looking back toward the entrance to the Bower.

The Queen's army had emerged from the tree line. Row upon row of them were advancing toward the Bower, and though the moonlight Fae were lined up before them, the Urden were being forced back toward the Bower.

"Oberon!" roared Gwyn ap Nudd. "For the first and only time in your whole cursed life, listen to me!"

Oberon's gray-green eyes met Gwyn's black.

As one, they turned to Robin again and plunged their hands through the swirling midnight-moonlight magic and grasped his head with both hands. The Puck began to shake as if in the middle of a seizure, his arms and legs flailing around him uncontrollably.

Golden light blazed out of him, throwing Faolan and me off our feet. The world faded out and then was brought back in full by the heavy crashing sensation of being slammed into the rock-solid wood of the Bower floor. The madness kicked in and I reached out to touch the life of the Bower; the heat and life of the tree flowed through me and kept me conscious. I pulled myself back to my feet and saw that the throne and everything within twenty paces of it had been blasted back as though struck by lightning. Robin lay in the center of it all, flat on his back, arms and legs spread out and face pointed upward. Silence rang through my head as all of my focus narrowed in on Robin's chest, looking for evidence that he still lived.

His chest rose; he was breathing.

"He's alive," I said to no one in particular. I went forward and stood over him, then turned and saw Oberon and Gwyn pulling themselves to their feet, and repeated myself. "He's alive."

Caelyr rushed forward, looking him over, wrapping him in silk.

"It's done," Gwyn said.

"No," Oberon said, his face terrifying. "Not yet."

He turned and left the Bower. The rest of us followed hastily in his wake.

We passed through row after row of Fae as we crossed from the Hall onto the dewy grass of the field. The sky above us was still split in that horrible rent that showed half a universe of blue sky and half a universe of stars. The Fae moved aside for us as we came through, and I saw all of them take heart as the two kings came to take control in the face of the approaching sunlight.

The main force of her army was made of creatures that looked like Ilyn somehow gone wrong, the ones that I had seen before. They were too tall, and they were so thin they looked emaciated, all of their bones standing out beneath their skin. Their eyes were slanted and their ears jutted back from their faces to points, and an identical sneer seemed to be plastered on each and every face.

"Elves," said Faolan, sneering the word.

The two forces straddled the dividing line, Oberon and the denizens of the Bower on one side and Titania's force on the other. Silence fell between them as all three monarchs held up hands that quieted their respective followers. Slowly, the three moved forward and met in the center of the field, directly on either side of the split between light and dark.

She looked as beautiful and terrible as she had the last time I had seen her. She stood tall and regal, her auburn hair flowing down about her shoulders and her green eyes merciless like the noon sun in summer. She was clothed in golden robes that burned and shone like a polished mirror, and her radiance was blinding.

"Where is Robin?" she asked.

"Being cared for," Oberon replied coldly, "as always."

She sneered at him, looking beautiful even as she did that.

"Have you told him yet that you've been holding him captive?"

"I've told him everything," Oberon answered with perfect composure.

Titania's eyes widened, but then she regained her composure.

"Good," she said. "Then give him to me. Give him to me, and give me all the changelings that you've stolen from the world of men."

The Ilyn immediately began to hiss and growl at her, and several of the Urden who had made it back battered and bruised openly laughed. The strange creatures that formed the core of Queen's army, the ones that Faolan had called Elves, snarled back in response and nocked bronze-headed arrows to their bows.

But Oberon held up a hand, and slowly all the Fae, even those born in the light of day, quieted and watched him.

"Leave," Oberon said quietly, but with rock-hard hatred clearly visible beneath his calm composure. "Your plan has failed. You came here for the changelings, but you shall not have them. You came here for Robin, but you shall not have him. You came here thinking I would be sealed away in the Bower, that you would be able to walk right in and claim my children for your own, and that too has failed. You thought that Gwyn ap Nudd, King of the Night and Leader of the Wild Hunt, would not interfere, or else would stand aside. He stands with me, as he did before."

"And as I'll bloody do again."

"So you have no place here," the Erlking continued, the force of his will so immense I couldn't even imagine standing before it. "You have no claim to those whom I raised, those whom I have saved. If you cross into my Bower, you come bringing blood and death that will kill more than either of us can ever save. Go back. Let us now, all three of us, renew the Treaty. Let all three of us protect the Fae as we once swore to do, and as we can swear to do again."

He fell silent and I felt a swelling in my heart that could only have been pride.

Titania stirred and moved. I tensed, as did Faolan and all the Fae behind us. The Sunlight Fae that had come with her drew their bowstrings taut and looked ready to raise and loose their arrows at the slightest twitch.

She sneered at Oberon, and I felt waves of loathing wash over me.

"The changelings belong to me."

She moved faster than I could follow, and sent a bolt of pure golden light straight through Oberon's heart.

Chapter Twenty-One: Children of the Fae

I was in motion before I had any idea what was happening.

As soon as the Erlking was struck, both sides of Fae burst into action, rushing at each other to meet at the long day-night line that bisected the Bower field. I dove for Oberon and managed to knock him down out of the way as Gwyn roared past us and attacked Titania, throwing her back in a huge heaving lunge.

