 
The Church of the Wood

Smashwords Edition

Text copyright 2013 E.J. Weber

Cover Illustration copyright 2013 Eli Weber
Part 1

The Wood

At the edge of the land of Calundra lay the wood. A little ways into the wood, where the strange trees began to gather, some long deceased soul—brave or foolhardy, perhaps—had built a small stone church. Down a narrow dirt path from the church, a quarter of an hour for the nervous walker, lay the village.

This was the closest to the wood that any normal human dared to live. Where the dirt path ended was where the village began, just outside of the trees' shadowy influence. Once inside the village, the dark trees fell back, and then the landscape gave way to houses and streets and beyond them carefully cultivated farmland.

The village had no name, nor did the church, nor did the wood itself. They needed none; they were known simply as the Wood, the Church of the Wood, and the Village of the Wood, for there was no other wood beside it. This anomaly fed tales, and tales of the Wood and the Church and the Village were many; a few true, many false, some hard to tell the difference.

It was a hardy folk that took up residence so close to the whispering trees; it was no wonder it was said that those who lived near the Wood had always lived there, that no casual visitors ever came, and that none ever moved into the Village when a family dwindled. After all, who would choose to live at such a dark oppressive border when the rest of the land was full of bounty and sunshine? That is not to say that there were no other trees apart from the Wood. Calundra was graced by rolling hills and green meadows, fields and fells, and in them were trees of all kinds, but all of them were ordinary trees, planted by ordinary human hands.

These were the trees that bore fruit in season, that gave shade in heat, that sheltered nests in springtime; trees that acted in the ways that normal trees should. Unlike the trees in the Wood, where one tree might blossom huge snowy flowers whilst another's branches were bare and leafless. And a neighboring tree might hold a rich red fruit that was neither apple nor cherry but something else altogether, a flavor which none knew because none had ever tasted it.

Indeed, no human hand picked the fruit of the Wood, however beguiling its look, and no axe ever felled a sapling, no matter how slim and tempting. Just as no children played amongst the trees, dodging in and out, and even the most curious of folk knew better than to stray a foot from the path.

Other than the priest, the path was trod only by the Villagers and that but once a week on the holy day, when they made their anxious pilgrimage to be blessed. In a sense, then, it could be said that one human lived in the Wood, for the trees so surrounded the gate of the Church and the fence that encircled the cemetery in the back, the simple garden and well to either side, that the Church was never free of its presence.

So little sunlight filtered into the sanctuary that the torches were always lit, and it took a strong mind to weather the dimness and the solitude; the Village folk murmured that no normal human could bear it. So the priest of the Church could always be said to be peculiar and the longer he remained in the Wood the more prominent the peculiarity that held him there must by necessity become.

Because of this, over the years, there were priests that came and never stayed, but were gone like thieves in the night, and then there were others that became like the stones of the small church building itself, worn and round and immovable.

Such a one was Father Brion, with a beard as white as the snowy white flowers and a face as wrinkled as the bark of the strange trees themselves. It was a day after the holy day, when he first saw the faerie child. Everyone knew better than to talk to a faerie, no matter how small and pitiful, no matter how sad-looking and lost.

Father Brion had lived in the Church of the Wood long enough to know its ways—to feel as though he had lived there always and would live there ever after, even though it had only been five years since he had come. There were tales that the Wood held faeries—for it was a faerie Wood, there was no doubt about that—but when Father Brion asked in the Village there was none living there that had seen a faerie, or survived to tell the tale if they had done.

That was why the Wood was left untouched, even in the coldest of winters when there was nothing left to burn to keep warm, and why the fruit from the trees was not eaten even in the longest of droughts when the ribs showed on the cows, and why the depth of the Wood was unknown, when the whole of the rest of the land had been traveled and cleared and mapped, its cities meticulously planned, its villages judiciously spaced, its crops thoughtfully chosen.

The Wood was wild, as were the animals in it, and it was the last wild place left. Full of brooding, bright-eyed creatures that gave out eerie calls at night. To step into its trees, to take of its fruit, to break its limbs, was to be devoured by those creatures in a swift and bloody retribution.

If Father Brion had been an ordinary priest, he would have been sorely afraid of the faerie child. As it was, he was extremely cautious. He pretended he could not see her, thankful that she never left the Wood but only flitted behind the thick trees to spy on him. She took to following him whenever he took the path to the Village, a disturbing black-eyed sprite, half-hidden by white flowers and red fruits and dark branches.

Although he did not acknowledge her, she would linger at the Wood's edge to watch him enter the Village's cobblestone streets and disappear behind its brown brick houses. She would be there upon his return, hiding behind some great dark trunk, her pale skin gleaming ghost-like in the Wood's perpetual twilight. She would watch him trudge back to the Church with his burdens, keeping pace with him behind the trees. To be a priest of the god was to feel compassion, and Father Brion struggled not to pity her as he firmly closed the gate to the Church, lumbering through the front doors and into the gloomy sanctuary beyond.

There was only one faith in the land of Calundra, and there was only one god, so like the Wood and the Church and the Village, the god did not need a name. Not everyone followed the god, though most believed in it, for who could doubt the god's mark? Certainly not any who had ever been granted one, or any who had ever attempted to enter a church without it.

For the god was good but strict, turning a kind and gentle face to its followers, a stern and unyielding back to all the rest. Loving to those whom it marked, jealous of their allegiance to its commandments, utterly without mercy to those who failed at them. There were three virtues that made the mark, and these were the same ones that held it. Peace, purity, and truth. Without them, the mark could not be given; if they were not kept, the mark would fade, and forever be gone.

A god like this might not seem to draw priests with an over-abundance of compassion, and yet it was because of this very same rigidity of belief that Father Brion felt keenly how lonely the faerie child must be, how lonely anyone must be who stood outside the grace of his god. He reminded himself, as he stoked the fire with the dried bundles of grasses that always burned so fitfully, with an abundance of black smoke that rose through the Church's small chimney, that the faerie child was not human, and could not be said to feel the same things as a human child.

But Father Brion had not always been a country priest, nor was he as ignorant as the Villagers, canny as they were at tilling their fields and raising their stock. It might even be true that he knew something of faeries that was never told in any of the tales, true or false. Whatever the reason, that night after supper Father Brion at length considered the remains of his meal, the meat and the crusts, and then carefully wrapped them in a clean napkin and laid it as close to one of the trees as he could bring himself to come. And this was how one could tell that living in the Church of the Wood had made Father Brion more peculiar, for no normal human would ever think to feed a faerie child.

He never saw the sad-eyed sprite take the offering of food, but the napkin was empty in the morning when he retrieved it. Another creature of the Wood might have consumed it, but for the fact that the napkin was always folded, as if by nimble white fingers, and it was always in the same place where he had left it the night before. Father Brion was contented by this arrangement; the faerie child still peeked at him while he weeded the garden, while he drew water from the well, while he prayed in the cemetery for the souls of the departed, but he felt his conscience at ease knowing that she was not starving.

The months passed and the weather became warmer and more humid. He made his trips into the Village less, and he sat outside more on the bench in the part of the garden that held the flowers. Sharing his food became so automatic that he didn't even think about it, and once at the pub in the Village he had found himself placing his leftovers in a napkin before he realized that the napkin belonged to the owner, and he couldn't take it with him. He no longer felt a trickle of foreboding whenever he spotted a movement in the Wood; indeed, he almost thought of the faerie girl now as company, shy and distant as she was.

It was the day he retrieved his napkin from under the tree and found the golden leaves wrapped up in it that he realized in doing something right, he had also possibly done something very, very wrong. They were not ordinary leaves from trees planted by ordinary human hands: these were leaves from a tree of the Wood. They were faerie leaves, and everyone knew that faerie leaves were cursed. Father Brion clutched the napkin to his chest, where his heart pounded, and faced one of the hardest decisions of his pure, peaceful and, if all truths were known, very eventful life.

The Child

The leaves were clearly a gift. If he gave them back, it was possible that he might offend the faerie child—she might even be driven to speak to him about it; if he kept them, the Wood itself might be angered by the loss—it might send its creatures to wreak their vengeance on him. Father Brion's weak blue eyes scanned the nearby trees for an answer, a glint of gold in their branches to show him where the leaves had come from, a hint of pale arm to indicate where the faerie child was right now. There was nothing but green in the trees that he could see, there was nothing but black in the spaces between them.

A faerie child must have the right to give faerie leaves, Father Brion reasoned. And being a man of conviction, he took the napkin and brought the leaves inside the Church without a backward glance to see whether a huge shaggy wolf prowled after him, intent on snatching them back, or a wisp of a girl trailed after him, to know that her gift pleased him. He moved down the single main aisle of the small sanctuary and shook the strange golden leaves out into the offering bowl, with less brilliant coins that faithful Villagers had brought to the Church in order to keep their priest from finding himself in want.

When Father Brion's inevitable replacement finally made his way into the sanctuary of the Church of the Wood, just short of fifteen years from this day, the golden faerie leaves were still in the exact same state that they had fallen, in the same bowl, on the same unadorned stone altar. They had neither withered nor faded. No human hand had ever had the courage to remove them, even though they were worth a fortune, for gold in Calundra was almost unheard of, and what little there was had all been used up.

After that, the faerie child left gifts for Father Brion quite often. All of them were more practical than the golden leaves: a wooden knife that was as sharp as iron and never dulled, a bag of seeds that grew into blossoms that looked like giant bluebells, an orange vegetable shaped like a crescent moon that tasted of anise and cucumber.

He agonized over whether or not to eat this but, in the end, he felt that since he had first decided to keep the leaves he had committed to a certain course of action, and there was no sense now in being faint-hearted. He prayed over each gift that he received and trusted in the god to protect him. There were many prayers that could be said to the god and Father Brion knew them all by heart, just as the faithful knew all of the words to the weekly blessing.

The blessing that the priest gave on holy days was the main function of the Church of the Wood, apart from markings, bindings, and funerals. There had always been a priest in the Church here and there would always be one, although of all the churches in the land it was the hardest to fill. In any other village, or in one of the cities, the faithful would come to pray often, not just for the holy day, and a church was a busy place, day or night.

Here in the Wood, the cool stone benches that sat in rows on either side of the main aisle were almost always empty, just as the offering bowl at the front was not even slightly full. At the back of the Church to the left was a kitchen and living area, and then to the right was a bedroom. These were humbler spaces than in any other church, though not uncomfortable. The god could be said to send either his best or his worst priests to the Church of the Wood, to inhabit its leafy exile, depending on whose opinion on the topic was asked.

Father Brion doubted the faerie child would ever have spoken to him if he hadn't dropped his pendant down the well. Every priest wore the god's pendant—indeed, it was the very thing that made the god's mark—and a priest was charged at all times to guard it, so Father Brion almost never took it off. He wore it even when he did the most menial of chores, such as fetching water from the well.

One morning he had bent over to look for the bucket, which he had sent down but would not come up again. It was caught on something hard, and his eyesight was not what it used to be. He leaned farther and farther into the well, peering deeper and deeper to try to maneuver the bucket past some blurry impediment, until the pendant slipped from his neck and tumbled with a tinkle and a splash into the water. There it sank to the very bottom of the well, past where the bucket was stuck on a dark tree root, one which had pushed its way in through the thick stone of the well's wall.

He tried everything he could think of to get it back. He made poles out of various household objects, strapped together, and with these he fished for it, determinedly and unsuccessfully. He yanked on the rope that held the jammed bucket until it threatened to break. He prayed beside the well, the prayer for finding something that had been lost, until he found that he was losing his voice. At last, he gave up and went despairingly to bed, feeling that his neck was naked without the pendant and that what had just happened was by far the stupidest thing he had ever done.

It was the first night in nearly six months that he forgot to share his dinner with the child, for the simple reason that he was so upset he forgot to eat dinner at all. When he woke in the morning, groggy and stiff, with aching arms, he immediately stumbled back out to the well. He had no new ideas about how to solve his problem—for a priest cannot serve as a priest without the god's pendant—and it was then that his stomach growled and he realized he had eaten neither dinner the night before nor breakfast yet this morning. And then he saw the faerie child, and felt a pang of guilt, for that meant she had not eaten either.

She did not appear to be hungry, though, any more than she seemed to be lonely or lost. He could see her more clearly than ever before, which might not be too clearly, considering his failing eyesight. She stood between two trees, not more than a few feet from him on the other side of the Church fence, watching him boldly.

A pale hand was outstretched to either trunk and her dark tangled hair was full of green and gold leaves. She wore what seemed to him to be a loose white nightgown delicately embroidered with tiny blue spots the shape of which he could not, from this distance, make out. On her chest, gleaming silver in the dim light, lay the god's pendant. Its heavy chain was wrapped around her neck, and its length came almost to her waist because she was so small.

She had come inside the fence while he slept—well, that wasn't impossible, though difficult—although if she had tried to enter the sanctuary of the Church itself, the god would have prevented it. And clearly she had succeeded where he had not, in retrieving the pendant from the well. He did not know if she knew what it meant, or how dear it was to him; she could be cruelly mocking him right now or she might, just might, have meant to be helpful.

He stared at her, wanting so badly to ask her to bring it to him that he almost forgot and spoke to her, but then he remembered himself. Worse even than losing the god's pendant would be to fall under a faerie's spell, if the staggering extent of two such misfortunes could be compared.

It was said that the voice of a faerie was so lovely it could not be resisted, so powerful it would be given anything it should want, so persuasive that it could convince an honorable man to betray even his dearest friend. There were no faeries that he knew of left in the land of Calundra, and whether there were more faeries left in the Wood other than this child he did not know, but he doubted the child would have ventured from its safety if there had been even one.

The Faerie Wars had been endless and terrible; their history was as dark and convoluted as the Wood that lay around him, blotting out the early morning sun. He had been a fool to feed the faerie child, and now he was paying for it. It was exactly the sort of decision that had brought him to the Church of the Wood in the first place, those five long years ago. He could only hope that the god would forgive him, once again, for being too kind.

Father Brion sat down heavily on the ground, felled by his shock. He didn't expect the faerie child to care that he had fallen. He didn't expect her to run up to him when he collapsed. In fact, it was the last thing he expected her to do, but it was exactly what she did. She vaulted the fence effortlessly and then hovered near him, chattering worriedly in the faerie tongue.

She had one of the sweetest voices he had ever heard, not beautiful in any human way but lovely in a faerie one, like the moan of the wind through a dark branch or the tapping of raindrops on a hollow log. The experience of having her speak to him was confusing, but not threatening. It suddenly occurred to him, as the chain swung heavily in time with her little movements, that the god would never let her wear the pendant if she was evil at heart.

"I don't understand you, I'm afraid," Father Brion told her hesitantly. This made the faerie child stop chattering instantly. She stared at him with wide, bottomless eyes. "Do you speak the human tongue, my child?"

The child seemed to consider this, and then took a breath and replied, falteringly, "I know it but... I've never used it." She hugged herself tightly at this, seeming proud to get it out.

"That will do well enough," Father Brion observed gently. "I see you have acquired something that belongs to me. How did you manage to fetch it from the well?"

The faerie child smiled brightly and her small pale face lit with enthusiasm. "I climbed down into it." She darted away from him to the well, although she didn't need to go far. He was afraid for a moment that she would scramble into it to show him how it was done, but instead she stopped at the edge and pointed to the bucket, now dangling in its proper place over the top. "I found this as well!" Her voice was triumphant; unaware that the object in question was now useless, having suffered a large hole in its side.

"Thank you, very much," Father Brion replied gravely. "Now, if I may ask, would you be willing to give me back that necklace? I'm sure that I can find you another one which will fit you better, one that will feel lighter to have on." The old priest knew that there was no such thing in the Church, and he had no great certainly he would find one in the Village, which wasn't much given to idle trinkets, but he silently promised to the god that he would make one for her out of the petty coins in the offering bowl if he had to, in order to keep from being false.

The faerie girl looked at him curiously. She picked up the pendant with one slim hand and tested its weight against her palm. "I don't think it's so heavy. But of course I will give it back to you. It's yours—I meant to do so all along." She got down from the well and skipped closer to him, a bit shyer now. Pulling it easily off her neck, she held out the oversized chain with the tips of her fingers, the pendant swinging perilously close to the ground. But when Father Brion reached out to take it from her hand, he accidentally brushed against the faerie's skin, because he wasn't good at judging distances. The faerie girl let out a squeal and dropped the chain in the grass.

"You shocked me!" she hissed, her black eyes snapping.

"I'm very sorry." He meant this, but he didn't let it prevent him from snatching up the chain and putting the god's pendant back where it belonged. He immediately felt the world come into focus; he felt the welcoming breath of the god on his face. Even though the faerie girl was glaring at him as though she might summon some very wild, very angry, very large creature from out of the Wood to punish him, he was absolutely certain that everything was going to be all right. He may have been foolish before to feed her, and he may have been stupid to drop his pendant, but there was a reason he was certain she would never harm him, and it wasn't a foolish or stupid one at all.

He could see very clearly on her hand, pulsing lightly where she had hefted the pendant against it, the outline of the god's mark.

Father Brion was very, very hungry, and quite amazingly chilled and tired. Sitting on the ground was not good for a man of his age. He rolled himself awkwardly to his feet, and began to shuffle towards the doors of the Church. "Come and have breakfast with me, little one," he called over his shoulder. He did not stop to see that she followed, but he did pause once he was inside the sanctuary, turning around to catch her standing tremulously on the threshold behind him. It was another test, although he didn't think the mark could be wrong; but the child came no further. "It's all right, you can come in," he offered, in case she waited for an invitation.

Cautiously, the pale bare feet crept over the threshold and onto the smooth stone floor. The old priest gave a sigh, one he barely noticed himself, and continued on to the kitchen. He could feel the curious faerie child's presence behind him, but he busied himself with stoking the fire and setting out the plates, and left her free to creep around. She touched the hooked rug and the wooden chairs and the chipped teacups.

Eventually when everything was ready, he sat down across from her, and poured the strong brown tea and set out the thick slices of bread, and folded his hands in prayer for it all. Then he ate with gusto, expecting the child to do so as well. Instead, she picked daintily at her helping, eating little crumbs that broke off from the bread when she poked at it, copying him in drinking but taking only minute sips of the tea while wrinkling her nose at the steam that came from the cup.

"Aren't you hungry?" he asked incredulously.

The faerie child only blinked at him.

"You ate all of the food that I left out for you," he said, almost accusingly. He had thought she would be ravenous by now. If she had not actually eaten the food he had so carefully left, he would be rather upset. His means were limited; he had given her what he could barely afford, and often gone to bed slightly hungry himself.

The faerie child had the grace to look abashed.

"Yes. But it wasn't the food itself... that I needed."

"What do you mean?" he asked curiously. "Why else would you eat it?"

The faerie girl tucked in her dark eyebrows and fidgeted with her hands, running a finger along the god's mark, a set of three interlocking circles for the three essential virtues of the god. The mark that would always require her to be truthful.

"There was something in the food..."

Father Brion smiled, encouragingly. Perhaps her command of the human language was not as good as he'd thought.

"And what was in the food, other than food?" He tried not to chuckle.

The faerie girl sucked in her breath and flashed a shy glance at him, dropping her gaze to her hands after trying in vain to hold the priest's watery blue eyes. Father Brion thought for a moment that she would simply refuse to answer, which was much better than telling a lie, but then she lifted up her head, shook back her curly black hair—which definitely needed combing—and then said one word very timidly, in a tone so low he could hardly make it out.

"Love."

Father Brion just nodded, as though he'd known this all along.

The Village Shop

It is not easy to raise a faerie child, and Father Brion found this out. She would disappear for days at a time and then show up, unexpectedly, and proceed to talk to him non-stop. Other days she was quiet and calm, though flighty, and seemed to want no more than to wander back and forth through the small Church and touch everything in it five times.

He tried to make a bed for her in the corner of the kitchen nearest to the fire, but she complained that the blankets were itchy. She brought in handfuls of dark green leaves and laid them on the cold stone floor in the opposite corner, and there she would sleep curled up like a cat, an unusual cat who didn't like the fire.

He thought she looked cold, sleeping only in her thin white dress, but she insisted that she wasn't. On closer inspection, the dress looked as though it had been made from tightly woven plant-like fibers, and the blue dots were shaped like the giant bluebells she had given him to plant in his garden.

He bought her a pair of shoes, but she wouldn't wear them. They sat in a dusty corner of the living area like an eccentric decoration. He picked them up one day and surprised a twitchy brown mouse that dropped to the floor and was off in the blink of an eye. The faerie child was angry with him for this. She told him she'd given the mouse permission to use the shoe as its home. After these and other experiences, he worried less about her physical well-being and more about her mental adjustment.

She told him that her father had died soon after her mother, who was taken after bearing a stillborn child. It explained the sad faerie songs that she often sang, which he couldn't help enjoying, even though they were mournful. When he expressed surprise that a faerie woman would lose her life in childbirth, the faerie child told him that her father had said her mother was weak from the loss of the woods and the deaths of so many of her sisters and cousins.

Father Brion didn't know what to say to this. He had never cut down a tree in his life, but he still felt responsible. He didn't question her more about her life in the Wood and he did his best to overlook her eccentricities when she couldn't be prevailed upon to try to be more like a human child. He often found objects around the Church missing, nothing valuable but necessary items like the carry sack he took to the Village or a coil of rope that he used to hang out his wash. He tried to impress sternly upon the child that to take something without asking was wrong. Her response surprised him.

"But they don't belong to you, do they? They belong to the god. The god doesn't mind if I take them."

"Yes..." Father Brion answered slowly. "But I need them to be there when I want to use them." The carry sack and the rope returned, and he congratulated himself on teaching the faerie child something about the human concept of ownership. Until he came in one day and found all of the coins in the offering bowl missing. This caused him a moment of intense panic.

It was all he had to live on, and he had just been about to buy food stuffs and supplies. The golden leaves were still there, but they wouldn't be accepted by any of the Village folk as currency, and they were so strange and glittering that Father Brion didn't even want to pick them up. He found the faerie child outside, up in a tree, as she often was, and hanging upside down so that her tangled black curls fell from her pale forehead in a long sweep below her head.

"Child, did you take the coins from the offering?" Father Brion did not moderate his frustration.

"Yes."

At least the faerie child had the mark, to encourage her to be truthful.

"What did you do with them?" He had a small hope that she might simply have taken them somewhere to play with, and could easily bring them back. He might even still have time to make it to the Village today.

"I threw them in the lake." There was a lake near the Village, which the Village people did not use because it was too close to the Wood, and said to be tainted.

"You what?" Father Brion shouted. The faerie child swung right-side up on the branch and stared at him. He had never raised his voice with her before. She didn't look frightened, only impressed.

"The fish wanted them. They like the way that they sparkle." Father Brion had thought it a shame that the Village folk were wasting the use of a perfectly good lake because of their superstitious fear. Now he wasn't so sure.