I rolled Oberon over, trying to find what was wrong with him, but he moved away from me and stood as the whole in his chest shimmered with silver moonlight and began to close on its own.

"Get back – help the Ilyn!" he shouted to me over the din, and then he was rushing toward Titania as Gwyn roared in pain, the sunlight hitting and blistering his skin.

I recoiled and ducked as arrows flew over me; I dove behind an Urden that had its arms out and back turned, protecting the other Fae from the brunt of the attack. Arrows stuck in its gray-green hide, but seemed to do no more damage than if they'd hit a solid rock. The Ilyn surged forward around the sides of the Urden once the volley was done, but not all were so lucky: I watched helplessly as half a dozen fell with stray arrows through their chests, throats, and eyes.

I regained my feet and searched desperately for Faolan, looking everywhere. There was no one I recognized around me – only swirling knots of Elves and Ilyn, all engaged in vicious combat. Finally my eyes landed on him, fighting beside Gwyn just on the night side of the world-divide, both sprouting arrows from their thick leather armor. They fought with bronze swords that bit through the wood wielded by the Elves, but they were by far outnumbered. Beyond them I could see flashes of silver and gold and knew Titania and Oberon were fighting as well.

I went for them, but was stopped when one of the Elves appeared from nowhere. A dagger with a blade made of sharpened horn snaked out for me, and I recoiled just in time to avoid having my throat cut. I scrambled backward, shouting, and grabbed the madness.

The fever washed over and through me, and when the Elf came again I attacked before he got to me. I snapped my fist out and landed it in his stomach, producing a rush of air that smelled like fresh cut heather, and then spun and slammed my foot against his knee. He shouted in pain and crumpled to the ground. He grabbed my foot and pulled me back, landing me next to him on my stomach.

I shouted in alarm, but my voice was lost in the din of battle. I flipped over onto my back and balled my feet up as he tried to throw himself onto me. I managed to push up and keep him away, but he twisted as he fell back and knocked aside my legs, then lunged forward again and punched my shoulders to the ground. The high cheekbones and alien features horrified me, and I tried to pull away, tried to let the madness show me the way out, but I couldn't move. He raised the dagger high over me, and all I could see was the sharpened edge of horn ready to slice open my neck.

A shape flew past me that I couldn't make out, but as it went it struck the Fae I was fighting, ripping a gash in the side of his neck. The Elf cried out in alarm and pain, and flipped off of me, clutching at the wound. I spun to my feet immediately, shocked at my reversal of fortune, and looked down at the gash in the creature's neck.

It was foaming along the edges like acid eating into the flesh.

A wave of sickness washed over me, and I turned to look at the path the shape had taken as it rushed past me, knowing before I even saw the disappearing form, before I even saw the other Fae, both light and dark, stagger away as it crossed their path, who it must have been.

Robin.

I rushed after him, wondering who I would find when I caught up to him. Who was he now? What side was he on?

But before I could give chase in earnest, I pulled up short and realized that Oberon's forces were being driven back, and Gwyn's Hunters could not go near the sunlight and were forced to retreat alongside them. The Elves continued to pour out of the forest, and though they were less in number they were far better prepared and armed. Arrows continued to fly, striking down the Ilyn. There were other creatures in the forest now too, I could see them there in the shadows, but only as giant scaled forms, nearly the size of Urden.

"To the Bower!"

I don't know who raised the cry, but it was taken up and echoed on all sides. I turned and retreated with the rest of the Moonlight Fae, keeping my eyes peeled for both Faolan and Robin. The Sunlight Fae cheered and began to follow us, but the line of night and day did not shift, and as they crossed it, I felt heat swell up inside me and below me, rolling through the earth.

Roots began to emerge from the ground, attacking the legs of the Sunlight Fae, pulling them down into the ground, strangling them. I looked up and saw the branches of the Bower swaying as if in a high breeze. Connected as I still was to the madness, I could feel the fever coming off the Bower, could feel the energy it was putting out. The Elves shouted and retreated, and the line between day and night became clear again and I thought that maybe we had won.

Then the line of sun and day began to advance once more.

I remembered with mounting fear what Oberon had said, that the outer circle was broken and that we could only hold out so long. It looked as though he'd been right.

The Elves began to advance, and as they did I saw other Sunlight Fae emerge from the forest, all similarly angular and fair, with long hair and haughty faces, and behind them came the large creatures I'd glimpsed as shadows that seemed to glisten in the sun as light bounced off what looked like scales.

One of them burst from the trees and took to the air.

It was a monstrous lizard with huge wings like a bat's. It opened its mouth and let out a roaring challenge that was echoed by the Urden who rushed to meet it as it dove toward the day-night world divide. Emboldened, another dozen of the creatures took wing behind the first and followed suit, descending from the sky.

The Urden fought against them with their huge arms, swinging and pounding the creatures when they came close enough, but the monstrous claws ripped through the gray-green skin with terrifying ease, and Urden began to fall. The chief Urden, covered in the ritual markings and standing head shoulders above the others, rallied them, standing even with the first and largest of the reptilian beasts, finally slamming it to the ground and ripping open its chest to a chorus of ragged cheers.

But the power of the sun was too great. The scaled creatures dove through the air, and though the Urden attacked them in groups, grabbing the wings and tearing them off at the shoulder, or diving on top of the creatures as they came in low, still the Moonlight Fae burned, and Gwyn's Hunters fell back, unable to face the encroaching sunlight, their skin steaming as they retreated, though they'd thrown their hands and cloaks over their heads to ward it off.

Faolan.

I couldn't see him, didn't know where he had gone.

Puck.

He was gone as well, disappeared into the swirling tide of battle that raged back and forth across the field I had danced in so many times.

Oberon –Titania – Gwyn –

I could see none of the monarchs now either. The Urden were all around, and the Ilyn as well, and I was neither tall nor big; there was no way for me to see any section of the field besides that in which I was. Another Elf rushed at me, and this time the madness flowed easily and I laid her out before she could do me any harm, but as soon as I'd done so I was swept back by the retreating tide of Fae toward the Bower.

"Faolan!"

I could barely hear myself over the din, and knew it was impossible to even hope that he might hear me too.

"STOP!"

For a second I thought it was me who'd shouted the word, but in the next I knew it wasn't. The shout had carried across the field with unnatural strength, and many of the combatants disengaged to turn in the direction of the cry, which sounded haggard and ill-used.

I rushed toward the sound, crashing my way through the Fae who barred my path without any care for which side they were on. He was about to do something foolish – I had to get to him, I had to be there –

"STOP!"

I saw the speaker – Robin Goodfellow.

His clothing was in tatters, both from what Oberon and Gwyn had done to him and from what he'd gone through to get to the edge of the battlefield. Blood was everywhere, and I couldn't tell what was his and what was from the other Fae. I kept moving toward him as those around me began to disengage from one other, compelled by the strength of his voice, and I realized he was pushing toward Oberon and Titania, both of whom had noticed him.

A wave of sickness washed over me as he raised his hand and held the iron blade of his dagger to his throat – the dagger I'd kicked away and forgotten.

"Hold!"

"Stop!"

Oberon and Titania were the ones who'd shouted, and their voices were echoed over the fields like the crashing boom of thunderheads jostling one another for position. A wind swept over them, raking through the bodies of the embattled Fae like a comb through hair, sweeping them apart, the combined power of the Faerie King and Queen compounding upon itself, making me realize what they could do if they worked together, showing me both how they were meant to fit and how they had been driven apart.

The noise died, and the Fae looked around, trying to find what or who had spoken. I pushed forward, trying to get to Robin, and broke through the last line of Urden. With a sense of vertigo, I realized we were all barely a dozen yards from the entrance to the Hollowed Hall.

Robin was standing directly on the line of demarcation between the sunlight and the moonlight, where it had stopped and, for the moment, stayed. Oberon stood behind him, closer to the Bower, staring at his son with wide eyes, and Titania stood closer to me, still in the sun, throwing off dazzling beams of light.

"Give me answers," Robin said, "or I end this right now."

Chapter Twenty-Two: Truth

My eyes travelled from Robin down to the ground he stood on, and I realized with a shock that he stood in the center of a ring of bodies that I couldn't make out. They were clad mostly in green and gold, which meant Elves, but some of them looked to be wearing the pale off-white of Ilyn. How many had died? And all for what?

"Which of you is holding me?" he said, turning back and forth between them, his eyes wide and confused. I pitied him suddenly, something I'd never expected to feel for Robin. His entire world, his whole mind, had just been ripped apart. "Which one of you tried to bind me to you?"

"Robin," Titania said, her voice calm but firm, "put the knife down. You belong with me – come back to me, and we can make sure you never have to leave my side again. You and I can bring this place into the light – we can purify it and –"

"We both did."

Robin turned away from his mother and stared at Oberon, the one who had spoken.

"That's a lie," the Puck said. "You can't have both –"

"Look at me," Oberon said, stepping forward and using light from his silver crown to force back the pocket of sunlight, making himself clearly visible. "Look at me. Does it look like I am lying? Tell me – tell me if I'm lying. You would know – you always know."

Robin paused for a second, watching his father's face, and his certainty wavered.

"How?" he demanded of Oberon, then turning to glare at Titania: "How?"

"You were meant to be with me, Robin," Titania said.

"Stop lying – I can see you lying!"

The shout rolled over all the gathered Fae and made many of us flinch back. His voice was raw and uncontrolled, so different from his normal composure that it was almost like watching him cry.

Robin turned back to Oberon, waiting for his response.

"We gave you a choice," the Erlking said. "And you chose me."

Titania took a step forward, her face burning with rage.

"You made him chose you – you manipulated him – you manipulate them all!"

"You are the one who stole him from me, Titania, don't you dare pretend otherwise. You are the one who couldn't live with his choice – you're the one who couldn't live with him being with both of us. You're the one who made him chose in the first place."

"You lie, Oberon! YOU LIE!"

"No, he doesn't," Robin said quietly, watching Oberon's face with wide eyes that missed nothing. I watched Titania's face go from shock to pain to fury in the space of a heartbeat. Robin turned back to her.

"He isn't lying," he said to her. "I can see it. You know I can see it – and you know he's telling the truth. You made me choose."