"You can never do that again. Those coins buy me food from the Village and other things that I need. They're very important." He didn't shout this because he was a patient man by nature, and anyhow he didn't feel angry anymore, just defeated.

The faerie girl perked up. "I can give you food from the Wood," she offered. She plucked a ripe red fruit from the tree and offered it to him. The priest was reminded of certain tales about strange trees and their fruit, and he didn't reach out to take it.

"And do you think the fruit from that tree is safe for a human?" he asked her, sternly.

The faerie girl seemed to consider this as she bit into the fruit herself and a red liquid gushed down her chin. She wiped it away with her hand and devoured the rest, heedless of the red drops that fell on her snowy white dress. She licked her fingers, and then looked at him.

"Not entirely," she admitted.

Father Brion sighed. The fruit smelled delicious, but he had thought as much. "I've led a good life in the service of the god. I have no wish to tamper with my last years. Now, there must be no more taking of coins, or rope, or bags, or anything else."

The faerie child nodded, and then slipped up the branches of the dark tree, vaulted to another, and was gone. Father Brion thought that he would just have to tighten his belt, or ask for charity from one of the faithful, but the next morning he found the coins back in the offering bowl. They were damp with lake water, and a trail of wet splotches led down the main aisle to the sanctuary and out the front door of the Church, which had been left wide open.

It was not the last bit of trouble that the faerie child caused. She had developed a taste for a certain cookie he bought in the Village, and as he had taught her not to steal, she begged him for it instead. Since she ate so little else, he soon felt that her diet must not be healthy. He tried to moderate her obsession with it, but he found himself unable to refuse her, no matter how he tried. That was how he discovered that even faerie children can have stomachaches.

"You must stop asking me for them," he told her as he sat in his chair and she lay on her little bed of leaves, moaning. He would have liked to pat her back to soothe her, but the faerie child didn't like to be touched. "You ate too many and now you are sick," he said.

"But you gave them to me," she said accusingly.

It was as good a time as any to talk about this. Maybe he could even make the child understand what she had done. "First I said no, and then you begged me for them. I didn't want to give them to you, but you insisted. You must not ask again, once I've said no."

The faerie child rolled around on the ground, trying to get comfortable. "You didn't have to give them to me," she argued.

"Actually, I did. You made me, and I didn't like you very much for it." He didn't want to hurt her feelings, but she needed to know the effect that her power could have. He had felt a strong sense of resentment as her words compelled him to do something his conscience knew that he should not. If he was not so peculiar himself, he might even have hated her for it.

"You don't like me?" the faerie girl quavered. Father Brion doubted very much that a faerie could cry, yet the sick little girl sounded perilously close to tears.

"No, I like you very much. But I don't want you to tell me what to do. You must not insist or order about a human, just because you can. It's wrong, and it may cause you to lose the trust of the god."

The faerie child sat up and looked at him very seriously. Her pale skin still had a greenish hue, her black eyes were troubled, and her pale pink mouth was unhappy. "I didn't mean to make you do anything. I just wanted them so very, very much."

"Then you must be very, very careful when you want something," he told her. The faerie child held up her palm, and tilted it, to better see the glow from the mark.

"I will."

Father Brion felt his shoulders loosen. The topic had been a volatile one. It could have gone much, much differently. With a wild, full-grown faerie he doubted very much that it would have gone well at all.

Instead, he felt it was a start.

He knew that she was trying to control herself when she began to ask him to take her into the Village on his shopping day, and he was able to refuse her. He didn't know why she wanted to come, other than the fact that she was immensely curious, for it was clear she was also terrified.

She never even tried to go out from the trees when he took the last step off the dirt path, and she certainly didn't need his permission to do so. But still she begged him to take her along with him, although she never went so far as to make him do it. Eventually one day he gave in, mostly as a way to reward her for exercising so much restraint, although he made it abundantly clear that it was his decision, and that he had willingly changed his mind.

The Villagers already knew about the faerie child. Because she was marked, she could come into the Church on holy days to be blessed. The first time it had happened, all of the faithful Villagers had fled, and he had found himself pursuing them down the path, explaining all the while. Unfortunately, they were faster than he was, and much more motivated to be gone. He went into the Village the next day to talk to them all, one by one, house by house. It was not an easy task, and he left feeling that he had not convinced them of anything much, other than that possible rumors of his growing senility were not unfounded.

And yet the faithful were drawn back to the Church, by the mark, and so was the child. Over the course of many tense holy days it became an uneasy truce, with the Villagers pretending they could not see the child, and the child coming in the back after the service had started, and speaking to no one.

Perhaps this was why the child wanted to come into the Village, to see where the other people lived. He saw her watching them every week, fascinated, listening to everything that they said and taking in every detail of their clothing. If there was ever a human village to tolerate a faerie child it was the Village of the Wood, and yet still Father Brion had a strong sense of foreboding when he brought the faerie child into the Village Shop.

She had a way of going about unnoticed when she really wanted to, and she was using this with all her might right now. No one saw her. Her strange little face was happier than he had ever seen it, as she patted the multitude of items in the shop: clothing, shoes, bread, meat, cheese, utensils, barrels of flour and sugar, jars of candies, shovels and farm tools and crockery, more human items that she had ever before seen and in greater variety. He had almost lost track of her as he went over his needs with the shopkeeper, and then he heard her sweet little faerie voice ring out,

"You put that down!"

There were people in the shop holding purses, customers with arms full of purchases, an assistant who was stacking boxes of cookies, a woman holding a basket of eggs, and the shopkeeper who was holding Father Brion's list. All of it tumbled to the ground. There were cries of consternation. A Village girl began to slip on the broken eggs, and a baby was crying, and the boxes had tumbled at a jerky move from the shop assistant. It was chaos and, in the midst of it all, a short scruffy boy darted out through the door of the shop, nearly knocking down an elderly woman wearing a tartan scarf.

Father Brion abandoned the list, which was being kicked around on the floor anyhow, and went over to the faerie child, who stood in the door to the shop with a frown on her face, gazing out. "We'd best go now, child," he told her quickly. He did not know how many people inside realized that she was the one responsible, and he didn't want to find out. He would come back later with her and apologize to the shopkeeper, and try to explain.

"Why did you do that?" he asked the faerie child wearily, as they walked back to the Church.

She tossed her long black tangles, which she'd never been willing to comb out, although the priest had given her a dainty wooden hair brush and explained its uses. "That big boy was stealing coins from people's pockets and taking pieces of candy!" she exclaimed.

"Are you sure?" Father Brion asked worriedly. He found it hard to think ill of people, and the faerie child knew so little of human ways.

"Yes," she snapped, her black eyes flashing. "And you said the god didn't like that." The faerie child directed this at him, primly.

Father Brion hid a smile; the faerie child was a reformed sinner, and she was self-righteous.

The Lake

Taming a wild thing will not make it domestic. The faerie girl was tired of the uncomfortable heat of tending the fire, and the smell of the priest's dirty clothes when she washed them, and the squishy texture of human food as she prepared it for eating. Father Brion did not ask her to do these things, but he was getting older and frailer, and she was getting bigger and stronger.

She did not look like a child anymore; she looked like a girl of fourteen or fifteen, although she was a faerie so her actual years didn't matter. She found it bizarre that humans actually kept count. Her hair was black and curly and fell to her waist, and her eyes were black and striking with long sweeping lashes and her skin was soft as a trailing cloud with just the barest hint of peachy color. She wasn't sure if she was pretty for a faerie—there were none of her people left to tell her—but she knew she looked as a faerie should: black and black and almost white. Like the bodies of the tall dark trees themselves, and even more so now, with their branches covered in snow.

The icy water at the lake was nicely chilling to her bare feet. She sat on a patch of melting snow and inhaled the fresh air of winter, so that it would know how much she appreciated it. She picked up a few lightly frosted rocks and tossed them into the lake, which had not yet frozen. The fish liked to see new things, and they would swarm over to inspect them as they fell down. The fish in the lake were elongated and slippery, almost like eels, but not quite. They lived too close to the Wood to be normal fish, and they knew it, and weren't afraid of what it meant. Unlike the people, who preferred to deny things to themselves.

The people from the Village still didn't like her. She looked around to where the rooftops started, which was not so very far. The path to the Wood was on her right, and the Wood was behind the lake as well, but she had decided she liked the far side from it, the sunnier side on which she sat now. The animals from the Wood had told her not to sit here, that it wasn't safe, but she couldn't always care what they thought. They had also told her not to help the old priest, when his funny necklace fell down into the well, and they had been wrong about that. The faerie girl suddenly shivered. Without the nice priest, she didn't know that she would have survived.

Faerie folk don't take well to their family dying. They never needed to; faerie folk don't die. Everyone knows that a wild faerie will live forever in its wood or as close to forever as anyone is likely to come. So when the humans started to cut the trees and kill the faerie folk, they were unprepared for death. There was a chain of catastrophic losses. Faeries didn't know how to grieve—to bury a friend or a brother and then move on. That was a human thing; humans had always had to do it, but faeries almost never had. It was remarkably difficult to kill a faerie, but not impossible, and the worst of it was that to kill one faerie was often to kill many. The faeries left behind missed their kin so much that they stopped caring, and faded away, letting their spirits wander off.

That was what had happened to her father. She vowed it wouldn't happen to her, though. She must be strong. That was why she had talked to the priest, when the creatures had told her not to, and why she had taken the mark, without quite knowing what it was. She was the last of her kind, the last faerie in the last wood, and if she wasn't connected to something, more than just herself, she would float away and the Wood would die. It would be as though there had never been faeries or woods or magic at all.

The girl went over to the lake and waded her bare feet into it, crunching back and forth across the pebbly shore, and talking to the eel-like fish that swirled in the depths of it. They were very strong swimmers, and the lake was very deep, but unlike her, they did not like it as much when it was cold. Not that they felt the cold, but because it killed the algae on the rocks, and that was one of their favorite snacks.

The faerie was so busy chatting with the lake that she hardly noticed the two human boys approaching her. If she had been truly wild, and had never slept in a human house or eaten human food, she would have been far away before they even got close. But no one from the Village had ever tried to harm her, and Father Brion was unfailingly kind, so she thought much better of humans than she ought, despite her knowledge of the ancient stories. And they were on her before she even suspected they were anything other than strolling nearby.

One boy grabbed the faerie girl and held her tight. He was a mean boy, with a mean mouth, and he was bigger than her, even though she was tall. The thick arms that locked around her burned like a wayward spark from the fire. At first she was too shocked to do anything about it, and the second boy caught her attention because she thought she knew him. There was a satisfied malice in his expression. He was short and dirty and his hair was mousy, although not in a good way, like a sweet twitchy brown mouse, but in an unappealing way that was instead rather lank and dull. The faerie girl struggled against the grip of the meaty boy, who was truly hurting her without even trying, and gasped, "Let go! Let go!"

The short boy, whose name she now remembered was Gleason, leered at her and said, "I thought you liked humans. You're always hanging around that priest. You even come into the Village and interfere with his shopping." The faerie had a revelation; this boy was the thief, the one that she had yelled at all those years ago.

She felt a wave of remorse that she had used her power on him. She'd been undisciplined back then. It had taken her years of practice and willpower to gain control of her voice, instead of unconsciously using it to get whatever she wanted. No wonder the boy didn't like her—it was a side effect of using her power. But he and his friend still had no right to hold onto her, and to hurt her, and to insult her. Besides, he'd had years to get over it.

"Tell your friend to release me, or I won't be held responsible." She said this in as evil a tone as she could manage, without actually compelling him to obey. She tried to squirm her bare skin away from the oafish boy's contact, wishing she had woven longer sleeves to her white and blue gown.

Gleason was grinning like it was all a fun game. She remembered his name now from the explanation and apology she'd had to make to the shopkeeper, which was pointless because he hadn't believed her story at all. She'd never gone back into the shop, though she knew Father Brion went almost every week; although once in a great while she would creep into the Village after nightfall and peek in through the windows. She could see very well in the dark, and there were so many interesting things inside.

"Give me a kiss and I'll tell him to let you go." This was not what the faerie girl had expected, and she actually laughed. How foolish was this boy, to think she would ever kiss a human? She remembered vaguely kissing her mother and father, before they had died, and she had liked it very much. The sap-like smell of their cheeks, the heat of their skin that was just right, not too hot and not too cold. They were faerie folk with magic in their blood, magic that zinged whenever they were happy, when they threw her up in the air and caught her and gave her a hug.

Humans were repulsive.

"Go jump in the lake!" she told him scornfully.

And he did.

The meaty boy let go of her in surprise and rushed in after his friend, who was thrashing about and screaming as though he was immersed in something much worse than a little cold water. But the bigger boy didn't go in any deeper than up to his knees. He turned back to the faerie girl, who was scouring his human smell off of her arms with some nice clean dirt, and called out frantically,

"He can't swim! You have to help him! He's going to drown!"

The faerie girl scowled at him disbelievingly. "What fool doesn't know how to swim?"

"This lake is cursed! It's evil. By the god Gleason, hold on!" The blubbering boy waded out further into the water, but stopped when it came to his waist.

"Well, go get him," the faerie girl called, exasperated.

"I can't swim either," he sobbed.

"Yes you can. Just go!" she shouted. She was getting worried now, and although she swam like an eely fish, she couldn't dive in and fetch him out herself, because then she'd have to touch him. Yuck.

The power of her voice worked. The big boy couldn't swim, but he managed to latch onto Gleason, and somehow they dragged each other out, sobbing and shivering. They collapsed onto the pebbly shore, still wrapped in each others' arms. The faerie girl sighed, and scooted as close as she dared, to make certain that they were both all right.

The boys were both lying on their backs, still close to the water's edge. They were wet and gasping for air, and their clothes were sodden and muddy. The two looked up at her, in horror and awe. Then she said, as though she had meant to throw them both in the lake and hadn't just lost her temper and said something unfortunate,

"I hope that teaches you a lesson."

She just smiled. She wasn't going to apologize. If they had disliked her before, they would really hate her now. But she'd seen from the shop what good an apology did.

And, after all, the god didn't want her to lie.

The faerie girl went back to her Wood. She didn't tell the priest what had happened, even when he asked her curiously why her arms were streaked with dirt. He didn't need to know that he'd done something dangerous when he tamed her, or that he had put her at risk. Despite what had happened today, she couldn't regret the time that she'd spent with him.

There were some things that faeries had never understood about humans, and she was determined to be the one who figured them out.

The Memories

Father Brion knew what he was looking for; he just couldn't find it. It was an object he usually kept hidden away in a drawer in his desk, something both secret and precious. Every once in a while he would take it out, when he was sure no one else was around, and let it sit for a few minutes in his palm, atop the faintly glowing lines of the god's mark.

The item in question contained more than just the beauty of its immaculate smoothness or the striking color of its sky blue depths, although these were things that might have appealed to any habitual collector of natural objects. It might have been rare—the object that is—but it could hardly be thought to be valuable, at least not in the usual sense. It was only a rock, after all, and not a gem.

But to Father Brion, the stone was more than just a pretty item. For him, this smooth blue pebble held a link to the past. The vivid memories that came with the act of touching it were what made it precious to Father Brion. And the secrets that those memories contained—albeit more painful than pleasurable, in the balance—made it something the aging priest would never willingly choose to be parted with, even were it made of the purest sapphire instead.

Father Brion handled the stone with a particular reverence and never kept it exposed for long, always stowing it gently away in its accustomed spot before the memories could become overwhelmingly strong. This time, however, as the old priest fumbled with the tiny knob, pulling at the compartment which blended so well into the wooden grain of the desk when it was closed, camouflaging its handle as merely a bump in the surface of the desk's outer carvings, the bright blue stone slipped from between his fingers and bounced off in a direction he could only see out of the bleariest corner of his eye.

With a sighing groan of protest, the old priest awkwardly pushed back his chair and began to systematically look around for it. He hunched halfway over himself so as to better see the ground and when that didn't help, finally got down on his hands and knees and began to search for the stone by touch.

His hands traveled past the hard legs of the desk and over the scratchy threads of the carpet in front of the fireplace, but they didn't find it. He crawled around like a child who has yet to learn to walk, but his fingers encountered only the desk and the rug; there was nothing smooth nor round nor small in the slightest. The object in question seemed to have simply dissolved into the flatness of the ground.

"What are you doing?" a sweet voice asked.

Father Brion pushed up into a sitting position and winced at the lack of padding in his knees as they collected the full weight of his body. The faerie girl had approached him unnoticed, in her typically noiseless manner. She crouched down next to him now, in a limber imitation of his own uncomfortable posture. Her black eyes were bright with curiosity and—as was also typical of her—strangely free of judgment. If anyone else had found him like this the old priest would be feeling more than a little bit ridiculous, but the faerie did so many odd things herself that he hardly thought about it at all. Instead, he eagerly replied, "Ah, child, it's a blessing you've come back! It seems I've dropped something and I'm searching for it. You have young eyes—do you see a bit of blue on the floor hereabouts?"

The faerie's head turned left and then right as her gaze meticulously swept the ground in front of where they were both crouched. The dark eyes narrowed slightly and then rested on a distant edge of the colorful woven carpet. "Here!" she exclaimed suddenly, pouncing on a fat sort of stripe, or so it seemed to Father Brion, but then a blurry oval came away in her hand. As the slender palm moved closer to his face he saw it resolve into a shape he recognized, an irregular blue circle well-polished from years of handling. "Is this it?" the faerie asked dubiously, holding the blue stone out to him as though she wasn't quite sure he would take it.

Father Brion breathed a small prayer of thanks. He motioned for the faerie to drop the object into his hand and then stood up, not without some difficulty, and stowed it away in his desk with a more precise motion this time, using his back to shield the exact location of the compartment, although he was fairly certain the faerie's sharp eyes missed little of his action.

This being done, he sat down at the desk to catch his breath, feeling as though he'd run several laps around the Church in the blazing heat of summer. A ludicrous idea, when he could hardly remember the last time he'd convinced his legs to move faster than a sluggish sort of amble, and the season was well into autumn, with its longer evenings and cooler nights.

"Where did you get such a thing?" He'd almost forgotten that the faerie was still hovering by his elbow. She regarded him with a seemingly perplexed look on her pale girlish face.

"Well now, it was a gift from a friend," the priest replied uneasily. "A long story... and a sad one." A human would have heard from Father Brion's voice that he didn't wish to say more but the faerie just stared at him, undeterred, as though neither length nor sorrow could be any barrier to his telling or to her understanding.

"Perhaps another time," he hinted, feeling his weariness more fully again. It was not a tale that could safely be told to her; indeed, he could only think of one who should hear it from his lips, while it yet had the chance to be told.

"There's magic in that stone of yours, you know," the faerie told him abruptly, changing the subject. Her tone implied that she wasn't at all sure that he did.

Father Brion nodded slowly, but did not pursue this.

The faerie girl backed away from him, and then turned and began to set out their bowls for dinner. "You shouldn't touch it overmuch," she continued, her eyes on her hands as she placed the napkins on the worn surface of the kitchen table.

"Is it a harmful magic, then?" the old priest asked, worried a bit. He'd always felt something in the stone, but he'd thought it was merely connected with his own particular memories of it.

"No..." the faerie girl said, her nimble fingers wrapping around a tumbler made of hazy, bubble-filled glass. "But it gets into a person over time... at least for a human it would," she clarified, frowning at the glass in her hand and then gently setting it down.

"I'll remember that," Father Brion told her, but what he thought to himself was that he'd had the stone for a very long time. Its magic could hardly change him much now.

"Come child," he said more cheerfully, leaning on the desk in order to get to his feet, "let's have some supper."

Father Brion hobbled over to the small pot on the stove and lifted the lid, stirring it several times with the large wooden spoon that he'd left nearby. The stew smelled flavorful, if a bit stronger than usual. The old priest glanced over at the spices he'd used and had not yet remembered to put back, but they were just the normal ones. He knew the recipe by heart; if he'd had to read it out of a book, they might be in trouble. The smell must be a result of him getting distracted and letting it cook a tad longer than necessary, while he searched for the stone.

"Here, I'll do that," the faerie told him, taking the wooden spoon from his grasp gingerly, so that their hands didn't touch. "You go and sit down," she chided. Father Brion relinquished the spoon to the faerie without a grumble; his creaky body was more than happy to comply. The faerie picked up the heavy pot with ease and set it down on the table, where it steamed pleasantly between them, a potholder underneath to keep the table from developing a scorch mark. Then she filled the mismatched bowls to the brim with thick vegetable stew and set out a loaf of fluffy grain bread, buttering two ragged slices with a small wooden knife and handing him one of them.

Father Brion rested the bread on the napkin at the side of his bowl, bemusedly shaking the untrimmed locks of his silvery white head. The faerie never seemed to remember it was going to be soft; instead she hacked away at the loaf as though she expected it to be made of stone, causing the bread to squish in the middle before it was cut.

He'd given up trying to explain the art of slicing to her. It all tasted the same anyhow. The girl finished what she was doing and then glanced over at him and bowed her head. Father Brion placed his hands over the food to say the blessing, and then they both picked up their spoons. Feeling a sudden rush of hunger, which often eluded him these days, Father Brion took a large mouthful.

The old priest felt the stew hit his mouth. His tongue started to burn before he could even taste it. Swallowing hastily, he grabbed a glassful of water and poured as much of it down his swollen throat as possible. When even that didn't soothe the burn, he tore off a corner of his bread with a shaking hand and stuffed it in his mouth as well, chased by another draught of water.

His eyes were tearing too badly to see out of, so he wiped them with the napkin and sucked in several breaths of cooling air that tingled on his smarting tongue. Finally, after muttering, "dear me, oh no," several times, it occurred to him to wonder how the faerie was doing. He knew that she didn't like cooked dishes a great deal to start, let alone a botched stew that was overbearingly laced with hot pepper salt. A meal like this might be enough to put her off human food altogether.

But the faerie girl sat across from him as calmly as ever, as though she had yet to taste anything out of the ordinary. She still had a spoon in her hand, and the priest watched in horror as she innocently dipped it back into the bowl and took another bite.

Father Brion waited for her face to turn red and her eyes to water. He waited for an accusation of poison or at least a reprimand for his carelessness. After all, he had been the one to insist on cooking for them today, for some unfathomable reason. The faerie usually made their meals now, but he'd been feeling increasingly useless, and determined to make more of an effort to shoulder what was formerly his share of the housework.

"This is... different," was all she said. The faerie girl took a prim sip of water and then dipped a piece of bread in her bowl and sopped it around, in a very unladylike manner, which she'd no doubt picked up from eating with him.

Father Brion pushed his bowl as far away from himself as possible. "You don't need to eat that," he replied weakly. "I'm afraid I mistook one spice for another." He'd have to ask the child to help him color code the bottles if he was going to be of any use at cooking again. There was no sense in ruining good food just in order to prove he could still take care of himself.