"He tricked me," she spat out, her fair skin darkening with a flush. "He made me think you'd choose me –"

"But I didn't," Robin said. "Why did you tell me I did?"

"Because I'm your mother, you belong with me!"

Robin was watching her with unmasked revulsion, and as I watched he took a step back, moving toward Oberon. He turned and faced the Erlking.

"Why didn't I know about any of this? Why couldn't I remember?"

Oberon was watching him with a furrowed brow and clenched jaw that spoke of painful memories he couldn't escape. He swallowed and spoke, all the Fae hanging on his words.

"Because when you chose me she cursed you to hate me. The only way to make you come with me was to make you swear fealty – to make you think you needed to come with me. It was the only way to get you away from her."

"See? He forced you to stay with him!"

Titania's triumphant cry rang out in near total silence and Robin didn't respond to it. He was watching Oberon, golden eyes scanning the beautifully carved face of the Faerie King, looking for something I can only guess at.

He turned back to Titania.

"Would you retreat if I threatened to kill myself?"

"Robin," Titania said at once, "don't do anything foolish. You can't –"

"No," Oberon said.

Robin back, staring with a mix of emotions all so swirled around each other that I couldn't distinguish one from the others. He was scanning his father's face as if trying to memorize it, examining every detail, looking for the slightest hint of a lie.

"Why not?"

Oberon's eyes were so grief-stricken that they broke my heart; all watching knew that even speaking the words that followed was like forcing him to cut out his heart.

"Because you are my pride and joy, my first and only blood – but they are my children too, and I swore to care for them as I would care for you."

He gestured behind himself, to the broken and bleeding creatures that had taken refuge behind him in the giant tree; to the Caelyr, the Urden, the Paecsies, the Ilyn, and all the other creatures of darkness and moonlight that fought for the Bower. With a shock I realized there were changelings there too, the ones that had yet to become full Ilyn – I saw Brandel's face and Gwenel's, both bloody and wide-eyed, and behind them Igrin and Celin and all the others – I saw Ai'Ilyn with Zal'Ilyn, holding Ite'Ilyn between them, his green skin far too pale – I saw the older changelings who were Ilyn now, those like Kyre that I had watched disappear and who had now come full circle to serve the Bower and the Erlking.

I saw Oberon's children.

"You see!" Titania said suddenly, her beautiful soprano overtopping Oberon's vibrating bass. "He doesn't care for you – I do. You are my son – you belong with me!"

Robin turned back to her, still holding the iron dagger to his neck.

I wasn't able to hold myself back any longer. I pushed forward into the space that had cleared between them. Every eye turned to me. Bows were suddenly taut again, and I felt the weight of mountains heaped on my shoulders as the gaze of both King and Queen fell on me.

"If you care for him, then why did you make him try to kill the Erlking?"

Silence followed my question and I realized my whole body was shaking with fury. I took another step forward, the anger burning up my self-consciousness, and I came slowly to Oberon's side. The Puck watched me all the way.

"What do you mean?" he said, his eyes burning into mine.

"Don't listen to her," Titania said quickly.

"She tried to do it to me, too!" I said, shouting over her. "She tried to do it to me when I followed you through the forest – she tried to make me one of hers!"

"Silence!"

I was rocked back a step by the force of the command issuing from the Queen's mouth, and, just as had happened with Oberon in the Bower, all sounds seemed to momentarily dim. The command settled over me and tried to worm its way through my mind, the way it had when I was in the forest at her mercy.

"NO!"

I shouted through the madness, my voice coming out in more than simple sound. Her word broke like a rotted string, and sound roared back to life. Everyone in the vicinity rocked back, all except for me. I took a step forward, letting the madness inside me roll out, undiluted. Robin was right – the madness wasn't something to be controlled, it was something to be embraced. It was a part of me – it wanted to come out, it wanted to attack this source of sunlight.

"NO!" I shouted again. "I will not be silent! You have no right over me – you cannot control my mind!"

Shock was written over the face of the Queen, and the Sunlight Fae flanking her were looking to her for commands, but were receiving none.

"I am one of Oberon's Children," I snarled at her. "I am of the moonlight. This is my home, this is where I belong, and I will lay down my life to keep it from you!"

A sudden chorus of roars echoed from behind me, the Children and the Hunters shouting their solidarity with me.

"And Robin belongs with us!"

I looked at him, straight in the eye.

"Think about it – think about what she can do – think about what she tried to do to me. She made you hate him even more – she made you come back and find a way to let her in. She doesn't care about you – she wants the Bower! She wants all of us, too!"

I saw the smallest flicker of comprehension dawn on his face, a tiny crack in his composure –

The blow came out of nowhere. One second I was standing where I was, the next I was sent flying backward through the air, my vision shaking and rolling. Someone caught me, a solid body, and then there was shouting. I caught a glimpse of someone tackling Robin, bearing him to the ground and knocking aside the hand holding the iron dagger. The Sunlight Fae pulled their bows and aimed in one smooth movement, while the Queen threw out her arm toward the King's force. Oberon saw the move and lifted the corners of his cloak, twisting where he stood –

"ATTACK!"

A dozen arrows shot from the Elves and buried themselves in Oberon's chest – and passed through. The King of Shadows disappeared and reappeared several feet away, almost directly on top of Robin. He reached for his son, but Titania arrived first and struck him with a clawed hand, grabbing him by the throat and throwing him aside.

The Moonlight Fae let out a roar and charged, and the Sunlight Fae rushed to meet them. I ran for Robin, trying to see him through the crowd, but something caught me and threw me through the air.

In the few seconds that I was airborne, I realized I might be about to die.

I crashed into the ground and felt the wind rush from my lungs. I gasped and began to choke, unable to take a full breath. I rolled over, looking up into the warring sky, split down the middle in a jagged line like something from a child's nightmare.

There was a rock beneath my palm, and my hand closed over it convulsively.

Light bloomed from nowhere, slicing through my squinted eyes. My ears were ringing and I couldn't understand what was happening. I rolled to my chest and pushed myself to my knees, coughing uncontrollably as I wheezed useless breaths in and out of my deflated lungs. I could hear shouting all around me, and dimly I recognized the voices. I staggered to my feet and was spun around by an Urden running past me. I ground my teeth together and rubbed a hand across my face, trying to pull the sweat from my eyes.

I blinked and the world came into focus. I looked down at my hand, still clutching the stone, and couldn't understand at first what I was seeing.

It was my moonstone, thrown from my pocket when I'd landed.

I looked around, desperately trying to make sense of the sea of writhing bodies all before me. Ilyn were clashing with Elves; Paecsies were screeching and attacking the taller Fae I couldn't recognize; Urden were laying about left and right with mauls and enormous slabs of wood in an attempt to fell what I could only describe as dragons. I ducked beneath a white-and-gray Sylph that shot from the sky toward me, and rushed through a press of Urden, before the last bit of air I had in my lungs was gone completely. I was forced to the ground as stars winked at the edges of my vision.

I looked up again, trying to lift a head that suddenly felt several pounds too heavy, and realized I was looking toward Robin, who was on the ground. He had lost his feet but retained hold of his dagger, and Titania was standing over him, trying to wrest it from his hands. The path between them and me had cleared in one of the strange eddies of battle that push and then contract like a ripple in a pond.

Silvery light flickered fitfully at the corner of my eyes and I looked down dumbly at the stone I was still holding.

Everything slowed as the image of Tristan floated across my vision.

Iron and fire.

Energy rushed down my spine like a bolt of lightning, and I forced myself to my feet with a determination that defied the signals of my failing body. I stumbled toward Titania and Robin, my mind working too slowly. My lips and tongue felt numb, and I knew that I hadn't yet been able to take a full breath of air. I pushed ahead regardless.

An Urden fell across my path, and I saw arrows sticking from its green-gray skin like newly sprouted branches. I glanced to my left and saw two Elves run forward, bows in hand, drawing arrows to shoot at me.

I dove forward, just clearing the side of the Urden, once again compressing my lungs and making them burn. Coughing and hacking, I stumbled to my feet and ducked forward, hearing the sound and feeling the wind of two arrows slice through the air above my head, only to embed themselves in two sunlight creatures fighting a group of Ilyn, knocking them off-balance.

My fist was clutched desperately around the moonstone. I continued forward, closing the distance, just managing to take full breath. They were directly before me, barely a dozen feet away. Titania was still on top, holding down her son, holding his hand up and away from him at the perfect height. I walked forward as if in a dream, right up to where they were. I caught the sight of something to my left, and turned to see Oberon rushing toward us, rounding a group of Fae that had held him back; he was looking at the stone in my hand. I looked away, knowing I didn't have much time.

I grabbed the dagger from Robin's hand, feeling the smooth horn-handle protect me against the overpowering nausea caused by the iron blade; this close it almost obliterated all thought, but somehow I hung on to my intention. Robin, completely taken by surprise, let the dagger go, but Titania lunged after it.

A flash of swirling darkness interposed itself between us, and I saw the silver leaves of the moonlight crown. Titania fell back as she was pushed aside, and Oberon threw himself on Robin, seeing what I was about to do. I calmly pierced the moonstone with the iron blade of the dagger.

The world exploded around me.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Leaving

I remember flashes of light and pain that ripped through me. Shards of ice drove into the base of my spine with every beat of my heart and hot wire wrapped around and through my head. I tried to move and realized I was convulsing. There was sound, crashing noises all around me – shouting and then screaming – and then the noise was retreating and the golden light was disappearing, moving off, far away – and the light was silver and only silver and beginning to grow –

Pain slashed through the skin over my chest and my bones were pulled apart. I shouted wordlessly, feeling as though all I was, all I could ever be again, was a single nerve, stimulated past the point of endurance, over and over again. Something broke in my brain or in my eyes, and my vision went red, entirely and completely, a thin membrane pulled down over the world to separate me from it.

"She's awake!"

"Arandil!"

"I know, Ionmar, I know!"

Stinging pain in my arm and at my neck, and then the pain was fading, and the light as well, until the only color I saw was the darkness inside my eyelids as I fell back into unconsciousness.

I woke once in the Weaving Room of the Caelyr. I was somewhere far to the side, and could just barely see the giant loom. The room was different – the walls were coated in layer after layer of thick web, and hundreds of bodies hung there in silk cocoons.