The faerie girl's soft lips pursed together, her dark gaze blinking down at the stew rather thoughtfully. She tilted her pretty head to one side. "Actually, I think I like it better," she answered.

Father Brion stared at her in wonder and then finally grinned. "Well, child, in that case you can have as much of it as you like."

It was their habit to wash the dishes together, but tonight the faerie insisted he take a seat by the fire and wouldn't let him dry. She hummed bewitchingly to herself as she worked alone in the kitchen corner of the cozy little room. Father Brion watched her contentedly for a time and then at last closed his eyes, sinking back gratefully into his favorite chair.

He let his mind wander to another day, another time. A different voice hummed in much the same manner; a somewhat lighter and higher one. Blue stones flashed around a pale neck; a few red curls came loose and tumbled down over graceful shoulders...

"What shall we read tonight?" the faerie girl asked him, her voice unexpectedly close. She was sitting in the chair next to him now, in front of a crackling fire which looked as though it had just been built up. The dishes must already be done. Father Brion sat up straighter in his chair and tried to appear attentive, as though he hadn't just woken up.

"Whatever you like," he told her fondly. She was getting taller these days, he thought. He'd asked about her growth once, but she'd only said that she would be full-grown soon and would stay that way once she was. Father Brion thought wistfully about never having to age, but then discarded the notion. A priest had to be willing to relinquish the narrowness of life, in order to be with the god. Death was a completion, not something to be avoided.

The girl got up and came back with a small book, one of the few that filled the old crate in the corner, a volume that they had both read many times. She sat happily back down in front of the fire, absently waving a hand at it and making the flames jump up higher. Father Brion started, his heart thumping loudly in his chest, and then forced his body to relax. There were some things one never got used to, no matter how many times.

The faerie was too absorbed in her task to notice. She opened the book up on her lap and began to read the poems in a strong clear voice. Father Brion knew them so well that he could have recited them with her, had he wanted. Instead, the old priest leaned back in his chair and let the faerie's rich voice roll over him, soothing away the last of his tension. The evening's various misadventures faded and the rhythm of the poet's words took over, a magic as potent as any faerie's song.

They took turns reading late into the night, until the last of the embers in the fireplace had died and the faerie girl had begun to yawn. And then Father Brion closed the book, which he hadn't needed anyway, and accepted her arm to lean on, knowing that if he didn't leave with her now he'd most likely spend the rest of the night slumbering in a cold chair, by the banked fire.

The Human Girl

Above all other days, the faerie girl cherished the holy day at the Church. Before she had been marked, one day had been just as good as another, for there was neither time nor season in the Wood. But now, once a week, she eagerly awaited the procession of Villagers that came up the path: the couples holding hands, the mothers carrying babies, the old men and the young women and the little children skipping. She watched for the last of them to enter the Church before she slipped inside herself, and even though every eye moved away from her, she felt as much a part of the proceedings as anyone else. After all, her mark contributed to the blessing, just as theirs did.

The blessing was the moment in the ceremony that always thrilled her. At the very end of the service, Father Brion would ask all of the members to lift up their mark, and the entire congregation would raise their left hands, palm up. Marks would suddenly illuminate the dim sanctuary from all over, casting their interlocking circles on the ceiling but also on the walls, depending on the angle of someone's arm. The whole of the inside of the Church was lit up with countless loops of light, brighter than the windows or even the torches could make it.

It was beautiful, and it made her love the god fiercely—to have created such a thing to link them all together. She didn't know how the others felt about it because she didn't ask; she kept quiet for the most part, since whenever she forgot and talked to someone they would get a look on their face as though she had fangs or claws and was about to attack them. But they were accustomed enough to her presence to talk around her after the service ended, and soon she knew more about them than they ever realized.

She asked Father Brion about what she heard, pestering him with questions he couldn't always answer, such as why was the baker's wife angry with the baker for giving away a plum cake to his neighbor? Both the baker and his wife bore the mark, and she had heard them arguing about it. The answer to this was that the baker's neighbor was a very shapely young woman who had more than enough money to buy a plum cake, but Father Brion didn't think it appropriate to explain further when the faerie girl was still mystified.

She asked him why the Village children sang a song about faeries snatching naughty children out of their beds, and he couldn't explain that one either, other than that it was an old tune he'd learned himself. The faerie girl shook her black curls in bemusement. What could a faerie possibly want with a naughty human child—or even a nice one—for that matter?

So she knew that the buxom girl with the light brown hair, whom everyone called Amandie, was one of the few people who had ever taken up residence beyond the Village. She knew this long before Amandie approached her. The faerie girl was helping Father Brion by counting the coins in the offering, after service one day, when she noticed that Amandie was fidgeting strangely in the back of the Church, tucking and re-tucking her blouse into her colorful skirt and pushing her sleeves up and down. Feeling wearied by all this restlessness, the faerie girl finally asked the human one, tartly, if she needed something, knowing that the sound of her faerie voice alone would urge Amandie to be gone.

"Yes, I do." Amandie's voice cracked as she said this, but she bravely came all the way up to the altar. She had a look, both terrified and determined, in her bright hazel eyes. The faerie girl was impressed by her; this human was made of sterner stuff than the rest, she thought. The faerie girl set the offering bowl down, and mirrored the human girl's posture, planting her feet to either side and clasping her hands behind her back.

She had found that acting like humans made them less nervous; for instance if she had climbed up on the altar and sat cross-legged on it whilst counting the coins, as she would have liked to have done, a human would have thought it odd and Father Brion would have scolded her. It was very important to them how their bodies were arranged. A faerie would never naturally think of this.

"Go on," the faerie girl said, invitingly. She wondered if she should offer to fetch Father Brion, but he had just left for his afternoon nap, as the old priest usually did after service on holy day. Besides, if this human girl had wanted his advice, she could easily have caught him after the service.

"I have... a problem," Amandie said nervously. "And I wondered if you might help me with it."

"Could be. Depends on how interesting it is." The faerie girl shrugged her shoulders. She was trying not to appear too invested in being helpful, but inside she felt a jolt of excitement. The last problem she had solved had been a territorial dispute between a bossy crow and a colony of songbirds. She had never solved a human problem before, other than when she had helped Father Brion retrieve his medallion. She thought of the baker and the cake and wondered if a shapely woman was involved.

Amandie stared up at the faerie, who was the taller of the two, as though she had expected the faerie girl to ask her a riddle or quote her a price.

"You can't tell anyone, not even the priest. You must promise," the human girl said. The faerie wrestled briefly with her loyalty to Father Brion, but then she nodded. If it was a problem the priest could fix, the human girl would not have come to her. She hoped the girl didn't expect her to brew a potion or enchant some object. Father Brion had told her many of the tales about faeries, and they made her wonder how humans could have lived on the faeries' land for centuries and know nothing about them.

Amandie took a deep breath, and then the story poured out of her; so long had she held it in, so afraid she had been to confide in anyone.

"My mother wanted more for me than a Village life. She insisted that I should leave it, and make my way to the nearest great house, and ask for work there. She had some grand notion that I would better myself; rise to be a head servant or maybe even have a rich man ask me for my hand." Amandie hung her head slightly at this, in the bashful way of a maiden, and then said, "My mother is hard to please and I knew this would please her very much, so even though I was content in the Village, I did what she asked."

The faerie girl made a sound of sympathy. She knew something of trying to make people happy when one didn't fully agree or understand them. Amandie's hazel eyes grew shiny, and she blinked several times before continuing.

"When I left the Village I went to the first great estate that I saw, the manor house of Baron Malkine, and was taken on as a maid. The other servants were mostly friendly, and I was treated well by everyone. Even the Baron himself was kind to me, so kind that I began to like him very much. After many months of this, I even thought that maybe what my mother had wished for would happen—that he might marry me—for he told me that I was the most beautiful girl he had ever met."

"And then... he started to be too kind. He paid me more attention than I wanted, and when I told him to stop, he just laughed at me. I reminded him about the mark, but he said that the mark was for ugly girls, not pretty ones like me. He doesn't want to marry me, but neither will he leave me alone." Amandie shot her an embarrassed glance, as though wondering if a faerie girl could understand this. The faerie girl remembered the two boys, and the lake, and her pale face became even more sympathetic.

"Maybe you should come back to the Village," the faerie girl suggested. The human really shouldn't have left it anyway, she thought with a frown. It meant that the Dead Tree wasn't doing its job right. She would have to go and have a talk with the Dead Tree. The faerie girl rocked back and forth on her firmly planted feet, wondering if the human would mind if she sat down on the floor with her back against the stone altar. She was having an inkling that this was going to be a lengthy problem.

But Amandie was agitated now. She twisted her hands into her multi-colored patchwork skirt. "I want to!" she exclaimed, "I want to so much! I wish I had never left! But my mother would be so disappointed in me. And the Baron has said terrible things—he is not kind at all. I don't know how I ever could have thought that." Amandie stared at her hands, which were now clasped in front of her in a pleading manner.

"What sort of terrible things?" the faerie girl asked curiously.

"That he will hurt everyone I love if I don't give in to him. Every time I leave to visit, he tells me so, to make me come back," she whispered.

"Everyone you love is in the Village," the faerie pointed out. "He can't get into the Village. He doesn't know how." And even if he did, the Dead Tree would never let him. Unless it had been contaminated by humans, and she didn't think that was possible. But she would definitely go and give it a lecture on its duties, sooner rather than later.

"Even so, I am afraid," Amandie said. "He could find a way in. If anyone could, it would be him. But you, you could speak to him and make him leave me alone. And you could keep him from harming anyone else. The other servants say that many girls have lost their marks to him." She shivered, and pulled her knitted shawl up higher around her curvy body.

The faerie girl squinted at her and made several different connections in her head. They led her to muse about whether all shapely women caused problems. But the faerie girl was not shapely herself, and she'd had problems as well. It was her remembrance of the meaty boy's confining arms that made her decide that Amandie must be helped.

"Very well," the faerie girl replied. "I'm ready. Shall we go now?"

Amandie threw her hands out impetuously, from where they had been previously clutched, and the faerie girl scooted back, lest the human embrace her. "Oh dear! I've promised my mother I'll stay for lunch. Is it all right if we leave after that?" The human girl's face had grown rosy with hope, and the tears that had leaked out of her hazel eyes had started to dry. The faerie girl noted that the human girl had not bothered ask her to lunch, despite an acceptance of her help. Even a wolf would have offered to share its bone with her, when she had taken a thorn from its paw.

Humans could be so rude.

"Will I find you here when I come back?" Amandie asked. Everyone knew that the faerie girl came and went like the sun on a cloudy day.

The faerie girl considered this. It would be out of the way for the human girl to come back into the Wood when they would only be traveling together in the opposite direction. But it would be awkward to hang around outside of the girl's house in the Village, while she and her mother ate lunch, and it would make the faerie girl feel like an unwanted guest. Things would be so much easier if the human girl could just summon her. The faerie girl thought about it, and her wild faerie heart beat forcefully inside her chest. Yes, she could tell this human her name. Not even the priest knew it, although she would have told him gladly had he asked. But he was content to call her "child", even though she was really a full-grown woman.

The faerie girl knew that she shouldn't give the human girl her name, but now that she had thought of it, she found the idea too tempting. Suddenly it was not enough for the faerie that every tree and every beast in the Wood knew her name, or that the wind whispered it when it blew and the rain sang it when it fell.

She wanted it to be spoken.

"Call my name, and I'll come to you," the faerie girl told the human.

Amandie's arched eyebrows raised. "You have a name?" she exclaimed. At the faerie girl's glare, the human one had the grace to blush. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. Of course you have a name! And I should have introduced myself as well. I would have—I was just so... so rattled. I'm Amandie." The human girl stuck out her hand, which trembled slightly.

The faerie found herself regretting her decision already. Still, the want was there: the desire to be known, the need to have a friend. She drew herself up regally, and announced,

"I am Erin, Lady of the Wood."

At the sound of the faerie's name, all of Amandie's nervous restlessness immediately stilled. The Wood no longer feared Amandie, and Amandie no longer feared the Wood.

Lady Erin took a deep breath and shook Amandie's hand very, very briefly, trying not to shudder at the contact. She had shared a faerie ritual with the girl; it would be ill-mannered to refuse to honor a human one.

And so it happened that Amandie did call Lady Erin, and that Lady Erin did choose to come.

Several years after this, a new tale surfaced, and people called it the tale of the Merry Baron. This baron was known by all as the Merry Baron because of his inordinate fondness for wine, women, and song. The Merry Baron had many grand love affairs, and there are tales within this tale about his conquest of the Dulcet Countess and his capture of the Fiery Gypsy, which a bard might wax poetic upon. Even to this day, if a young man is spotted climbing a lady's trellis to her balcony or sneaking into her bedroom at night in disguise, he is more than likely to be called a "merry baron" by all his friends.

The Baron was the ultimate lothario; no lady's honor was safe from him, single or wed, virgin or courtesan. But when the Merry Baron courted the Village Girl, there he met his match. He fell madly in love with her and begged her for her favors. Day after day she refused, but still he persisted—what passionate lover would not?

He had all but seduced her away from her cold chastity, when he made one great fatal mistake. Befuddled with drink one night, he boasted to all of his fine guests that his heart's desire was more beautiful than any other woman in all the land, even lovelier than a faerie lady.

When the Faerie of the Wood heard this, she grew green with jealousy and then white with anger. The next day she walked into the Merry Baron's house and revealed herself to him. He was so dazzled by her unearthly beauty, and so enslaved by her sweet scornful words, that once she had left he was merry no more. He never touched another woman, although he did drink most excessively, singing melancholy songs in his cups.

And so it is considered unlucky to boast too highly of a sweetheart's beauty, lest a vengeful faerie come and steal away one's ability to love.
Part 2

The Skeptical Priest

Father Jared had always wanted to go east. He perused the letter again, and then set it down thoughtfully on the cluttered desk in front of him. It was a peculiar letter to receive, and it contained an even more peculiar request. No one would understand if he did what it asked of him; of all the churches in the land he could choose from, this Church of the Wood was so obscure that it must be the least. Father Jared had already been offered the place of High Priest at the Palace, which would make him one of the many advisors to the king. The king expected him to take the offer and would, no doubt, be very vexed should he refuse.

King Lukas had already mocked him for becoming a priest—this was not unusual, the king had mocked him for just about everything he'd ever done—and Father Jared could just imagine what he would say to a letter such as this. Father Jared himself had expected to do what the king wanted: take the title of High Priest, and use his influence wisely for the good of Calundra. After all, it was a position befitting his status, a position of luxury and wealth.

Father Jared did not like luxury and wealth. If he had liked them, he would not have become a priest. And he was rather pleased at the idea of spiting the king, who did not like priests, and who would then have to find himself another candidate from amongst the rival factions of the upper classes of Calundra. Which would be like walking a narrow ledge between two precipices. Father Jared piously suppressed a feeling of satisfaction at this image, and returned to the contents of the letter.

It was clear that the author was in the last stages of dementia, and much to be pitied for it. Though the church was called the Church of the Wood, he was certain that whatever was near it was no more than a paltry handful of ordinary trees. Everyone knew that the woods in the land of Calundra were all gone; any school child could recite when the Wood of the Palace, the last one, had been destroyed. That was over twenty years ago now, and it was the official date to the end of the Faerie Wars.

Father Jared did not like trees. They were pathetic things, diminutive and uninteresting. Of course, he did not like rolling hills or perfect farmlands either; he wasn't much for natural beauty, for all that the poets gushed about the wonders of Calundra. He could not be unhappy that the last of the woods were gone, nor with them the last of the faeries. Although there were tales—Father Jared pushed back from his desk and stretched his young, cramped body.

He stalked morosely over to the window that looked out onto the Palace gardens. It was a meticulously manicured stretch of sandstone paths and emerald green bushes, with beds of flowers that grew all to the same height. The sight gave him so little pleasure that he hardly ever saw it. What he saw instead was in his mind's eye—the Great Hall and the Palace bard. The bard he was thinking of had told one particular tale many times, so that it could be said to be his most popular. The bard was not marked, of course; if he had been, he would never have been able to do his job.

It was a tale of a Wood at the edge of Calundra, the last of all of its many woods, the heart of the land itself. Over centuries of intense effort, humans had razed every other wood, fueled by their outrage, yet at a gut-wrenching cost. The woods had always been difficult to cut, but the more the humans cut them, the harder it became and the more men had to be sacrificed to the vengeful beasts and the wicked faeries in the process. The removal of the Wood of the Palace had been considered impossible; many kings had tried and failed to destroy it; some had unleashed horrors in the process.

The last king, King Pattrik, had finally succeeded. That was what gave rise to this tale—stirrings of unwanted guilt; guilt that they had finally won. People perversely wanted to believe that Calundra had somehow hidden something away for itself, so that they could feel absolved of their destructive anger, while at the same time fearing that it might be so, and hoping it was not.

As the tale went, there would always be one Wood in Calundra, a Wood that no human hand could ever touch. That Wood had inherited all of the strength of every wood that had ever perished, gathering up their magic when they were cut down. It was a Wood so deep and so dark and so evil that in it no human foot could ever fall.

It could not be found except by those who lived near it, in the Village of the Wood, for it turned back all casual visitors. It appeared on no map, no human map at least, and a faerie would never make a map because a faerie would never need one. To speak of faeries, if there was one wood left, then there was at least one faerie in it, for there could not be one without the other. Some people debated this, but Father Jared thought if all of the rest of it was lies, this part was true.

Yet Father Jared wasn't a dreamer. He did not like tales. He considered that the bard only favored this one because it made the royal guests shiver and because it displeased King Lukas, which might be why the man was out of favor at the Palace. To think that there was still a faerie out there was to believe in things that went bump in the night, and Father Jared had never been afraid of such sounds. It was said that a faerie could make valorous men fall on their own swords with two words, and would do so willingly to protect its wood. That was why the Faerie Wars had been so very bloody and so very long.

A faerie could spell a human to do its bidding, and so they had sought to make slaves of the humans, to force them to live in the dark woods where no human being could thrive. But these were stories that parents used to keep their children in bed at night. Father Jared knew that no creature could ever have power over him; he felt it in the marrow of his bones. No, he thought with a sigh, as he turned away from the window, there was no hidden evil in the land of Calundra; it was all boringly laid out gardens and profitable green fields and quaint little towns.

But he must answer the letter anyway, and so he must decide. Father Jared sat back down at the desk, pulled out a blank sheet of paper, and then dipped his pen into the ink. He didn't know what to write, and it hardly mattered. The letter had appeared on his desk, accompanied by a strange black feather, and the servants disclaimed all knowledge of it. Father Jared scrawled in an elegant ink-blotted hand, "I will come."

After all, the priest was dying. At the very least, he could stay with him until he passed, and then bring his pendant back to the Palace chapel, locking it safely in the box. But he would tell the king that he had decided to take the post—Father Jared's mouth quirked as he envisioned the king's response—it was true enough, in its way. If there was a Church of the Wood, he would stay there and be its priest. He could find a substitute easily enough, should it not suit him. And there would be no lack of other offers, even a renewed one from the king himself.

He might be a priest, but he was a prince of Calundra, after all.

"Brother, what is the meaning of this?" King Lukas snapped, moving up a step on the royal dais to appear taller than Father Jared, who was very tall. The king held the same letter that Father Jared had been holding himself several days ago, and the king had already read it, so this sentence was directed at Father Jared's decision and not at the rambling contents of the letter, some of which they had already discussed.

"It bears investigation," Father Jared replied coolly, twitching back his priestly robes, which always annoyed him, as though the fabric was wrong. This was not because he missed the furs and velvets of his youth, the ones that King Lukas so prominently displayed. It was because he had never found a piece of clothing that did not irritate him. Father Jared did not like clothing any more than he liked luxury and wealth, or trees, or fancy gardens, or tales of the bard. "And I think I might be quite happy in a simple country church, serving the needs of the common people."

"You're never quite happy doing anything," King Lukas retorted, with a slight cough. "You're the most difficult man that I know. Nothing pleases you, but this will please you even less than you think, as well as putting me out of temper with you." The king had found his throne, and thrown himself petulantly onto it, sending several servants anxiously scurrying to his side, to offer him soft silken pillows, trays of bite-size delicacies, and goblets of pear-scented wine.

"Well, since you are never in temper with me, I can hardly fear that." Father Jared's tone was dry, but a very observant man might have noticed the speck of hurt in it, and known that the priest was not entirely indifferent to the feelings of his older brother the king, whatever his private thoughts. King Lukas did not appear to be a very observant man, as he chided a serving girl for bringing the wrong pillow, and berated the serving men for bringing him a lady's sweets and wine. But it was foolish to underestimate King Lukas. All of the servants fled, and the fair-haired king's handsome face focused sharply on his brother, as though he might wish to ask for a replacement for him as well.

"You know who this man is, of course, this doddering old fool who wrote you the letter?" the king asked him caustically. Father Jared's spine stiffened. He had thought the same thing about the author himself, but the man was a priest of the god, and he deserved respect. "The man no doubt sees woods and faeries everywhere. Father said he was completely incoherent when he left the Palace. And lucky for him that he was; it saved his hide." The king waved the crumpled letter in his hand and, predictably, found a way to mock. "The Mad Priest has written you a mad letter, and you believed it."

Father Jared was undeterred by this. Indeed, he would do very little with his life if he worried about what his brother would say to him. "I believe not a word of it. There is no Wood, and there is no Church of the Wood and there is no Village of the Wood outside it."

It was a shame, for the Mad Priest had not always been mad. Father Brion had once been a man of influence and was previously well-respected at the Palace. In their father's day, in the reign of King Pattrik and at the time of Prince Jared's infancy, Father Brion had himself served as High Priest. He had only become deranged and fled after the Silent Queen's execution, around the same time as when the last wood was destroyed. The aging priest, who was rumored to be complicit in the Queen's crime, had not been pursued or brought to justice.

When a ten year-old Prince Jared had heard this story, he'd questioned his father about it heatedly. King Pattrik had said very briefly that Father Brion was not responsible for losing his mind, and then told his son never to ask about it again. His father did not speak of the Silent Queen. None did, who wished to remain at the Palace, and now that King Pattrik was dead, buried in pomp and splendor, no one knew what had driven the Mad Priest mad or how mad he had actually become.

The tale of the Silent Queen was also the tale of the last wood, a largely untold tale that made the young prince uncomfortable and sad. These feelings were what had driven him to question King Pattrik about the Mad Priest. He'd heard about Father Brion from the bard, of course, and King Pattrik was so furious with the bard for this that the man had thought it prudent to disappear until after the king's recent funeral, when he'd turned up on the Palace doorstep like a bad coin. There was no saying that the bard's tale was true—even though it was about real people and definite events—because the bard was a notorious liar, a man who knew how to mold and knead his audience like warm taffy.

As the bard had told of the Silent Queen, he'd spoken of how Father Brion had taken pity on a mute peasant girl and given her a job at the Palace. It was the lowest of jobs, that of cleaning the Palace floors. It was also how his father had met her, slipping across a wet parquet and slamming into a nearby wall. When the young peasant girl ran to help him, he'd discovered her to be unfathomably beautiful. Within a month, they were married, against all of his many advisors' good advice.

And if her servants murmured that the Silent Queen's hair—which fell to her waist in a rich, dark, red—was only red because she dyed it that color, and if her ladies-in-waiting muttered that her eyes—which were long-lashed and blue as a robin's eggs—were only blue because of the strange stones that she wore around her neck, no doubt they were all just jealous. King Pattrik was happy, and that was all that mattered. As a widower with a small son he had been very unhappy, and he valued the difference. Also, the Silent Queen bore him a child, a perfect brown-haired baby that never seemed to cry, and it was good to have another prince of the blood.

But the Silent Queen didn't take to his firstborn, Prince Lukas, as the king had hoped, even though he was a winning child. She gave him no motherly caresses and kisses. That was not remarkable at first; the new Queen did not seem to be affectionate with anyone; perhaps she didn't even like children. But people whispered behind her back when she had her own little baby and was seen to dote on him, never wanting him out of her sight.

No one, however, would have imagined that the Silent Queen would try to murder Prince Lukas, until the attempt failed and the Queen was brought to trial. It was then that the Mad Priest went mad. He stood up in front of the entire Court and swore to the Queen's innocence, when he had no proof to back it up. He claimed that the god had told him, and he wept when the judgment of the Queen's treason was pronounced.

It was cruel of the bard to begin this tale to ten-year-old Prince Jared, because the Silent Queen was also Prince Jared's mother. The young prince had known that his mother was an evil woman, and that she had tried to harm his father and his older brother, but he hadn't known it in detail because it was never talked about. Prince Jared loved his father, who was gray and loud and amusing, and looked up to his older brother, whose presence was witty and commanding.

That was why he'd refused to listen to any more of it. And why he'd announced to his father that the Mad Priest should have been brought to justice, for everyone said he had fallen under the Queen's influence. When his father had declared that this was impossible, due to the nature of the mark, Prince Jared had insisted his father explain to him about it. The young prince had never paid attention to the god before this, but he was determined to verify things for himself. Which was how it came about that one day he charged up to the threshold of the Palace chapel and demanded that the current High Priest, a timid old man who was overawed by his royal blood and his brashness, should come out and mark him so that he could see how it felt.

Father Jared shook his head at the memory. He'd thought to take the god's mark lightly, as a test of what his father had told him, and discovered himself bound by it instead. Father Brion may have been the worst High Priest in the history of all Calundra, but he still bore the mark. That meant that his father had been right; Father Brion's failings could not be his fault. He had believed the Queen to be innocent, because he was deluded, but he could not have helped her plot against someone's life. Of course the entire letter could be just another example of the Mad Priest's madness; he probably didn't live in a church at all. He would find the poor man—if he found him at all—markless and living as a vagrant under a bridge or squatting in an abandoned shed.

But there was a specific set of instructions to the letter—which presumed that he would travel there in order to give his answer—which intrigued him. It said to ride in one direction and only that direction, until there was no more farmland, no hills, no ordinary trees, no cities and no villages. The letter stated that he must do this even when he knew there was nowhere left to go, when he found himself riding in circles, and when he was told by everyone he asked that he was going absolutely wrong. He could not rely on a compass, for it would become more and more inaccurate the closer to the Wood he got. Of course, these instructions made no sense, and indicated that the entire letter was nonsense and not worth Father Jared's trouble.

But it was the direction that had decided him. He had always wanted to go east, as though there was something to the east that he remembered, or wanted, or possible even liked. He knew that this was not so, because as a prince of Calundra he had traversed all of the land at one time or another. He knew that there was nothing to the east that was even remotely special. It was all depressingly alike.

The king—who didn't like to leave the comforts of his palace—used this as an excuse to teasingly send Father Jared away on diplomatic trips, telling his brother that he needed to learn to appreciate the beauties of Calundra. Another reason the king would be sorry to lose him; he would have to make his royal peace missions for himself. Since the completion of his training, Father Jared had been serving as High Priest in all but name, and that only because he was stubborn and resisted taking it.

King Lukas was hearty and blond, the opposite of Father Jared—whose brown hair was unfashionably dark and whose complexion was conspicuously wan—but he thought that his brother had paled some during their conversation. Father Jared knew that they both found the letter far more troubling than either of them would ever discuss.

"Well, I hope you enjoy mucking around in Baron Malkine's holding, because you realize that's all you'll be doing. When you get tired of it and you've seen this sad lunatic to his eternal rest, come back to me and do your duty to the kingdom." This was pronounced with a finality that was not lost on Father Jared, nor was the fact that the servants had returned with new pillows, new food, and new wine. One did not overstay one's welcome with his brother the king. Father Jared nodded, and left the way that he had come.

As he readied his bags in his room, the sun set over the Palace gardens and shadows crept around its massive walls, but they were only friendly shadows, utterly benign. Father Jared stared out the window and tried to imagine where the last wood, the Wood of the Palace, would actually have been. For the tale of the Silent Queen was also the tale of the last wood.

After her execution, King Pattrik had needed to take out his rage and his anger on something, and the wood had been his target. He assembled an army of wood cutters and foresters and unemployed peasants. He had chopped down every tree; there was nothing left of it now, not even a stump. King Pattrik succeeded in doing what no other king in a century had done, but he found no faerie in it. The bard liked to say that the faerie had fled because the wood had grown mysteriously weak and she could no longer protect it.

Father Jared didn't think there ever had been a faerie. He doubted very much that the wood around the Palace had been anything more than an ordinary collection of trees, which his father had decided to cut down. People blew things out of proportion. He stood by what he had said. There was no Wood, and there was no Church of the Wood, and there was no Village of the Wood.

But if there was something to the east, he would find it.

The Journey

Baron Malkine's holding was ten days ride from the Palace, but Father Jared's horse could make it in nine. Father Jared liked his horse. It was huge and black and vicious, though not to Father Jared. When it was stabled in the Palace, the grooms used the stalls on either side of it for storage, because it made the other horses frantic. The horse's name was Night.

Father Jared had named him when he was very little, and he had been Father Jared's horse since before he was big enough to ride him. Night had jumped the fence of the corral one day and chased out all of the other horses, even though he was only just a colt. The grooms had no idea where he came from, and they all thought he must be rabid. They wanted to put the wild colt down, after they had rounded up all of the other horses, but young Prince Jared wouldn't let them.

Night was happy to be going east too, the priest was sure of it. The horse was older now, but still strong; in fact, he hardly seemed to feel his years at all. Father Jared approved of most animals, though maybe not sheep or cows, and he could read their moods with precision. Riding on the eagerly galloping Night, he could have made it to the Baron's manor by the eighth day, but he chose to stop at a nearby tavern.

Father Jared had slept on the ground for seven nights and eaten cold meals for all of them, not that he minded cold meals or sleeping on the ground. But he did not wish to arrive at the Baron's house looking as though he had done so, so he reined up his great black charger at a quaint-looking inn with gray stone walls and lush cascades of ivy. There were picnic tables lined up out front of it, a main door with a gabled roof, and a small stable to the side.

Father Jared waved away the boy who naively offered to take Night, and tended to the horse himself. When Night was settled, snuffling emphatically into his feed, Father Jared dusted the dirt from the forest green of his priestly robes and went in search of food himself. He caught the scent of a hearty meat pie the moment he stepped through the door of the tavern. The priest chose a seat at a small round table, clearly meant for just one, and relaxed into the chair, crossing his legs and stretching his muddy boots out in front of him.

The inn was prosperous; there were wooden surfaces everywhere—in the exposed beams of the ceiling, in the well-polished bar, in the rough planks of the flooring. There were plenty of other customers, local folk by their dress, wearing blue and light green striped sashes, ribbons, and belts—Count Olcay's colors. Not the Baron's people—he had stopped just outside of the Baron's land—but chatty and likely to have heard the latest news about him. They should have no qualms about spreading it along to a priest, to judge by the easy, uninhibited sound of their conversation. From amongst the crowded tables, a beaming pot-bellied man, who was clearly the barkeep, hurried over to him with a gesture of welcome.

The priest ordered a slice of the meat pie and a glass of ale. When the barkeep came back with them, Father Jared tucked into the meal appreciatively. He would take a room as well, and he should make some effort to converse with the other customers, of whom there were many, in order to hear the latest gossip.

Baron Malkine was always in some kind of trouble, usually over a woman, so it would be good to know what he was walking into when he got there. As Father Jared pushed around the last chunk of mutton on his flat tin plate, he noticed that the barkeep was hovering nearby, wiping a neighboring table that a serving girl had already cleaned off. Father Jared pushed his plate away and made eye contact.

The pot-bellied man came over to him at once.

"How'dye like that pie, Father?" the man asked. His fair hair straggled to his shoulders, and he wore a voluminous stained apron, which he wiped his hands on, excitably.

"Not bad," Father Jared replied. This was high praise, coming from him. The priest was not an epicure. He preferred foods in their simplest, most natural state—though not meat, of course.

"Traveling far?" the barkeep asked.

"Possibly," Father Jared replied. "I'll take a room for the night, if you have one."

"Oh, aye, got several of those." The barkeep nodded, and then kept on nodding, and then blinked. Father Jared had no doubt that the man had something else on his mind other than which room to put the priest in. He was staring at the priest's silver pendant, which rested on his chest just below the decorative yellow braiding of his yoke.

The barkeep's round face grew wistful. "I had the mark once..." he told the priest, suddenly. "Never forget how comforting it was. Haven't rightly felt at peace since..." His voice trailed off.

It wasn't the first time Father Jared had met someone who lost the mark. He braced himself for a story. It would be a tale of violence, licentiousness, or terrible deceit. If he was very unlucky, it would involve all three of them.

The barkeep held out his left palm to the priest, which was quite bare, except for a few calluses. The man's longish yellow hair fell forward as he gazed ruefully at it.

"Closing up late one night, I got in a fight with the last lonely drunk—there's always one, you know. Turned out the man hadn't been drinking; only pretending. Was waiting to get me on my own. Fellow attacked me and meant to take my lockbox. 'Course I fought him off, and that was that." The barkeep's left hand closed compulsively into a fist.

"Didn't mean to kill him, though."

Father Jared gave the man a level look and told him reprovingly, "The god is good, but just."

The barkeep loosened the fist and tucked his hand away into his soiled apron, abashed.

"Ah, well, mebbe I did mean to kill him. I was mighty ticked off when he jumped me like that." The barkeep cleared his throat, embarrassed. "Can I get you anything else?"

The priest shook his head. He had ridden hard for eight days, and he was suddenly very, very tired. Part of him wanted to ask the barkeep to show him to his room, but the other part knew he needed information. So he took his glass of ale, which was only half-empty, and brought it over to the bar. A thin fair-haired man got up and left, making room for Father Jared on one of the stools. His neighbor, a stocky sandy-blond fellow in his late forties looked the priest over between gulps of ale. By the muscles on his arms, the fellow looked like a man who used them daily. "Evenin', Father," he said.

Father Jared gave a polite greeting in return and placed his glass on the bar, taking time to survey it for the most likely customer. There was a woman to his left, and past her a group of old men who looked like they sat in the same stools every night having just about the same conversation. To his right, past his neighbor with the big arms, sat a mixed group of younger men and women, flirting with each other and showing off.

And then there was always the barkeep himself, although he was wary that the man might take further conversation as an encouragement to beg the priest to give him back the mark. People always believed, no matter how many times they'd been told otherwise, that they could get a second chance.

The stocky man was as good as any, and he'd already spoken to him. "Been having good weather, I see," the priest addressed to him. The stocky man looked at him incredulously. "It's been raining hard for over a day. The roads must be a mess." He knew the priest wasn't from around here then, which meant he must be a local himself.

"Aye, I like the rain," Father Jared said. "Good for the crops." Yesterday's deluge was another reason he'd stopped at the tavern, despite the fact that it had let up by morning. Clearly the man was not a farmer, but the priest had thought that already.

"Suppose so," the other man said dubiously.

"Do you live in the village?" he asked the man.

"I have a small smithy, run it myself. If you need anything sharpened, or a horse shoed, or a blade—aye, well, you wouldn't need that, but mebbe a chopping knife or some such—you can come to me. Best smithy in the Three Villages," the man continued. Father Jared looked at him curiously; it was a fairly modest boast.

The smithy grinned self-consciously, and held out his hand. The priest shook it appreciatively, left hand to left hand, mark to mark. The priest didn't normally like to touch people, but this was a ritual, and it was nice to know that there were good people around, so close to the Baron's land.

"What news of your neighbor, the Baron?"

"Nothing since the duel with the Count. I'm sure you've heard of that?" Father Jared nodded; it was old news, but in Olcay's holding it was no doubt a wound that festered. "We're none too fond of the Baron in these parts," the smithy continued, confirming his suspicion. "The Countess was a real lady, before she fell prey to the likes of him. And now she's gone into mourning, and the new Count is only but a lad." The smithy shook his head, and drank his ale, brooding. "The Baron's not welcome around here, if you know what I mean," he said at last. "Folk might not take kindly to you for bringing his name up."

"Aye, understood. Don't worry; he's not my purpose in being here. Being a priest, I don't take kindly to him myself." The smith nodded his approval of this. "Actually, I'm looking for something," the young priest continued. "Something a bit out of the way." The priest shifted on his stool, and told himself he'd best get on with it. "Have you heard of a place called the Church of the Wood?" he asked, bracing himself for the Look.

The smith gave it to him.

He knew he would encounter the Look often enough as he made his way east, the look that wondered why a grown man, and a priest at that, was asking about a bedtime story.

"I suppose every boy's heard about the Wood, and the Village of the Wood, and the Church of the Wood. Faerie stories, if you know what I mean," the smithy said with a grin. He was laughing at him, ordering another drink from the barkeep, thinking the priest was a bit soft in the head. It wasn't that none believed the stories—there were plenty of timid and gullible people in the land of Calundra—but a man like this was not likely to be one of them. Sadly, the more reliable-looking the source of information, the more of the Look he got.

"I'd have to agree with you," the priest said, running his fingers through his dark brown hair. He hadn't even reached the Baron's land, and already he was feeling that his excursion was pointless. The smith had become involved in another conversation, though, and the priest was happy to be let off being questioned on why he'd asked.

A serving girl walked past with a tray, precariously over-flowing with glasses, held up high in her hand. She moved with an ease which drew his attention, as did the tower-like arrangement of what she conveyed, which seemed likely to tumble down at every step. It did not, though. She disappeared through a swinging door, came out empty-handed, cleared several more tables, and then did it all over again. The evening was busy; customers came and went, glasses piled and re-piled, but nothing ever got dropped. The girl was a master.

Father Jared had never found women very attractive. If he had, he wouldn't have become a priest. As a prince of the blood he'd eventually have been expected to marry and have royal children. His calling absolved him—to his great relief—of this unappealing task. Still, the girl was eye-catching. She had a certain charm; the light brown hair that swished around her shoulders, the hazel eyes that took in everything quietly, the graceful manner of her walk. He found himself uncharacteristically pleased by her, so much so that when she passed by him again he found himself paying her a compliment.

"You've a talent there," he said, indicating the well-balanced tray. "Not even a Palace servant could do better."

This surprised her; he had surprised himself. There were a dozen noblewomen at the Palace who had tried and failed to get a compliment out of the young prince. The serving girl blushed and stammered a quick "thank you" that was more terrified than thankful. The serving tray wobbled, and Father Jared held up his hand in case the unthinkable happened. The girl's hazel eyes noticed the mark, then flashed to the priest's robes, and the tray suddenly steadied. Unexpectedly, she curtsied, the tray still steady, a feat that left the priest slightly agog, and then quickly walked away to disappear behind the swinging door again.

The priest waited for her to come out—she looked as though she might have something interesting to tell—but she didn't. He found himself involved instead in the smith's new conversation, being appealed to for news beyond the Three Villages. This the priest gave energetically enough, and then felt his tiredness coming back again.

The volume of the tavern had increased, and it was hurting his head. At the farther end of the bar, the group of young people was growing more and more boisterous. Father Jared was hardly older than the oldest of them—he had only just entered his third decade himself—but he felt that they should be less free in their behavior. One in particular, a bold, tough-looking lad of eighteen or so was drunk enough to be throwing knives at the wall, and some of them were flying off with dangerous inaccuracy. The priest frowned at the barkeep, who gave a helpless sort of shrug.

"A good lad, if a bit wild. He'll tire of it soon enough," the pot-bellied man apologized. He moved over to answer a summons for a glass, and then along to the rowdy boy, who was calling for another drink himself.

Father Jared wanted a peaceful night. He did not want to spend his only night indoors in eight days at a place where he might get roused by a sudden commotion or be disturbed by an unfortunate accident. He got up very deliberately and walked over to the drunken boy, coming between him and the barkeep, who was about to refill the lad's glass. "You don't need another," the priest said authoritatively.

The tough boy's head reared back in astonishment. He glared at the priest and opened his mouth to protest, balling his hands into fists. The barkeep said quickly, "William, lad, the priest is probably right. I'll not refuse you one more drink—aye, I know you can handle it—but mebbe better not."

William's slightly unfocused eyes traveled from the barkeep's face to the priest's robes, and then he slowly released his hands. The barkeep considered the lad's tough physique and tilted the bottle, as if still ready to pour. The priest could imagine William would do some damage in a brawl, and the barkeep didn't seem to be willing to antagonize him. The priest's dark eyes bore into the boy's bleary ones. "I don't need another," the boy said weakly, covering his glass. Father Jared hid a smile.

When a certain tone came into the priest's voice, people rarely failed to listen.

At his request, the barkeep had a serving girl show him to his room, though not the pretty one who had never reappeared, and the priest slept a deep, peaceful sleep, waking in the morning to feel quite refreshed.

Setting out at a good pace, it didn't take long for Night to reach the Baron's holding. Father Jared passed the main city, several towns, and then a cluster of sleepy villages. Then there were only fields upon fields of wheat and corn and vegetables with farmhouses dotted around them. The Baron's manor house was in the country, and the priest had sent a message on ahead. Father Jared hadn't waited for a response, but he'd been told in Forthaven that the Baron was there; the Baron had a house in the city as well.

On his way, the priest stopped whenever he saw a peasant man hoeing or a peasant woman hanging out the wash, to inquire about the Church of the Wood. By late morning, he'd had as much useless blathering from the superstitious and pointed Looks from the skeptical as he could take for one day. He rode steadily onward to the manor house itself.

Night was in rare form today, nipping whenever anyone got close to him, rearing and dashing his hooves at the barking dogs. It would be better to question people when the horse was in a better temper, if that was possible. He'd turn him loose as much as possible at the Baron's manor and then again after they left it, in the largely uninhabited bit of land beyond. Night didn't like being ridden this much, even by him.

The manor was fronted by a decorative garden, with four apple trees equally spaced around a statue of a naked woman. Several flowerbeds made a diamond shape around the trees, and the drive to the manor split around it and then joined back up again at the manor's front steps. Flat-trimmed dark green bushes lined the front of the house, which was built of a fawn-colored stone and set with numerous arched white-shuttered windows. The dark slate roof slanted up to a flattened top, with a lacy iron cresting surrounding it.

The priest waited for a servant to come out and offer to help with Night, but the house remained silent. He let Night into the corral at the left side of the house himself—he didn't need anyone to do it anyway, although he would have expected an offer—and then he came back to the front door and knocked. When no one answered, he knocked again, wondering if the person who'd told him the Baron was in the country had been misinformed. Still, the servants should be here, even if the Baron had made a last minute trip.

Eventually, the door was opened by a nervous-looking man, who seemed relieved to see the forest green robe and the yellow yoke. "Yes, Father?" the man asked. The priest didn't know him from any of his other visits, and clearly the man didn't recognize him either. "Is the Baron at home?" Father Jared asked, breezing past him. It was a strange enough reception to be almost insulting; this was too much, even for the Baron.

"Yes, Father. I think he's upstairs somewhere." The man didn't offer to either find the Baron or take the priest to him, but instead stood nervously, wringing a dishcloth in his hands. Father Jared frowned. "I'll show myself up, then?" Father Jared asked pointedly. The servant nodded gratefully, the sarcasm lost on him.

"If you would, I'm needed back in the kitchen. There's only me to get the luncheon ready and do everything else."

Father Jared blinked in surprise, suddenly noticing the stale, empty feel of the house. "Where are all the other servants?" he asked.

"There's been a turnover of staff," the man replied worriedly. "I'm new here myself. The Baron seems to be having a hard time filling the other positions."

Father Jared wasn't interested in the Baron's domestic problems. The man compulsively terrorized people; there must have been some sort of household incident. The priest let the anxious servant go and made his way upstairs. He had braced himself to be shocked and outraged, yet again, by the Baron's dirty jokes and brash manner.

This eerie lack of welcome was almost a let-down. And why hadn't the new servant wanted to alert his master that he had a guest? He couldn't be that ill-trained, could he? The priest was mystified. He called the Baron's name as he came to the second floor landing, and heard a distant shout in return. The upstairs of the manor house was large, but not so large that the Baron couldn't be found.

When he did locate Baron Malkine, he was in a fouler mood that Father Jared had ever seen him. Usually the virile, middle-aged man was an obnoxiously cheerful companion, with a pert maid on one knee, and a goblet of wine gripped in an unsteady hand, resting on the other. Instead, he found the Baron brooding in his study, a room he was almost certain he'd never seen him use before. He was sitting in a clawed armchair in front of a roaring fireplace. He got briefly to his feet and gave the priest a token bow, in recognition of his royal blood, before moodily sinking back into it.

"Come to gloat?" the Baron asked unpleasantly, gesturing to a similar chair next to him, also in front of the fire. Father Jared took it reluctantly. The grate was heaped high with grass bundles, burning fiercely and giving off an intense heat that was rather uncomfortable.

"Priests do not gloat." He had no idea what the Baron was talking about; the only gossip he'd heard last night had been that the Baron was between lovers, a discovery which had filled the priest with relief. "But maybe you have a confession to make?" he countered.

The Baron stared at him, and then snorted. "Haven't heard the news then? How I've given up my wicked ways and turned over a new leaf?"

"I heard you were temporarily behaving yourself," Father Jared replied cautiously.