There were voices talking above me. My eyes wouldn't turn to look at them – they seemed frozen, staring straight ahead.

"Traces of the iron are bound to her – she cannot remain here. The Fae side of her has to be submerged if she has any chance at recovery."

"What will that do to her?"

"She'll become mostly human."

"Mostly?"

"Yes – after seeing what she's capable of, it's impossible to say how much will be lost in the transition, but I suspect very highly the madness will remain in part. How powerful it will be ... that I cannot say."

"If it remains then there is hope."

"Yes – where there is a spark there can be a flame."

"But there's a chance it will die?"

"More than a chance – it is likely she will remember nothing, and if she goes too long without touching the madness, it will be extinguished forever."

"Then what can we do?"

"Nothing, save get her out. The sooner we do, the better her chances."

I came to more consciousness and found I couldn't move. I was wrapped head to toe in silk. I tried to push against it and it gave a very small amount, but otherwise held firm.

"Bring Arandil," said the voice I recognized. "She's awake."

The owner of the voice knelt next to me, and I realized it was Robin.

He was completely changed. I cannot fully express to you how different he was because his physical features were unaltered, but it was clear that he was an entirely different person. He still carried that wink of mischief in his eye, but it was no longer tempered with anger and hate – that part had gone out of him when the compulsions had been removed. He was no longer torn between two worlds, no longer forced to obey anyone. Despite all his protestations that he was not a changeling, he had gone through a changing as surely as I had.

"Hello," I said, not knowing what else was possible to say after all we'd been through together.

"Hello," he replied, looking me over with pain and concern. I tried to grimace, but the motion pulled at my face and I found I couldn't move half of it. I tried to blink and realized the reason my vision was so poor was that one of my eyes was swollen shut and bandaged – the silk wrapping covered the whole right side of my head.

"Don't try to move," he said sternly. "You're wrapped pretty tight, but the Caelyr are still acting like you're made of porcelain, which is never a good sign."

I swallowed, trying to work moisture into my mouth, and tried to force my thoughts into a cohesive whole. I blinked once, hard, and realized who was actually with me and what that really meant.

"You're ... still here?"

His face tightened, and I saw all of what had happened go rushing back through his mind. It was fascinating, in my drugged and dying state, to realize that this man who been so much a puzzle was now so transparent.

"Oberon told the truth," I said, before he could speak. I wasn't thinking clearly about what to say; I was simply speaking, putting forward the information that seemed important. "He told you the truth."

Robin looked away for a brief second, just a quick flick of his eyes down to my neck and back. He made no motion of agreement, but his non-denial was all I needed.

"What about ... her?" I shivered violently in my wrappings when I thought of Titania, and felt like a rain of hail was pelting the skin over my spine. I gasped and cried out – and then the sensation was gone, but I was fading again.

"By the blood," Robin hissed. "Ionmar – find out where they went! We need Arandil now!"

I heard movement, the scrape of clawed feet on the hard Bower floor, and then I was alone in a strange half-wood half-web room with Robin, who was looking back over his shoulder and cursing under his breath.

"Robin," I said, trying to draw him back to me, needing to know what had happened. My mind felt numb around the edges, but I pushed forward, tripping over my tongue. "R-r-robin."

He wouldn't turn around.

"Puck!"

The name came unbidden, but as soon as it left my mouth his head jerked around to me. I couldn't see his expression from where he was standing, but I felt a tension enter the room that hadn't been there before.

"Puck," I repeated. "Puck – come back. You need ... you have to ..."

My vision went dark, but then I felt a hand on my shoulder, radiating warmth, and I opened my eye again to see him.

"Tell me what happened after ... ?"

"You nearly killed her," he said softly. "The explosion wasn't nearly as intense as the one the night you ... chased that other nestling. The moonstone you used was dying, there was barely any fire left in it. But there was enough. Something about the way you were holding the dagger made the stone explode downward. It blew both you and the Queen into the air and sent you flying. Ai'Ilyn caught you – she said she ran for you after you confronted ... us ... at the entrance to the Bower, but she wasn't fast enough to do anything but catch you."

Ai'Ilyn had saved my life. Again.

"The Queen was in agony," he said, grimacing.

"Your mother," I said quietly.

He shot me a look as if trying to determine whether or not I was mocking him, but softened when he caught my eye.

"The Queen," he repeated firmly. "The dagger exploded into a number of shards, and at least a dozen of them struck her. Iron is poison to the Fae – you know that – but there's a window in which the poison can be drawn out and neutralized. As soon as she was down, the sunlight disappeared from the sky and the Bower night returned, pushing back the sky. The Elves stood fast, but the lesser Fae, the Halflings and the others, even the Dragons, fled immediately. Oberon stood up and called for the battle to stop ... I've never seen him like that. He was glowing, like the moon was inside of him, and none of the Sunlight Fae could stand before him – he gestured in their direction and they were sent flying backwards. When Gwyn joined him, able to fight in earnest once the sunlight was gone, there was no stopping the rout. The Elves managed to pick up the Queen and take her – and Oberon told us not to follow. They made it to the forest and that's all I know. Ai'Ilyn called the Caelyr while we were fighting, and I ... I don't know why I'm here to see you, but I am. I ... owe you."