The Baron roared with laughter, which quickly subsided to a groan. He picked up his goblet of wine from the spindly round table between them and drank it down in a huge gulp, then set the empty cup back down on it so hard that the table shuddered. "At least I can still do that!" the Baron exclaimed, and then the expression on his fair bearded face turned murderous. "If I ever get my hands on that faerie, I'll wring her pretty little neck!"

Father Jared's mouth fell open. He clamped it shut again. "You've met a faerie?" he asked.

Baron Malkine suddenly seemed to realize that he was speaking to the priest, and not just muttering to himself. A crafty look came over his face, and then a confused one.

"Might as well have been, the way she bewitched me." He glared into the fire as though it showed him something that only he could see, but his eyes strayed over to the priest, assessing.

Father Jared lost interest immediately. He had no desire to hear about the Baron's latest paramour. The man had probably been sitting in front of his fire and guzzling goblets of wine all morning, love-sick over some unwilling lady. He should at least wait until after lunch-time to begin his debaucheries.

"So, what brings me the honor of a visit from the prince turned priest?" the Baron asked trenchantly. His brow furrowed. "And why the devil didn't my man show you up?"

"I'm looking for a particular church," Father Jared answered, ignoring the question as well as the dig. No need to get a harried servant into trouble. "A dying priest wrote me a letter and asked me to come to his aid. Unfortunately, he wasn't well enough to write clear directions as to his location."

"There aren't any churches on my land," the Baron growled. "You ought to know that."

"Then you've never heard of the Church of the Wood?" Father Jared asked quickly.

The Baron squinted at his tall, brown-haired guest. "You joking with me, priest?"

"I never jest," Father Jared replied calmly. It was true. It had to be—he had said it.

The Baron laughed again, this time more quietly. "If there was ever a church on my holding, surely the priest would have pined away long ago, for lack of company. We're not people of the mark here, Father. We prefer to enjoy ourselves." The Baron said this as insultingly as possible.

"Well, then," Father Jared said tightly. "I'm sure you don't mind if I look over your villages and farmlands, to see that everything is up to the King's code?"

The Baron made a shooing gesture with his hand, knocking over the empty cup in the process. It rolled off the table and onto the rug, which bore enough wine stains to indicate that this was not the first time this had happened. "Go—weasel around and report back to King Lukas. You'll not find anything amiss here."

Father Jared stood up, and the Baron was forced to stand up with him. The big handsome blond man swayed dangerously on his feet. Father Jared nodded at him, and then left.

There was no doubt about it; the man had been drinking all morning. He hadn't even invited the priest to stay for luncheon, or offered him a bed for the night. Not that the priest would have accepted either, after the Baron's odd behavior. Everything about the manor house seemed to be odd right now, but the Baron could more than take care of himself, and isolation was probably a good tonic.

Father Jared reined up on Night, glad that the Baron's inebriation and insulting manner had relieved him of the necessity of wasting time at the manor house on social niceties.

Once again, the priest's eyes scanned over the last farm to the east, before the valley and the mountains. He had ridden east until he knew there was nowhere else to go. He had come to the last remaining farm before the green valley that ran down to the edge of the mountains in a gradual descent. And of course, there was no Church.

The farmer who ran the place waved cheerfully at Father Jared, leaning arthritically on his cane and watching him approach. This was the fifth time that the priest had ridden back and forth in front of his dilapidated and leaky-looking farmhouse, and the elderly man was obviously enjoying the spectacle. Father Jared stopped and slid off of Night's back, taking stock of his failures.

Calundra was shaped like a half moon, with the Wide Sea to the west in a straight line and the Impassable Mountains stretching away from its shores in a giant curve from the North to the South. There was no way into Calundra across this lofty horse-shoe shaped mountain range. Humans had come here from the Wide Sea by boat, many centuries ago, from a land so distant and forgotten that almost all of the information which survived about it was the name itself: Lundra. "Cal" meant "new" in a mostly abandoned tongue that was a sister to the one now dominantly spoken, and so the humans had named the land of the woods "Cal Lundra", which over the decades had slurred together until it became simply, "Calundra".

Father Jared wiped the sweat from off his face with his sleeve, and absently patted Night, who was now tearing up savage mouthfuls of the farmer's clover. They had been wandering around in circles together for hours. The priest pulled out his compass, but the needle spun lazily clockwise. Father Jared had dropped it during their fruitless perambulations and Night had stepped on it. Now it was broken.

A strange look came across the young priest's face. He went over to the saddlebags and other tack, which he'd dropped on the ground in order to let Night graze, unencumbered, and pulled out the crumpled letter. His dark eyes skimmed over the shaky words. Then the priest frowned thoughtfully, and hefted a small pack from amongst the items on the ground. He slung it over his shoulder, and strode up to the farmer. The farmer's creased face broke into an amused smile.

"Am I going in the right direction?" the priest demanded. He was too hot and thirsty to bother with preliminaries.

"Absolutely not," the farmer replied, in a voice that was surprisingly hale and hearty. "Dunno where you're headed, young fellow, but ye'll not find it trampling my wheat."

Father Jared did not waste time protesting that he had meticulously avoided any patch of ground that looked even slightly cultivated, which was not much.

"Might I trouble you for a drink of water?" he asked, instead.

The old farmer looked Father Jared up and down, from his dark windblown hair to his dirt-caked boots, and said. "Oh, aye. You look like you could use a draught. Come with me, then."

The priest followed the farmer into the small farmhouse, through a cool entryway and into what was obviously its single main room, to judge by the collection of scarred furniture, which included a crowded table and a rumpled bed, an ancient stove, and shelves of dry goods. Strings of garlic and herbs hung from the low ceiling, and buckets were placed here and there, undoubtedly to catch drips.

The farmer rattled around in the kitchen-like corner with the shelves and sink and barrel of flour, and then motioned the priest to sit at the table. He offered him a dented cup to drink from and a slice of brown, chewy bread. The priest ate neatly, but drank greedily.

"Thank you."

"A pleasure," the farmer replied, holding up his left palm. Father Jared smiled, the first real smile he'd given anyone since he'd come into the Baron's land.

"I don't suppose you've heard of the Church of the Wood?" he asked.

"I don't suppose I have, unless you mean the one in the old faerie story," the farmer said.

The priest sighed. "May I ask, is there anything unusual on your land?" It was a shot in the dark, but Father Jared was willing to make it.

The old farmer shook his silver and gray head. "Unusual? No, just the farmhouse and the land. Though there is the old tree stump," he replied slowly.

Father Jared was disappointed. He was not looking for tree stumps.

"'Course there's the tale about the stump," the old man continued. "Nonsense if you ask me. Everyone knows if you cut down a faerie tree, the stump sinks into the ground within days of the cutting." Father Jared hadn't known that, actually. His pulse began to quicken.

"You mean to say that people think the stump is from a faerie tree?"

The old farmer chuckled. "Aye, but it's all hogwash. That stump's been there since before I was a babe."

Father Jared put down his dented cup. In his excitement, he almost forgot to thank the old farmer for his hospitality.

Night, whom he had not bothered to tie up, followed him docilely around the back of the farmhouse, where the old man had said to look for the object in question. The stump was not so much a stump as it was the bottom half of an ancient rotted out tree.

Near it lay a short stone that was clearly a grave marker, one so blackened by time that whatever words it once bore could no longer be read. The old farmer had not mentioned it; it must belong to some long-deceased family member.

The priest did not ponder this for long; the tree itself dominated his attention. It was broken and black, and the priest didn't know how he'd missed it. Although he'd not been looking for stumps, in particular. A feeling came over him when he saw it, an overwhelming longing to have seen it in its glory, for it would have been taller than the highest towers of the Palace, to judge by the size of its base. The bark on it was like no bark he had ever seen. The priest laid his hand against in reverently.

Welcome, Lord Cal, it breathed.

Two thoughts came to Father Jared's mind at once. The first was that the tree had mistaken him for someone else. The second was that he must still be dehydrated, because he was hallucinating.

The priest felt his palm sink slightly into the bark and then he fell forward. The tree had disappeared from under his hand. He was left off-balance and disoriented.

Father Jared shut and reopened his eyes several times. Where there had been only one farm and the valley and then the mountains, now there was a different farmland, and below it a Village in the valley, and beyond that a Wood. Behind the Wood rose the Impassable Mountains. There was a dirt path next to a small lake, leading out from the Wood and rising into the Village, where it became a large main road. This road rose up through the Village as the main street and then dwindled again as it hit the farmlands, becoming a small path again and then coming to an abrupt end, as though it had nowhere left to go.

The priest's head whipped around, looking for where he had been before he stumbled and lost his bearings. He discovered that the black stump was now unaccountably behind him. Beyond it he could see the old farmer's weathered farmhouse, and his fields, and in them Night, still peacefully grazing. But the horse and the farm felt far away and they looked slightly fuzzy, as though he was seeing them through the smudged glass of a dirty window-pane.

Father Jared turned back and looked at the Wood. He had no doubt now that if he were to take the main road through the Village and then continue onto that small dirt path and into the Wood, he would find his Church. He had done the impossible: he had found something that existed only in a tale.

Now he could help the dying priest; now he could complete his quest.

Father Jared seriously contemplated turning around, fetching Night, and never coming back.
Part 3

The Thief

The day that Gleason came into the tavern, Amandie almost dropped her tray. She was so surprised that it wobbled badly, but he quickly lifted a hand to still it. The glasses clinked, but they did not fall.

"Still juggling things, I see," Gleason said, with an impish smile. It improved his rather lean and unattractive face greatly. Then he sat down at the bar as though he belonged there, as though it was every day that a Village boy came into the busiest tavern in the Three Villages and sat down.

Amandie set her tray down on a nearby empty table that needed to be wiped off, and went over to him at once. "What are you doing here?" she demanded. When he only smiled, she asked the question she had wanted to ask more, which was, "And how did you get out?"

"I followed you, of course," the boy said calmly. "One of the times you came back to visit. Found the old stump there and saw what happened when you touched it."

Amandie looked at him carefully, as she hadn't done in quite some time. He wasn't really a boy anymore, Amandie thought. He was old enough to be a man, even if he was scrawny and untidy. Just as she was old enough to be a woman, for they were roughly the same years. He wore a loose linen tunic with red and green embroidery—the colors of the Village—which was coming unstitched in places, and which fell open at his chest instead of being properly laced up. His brown pants were patched and his navy vest had a hole at the top of the shoulder. "You're not the only one who wants more than a Village life," Gleason said.

Amandie was so disturbed by this that she completely forgot she was working and sat down. Lady Erin hadn't been pleased when Amandie chose not to return to the Village, even after the faerie had solved her problem. Amandie felt a small thrill when she thought of how the faerie woman had confronted the Baron.

She had been magnificent! If Amandie's mother wasn't quite so shrewish, Amandie would have followed Lady Erin anywhere after that, even back to the Village. Instead, the human girl had thanked her profusely, and given her a favorite beaded necklace to show her appreciation. Then she had left the Baron's household, along with his other servants.

They'd all of them secretly hated the Baron, remaining in his service only out of fear of him. But now that he'd been spoken to by a faerie, the other staff feared staying with him even more. Amandie thought with satisfaction that once the tale spread, there were very few who'd be convinced to work for the man, especially for the coin he spent on wages.

"I didn't leave right away, even though I knew how," Gleason was telling her. "I bided my time, made my plans. Good thing I did, 'cause an interesting thing happened in the Village. And now I'm on the trail of something important, something that will lead me to my fortune!" Gleason smiled broadly, a less attractive sort of smile.

Amandie had never like Gleason much, though she had pitied him once; but seeing him here in this place was like seeing an old friend. Amandie had worked in the tavern for a while now, but it hadn't come to feel like home to her; people spoke with a strange inflection—their manners were as different as their colors—and so very many of them were unmarked. She enjoyed the differences, she found them interesting and exciting, and yet she longed for something familiar. She feared she would always be a Village girl at heart.

The barkeep had just come over to them, where they were sitting at the bar. Gleason was unsuccessfully trying to order a glass of ale, because the master of the house's attention was centered pointedly on Amandie instead. Amandie jumped to her feet and ran to retrieve her tray. She'd have to talk to Gleason later; right now she needed to show that she'd not completely forgotten her duties.

Amandie spent a few hectic hours wiping, clearing, serving, and ducking the innkeeper's eye. He'd always been somewhat fatherly towards her, so she wasn't afraid of him, but neither was he particularly lenient. She'd come to the tavern looking for work because she'd heard it was run by a man of the mark. When she discovered the rumor was false, he'd already offered her the job. She was weary of the road, and the other servants had reassured her that the tavern had a good reputation. So she'd stayed, instead of going on with them to Olcasse.

She had come to regret this decision, on occasion. The barkeep was strict with his customers—he made even the rowdiest leave the serving girls alone—but still she was aware of the eyes that followed her around the tavern, as she cleared the glasses. She knew that certain men watched her as she walked away from them and that some tried to peer down her dress as she set their food-laden plates down.

After what the Baron had done to her, Amandie had come to feel danger in the most harmless of flirtations, ones that she normally would have enjoyed. Even the handsome young priest, the one who'd spoken to her some weeks ago, had accidentally set this off, though his compliment was obviously sincere and his manner had been charming. Amandie'd had to tell the barkeep she'd developed a stomachache, which was true—her stomach was in knots—and then go lie down.

It wasn't until the end of the evening, when most of the customers had gone, that she found a chance to speak with Gleason again. He'd been sociable enough with several other men, but they'd all eventually gone off to their beds. Now he was alone at the bar, apart from one morose drunk, a churlish old man who was usually the last customer to depart. Amandie thought for a moment, and then went candidly over to the barkeep.

"A friend of mine has come to the bar, and I've finished all the tables. I've also cleaned up the kitchen, and made the last of the beds. Would ye mind, now, if I sit with him and hear news of my village?" she asked. Brand, for that was the barkeep's name, was restocking the clean glasses she'd brought out earlier, placing them onto the shelves in easy reach of bottles and spigots.

"Reckon that would be fine," he told her slowly. "But mind you, no sitting at the bar again during hours. Girl pretty as you—it's not a good idea. Not to mention that the work needs to be done." Amandie took the reprimand humbly, and promised to follow his advice. Then she seated herself next to Gleason, a bit more shyly this time, since he'd clearly been waiting for her just as much as she'd been waiting for him.

"So, are ye off, then?" Gleason asked. "We could take a bit of a walk, you know," he offered, with a suggestive smile. Amandie frowned angrily at him. She was pretty sure he was only teasing; it was his usual way after all. But no decent maid would walk out with a lad this late at night—and she did not like him saying it. "I've only sat to have news of you, and you know it," she told him sternly. "If you've a tale to tell, you might as well tell it, and not be coy. I expect you want to, else you'd not have stayed so long."

Gleason looked over her head, and then said airily, "Actually, I've taken a bed for the night."

"And how've you managed that, then, without the coin?" Amandie blurted out. The rooms at the inn above the tavern were quite expensive; mostly rich merchants and fine noblemen stayed in them, although the prices at the tavern itself were low and the food was plentiful, which drew the common folk from all around. Gleason's clothes were old and tattered; he didn't look like a man in funds.

The plain boy's face darkened. He'd always been the poorest boy in the Village; not a good, honest poor but a thieving, lying, disreputable one. It was hard to be a thief in a Village of good people; folk always knew where to look for what you stole. Amandie reminded herself that he hadn't always been this way. They'd gone to school together, as all the Village children did, and she remembered him when he was small—when his mother was worn-out and markless, and his tiny sister was constantly sick.

It had been soon after the faerie came into the Village that Gleason had lost his mark, and some whispered that it was afterwards when he'd started stealing. He insisted to everyone that the faerie had lied, that he'd taken nothing from the shop and only ran in fear of her, but eventually the Village folk noticed that his palm was bare.

After that, when suspicion fell his way, his word was worthless. There were few in the Village without the mark, and good folk shunned him, even when his sister—who'd had the yellow fever—and then his mother, who'd developed it tending to her, had died and left him a penniless orphan. It was a bare charity that must have kept the boy alive, and bare charity can be a cold and friendless thing, or so Amandie sympathetically supposed.

"I've a job now, same as you," Gleason boasted, pulling something out from beneath his dark blue vest and waving it emphatically around. "I'm a messenger—I've the coin and the horse to travel with—and a very important letter to bring on." He tucked the letter back away carefully and took a sip of his ale, his expression triumphant.

Amandie had been thinking while she worked, and what she had thought worried her. For Gleason to have left the Village, something must be wrong. The faerie had told her that the Dead Tree would only let someone in or out who meant no harm to the Wood, and that would only be the folk of the Village, who had lived beside it for so long, and who knew its ways and proscriptions.

Lady Erin had said that the portal of the Dead Tree had once been common knowledge amongst the Villagers, but that over time people had forgotten it, perhaps with a little help from the Wood. Amandie had discovered the Dead Tree quite by accident, though she'd been searching rather futilely for weeks, to find a way out.

She'd caught a glimpse of movement, as though a transparent white fog had moved across the ground of the valley. Amandie had followed it until it disappeared into the bark of a black and broken tree, sitting on a hill. When she placed her hand at the point where it had vanished, she had come out the other side. Astonished and excited, she had wandered through unfamiliar farmlands and towns until she'd come to the Baron's manor.

Amandie did not, however, believe that Gleason meant the Wood no harm. She didn't trust him. And so, she was worried.

"You said something interesting happened in the Village?" she prompted. This was the real reason she'd wanted to talk to him, not to hear about his new job.

"Aye, a stranger came into it." Gleason glanced over at her expectantly as he said this. Amandie's jaw dropped. "A stranger?" she breathed. "That's impossible!"

"'Twas what most folk thought. The entire Village came out to stare at him. Must have set the fellow a-wondering, but he walked on as bold as you please right through them, down the main street, and into the pub. Asked if there was an inn where he could take a bed for the night. Can you imagine it? An inn at the Village?" Gleason guffawed. Amandie couldn't help but giggle herself. An inn at the Village would always be empty.

"So, what was he? How did he come there? Where was he going?" she demanded, more eager to hear the tale than Gleason could have hoped.

"Well, now, that's the thing of it. He said he was the new priest. Said Father Brion had asked for him to come, as his replacement. But I was watching him; he may have been dressed like a priest, but he acted like a baron or a lord. All dark and commanding he was, like he was used to ordering people about." Amandie felt a sudden tightening in her chest. The young priest who had complimented her had been brown-haired. He'd asked of the Church of the Wood—the other serving girls had told as much. Could it be the same one?

"And there's more..." Gleason had lowered his voice, though by now they were the only ones in the bar, apart from Brand, the barkeep, who appeared to be paying little attention to them. The churlish old man had finally gone.

"I saw a ring on his finger, and I kept a memory of its stone, to ask about when I'd gone." Amandie raised her eyebrows. The stone in a ring corresponded to the rank of its wearer. Amandie knew this in theory; the only noble ring she'd ever seen was the Baron's, which was brown like the walls of his manor. She shivered at the thought, but Gleason didn't notice. He was wrapped up in his story; his dark blue eyes glowed with excitement.

"I left the same way as you, not long after that. Came to the Baron's land," he paused at Amandie's intake of breath, but then went on when she didn't comment, "and asked for a job at the Manor house. Had an interesting talk with the Baron, and he gave me this letter," Gleason patted his vest, "and the horse, and enough coin to make it to the Palace in style."

This last bit of information was the pay-off, the part that Gleason expected her to be impressed by. And Amandie was—she had dreamed of seeing the Palace herself, especially after what the priest had said—but she was also filled with a sense of foreboding. A letter from the Baron could bring nothing but ill to anyone, she thought.

"And I suppose you know what's in the letter?" she asked, tracing a deep scar in the otherwise smooth surface of the bar with her pointer finger and trying not to appear too interested in the answer to this.

"'Course not. The letter's sealed, isn't it? But I've a good idea of what's in it." Gleason's narrow face was self-important. "And I'll not be telling anyone, so don't you ask. I'm a messenger now, and a messenger has his secrets." Amandie looked at him openly now, not liking what she saw. She saw a man with ambition, one who was not wise enough to have seen how evil the Baron was.

"I've thought of going to the Palace myself," she said, her pulse quickening. It was true, she had thought of it, although only as a daydream. "I thought I might ask for a job. I'm good at what I do here, and I think I could do better than a tavern." She hoped that Brand didn't overhear this; she didn't want to seem ungrateful for the work that she had.

"Well, then, you can come with me," Gleason offered eagerly. For a moment, Amandie saw a flash of the little boy he had been, back when they were still friends. He'd been shy, and sweet, and full of imagination. She felt a lump in her throat. "There's room for two on the horse. I'd see you there safely," he promised. For a moment she forgot how he'd lost the mark, and she believed him. And then she remembered, and realized how foolish it would be to trust herself to his company. He was a thief, and a liar, whatever his shiny new job.

Still, she did want to go to the Palace. And she couldn't travel alone, unaccompanied. Gleason was a Village boy, which was almost like a brother. They were, in fact, cousins—third cousins to be exact, although not very close. If she went with him, she could keep an eye on him, and possibly even find out what was in the Baron's letter. It was worth the risk to protect the Wood; she owed as much to the faerie, and more besides.

"I have to tell my master. He'll be disappointed, but I've wages enough put by. I'll tell him I'm sure of a job there." She wondered if this was stretching the truth; the dark-haired priest had said she was better than any of the Palace servants, but it hardly guaranteed her a job. "I can be ready to leave in the morning," she told Gleason firmly, her face determined.

"Well, I'm off to bed then, and you should get your rest as well. It's nine days ride to the Palace from here," Gleason said authoritatively, as though ready to take charge of her wellbeing at once. As though he was an experienced messenger and not just a Village lad who stole and lied.

Amandie kept herself from laughing at him.

This journey will surely take more than nine days, she thought, at the pace that this horse travels. When Gleason had boasted of having a horse, Amandie'd thought of a fine chestnut steed. Instead they were riding a nappy old mare, gray speckled and lazy. She had no need to clutch onto Gleason's back, at this slow trot; she was glad of the extra personal space but at the same time she was unhappy with the extension of their time together. Gleason wasn't exactly the companion she desired.

He treated her much as if he owned her, as though he had input into when she should speak, and when she should not. He'd told her this was for her own good—that the road was a dangerous place—but she felt it was because he didn't like the friendly way folk reacted to her, even when it was innocent and nice.

In the pub at the last Village, where they'd spent the night, an ancient man had bought Amandie a drink, clearly liking her and wanting someone to chat with on a dull night. Gleason had made a nuisance of himself, interfering with their pleasant conversation. And then afterwards, he lectured her on letting folk buy her drinks, as though the nice old man had been a lecherous young one. Amandie was still somewhat furious with him about it, and having to ride on the same indolent horse together didn't lessen her fury much.

"We're almost to the next village," Gleason told her cheerfully. Almost, on this horse, meant another hour or so, Amandie fumed to herself. She was certain she could walk faster.