He fell silent. I found myself trying to shake my head to tell him he didn't owe me anything, but of course I was unable. I tried to remember why I was tied up like this, but I couldn't – the reason was stuck somewhere in my head and wouldn't come out.

I heard the scuttling sound of clawed feet scratching the wood.

"Finally!" Robin said, standing and turning to the Caelyr. He gestured toward me as if to hurry them along. As if reminded by their presence, my body began to convulse once more, shaking me inside the confines of the Caelyr-silk wrapping. My neck spasmed, pulling my head up and then slamming it back down into the solid wood of whatever I had been laid on.

"By the blood, bite her!"

I felt hands on both arms, and one pair cupping my head. I opened my eye and saw through a red haze the kind face of Ionmar, watching me with fear. Her head descended, her lips loving kissed my neck, and then her sharp teeth bit into my skin. I gasped at the pain, but then the numbing came and I couldn't feel it anymore. Two more spots of pain – in the crook of both elbows – and then numbness covered my whole body, and I was floating up and away.

"Wait," I said as the darkness nudged me toward the door of unconsciousness. "Wait ... Puck –"

"What?"

I looked up into his golden eyes, forcing my own to focus though the muscles that controlled them had gone numb. His eyes were the same shape as Oberon's – his chin was Titania's. How had I never seen it? I saw his mouth, the way it turned down just at the end in a frown, and realized why it had always felt so familiar.

"I'm glad you stayed," I said. "You belong here. Like me."

His eyes widened, and then I passed into the darkness.

The next time I woke I was swaying under a canopy of trees.

Leaves were whispering around me, making soft whisking noises as they rubbed against fabric and were pushed aside. Wind blew, too, playing with the autumn leaves of the trees above me, breaking some off and sending them spiraling down in trickles of orange, yellow, and red.

There were voices as well – both of them male. One was deeper than the other, and spoke more slowly.

"I didn't tell her – she figured it out on her own. I don't know how, but I've stopped underestimating her. What I put her through in the training should have killed a normal changeling. I did it to prove it to myself – I had to know that she was what I suspected."

"When did you first suspect?"

The wind blew heavier as Robin paused, swirling the leaves and sending a vibrant spray of autumn colors swirling through the air.

"I suspected," he said, "the night the madness came to Gwyn's bastard – the one she said was named Faolan. When she found me with him – he'd attacked me when he changed, just the way they always do during their first moon, and then passed out – she told me to leave him alone. She was deep in the madness, so deep I don't even think she realized what she was doing, but she'd imbued the words with power the way you do. Still, it shouldn't have done much to me."

"But it did."

"It threw me twenty feet through the air," Robin said. "I couldn't understand it until later."

"Fae blood – true Fae blood, not diluted through years of breeding. One of the old ones must be her direct ancestor – one of the ones of the deep forest, where the trees have never felt a human hand. No wonder she danced the moonlight so easily."

"I wonder that she was never claimed."

"I do not. I am of the old ones, but very different. They do not come to my Bower and I do not come to theirs. Some of them, Mab and Morwena, Annuwn and the Deadlords ... they are mad in truth, and wish nothing but to live that way. They want nothing to do with mankind. It is strange that any of them would come from the forest long enough to have her. I feel something else brought them, but I know not what."

"It is strange hearing this from you," Robin said quietly. "It is strange hearing you talk openly."

Oberon spoke with a smile in his voice, a brief ray of light in a dark conversation. "I am glad that I can share with you finally. Glad that you are my son again."

There was a brief period of silence in which I swayed back and forth and the trees began to thin around us. We were now longer near the Bower.

"Who was the mortal parent?"

"I doubt we shall ever know. It is a higher chance the mother was mortal – the old Fae only carry children when they wish to. The mother must have been special, though, to tempt one of the old ones. Perhaps she was one of the Ilyn who left – perhaps a number of things. In the end, though, I doubt she or we shall ever know."

"I thought as much," Robin said quietly, his voice matching the sound of the sighing wind. "I know that old blood carries the madness in a way the new blood does not, and that if I gave her enough blood of mine, it would bond with her."

"So you tested her?"

"Yes. It was ... brutal, I must say. Much more than most changelings could have gone through. To be fair, she gave as good as she got, though I never told her as much."

I cleared my throat and spoke:

"You deserved it," I said, my voice cracking but loud enough to be heard, "because you're an ass."

There was a brief, stunned silence, and then the litter in which I was carried stopped swaying and was lowered to the ground. The world seemed to swirl around me as vertigo grabbed and spun my head like a top, but it settled after a moment. When my vision cleared, I saw both of them were standing in front of me, looking down. When I focused on Robin, he broke into a wolfish smile. His single crooked tooth stood out in the dawning light and made him look boyish.

"I can tell you a story of an ass if you really want to know one – it's quite good."

"Another time," Oberon said solemnly, looking back behind them. "We're too close to the edge and the sunrise will be on us soon. We cannot linger."

"Where are we?" I asked. As I spoke, all the aches and pains from the battle came back to me, and a deeper pain, a deep ache in my chest where a shard of the iron dagger had pierced me, began to beat in slow agony. I could move, and I realized that while most of my torso was still heavily bandaged, my arms and legs were free.