"Aye, that'll be a nice break," was what she said to him. She wouldn't allow herself to lose her temper. Not if they were going to be traveling together for what was beginning to look like a fortnight.

The village they came to was full of steeply roofed houses with decorative half-timbering that stood out prettily against their off-white surfaces. Gleason was leading the horse now, which Amandie had named Molasses, since Gleason hadn't bothered to find out from the Baron what the mare was actually called. The main cobblestone street led through a tall clock tower with a high arched tunnel. The street was quiet and almost deserted, until they passed through the tower's tunnel and into what would have been a large open space, were it not bustling with laughter and music and folk.

Amandie looked around her in amazement. They had walked into some sort of festival. There were booths selling wares of all kinds. They were set up around the square, leaving the middle of it empty for people to dance in. A fiddle and harp played cheerful tunes, and several folk were clapping in time. Colorful banners hung across the square, and the smell of roasting lamb shanks and cinnamon-spiced apples permeated the happy crowd.

Gleason tied the mare to a hitching post and made his way to a nearby food vendor. Amandie was drawn immediately to a booth full of shawls, kerchiefs, and scarves. The scarves were what fascinated Amandie the most—they were of all different varieties of fabrics—cotton, knit, silk, wool—and of all different types—some plain and simple, some with long fringes, some covered in spangles or wavy embroidered patterns.

Amandie reached out to touch a silken one, running her fingers covetously down its soft green length and letting them skip over the embedded rhinestones which sparkled, amber and turquoise, in the full sunlight of the open square. The man who owned the booth came over to help her, having just finished up with another customer.

"Lovely, isn't it? Would go well with those pretty eyes you have," he said, with a winning smile. He was a rugged-looking man in his later years, though not yet elderly. "Go ahead, try it on," he coaxed.

Amandie couldn't resist. She wound the scarf around her neck with a flourish, and tied it in a loose knot. Wearing it, she felt like a princess. The booth keeper beamed at her, seeming to take true pleasure in her expression. He held up a mirror for her to gaze in, and Amandie saw that he had been right. The scarf made the green in her mixed eyes, which she sometimes felt were a bit muddy, stand out bright and clear. She was tempted, very tempted, but she was running low on funds. Their journey to the Palace was taking longer than she'd expected.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't afford it," she said regretfully, taking it off and trying to hand it back to him. The booth keeper refused to take it. "It's the Festival of Scarves," he told her. "If you can't buy it, then you must keep it, as a gift. A lovely lass such as yourself shouldn't be here without one." Amandie glanced around and discovered that he was right; every woman, young or old, was wearing some sort of scarf, some as beautiful as this one and some more humble, but all of them colorfully fluttering around. Even the little girls wore bright bows on their necks with the long ends hanging down.

"I don't know that I could," Amandie demurred. "Surely it's too costly to give away to a stranger," she said. The booth keeper opened his mouth to protest, but a familiar voice suddenly sounded from behind Amandie's shoulder and cut him off.

"Exactly so," Gleason snapped. "We've no need of your gifts, old man. We have coin enough for what we want." Gleason elbowed his way around to her side, his unattractive face tight with reproof.

"I meant no disrespect to your sister, young man," the booth keeper said calmly, raising up his left palm. The mark glowed dimly against the fervor of the blue and cloudless afternoon, but it was still unmistakable.

Amandie felt suddenly ashamed of her own ungracious behavior, of her constant doubts about people—so unlike what she had felt about the world before her experience with the Baron—which Gleason's rude behavior cast such an unpleasant light upon. All around them was joy and merriment, and this man had kindly offered to let her be a part of that.

"Of course not," Amandie said firmly, at the same time as which Gleason snapped, "She's not my sister." The booth keeper's eye traveled from one to the other, and then rested on Amandie. "I'd love to have the scarf," she said firmly, knotting it back around her neck.

"But we'll pay for it," Gleason grumbled.

The booth keeper ignored him and addressed Amandie instead. "It's my pleasure to give it to you then, lass. And don't forget to join in the dancing. I'm sure you'll find plenty of amiable partners." His eyes flashed disapprovingly at Gleason, and then he turned away to help another customer who'd been waiting for him to finish with them.

Amandie stalked away from Gleason, and ignored him for the remainder of the afternoon. She did indeed join in the dancing, whirling away with partner after partner, until her feet hurt and she was out of breath. When she could dance no more, she gaily waved away the last of the eager young men, and sat down and sang songs with the village children.

She braided their hair with colored ribbons, until she was too hungry to go on, and then she went in search of a long-delayed lunch. She ate apples on sticks and sweet glazed rolls and handfuls of salted nuts. There was cider to go with it, handed out in huge flagons by the vendors; she chose the unfermented kind, and drank it slowly down. All in all, she had a marvelous time.

Gleason had skulked moodily about for a bit, but when he saw she wouldn't acknowledge him, he'd left with Molasses and not come back. At the end of the afternoon, just as Amandie was getting truly tired, he reappeared without the horse, meaning she must be in a stable at an inn. Amandie decided it was time to smooth things over. She'd been up early and by now she was almost ready for bed, although the festivities around her seemed more than likely to stretch on through the evening and into the night.

"So, where are we staying?" she asked him cheerfully.

"At the Tower Tavern," he grudgingly replied. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he was avoiding her eyes.

Amandie sighed. It was going to be a very long night.

Gleason's stony disapprobation of her lasted through several more days and several more towns. When he did manage to speak to her it wasn't nicely, so the two of them differed, and then he would fall silent again. Amandie gave up trying to make peace with him, and instead gave her attention to the people they encountered on the way.

At one tiny hamlet, a lad of tender years, eleven at most, offered Amandie a rose from amongst the flowers he was selling by the side of the road. He made a surprisingly pretty speech with it, and Amandie gave him a kiss on the cheek as a reward. In a large intimidating city, a round jolly man in a sweet shop insisted on popping one of his new creations, a bite-sized bonbon, into Amandie's mouth, telling her that he needed an unbiased opinion. The chocolate was delicious—orange-flavored and creamy—and when she told him this, his small eyes sparkled with delight.

The storm that had been brewing between them broke when Molasses unexpectedly balked, after only a half hour's riding, and would go no further. She and Gleason were forced to let the apathetic creature rest, even though it should have been fresh and eager. The horse had inconveniently halted in a wet grassy lea near an abandoned farmhouse. There was nothing, not even a small cottage at which they could beg a place by the fire, until the stubborn horse would go on.

"We could sit under the tree," Gleason suggested. The tree was a sparse, diminutive thing, but under it lay a patch of dry-looking ground. So Amandie wound up resentfully huddled next to Gleason, while Molasses unhurriedly cropped the sodden grass. She tilted her head back to look up at the weak little branches of the tree and thought of the Wood—giant, black, and mysterious. This could hardly be called a tree at all.

"We need to get something straight between us," Gleason began, after having kept silent for quite a while. Amandie sighed, and thought that the Village boy's periods of silence were much more pleasant than not.

"We're traveling companions, that's all," she told him flatly. It was a conversation she was quite sure they'd already had. "I'm not accountable to you, nor do you have the right to manage my behavior." There, that was plain enough, the Village girl thought.

Gleason stood up and practically shouted, "You'll get yourself into trouble, the way you talk to people. The way you let them give you things."

Amandie was on her feet now, too. "A gift freely given is a grace of the god," she shouted back.

"Spare me your piety," Gleason said meanly. "They give you these gifts because they want something from you." His eyes narrowed. "And maybe you want to give it to them."

Amandie finally lost her temper. She slapped him as hard as she could.

For a minute, she thought he was going to slap her back. He stared at her rigidly for several long moments, and then he grabbed his bag and walked away from the tree, calling for Molasses. He saddled the mare with a furious motion, mounted her and rode off, without a backward glance.

Amandie watched until she could see neither horse nor rider, and then she slowly looked around.

He had abandoned her in a muddy field, with a single pathetic tree in it.

She supposed that now she would find out if walking really was faster than riding Molasses.

The Faerie Funeral

Lady Erin had never been so sad, not since her parents had died. The faerie woman tenderly crossed Father Brion's arms across his chest, thankful that at long last she could touch him, and tearful that this was the reason why. She had laid his body out on the ground in the cemetery, and she was weaving dark green leaves into his hair. She'd already made him a blanket of snowy white blossoms. When she sang the Song of Farewell, the wild grass would grow up over his body and encase him, until there was nothing left but a mound of weeds where his body had been. The weeds would bloom then with scarlet flowers, and all the birds in the Wood would sing together.

That was the way of a faerie funeral.

"What in the name of the god are you doing?" a strange voice asked. It was a melodious voice, but unpleasantly demanding.

Lady Erin straightened up and let the last of the leaves and blossoms fall from her hand.

A tall, dark man wearing the robes of a priest was staring at her in astonishment, from inside the back door of the Church. He had dust on his forest green robes and he looked weary, as though he'd been traveling a long distance. And since she did not recognize him from the Village, he must have been.

His pale complexion was quite pleasing and his dark eyes were very fine. He was probably the oddest human she had ever seen. Humans were generally unattractive—fair and flushed—but this one was different.

"Well," he began again, "What are you doing?" When she didn't answer, he strode forward to inspect what she had done, and his eyes widened as he looked over Father Brion's body. "Are these leaves?" he asked, pulling one out of the white hair. "Are these flowers?" he asked, his face growing more bemused as his fingers touched the white shroud. The young priest shook his head.

Suddenly he sighed, and touched his medallion. "Clearly, I've come too late," he said, as though he had forgotten the leaves and the flowers, in thinking of this. "But where are the other women of the Church? Why are you keeping vigil alone?" His eyes returned to Father Brion's body. "And why isn't he laid out in the Church?"

The priest's dark eyes fixed calmly on her face, clearly expecting an answer.

Lady Erin felt a bubble of hysterical laughter well up in her throat. Could it be that this priest had mistaken her for a human?

"This is the way that we do it," she explained.

"And who is we? The folk of a backwater village? Surely even here you must know the ritual of the dead?"

Lady Erin's eyes flashed, and the brown-haired man quickly stepped back. For the first time, his face showed apprehension.

"I must finish what I've started," she told him evenly. She would not let this bossy human, whoever he was, hinder her from paying Father Brion her last respects. She took a deep breath, and then began to sing in the faerie language. The young priest stared at her, troubled but entranced.

The Wood listened to her song, and all around her, she could feel it stirring. She could see the eyes of its creatures glowing behind the cemetery's fence. A gust of wind blew through the cemetery, stirring the green leaves in Father Brion's hair.

When the weeds began to grow up over Father Brion's body, the young priest jumped. When the scarlet poppies began to bloom and the songbirds sang and crows cawed, she thought he might even faint.

But he stood his ground. Both hands had gone to his silver medallion, and he held it slightly off his chest, as though it might ward her off.

Another human would have run, possibly screaming. Lady Erin couldn't help it—she found him very curious.

When there was nothing left of Father Brion's body but a red flowered mound, she stopped singing. The last note died away into the Wood, and the Wood was silent. The young priest had sunk down onto his knees, no doubt because his legs would not support him. His hand reached out to touch a poppy, as though to make sure it was real, and then danced back when he discovered it was. He looked up at her, dazed.

"How did you do that?"

Lady Erin had been crying for days, but now she suddenly laughed.

"I'm a faerie, you foolish man."

The priest stood up quickly, his brow darkening. "I am not foolish!" he snapped. His eyes traveled from her tangled black curls to her bare feet, and then lingered on her blue and white dress. "So you're the faerie," he said.

"I'll admit, I didn't believe it," he added.

"And who are you?" Lady Erin asked. And what are you? she thought to herself, for he acted like no other human she had ever met. Not even Father Brion had been so completely unafraid of her, even though he had loved her dearly, and perhaps he no longer feared her at the end.

"I'm Father Brion's replacement. My name is Father Jared." He did not offer to shake her hand.

"You could never replace Father Brion," the faerie told him, deeply offended. Her grief suddenly overwhelmed her. She had no desire to stand here talking to this strange young human. She needed to be in her Wood; she needed to be with the animals and the trees. They would comfort her. They would understand.

The young man's face grew suddenly thoughtful. "You were attached to him. I'm sorry. I didn't mean any disrespect. I'm sure Father Brion was a very good priest." He looked at her steadily, and then something changed in his gaze. "But he was a human, after all," the priest said in a low tone. "And faeries don't like humans, do they?" He was gazing at her differently now, as though she had developed fangs or claws. A pang of dull anger and disappointment shot through her.

He was not different. He was just like all the rest.

And yet, it was still not fear that she read in him; it was more like suspicion.

"No, they don't," she said pointedly. And then she left.

She ran through the Wood for days, hoping for an exhaustion that never came, wanting to outrun her sorrow. She visited the territory of the wolves, the bears in their caves, and the squirrels in their dreys. She made social calls at the lark's nest, the otters' river, the hawk's high perch, and the low hill of the dog mice.

She saw that everything was in order; she helped the beavers with their dam, and she removed the blights from the trees. She even ventured out to the lake and swam down to the bottom to filter the stormy silt from the water.

It rained in the Wood for a week after she did this. The black clouds cried the tears that she would no longer shed. She paced in her faerie house, she rocked on the branches of the trees, and she even climbed to the highest tops of the Wood and turned her face to the sun.

None of it helped.

In the end, she went back to the Church. She could not keep herself from it. The holy day had already begun, and she had never missed one since she'd been marked. This past week had been the first time, and she had felt a hole in her chest when the day had passed. She thought of the young priest, who probably feared and hated her, for she had sung in front of him, and who knows what that had done to him. But it did not stop her from entering the Church.

She slipped quietly into the back, and took a seat on her bench. No one else ever sat there; it was hers. The service was already started, and the brown-haired priest—Father Jared, that had been his name—did not seem to notice that she had come. Lady Erin relaxed, and felt the peace of the god flow through her. She closed her eyes, and said the responses with everyone else. When she lifted her hand for the blessing, she didn't open her eyes immediately because she was lost in the ritual, but then she snapped them wide, afraid she would miss it.

The marks surrounded her; they soothed and calmed her. This was what she had needed; this was why she'd come back here, even after Father Brion's death.

The congregation slowly emptied from the Church, greeting the new priest again. He, in turn, expressed his sympathies for Father Brion's passing. She stayed right where she was. She did not do it because she wanted his attention; she simply didn't want to leave. Being here, it was almost as though she had not lost her best and dearest friend.

But the young man had finally noticed her sitting on her bench, and now he approached her. He was warier than last time; he did not come so close, nor speak as readily as he had. He took in her appearance, which she could only assume was even wilder than usual, and the stillness of the Church gathered around them. The torches flickered, and the damp smell of last week's rain came in through the front door. As it did, the priest's face seemed to war with several different emotions—surprise, pity, and then finally censure. The last one came out dominant.

"How did you get in here?" he sternly asked.

Of all the things he could have said, this was one she did not expect.

"Just like everyone else." Really, the faerie thought, did he think that she had wings hidden away somewhere?

"By the door," she said meaningfully. When he didn't speak, her eyes flickered over to it.

"Only those with the mark may enter," the priest said very stiffly, as though she had been mocking him. And perhaps she had.

Lady Erin felt a cold fury possess her. How dare this priest, this man, this human, speak to her as though she didn't belong here, as though she trespassed? Slowly and deliberately, she raised her hand.

For a moment, she thought he might grab her palm and inspect it. His eyes traced the three circles of the mark, and then moved back to her face. "I did not think it possible," he said slowly, as though the god had been mistaken. He touched his medallion, and then stared at her so hard she wished very much she could know what he was thinking. Until he said, "Even so, I do not think you should come here. This church is for humans."

If he had plunged an iron stake into her heart, he could not have pierced it better.

"Then I will leave," she said quietly.

She went out into the Wood. She came into her house. She sat down in her chair.

First the wolves came and licked her hand. When she didn't move, they left. Then the bears came and snuffled in her face, but she did not stir. The larks paid a visit, landing on her shoulders and singing their sweetest songs. The dog mice abandoned their long network of tunnels and ran across her feet, which she did not draw back.

The beavers brought her water lilies to eat, and even tried to put them in her mouth, but she would not chew them, and they fell out again. Finally, the trees bent down their longest branches, and touched her long dark hair, and ran their tiniest twigs through it. She let them caress her, but she did not speak to them.

Her grief was insurmountable. She had lost Father Brion, and now she'd been banned from the Church.

She was fading, possibly even dying. The animals and the trees all knew it.

The Silent Heart

It was the little blond girl that made him search for the faerie. On every holy day, after the service, the little girl with the white blond hair would come up to him and ask, "Where is the faerie lady, Father?" She was the only one of the congregation who had seemed to notice the faerie woman's absence, and the only one who apparently cared. So Father Jared put her off. He told her that he didn't know where the faerie was, which was true; she was out in the Wood somewhere. Eventually the little girl became more insistent. She could not have been more than four or five, and Father Jared wasn't used to children.

The last time, she actually had tears in her eyes. "I think the faerie lady's hurt. I think that's why she can't come," the little girl—who had finally introduced herself as Irena—had told him. "Little one," Father Jared said kindly, "A church is no place for faeries." He had said this before, but Irena didn't want to listen.

"Faeries belong in their wood. It's dangerous for everyone involved if they leave it." He didn't want to scare the girl, but she really shouldn't be so attached to such a wild creature.

"But the faerie lady always comes to the Church. And then she smiles at me. Once..." Irena's childish voice fell to a whisper, "she even spoke to me. But that wasn't in the Church. That was in the Wood, when she saved me from the wolf." The little girl said this with simple confidence, as though it was an everyday occurrence. As though a faerie had ever been known to rescue a human child from anything. Father Jared felt as though he had just been told that north was south, or that the moon was the sun.

"She saved you?" he asked carefully. The little girl had been talking to him while her mother was busy chatting with a gray-haired man, but now the mother swooped over as though she had been listening.

"Irena, don't you dare lie to the priest," her mother said reprovingly. Irena cringed away, grabbing a fold of Father Jared's green robe, as though to hide behind it. "There, there, it's all right," Father Jared said soothingly. "At her age it's hard to tell truth from fantasy," he told the mother calmly.

The mother—whose name he couldn't remember—had put her hands on her wide hips and she was glaring at the child. The priest had often found the child's repeated inquiries to be rather tiresome, but this made him feel oddly protective of her.

"She insists on telling people that the faerie saved her, when everyone knows that she set the wolf on her in the first place," the stout woman exclaimed, exasperated. "And all because poor Irena strayed a foot from the path, to pick some daisies."

"And how does everyone know that the faerie set the wolf on the child?" Father Jared asked evenly.

"The faerie controls the creatures of the Wood. Everyone knows that. And just because she called the wolf off before it could eat my poor baby up, doesn't mean she's not to blame for frightening her with it." And with this, the mother snatched Irena away from the priest's robe and pulled her into a smothering hug, nearly taking the ends of the priest's yellow belt with her.

"'S'not true," the little girl protested, in a muffled voice. "The faerie lady is beautiful. She wouldn't hurt me. She told the wolf to go away. I heard her! I saw it!"

"Shush, child," the mother said sternly, standing up and grabbing Irena's hand. "Forgive me, Father, but we've taken up enough of your time with this foolishness." The mother began to pull the child away from him, but Irena resisted. "You'll find the faerie lady, won't you Father?" she begged. "You'll make sure that she's okay?"

He was saved from having to answer when the mother succeeded in marching Irena from the Church.

Father Jared slowly doused all of the torches in the sanctuary, and then closed the front doors. He went into the back of the Church, into his living quarters. He sat down at the table, and then he stared at the golden leaves which he had taken from the offering bowl, when he had first come to the Church of the Wood. He considered the little girl's story, and the mother's, and then he remembered the pure sorrow on the faerie's face as she had sung to Father Brion's body. He thought of the mark that had shone from her delicate long-fingered hand, and of what he had said to her about the church.

He picked up a golden leaf, and it seemed to speak to him.

It told him that although he had thought to do something right, he had done something very, very wrong, instead.

It is not easy to find a faerie in her Wood, when she has not invited you to come. Father Jared discovered this as he roamed aimlessly through the dark trees, and a day passed, and he found no one. If there were creatures in it waiting to devour him, he did not see them. He heard the lone cry of a wolf, and the twitter of a songbird, but that was all.

He stumbled around in the Wood, feeling like a fool, and then he came back to the Church of the Wood again. If the superstitions of the Villagers were true, he should be dead by now. He would never have set foot into the Wood if he really believed them, but even so he had been nervous. He had tried not to think too hard ahead of time about what he was doing; he knew it was the right thing to do, so he did it.

Now he was just plain exhausted, and he felt even guiltier than he had before he'd left. He'd mistrusted the faerie because of old tales and the Villagers' stories against her, not because of anything it was proven she had done. He'd judged her unfairly. He had sent away a woman with a mark, and denied her the comfort of the Church. If the beasts of the Wood had torn him apart, he would have deserved it.

Of course, she could still be evil. All the things said against her could be true. But he had not given her a chance and that, in and of itself, had been wicked.

So he set out once again the next morning. This time, for no clear reason, he brought the golden leaves with him. They had seemed to wink at him from the dish on the table as he passed and so he had put them in his pocket, almost without thinking. He had been wandering for hours in the Wood, in which every tree seemed so alike that he couldn't imagine how he'd ever found his way out again, when he remembered the golden leaves and pulled them out of his pocket.

He felt a slight vibration in his palm and then a whisper of sound, as though the leaves had begun to hum. He walked a little and the hum disappeared. He reoriented and walked in another direction. It started again.

Palm out, he followed the route that strengthened the sound. Things in the Wood began to change; he saw knots in trees that he was sure hadn't been there before, he saw vines creeping around others, marking them as different. The Wood was alive with noises, crickets chirping and crows cawing and the pitter patter of tiny forest creatures.

The first animal he saw was a woodpecker. He came upon it hard at work, a rat-tat-tat of sound. It was a fabulous bird, with a plumed ivory and red-striped head and a giant beak that seemed to threaten to burst the tree in half. It flew away at his approach, and he watched it wing through the trees in awe.

The next creature he saw was a fox. It had a tawny gold pelt and a black tipped tail, and it stared at him before it darted off. The priest had forgotten about the leaves in his wonder, and he realized now that he'd gone off course, because their humming had lessened.

He moved around until it got stronger again, and then came across something else that was new in the Wood, or at least new to him. He stumbled over a root, and into a section of the Wood that was filled with wildflowers. They grew in a thick purple carpet around the base of the trees, which had thinned out a bit. It was a sight that made him suck in his breath.

He sat down to rest and admire the flowers, taking a drink of water. Their pleasant scent was like lilacs and violets and sweet peas all rolled together into one. He felt himself growing sleepy; he tucked the golden leaves carefully into the knapsack he'd brought, leaned back, and closed his eyes. He told himself it was only for a moment.