"We are near the edge of Arden," Oberon said. He had knelt beside me and was leaning over the litter. "All of us owe you a great debt. But I owe you most of all."

"I owe you more," I said, slowly. "You saved my life."

"I did what needed to be done," he said, his expression suddenly brooding and pained.

"I know," I said simply, hoping that was enough to show him I understood.

His brows contracted and pulled together and his eyes were suddenly shining.

"It is why we are here on the edge of Arden. You cannot stay in the Bower – what you did, we can never repay you for. But if you stay, you will die. There is iron in your chest, bonded to you. If you stay, it will kill you. If you leave, it will lose its power and you'll survive."

I swallowed as the words sunk in and the reality of the situation closed over me. I wasn't surprised – I think I'd known what would happen when I used the dagger on the moonstone, or at least suspected. I'd saved the Bower only to leave it.

"I understand," I said softly, trying and failing to keep the pain from my voice. I felt tears well up in my eyes, but I held them back. He was staring at me with an echoed pain, and Robin sighed heavily and turned away, his smile gone.

"She'll come after you," Oberon said, his voice heavy. "She'll come after you and try to bring the light to everything you do in revenge for taking Robin away from her. We'll be watching you as best we can, so long as you are near the forests, but she will still come."

I swallowed through my dry and aching throat, forcing my tongue and lips to move. "Then I will fight her," I croaked. "I will fight her and anyone she sends."

His eyes were full of a fierce pride, and it prompted me to continue.

"But I can't go yet."

He frowned, about to speak, but I cut him off.

"My year isn't up. I have to follow the rules."

Robin barked a laugh and rocked back on his heels, and Oberon managed a wry smile. "I think this time there is an exception to be made," he said.

A wind passed over and around us, swirling the leaves. The light was strengthening; our time was drawing short, and we all three knew it.

"I won't remember, will I?"

His jaw tightened and I felt the tears rise up in the corners of my eyes. I turned away from him and tried to hide my face, but he reached out and gently turned it back, the pads of his fingers rough against my skin.

"The strongest always remember something," he said firmly, as if lecturing me on one final point, giving me one last lesson before I went. "The strongest remember how to embrace the madness – and they keep hold of the things that are most important to them. If you do that – if you hold onto the madness, then you can return. The iron will lose its power as time passes, and if you hold on, if you remember, then there is a chance you can return."

"I'll remember you," I said, grasping at his hand. "I swear I will."

He nodded, and just as I felt my strength returning to me my heart skipped a beat and the blood rushed from my face.

"She has to go," Arandil said, coming around the side of my litter to look at me. There was another Fae with her, and I realized with surprise it was Ai'Ilyn, whose face looked ashen and grave. "If she doesn't leave now, the iron will kill her, Erlking."

"Very well," he said with a nod. His face was stern and blank – the face of a king – but his eyes were clinging to me with all the love of a father. "Save her."

The spider woman began wrapping me in silk one last time, cocooning me so tightly I couldn't breathe. I tried to protest, but two others appeared and all three bit me simultaneously. Darkness began to descend.

"I can come back if I remember?" I asked. "You promise I can come back?"

Oberon knelt over me once more, watching me with his gray-green eyes.

"I promise with all my power that if you remember we will come for you. If the iron falls away and I can bring you back safely, I will do so. Be you old and grey, bent or broken, I will take you in and welcome you. You are my daughter as much as Robin is my son, and I will never abandon you, for as long as you live."

My final words came out in a whisper full of pain and longing.

"Goodbye, Oberon."

I saw him smile, transforming his face into a beautiful tableau that I swore I would remember as the Caelyr venom swept through my brain and pulled my thoughts out from under me, sending me spiraling into darkness.

"Goodbye, my beautiful child."

Epilogue: Return

I remember now, all of it. I remember waking after that in a field, not knowing where I was or where I came from. I remember the farm family that took me in and cared for me – the family I grew up with. How long has it been since I left the forest? Five years? Six? I am a woman now – can I return to the place of my childhood?

I remember Faolan.

I remember Brandel and Gwenel, and even Igrin and the others.

I remember Ai'Ilyn, Ionmar and the Urden.

I remember Robin, and Oberon.

Or do I? I sit here in my room, this small lean-to built onto the side of the barn I work in, and I cannot help but question my sanity. Can such things be? These memories have no more substance than a dream – they are like the final wisps of a broken spider's web that I have tried to piece together.

The sun is rising; dawn is come.

The light hurts my eyes as it hasn't before.

No ... hurts my eyes as it used to in the Bower.

I feel faint. There is a fever on me – one that squeezes my head and makes me shiver. The pain in my chest, the pain that has been there since I can remember – it is gone entirely. Can it be true what I remember? Is this madness that I feel?

Or is madness a part of me, in my blood?

He said he would be waiting.

I must go. The forest where I was found – I must know for certain.

I will not return. If what I remember is a dream, then I do not wish to live without it. If what I remember is true ... then I will be with him. I will find Faolan – I will find Brandel and Gwen – I will find the Bower.

It is where I belong.

About the Author

Hal Emerson lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where he works as a writer. He started his career with The Exile Trilogy, and intends to continue it with many more stories before he is done.