He awoke to find a pair of great yellow eyes staring back at him. It was pitch black in the Wood. The eyes blinked and hooted, and the wings of a brown barred owl brushed a current of air across his face.

Father Jared stared at the Wood, his heart pounding. It was night, and it was cold, and he had no idea where he was or where he was going. He thought of how foolish he'd been to ever go into it. The faerie woman had probably been spying on him all along, watching with amused disdain as he trampled stupidly through her Wood.

The priest pulled out the leaves from his bag, fumbling with the clasp. They glowed golden in the darkness, casting a faint aura all around them. He stood up and stretched his body, which felt remarkably well rested. Perhaps the flowers hadn't cast a spell on him; maybe he'd simply needed the extra sleep, after his lengthy walk.

The night wasn't as black as he'd first thought. His eyes were adjusting to it, and he had the leaves, which shed a small sort of light.

He considered then whether he should try to find his way back to the Church, or whether he should carry on. The leaves were humming strongly in his hand; it felt like a shame to go home, and then come all the way back out again. The priest shouldered his knapsack, remembering to take out something to eat before he did. He chewed on a piece of dried beef, and then swallowed it. It wasn't satisfying, but it was enough to keep him going.

As though they'd sensed his thought, the golden leaves guided him into a low-hanging branch. It almost knocked him over before he saw it. On the branch hung a deep red fruit, which the golden leaves lit to a crimson brilliance. Father Jared stared at the fruit, and then slowly reached out, and plucked one. It came away easily in his hand.

Everyone knows that faerie fruit is cursed, thought the priest. But then again, he told himself, everyone also knows that faeries are evil. If he had chosen not to believe one, why should he believe the other?

The priest raised the fruit to his nose, and sniffed. It smelled like the faerie woman's hair. He blinked. He hadn't even realized he knew what the faerie woman's hair smelled like. But then he thought of the first time he had met her; how unwittingly close he had stood, and how beautiful she had been.

He bit into it. The deep red juice ran down his chin. The inside of the fruit was seedless and ripe, and it was the most amazing thing he'd ever tasted. Sweeter than cherries and juicier than apples. He ate it all and then laughed. He felt like he'd spent his entire life on a diet of stale bread and musty water; that he'd slowly been starving himself.

He wanted to run swiftly through the Wood until he could run no more and had to stop. He wanted to climb its trees and gaze out across its leafy rooftop. He wanted to sing—he never sang—and he felt like he already knew the song. He wanted to shout his name to the trees and have them shout it back at him.

It was only after the initial rush of euphoria ebbed that he began to feel doubt. This was not a safe way to behave. Evil or not, this was dangerous.

He leaned against a black trunk, and waited to come back to himself. When he did, he felt changed, but not panicked; he was in control again. He uncurled his fingers from the golden leaves, and their glow spilled out, once again lighting his path. The priest closed his eyes for a moment, and then moved forward, feeling the vibrations grow stronger. He would do what he'd started out to do; he would find the faerie—and then he'd leave this strange labyrinth Wood and never come back again.

Dawn was breaking, what little dawn could break through the tall dark trees, when he stumbled onto the golden tree itself. It was a thing of unnatural beauty, not tall like its fellows but shorter, glowing and wide. He stood underneath it, and suddenly the golden leaves in his hand floated upwards and re-attached to its branches.

The priest stared at the golden tree in astonishment, and then looked down again at his empty palm, hardly believing they'd gone. He felt a crushing sense of disappointment. Somehow he had thought that the leaves would lead him to the faerie, but what they'd wanted was to come back to their tree, all along.

Still, the priest carefully came closer and laid his hand against the tree's peeling white bark. It did not speak to him, but it hummed contentedly under his palm. He didn't know what he had expected from the golden tree, but this was not it. Father Jared was lost, bewildered, and tired. He thought about sitting down under the tree, and taking another nap, but instead he walked slowly around it to the opposite side.

There he discovered another new thing in the Wood—a dense thicket of thorn bushes tall and wide enough to form a barrier to any further passage.

Its forbidding menace was softened by flowers with soft round petals. They furled and layered into themselves like roses, but they were not red or pink or yellow, but a midnight blue, the color of the evening sky after the sun has just gone down. In the center of the thicket was an open space like a door, just as high and wide as a very tall person, and through it he could see, at its tunnel-like end, a shadowy sort of clearing.

The priest walked cautiously into the thorny doorway, feeling it catch slightly on the folds of his robe as he passed by. It was deeper than he expected, and the heady scent of its flowers pressed around him, making him feel claustrophobic. The thorns scratched at his cheeks and lashed at his arms; the abrasions stung when he pulled away. With some relief, Father Jared finally stepped out from the thicket and into the strange clearing beyond.

The clearing was roughly rectangular in shape. It was surrounded by trees, their trunks growing so close to each other that they were almost like walls. They had woven their branches together, forming an airy roof with spaces between it that showed glimpses of an early morning sky. Short yellow grass covered the ground, like a sunny bright carpet.

At the back of the little house—for that was what it seemed to him to be—was a flat stone, slightly indented, and grown over with springy green moss. A pillow and a blanket woven from leaves of all shapes and colors, like a patchwork quilt, rested upon it.

Directly in front of him, to the left, was a still small pool, mirroring exactly the overhanging branches and bits of sky. To his right, at the base of one of the trees, crowded roots had formed into a wide chair—and in it sat the faerie woman.

She was just as he had seen her last, pale and dark and beautiful. Her forearms rested limply at her sides, her hands spread out on the living arms of the chair. Her bare feet were planted on the ground and the yellow grass grew thicker around them. Her eyes were closed.

She was like a marble statue, still and unmoving. The priest came closer to her, the tempo of his pulse quickening, looking for any sign that she was alive. For all he knew, this could be the way that faeries napped, but he had a terrible feeling that it was not.

He was near enough to touch her, to smell the sweet scent of her hair, but he could see no sign that she breathed or that her heart pumped in her chest. Tentatively, he knelt down in front of her and reached out. He laid his hand where he knew her heart should beat, setting it against the white and blue dress. He could feel the coldness of her body beneath it.

There was nothing but silence.

And then the faerie woman opened her eyes.

The Plan

Gleason repented of leaving Amandie in the field almost immediately, but he did not turn back. He justified this by telling himself that she obviously didn't want his company, and could do without his protection as a result. Anyway, he made much better time without her as the horse wasn't nearly as burdened down, and he didn't need to worry about someone else's comfort.

His delivery of the letter to the king went smoothly, and the return trip to Baron Malkine's holding seemed to fly by. It was only as he neared the Baron's manor that Gleason began to have doubts about what he was doing, and why. There were several good hours of daylight left and, miraculously, Molasses did not seem to be tired. But the Village boy decided to stop anyway when they reached the hamlet of Abbott's Cross.

The many stone buildings of this small village all seemed to share a similar structure, with orange-shingled roofs and tall white chimneys. As Gleason approached it on the wide sandy road, the sky shone a sunny blue over the top of a large hill which rose dramatically up behind the rows of neat rectangular houses. The crest of the hill was barren rock, but the slopes down its side were green with grass and a scattering of short trees ringed the base and sheltered the far side of the town. It made a pleasing picture, as so much of Calundra did, Gleason thought.

Abbott's Cross was well-known for its monastery but Gleason avoided this area, loathing to meet more people of the mark, and reined up at a restaurant on the outskirts of the village instead. He needed a hot meal and a drink to clear his head, which was foggy from days of travel. As he gave the gray dappled mare over to a stable boy, Gleason wondered again at the contents of the important letter he now carried, one which bore the royal seal on its outside. He was uncertain as to whether the Baron would share its information and his curiosity tormented him. But there was no way to open it without breaking the wax, so Gleason was forced to be honest in undertaking to bring it straight to the Baron's hand, untouched.

The lower windows in the restaurant were all opened. The inside was busy, with most of the tables filled, especially in what appeared to be the most popular section around a giant fireplace. This was glowing dimly and held a decorative collection of painted plates on its wide mantle. A serving girl approached him at once and Gleason highly approved of the table she showed him to, grateful for the warmth of the fire and the mouth-watering scent of simmering soup and fresh-baked bread.

The meal was just as good as it smelled, and Gleason chased it down with several mugs of smooth black cherry ale. By the time he stumbled out the front door of the restaurant to find a place to stay for the night, his head was even foggier than it had been, although his stomach was pleasantly full and his mood was expansive.

The restaurant had no beds, but the serving girl had pointed him in the direction of a nearby inn and told Gleason that for a few coppers he could leave his horse in their stable for the night. The streets were dark, lit only by the scattered lanterns that folk had left out by the doors of their businesses or houses, and Gleason realized that he'd left it rather late to find shelter in an unfamiliar village. The place that the serving girl had recommended was full for the night, and the next one he came across gave out the same reply.

He was having very little luck in his search when a grumpy innkeeper mentioned that the monks were trading and what did he expect, asking for a bed this late at night. Apparently, the monastery had a strict schedule of contemplation and only sold its wares—mainly barrels of the same black cherry ale that he'd drunk at the restaurant—at set times. And he was unlucky enough to have come here during one of them, which meant that the tiny village was already over-flowing with visitors, most of them traveling merchants.

In the end, Gleason found himself wandering around the village green with nowhere else to go. The short-cropped grass was home to a few sleeping cows, which made brown and white humps on its otherwise even surface. There were a few large cherry trees and several wooden benches throughout.

Gleason sat down on one of these and drew his traveling cloak around him. He put his bag under his head and lay down, feeling more than a little forlorn. He should have gone on; he could have been to the Baron's holding by now. Instead, he was shivering and miserable, the night steadily dropping in temperature and the ale having given him a headache after three glasses of the stuff.

For some reason, as his head swirled and his hands shook, Gleason's determination to carry out his original plan, which had weakened somewhat during his time with Amandie, began to harden again. It was the monks' fault that he did not have a bed tonight, Gleason reasoned.

People of the mark, they always thought that their ways were better than anyone else's, and they didn't give a care about how many people they inconvenienced with their harsh rules and stupid regulations. The monks could have chosen to sell their goods at anytime, and then he might have been comfortable, but they had to make it so that the merchants came flooding the town whenever they saw fit to trade with them.

Controlling people, just like the faerie, he thought.

The two situations had very little in common, other than Gleason's discomfort and the fact that the monks also bore the mark, but in his head they began to merge and the Village boy started to go over all of his grievances with the faerie again, as though it had all happened only yesterday. He hadn't meant to beg her for a kiss that day at the lake, he thought, squirming on the hard bench and trying to find a position that didn't make his arms ache. The idea had just popped into his head, all of a sudden.

What he'd intended was to scare her, to make her pay for having branded him a thief and caused him to lose his mark. No matter that he might have lost it anyway. The god was as pitiless as his followers; the god didn't care that his mother was too consumed by nursing Ginger to have noticed their food for the month was almost all gone, and too poor to be able to send him to the Village Shop to buy more even if she did.

All he'd stolen were things that people didn't need, from plump and prosperous Villagers who couldn't be bothered to count the change in their pockets. And a few pieces of candy for his feverish sister, who loved licorice. Of course, he knew she wouldn't be able to eat it until she got better, but it was something for her to look forward to, something to encourage her to drink the weak broth that his mother spooned into her mouth with a gentle persistence.

It didn't occur to Gleason not to lie; he'd been too guilty and scared. He already felt like an outsider because his mother had lost the mark when she was young—to his father, before they were married. People looked down on her for that, and when his father had died in a drunken accident soon after Ginger was born, it didn't exactly change their feelings towards the new widow.

Gleason had tried, for a little while, to please everyone. His mother had sent him to the Church to take the mark, and he had dutifully gone, although he had always hated leaving her. She'd sold the farm, unable to afford to take care of it, and taken the house in the Village. She did laundry for people, and they scraped by on what she earned.

But it was never enough, he thought dully, just as this cloak was never going to be enough to keep him warm tonight. The Village boy sat up awkwardly. He imagined Molasses in a cozy bed of hay, and abruptly climbed off of the bench.

He would go back to the restaurant and sleep in the stables. He didn't know why he hadn't thought of it before.

And then he would go to the Baron, deliver the letter, and see what else could be done. He would find a way to make the faerie pay for her interference in his life. And then she would know what it felt like to be powerless, at the mercy of someone else.

The Debt

Lady Erin knew that she had nearly been gone. She had sat down in her chair and closed her eyes. She had apologized to the trees, and let her spirit wander. And now there was that unfriendly priest, staring at her. He was kneeling uncomfortably close and he had just snatched his hand away from her chest.

Lady Erin frowned. What in the name of the god was he doing here?

She shifted in her chair, feeling unbearably stiff and frozen. More importantly, how in the Wood had he called her back?

She supposed it was possible that his human touch could have jolted her awake again. Although she didn't remember it happening, she supposed it might have been painful enough. Perhaps her spirit hadn't wandered quite so far as she'd thought.

She didn't want to think that this priest, who had been so unkind to her, had actually helped her.

"Are you okay?" Father Jared asked. He hadn't stood up yet, and he looked ridiculous kneeling there on her yellow carpet as though he was proposing.

"I'm fine," she snapped. "What are you doing in my Wood?"

His fine dark eyes traveled from her bewildered expression to her cold shaking hands, which she tucked under her legs to hide from his gaze, and to warm them.

"You weren't breathing," he said.

"I didn't want to breathe," she retorted. She wasn't going to thank him, whatever he had done. He was still an awful man.

"I've come to apologize," he said, civilly enough. It was the very last thing she would have expected. She tried to gather her thoughts, which were divided between him and all of the trees of the Wood, who were yelling at her for having almost deserted them. It was making her ears ring.

"Go on, then," she told him.

The young priest sighed, and stood up. He towered over her chair. He clasped his hands behind his back and lifted his chin, like a little boy making a confession. "I should not have kept you from the Church. The god gives the mark. The god should decide." He said this sincerely, if a bit stiffly. She supposed that when she'd last spoken, she had not been very nice.

The faerie woman felt her left palm grow warm, as though an invisible hand had taken it. She felt the wind, like the god's breath on her face. She felt a sense of hope again.

"Very well," she said graciously. "You may go now."

The young priest blinked at her. He looked around him, as though uncertain where he was, and then his gaze fell on her thorn bush entryway.

"Is there any way you can send me back quicker?" he asked. He ran a nervous hand through his short brown hair, ruffling it so that the edges stood up.

"My house is fifteen minutes walk from the Church," Lady Erin said with a frown. "Surely that is quick enough?" She didn't know what kind of magic he expected her to possess. I can hardly transport you through my Wood, silly human, she thought.

The young priest stared at her blankly, as though she had said something incredible. "Then you won't mind walking me back," he said at last.

Lady Erin wasn't sure she could walk at all, she was so weak, but she did a very good job of making herself. It was only as they strolled casually back through the Wood—it was the fastest pace she could manage—that she began to realize the full extent of what he had done.

Not only had he saved her, he had saved her Wood. It was inescapable; she owed him a debt of gratitude. She glanced sidelong at him, stumbling noisily along; his green robe was torn and dirty, and there were scratches on his face and hands. His handsome face was weary and drawn. Now that she thought of it, her house might not have been easy for a human to find. And he had come into her Wood uninvited; in doing so, he had risked his life.

She saw him safely back to the stone church, but stopped outside the gate in the back. The markers in the cemetery were gray and bleak in the light of early morning, and the long grass mound where Father Brion's body rested no longer bloomed with red flowers, but lay green and quiet. Lady Erin turned to the priest, and said formally, "Father Jared, I am Erin, Lady of the Wood."

Nothing happened. She had expected the Wood to stir, to recognize him and be recognized in return. That was the way it had been with Amandie.

Father Jared stared at her, puzzled, and said, "All right."

He was the oddest human she had ever met.

It is not easy to repay a debt to someone who doesn't want you around. Lady Erin came to the Church on holy day, and Father Jared pretended that she wasn't there, just like all the rest. She made a point of trying to converse with him, asking how he liked the Church, and the Village, and the Wood —she probably shouldn't have asked that one because he winced—but his answers were short and stilted.

The only one who welcomed her back with open arms was Irena, who made the mistake of throwing her chubby arms around the faerie lady's dress the first excuse that she got. Lady Erin disengaged herself, careful not to touch the child's rosy pink skin. She reassured the little girl that all was well, and then the child's overbearing mother came to snatch Irena away, terrified.

Still, although they may not have missed her, she had missed them. She saw that the baker and his wife were still arguing—they were always arguing over something. The mark didn't seem to have granted much peace to their marriage. The man who ran the Village Shop had a new vest, richly embroidered in green and red, and one of the young men was courting one of the young women, walking hand in hand with her down the long dirt path after the service's end. Noticing these things gave contentment to the faerie; everything was just as it had been. The Wood would go on, and so would the Village.

Needless to say, the Wood wasn't very happy with her. She spent a great deal of time repairing their relationship. She picked up the dead branches from off of the ground and stacked them outside the stone church for the young priest to use for firewood. She removed borers and moths from the saplings, and encouraged them to grow. She sang a Song of Renewal to the Wood, and watched as the trees that had grown brittle, in anticipation of her death, began to harden and flow with sap.

The Wood was easy to please, in comparison with the young priest. When he didn't burn the firewood she had left for him, she knocked on the back door of the Church and loaded it into his arms.

"What are these for?" he asked crossly. It was possible she'd woken him; it was just past sunrise and he wore a hastily tucked tunic and trousers, instead of a robe. His hair was mussed.

"To burn," she said. "Don't worry, the Wood doesn't need them." Its living wood you couldn't burn at all, but the dead pieces should be fine.

The priest stared at her as though she was mad. "I'm not burning faerie wood," he snapped.

"Then do something else with them," the faerie woman retorted, and left.

A great many of their exchanges were like this. She went inside the Church one day, when she knew he'd gone to the Village. She went to the kitchen corner of the modest living space, to tidy it up. She had meant to leave before the priest came back, but being there brought back an overflow of memories from her life with Father Brion.

When the young priest discovered her, she was mistily drinking a cup of foul-tasting tea, and staring at the clock on the wall. It was just about to cuckoo when it reached the hour. She had loved this clock as a child, giggling with delight whenever the little door would open and the small wooden bird would suddenly dash out.

"What are you doing in my kitchen?" Father Jared asked, setting his bags down. He looked enormously displeased to see her. "This is my house, you know. You can't just come in and out."

"You came into my house," she pointed out.

"That was... different," he said. But he protested no further, focusing on his supplies instead and arranging them haphazardly on the shelves next to the deep sink and the cast iron stove. Lady Erin went gracefully over to the cabinet that held the dishes, and fetched him a mug. She brought it back to the table, and poured him a cup from the teapot, which was still warm. Then she left it in front of the seat opposite her, as she had done so many times for Father Brion.

The young priest finished unpacking, and noticed the mug. He picked it up and drank from it, but he did not sit down. "Have you changed something in here?" he asked suspiciously, his eyes moving from the floor, which she had swept, to the dishes, which she had washed.

"I was just leaving," she sighed. There was no point in waiting for him to order her out.

That was the way of it between them. She cleaned the windows in the Church one afternoon, and he didn't comment. She tended the garden to the side, pulling the weeds and humming to the flowers. He came out and asked her to stop singing faerie songs to them. She fetched him water from the well, and he never thanked her. He told her he could do it himself. She wove him a shirt from the snowy white blossoms, and embroidered it with elaborate patterns of green leaves and red flowers. He accepted it, at her insistence, but never put it on.

She was determined to repay him, but no matter what she did, he was impossible to like.

The Touch

The service of the new year required Father Jared to place his hand on each member's forehead and pray a lengthy prayer. It was a duty he had done his best to avoid during training, and later at the Palace he had delegated it to other novitiates. At the Church of the Wood, there was only him to perform it.

By the time he was halfway through the foreheads of the faithful, he was gritting his teeth. By the time he had finished the service entirely, he was dizzy and nauseous. Why it affected him so, he didn't understand. But indisputably it did, and that was why he usually avoided touching other people, as much as possible.

He was leaning back against the stone altar for support, seeing the last of his congregation off with a forced smile, when he realized that he'd forgotten someone. The faerie woman had risen from her bench. She was standing in the aisle now, observing him closely. Father Jared braced himself for one more blessing. Slowly she came forward, a worried frown on her pale face. She halted at arm's length and stared at him.

He reached out his left palm to place it on her forehead, but she shied back away from it.

"You're not well," she said. "You should go and rest. Besides, this is one ritual I'm content to skip."

"I'm fine," Father Jared answered testily. "I'm not ill, and I don't need to lie down." And then the Church heaved around him, and he slid down against the cold stone altar and onto the ground, landing in a sitting position. The faerie lady crouched down in front of him, her coal black eyes concerned. "You're not well," she repeated. "You must let me help you to your pallet."

Father Jared tried to wave her away, but the room spun around him instead. "That won't be necessary," he answered, wishing his voice would keep steady.

"Believe me, I'd rather not," the faerie lady said crossly. Erin, that was her name, wasn't it? He supposed he should call her that. Father Jared closed his eyes, hoping that maybe when he opened them, she would be gone. Miraculously, he did hear her leave, but then he also heard her return. With a sigh, he opened his eyes again.

He no longer thought of her as evil, but now she made him uncomfortable in a different way, one he didn't fully understand. Most of it centered on the impropriety of having a beautiful young woman skipping in and out of his church, doing things for him. Like she was doing right now.

"Here, drink this," she said, holding a mug against his lips as though she meant for him to passively sip from it. He lifted an unsteady hand to take it from her, and his fingers closed over hers.

The feel of her skin was shockingly pleasant.

Both hands let go of the mug at the same time. The water splashed down and soaked the priest's chest.

"I can touch you!" the faerie exclaimed. Her face glowed with an intense look of wonder.

And touch him she did. She cupped his face in her hands, and then ran her fingers over it, like a frantic blind man. She muttered all the while about how strange it was, how impossible, how he must be different.

He was different, in fact. He should have hated it. Instead, her fingers were achingly sweet. It could only be some sort of seductive faerie magic.

"Stop... that... now!" he managed.

Lady Erin froze, and then gathered her hands together into her lap. Her pale face was slightly flushed and her dark eyes were shining. "You're a faerie!" she breathed. "You must be... you... you could even be my kin!"

This was too much. Father Jared sat up straighter, and barked at her. "I am not a faerie!"

Undoubtedly this was some new sort of trick, some bedazzlement. "I am human," he growled at her. "And a priest! And you will kindly keep your hands to yourself!"

The devastation that replaced the blazing hope on her face made him want to say something else, almost at once. Perhaps she was only confused. Maybe she was even mad. Could faeries go mad?

He didn't get a chance to soften his words. She fled the Church, quicker than he had thought possible.

The next day he was recovered, and she was back again. She appeared inside the fence, as he was nailing broken slats back into place on the trellis at the side of the Church, which separated the cemetery from the garden. Roses were out of season, and nothing was blooming on it; it was covered in dead vines that he'd had to pull off in order to replace missing pieces.

"Did you eat from the fruit of the Wood?" she demanded. He nearly fell from his perch, on a small stool. He hadn't even noticed her come up.

"I may have," he replied unwillingly. He thought of the dark red fruit, and the euphoria that had come over him. He shivered.

"How many times? Are you still eating it?" she asked, her dark eyes flashing.

"Just the once. And no, I wouldn't again," he answered, annoyed. What right had she to interrogate him? But then again, it was her Wood. And he had trespassed in it, he thought guiltily, and eaten from its branches.

The priest felt a sudden apprehension. He wondered if the faerie woman—Erin, he told himself—would grow vengeful and do him some harm. It seemed possible, although he couldn't quite imagine it. Not after she had poured him tea, and swept his floor, and done his dishes.

The faerie woman was shaking her head and muttering to herself. "It shouldn't have been enough." She raised her pale face, which was below him, and told him firmly, "You must not eat from the trees again." The faint pink of her mouth pressed into a thin line.

"I'd not planned on it," Father Jared said calmly, hoping she would go away now.

Erin paced back and forth underneath him, looking alternately up at him, and then out into the Wood. The young priest imagined her summoning a fantastic beast from amongst its dark trees, to come out and devour him.

"Well, then," she muttered to the ground. "Well, then," she muttered to the sky. She tossed her long, tangled black hair and tapped her slender bare feet.

"See that you do not," she muttered to him.

They were easier with each other after that. He was fairly certain now that she would never hurt him. But in another way, they were edgier than ever.

She still did chores that he didn't need done, and he still stubbornly refused to thank her for them. She tried to have conversations with him, which he didn't want. She was always underfoot, trying to be helpful. He couldn't escape her.

And then one week, she was gone for several days in a row. Unconsciously, he began to look for her. His eyes scanned the Wood while he watered the thriving vegetable plot. His feet wandered back into the cool emptiness of the Church, after she had failed to appear, and he found himself staring at her bench. He went into the kitchen and poured himself tea. His hand automatically picked up the leaf-patterned mug, the one she usually drank from. Quickly, he set it back down.

In the midst of the sunny warmth of the next day, which was strangely bright for the Wood, he sat on the bench in the flower garden, and gazed off into nowhere. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but he was bored, and a little bit lonely. He was used to the bustle of Palace life, and all of its intrigues and affairs. The Wood was too quiet and the Church was too calm.

As if these unwanted thoughts had summoned her, the faerie woman suddenly came around the side of the Church, and sat down. She had taken a seat on the ground in front of his bench, at a fairly comfortable distance. She smiled—an actual smile—which was oddly breathtaking, and then tilted her head to one side, as if considering him.

"I could tell you a tale," she offered. She was even more beautiful than he had remembered. Her pale skin glistened in the light of midday like fresh snow. Her eyes were so black that they seemed to pull the sunshine into them.

"I don't like tales," he said shortly.

"Then you can 'not like' this one," Lady Erin returned, her smile fading. The faerie woman stared off into the Wood, for a moment, her face growing gradually pensive. "It's a sad tale, anyhow," she said.

The priest said nothing more. Which was how she knew he was listening.

The Tale of the Dead Tree

"Once upon a time, there was a wood. And in that wood, there was a faerie. She had skin like the hidden pearl inside of a clam, and long black hair that fell to her knees, and eyes like two wet pebbles. Beyond the wood, there was rich farmland, and beyond that, there was a small town. In the town, there was a priest, and he cared for the people of the town, and the people of the farms. He blessed the faithful on holy days, and he even went out from the church and prayed over those who had the mark, but couldn't travel.

One day, a member of the church told Father Tobas—for that was the priest's name—that he had seen a woman wandering in the wood. He thought she might have been a faerie. The poor farmer was terrified that he'd been cursed, but Father Tobas reassured him. The priest did not believe in faeries; he thought that the farmer must have seen an ordinary woman, wandering along.

The farmer left at peace, but Father Tobas's mind was disordered. The priest tossed in his cozy bed, and thought of a lost woman, shivering out in the cold. He ate his piping hot oatmeal, and thought of that same lost woman, hungry and alone. At last, he decided to go down to the wood, and discover for himself what the farmer had seen.

The wood was more than a half day's journey from the town, and the priest stopped at several houses on the way—to tend to the sick, and give coins to the poor—so he arrived there later than he'd intended. Shadows were falling amongst the tall dark trees, and the sun was already going down. In the purple light of dusk, he stood outside the wood, and wondered if in coming here to help, he'd finally gone too far.

He saw a whisper of white in the trees, like the flash of a smooth long arm. He saw the hint of a black tumbled curl, and the shine of gray-black eyes. "Lass, are you lost?" he called out to the shadows. The wood held its breath.

The priest knew at once the mistake he'd made, but he could not bring himself to run.

A woman stepped out from between the trees, the loveliest woman that the well-meaning priest had ever set eyes upon. She didn't leave the boundary of the wood; she peered out at him with a frown. "Who disturbs my wood?" she asked. Her voice was like a blackbird flying away. It was beautiful and wild.

"I meant no harm, fair maiden," the priest carefully replied. "I heard perhaps you were in need of some help." He reminded himself that she was possibly a poor lost woman, after all.

And then the priest saw the other eyes. The yellow ones, and the slitted ones, and the ones that glowed like fire. They moved behind the faerie, deep in the trees, and they rumbled a low, warning growl.

"I have no need of a human's aid," said the faerie woman, her voice growing hard.

The goodly priest gave up his pretence of bravery. As fast as his legs would run, he bolted back to his church. He made it in less than half a day, running all through the evening, and into the night.

The priest sought valiantly to go back to his priestly duties and put the faerie lady out of his mind. And so he thought of her when he tended the sick, and pondered her when he gave coins to the poor, and pushed her image away when he met a woman with unusually dark hair, and gave her the mark. The poor priest was bewitched; he could not drive the faerie from his mind.

He thought of the dress he'd seen her wear. It had been lacey and strange, like it was woven from plants. It had reminded him of pink and yellow lilies; it could not be very warm. The next time the priest went out, meaning to buy flour, he bought a warm woolen dress instead. He kept it for a long time in a cupboard at the church, and tried not to think of what it meant. But eventually, he took up his staff, and made the half day's walk to the wood. When he got there it was still afternoon, for he'd left at the first break of dawn and journeyed without stopping.

Cautiously, the priest went up to a tree, and laid the warm woolen dress, which was striped and red, as well as a pair of brown socks, which he'd also brought, in a neatly folded pile. He didn't know the size of the faerie's feet, so instead of shoes, he'd brought her socks.

The next thing he thought to bring the faerie was food. Surely she must be famished, with only the fruit of the wood to live upon. He brought along a loaf of fine white bread, and a jug of sweet cherry wine. He laid these also at the foot of the tree. The red striped dress and brown socks still lay nearby, seemingly untouched.

Not a branch had stirred, either time.

The generous priest almost left it at that. He told himself he'd been lucky not to see her, and that to go back again would be to invite trouble. But the priest was shopping one day in the town, and he saw something that he couldn't resist. It was a delicate comb, made of fine white bone. It was meant for hair that fell past the knees, that was black as night and curled like the smoke rising from a pipe.

When Father Tobas brought the comb to the wood, the faerie lady had finally had enough.

"Why do you leave these things near my trees?" she hissed, coming so swiftly out from the wood that she made the somewhat besotted priest start.

"I thought you might need some food, and a dress. And that the comb would look very nice in your hair," the poor priest stuttered. He felt a fool now, seeing her again. Her lacey dress fit her perfectly, and her hair was lovely as it was, dark and unbound.

"These are human things!" she said angrily. "Take them away, and do not come again, or I will let the beasts of the wood do what they want with you."

At this, Father Tobas picked up the warm woolen dress, and the moldy remains of the bread, and the untouched jug of wine. But he left the fine bone comb, for he could not bear to bring it back again.

Years passed, and the priest's memory of the faerie lady faded. She no longer haunted his thoughts. The priest returned to tending his church, and making the people happy. Everything was as it had been.

And then one day, the king issued a command. Land was scarce and the people were crowded. The Wood to the East must be cleared, to make way for a manor and more farmland.

The priest left his church and traveled all the way to the Palace, which was a very long way without a horse, something which the poor priest did not possess. He spoke to the king, and begged him not to touch the trees. He told him that a faerie lady lived in them, and that if they were harmed, he feared that the lady would die.

But the king was greedy, and he would not listen.

By the time Father Tobas came back to his church, there was news that much of the damage had already been done. Many men had died, but trees had also been cut. And the more trees that were cut, the less men died. This was the way of cutting a particular wood—it grew weaker with every tree that was successfully cut. In time, eventually, the magic of the trees would sink back into the ground, and slowly they would leach into another wood, the nearest one that remained in the land. That wood would be strengthened, and helped, but only after a certain span of time had passed. And so it was that the faerie in the Wood of the East was weakened by every tree that was cut, and eventually her wood became easy prey to axe and saw.

The priest could not bear to hear of this happening, but there was nothing further he could do to make it stop. So he took a bag from the church, and went down to the wood himself. It was nearly decimated; a fifth of what it had once been, when he'd been there last—when the faerie had refused all of his gifts, and told him never to come back again.

Father Tobas tried to talk to the woodcutters, but to no avail. They had all bound scarves tightly around their heads, so as not to be swayed by any faeries that might come. Still, he used gestures to plead with them to leave the rest of the trees alone. But they had been hired by the king, and they had a job to do. Finally, the priest chose a single black tree—if he could not save them all, at least he could save one. He bound himself to it with many ropes.

The peasant folk laughed at him, and cheerfully cut around. Eventually, there were no more trees, other than the one which Father Tobas had so faithfully protected. The peasants shook their heads at him and proclaimed that the priest was mad. They left him where he was, and went home to their other jobs.

A great wide field lay where the forest had once been. The stumps of the trees had all sunken into the ground. There was nothing left of the wood, but one lonely tree.

And that was not enough.

Father Tobas didn't know where the faerie had gone. No one had seen her in the wood while they were cutting it. It was as though she'd disappeared. He began to wonder if the peasants were right; maybe he had imagined her, after all.

He fell asleep uncomfortably, as he had for many days. He was so tightly bound to the tree that he'd lost most of the feeling in his arms. He was also hungry and thirsty, for his food and water had run out. But he hadn't the strength to loosen the ropes and set himself free.

When he awoke, it was to singing. The faerie stood in front of him, crooning a mournful song. Her black hair was shorn, and her pink lacey dress was in tatters. There were long cuts down her legs and bruises on her arms; there were wounds all over her body.

She had a fine comb, made of bone, tucked into her lacey yellow sash.

"I'm dying," she told the priest, her beautiful voice sad and low.

"I'm sorry," he said faintly. His own strength was almost gone. "I tried to help."

The faerie came closer, and he saw something in her hands. The skin was blistered and the nails were broken, but in each palm she held a dark red fruit. "Eat this," she told the priest, lifting it to his mouth.

When he had bit into the fruit, and then swallowed both of them, he felt his courage return to him. But he was still too weak to unbind himself from the tree.

The faerie woman dipped into a pocket of her dress, and pulled out a sharp wooden knife. She sliced through the ropes that wound around the priest's arms, and Father Tobas slid slowly to the ground. Then she knelt in front of him, and her head sagged forward, as though she was too weak to do anything else.

"You are weary. Here, let me hold you," the priest offered. The faerie woman looked up at him, and nodded. He pulled her into his arms.

The two of them stayed like that, for a very long time. "My name is Susannah," she told him at last. "I am the Lady of the Wood." The priest had not known that faeries could have names, but he told her his name as well.

"I misjudged you, priest," she continued. "I thought that all humans were alike. When I am gone, you must press your hand to the tree. It will take you to my sister. Tell her that my wood is gone, and that she must keep hers safe."

And then the faerie lady grew very still. The priest's salty tears ran down her face, and through her dark hair. Slowly, he bent, and kissed her mouth.

The tree that remained died with her. It did not sink into the ground, though. It rotted from the inside out.

The priest dug a grave at the base of the tree. He put Lady Susannah's body in a coffin, and he laid it in the ground. Then he placed a tombstone on it, with only her name.

He went back to the church, and packed up all his belongings. He said farewell to the members of his church, and arranged for another priest to come. Then he went back to the Dead Tree, and placed his hand against it. When he came out to the other side, he saw an empty valley, and a great dark Wood.

He went down into the Wood, and he called for the faerie to come. He was not afraid of the Wood, or of her, for when Lady Susannah had told him her name, his fear had gone. He told the faerie the story of her sister, and gave her the wooden knife. When she saw it, she wept, and thanked him. The faerie told him to stay in her Wood, far away from the evil of human hearts.

The priest built a small stone Church, in a clearing of the Wood. The dark trees moved aside, to make a path out into the valley. But a church is not a church without people. So Father Tobas went back into the human land, and he found a group of people of the mark, people who—for one reason or another—also wished to hide. Between them all, they built a Village. The faerie watched from the Wood, but she did not stop them. She owed a debt of gratitude to the priest, and she would do him no harm.

The priest lived in the Church of the Wood for many years, until he was old and gray, and could no longer carry on. And then he sat down at the base of one of the trees, and closed his eyes. With his last breath, he called Lady Susannah's name.

"A whisper of white flashed in the wood. The priest's spirit walked away from his frail body, and reached out for a long pale arm..."

After Lady Erin finished her tale, the faerie and the priest sat silent for a very long time.

"That is not such a sad story," Father Jared said at last. He was still sitting on his bench, watching the breeze blow through the flowers.

"I think you miss the point of it," Lady Erin said bluntly. "The humans cut the wood. They were the evil ones. And even the priest, who thought to help, did the faerie lady harm. He buried her like a human. He carved her name into stone, and doomed her to wander the earth, her spirit forever restless. Otherwise she would have been at peace, in the grass of the wood where she died."

"I think you miss the point," Father Jared returned. "The priest did his best to protect the wood. And clearly, he loved Lady Susannah."

Suddenly, the young priest was embarrassed. A priest should not love a woman, even a faerie one. He stood up quickly, and Lady Erin looked at him curiously from her spot on the grass.

"I have work to do," he said abruptly, and went inside.

The Gypsies

Amandie was more cautious now that she traveled alone, even around the faithful. She had grown up around people of the mark, after all—she knew its loopholes. She knew that even in truth, words can be used to wound, and information can be withheld. She knew that even in purity, people can be kept at a distance and not cared about. And she knew that even in peace, there can be many disagreements and small coercions. Finally, to her own shame, her time with the Baron had shown her that much innocence could be lost without one losing the mark.

So Amandie walked with the hood of her cloak pulled up over her head, even though it was early summer, and she stayed away from other folk that she came across. Ironically, this was exactly what Gleason had wanted, and what they had fought about. She could hardly be less sorry he had gone, but she did find herself wishing their journey together had been more productive. She still didn't know what the Baron's letter had held; Gleason would never speak of it.

All she knew was that the Village boy hated the faerie, and therefore wished the Wood ill. Amandie had tried to tell him the truth about the Baron, without exactly revealing what he'd done to her—she was too embarrassed by it—but the boy wouldn't listen. He told her the Baron had been wronged by the faerie, the same as he'd been, and he took the Baron's side.

Whatever her reservations about the faithful, Amandie stayed in churches whenever she could, to extend her coin. It was a priest's duty to take in travelers with the mark, and most did so kindly. Some were less welcoming, however, and lectured her about traveling alone, which she could hardly help. Walking the distance to the Palace, the days stretched out, until Amandie felt that she'd been on the road forever.

Her boots were worn and scuffed, and she was forced to sleep on the ground, rolled up in a blanket, when she couldn't make it to a nearby village or town. Still, the land of Calundra was a beautiful place; sunny and bright, with rolling green hills and fertile croplands. Despite her troubles, Amandie still had a merry heart.

It was this that led her to finally speak to the gypsy couple. She had crossed their path several times, now that they were both on the broad well-marked Queen's Road. The road led to Queen's Hollow, and from there to the Palace; she and the two gypsies were headed in the same direction. She listened to their pipe playing at night while she ate her bread and cheese all alone, and knew that they were only camped around the bend from her.

They had a horse and covered wagon, but they stopped much more frequently than she did, earning money in the towns. She'd seen them dancing and playing songs for folk in the village greens and town squares. They were there in the last town she'd come through; the gypsy woman limber and alluring, and just like the gypsy man, brown as a chestnut.

The gypsy man was the one who piped so sweetly, lulling her into strange dreams of the Wood. In her dreams, she and Lady Erin ran laughing along a surging riverbank, one that otters pranced upon. When they were both tired, they ate dark red fruit that dripped bright red juice down their chins. It made Amandie feel as though she could fly.

When she awoke, she was disturbed. She had never heard Lady Erin laugh, nor had she, a human, ever eaten from the fruit of the trees. It wasn't a bad dream, but it had felt unsafe. The careless laughter and the feeling of being airborne clung to her as she tucked her blanket into her pack. It made her uneasy; it made her crave human company.

She was up earlier than the gypsies, so she pulled ahead of them on the road, but they had a horse, which gave them the advantage. Before the sun had arched its way very high up into the sky, they had caught up with her again. This time, Amandie couldn't hide her curiosity. She had left her hood off to enjoy the morning sun, and the gypsy man waved at her cheerfully. The gypsy woman frowned, but when Amandie waved back, her eyes went to the mark, and then her pretty oval face thawed out a bit.

They were both dark-haired and tanned, no doubt from being outdoors so much. Amandie wondered if it was because of their coloring that they were gypsies, or if it was inconsequential. Dark-haired people were often viewed with suspicion—but the gypsies lived an unsettled life which many folk viewed with suspicion anyhow. Perhaps it did not matter to them much, what people thought.

Amandie knew that to judge folk by their appearance was a stupid superstition. She was friends with a faerie, after all, and no one could ever mistake a human—no matter how dark their hair or eyes—for something such as she. And more than that, a faerie could always be known by its voice. So Amandie had no qualms about the gypsies because of how they looked. Nor even because they were unmarked, for she'd expected as much, living their sort of life.

That was how she came to take a ride in the gypsy wagon, and meet the friendly gypsy man—Kip—and the more reserved gypsy woman, whose name was Corella. They were not kin, as they looked, but man and wife. And they were young, and interesting, and full of conversation. Amandie had been starved for company, so she spent the afternoon in the wagon learning as much as possible about the gypsies, while telling them as little as possible about herself.

They all had the same destination—the Palace. She told them that she was hoping for a job there, and they told her that they were going to visit Kip's uncle, who worked there as a bard. Amandie was bursting to know more about the Palace, but hadn't wanted to inundate them with questions all at once. After they stopped for the day, she helped Kip with making the fire and then Corella with cleaning the dishes. And then she asked them to tell her everything they knew about Palace life.

Kip settled against a wheel of the wagon, which was pulled horizontal to the fire, and gazed out into the early evening. The night sky was lit not only by the dying fire and the moon, but also by a constantly shifting field of fireflies. A multitude of the tiny bugs winked on and off, creating a bright tapestry of motion. Amandie thought it was one of the loveliest sights she'd ever seen.

"The latest news I've had of the Palace wasn't from my uncle, it was actually from Olcasse. Folk in the city said they'd heard the young prince, Father Jared, had left the Palace for some little known country church in Baron Malkine's holding. Now that must have caused quite a stir with the royal family."

"The prince is also a priest?" Amandie asked curiously.

Corella stopped stitching up a hole in a pink flowered skirt that was heaped on her lap, and stared at Amandie. "I thought everyone knew that by now. Where was it you said you were from, girl?"

"I live in a little known country village myself," Amandie said with a smile. She didn't know how the gypsy woman could see by this light; it didn't seem bright enough to do needlework. But maybe gypsies were used to doing things in the dark. "The last we'd heard of, King Pattrik was still alive. It's only since I've left that I heard news of Prince Lukas's coronation." In fact, she had proudly relayed this information to the Village folk herself, at one of her few visits.

"Well, then, you do come from afar," Kip replied lightly. "I suppose then, I'd best be thorough in what I tell you."

With this, he launched into a detailed account of the lives of King Pattrik, and the two young princes, and even the Silent Queen herself. Amandie listened, fascinated. The Village had heard of the Silent Queen from old Father Brion, who had told the town of her death when he first arrived. But he'd not spoken of the manner of it, nor of the scandal.

Folk had just assumed that the Queen died of natural causes, but now Amandie found out about the treason, and the execution, and the brown-haired baby she'd left behind. She thought it must have been hard for young Prince Jared to grow up in the shadow of this; maybe it was even why he'd become a priest. She said this much to Kip, when he came to a pause.

"Maybe it was," Kip replied. "Certainly a way to prove his own goodness, not that I reckon it was openly in question. He was only a baby, after all. Could be that his brother encouraged him to take the mark. Young Prince Lukas took charge of the babe, though he was but eight years older himself. A good thing too—they say King Pattrik would barely look at his brown-haired son."

"Is King Lukas fair?" Amandie asked. "Not that such things matter," she added quickly. After all, her hair was a shade of brown as well, even if it was a light one.

"Aye, King Lukas is fair, as was his father before him. Uncle Wick says the Silent Queen had red hair, so the boy took after neither. But my uncle always thought King Pattrik had other reasons than just his coloring for disliking the lad," Kip finished, poking at the fire with a stick to bring a half-burned log over the hottest part.

"Your uncle was always partial to the Silent Queen," Corella inserted. "And look where it got him."

Amandie glanced inquiringly at Kip, patiently waiting for him to lean back against the wagon wheel and get comfortable again.

"Uncle Wick was always fond of a pretty face," Kip said, with a wink at Corella that Amandie assumed meant his uncle approved of his young nephew's choice of a comely wife. "He was one of the few who spoke out in favor of the Queen."

"Told a story, you mean," Corella snorted.

"So he did," Kip said with a grin. "Well—it is the way of a bard," he directed this to his wife, who had set aside the mended skirt and pulled her knees up to her chin, wrapping her arms around them. "Uncle Wick told the king a tale—one of a nobleman who suspected his wife of being untrue and had her killed for it, only to discover that the rumor was false. And then, of course, the nobleman could never forgive himself."

Kip paused dramatically at this last part, and Corella rolled her eyes. "You'll never make a bard, telling a tale like that," she teased him.

"Well, the king was less than happy with my uncle's story, not that it changed anyone's mind. Uncle Wick nearly had to leave the Palace over it—almost fled with the Mad Priest—but it blew over in the excitement of the Silent Queen's execution," Kip continued. "My uncle kept quiet after that—told silly tales of romance, as he calls them—and managed to keep on the right side of the royal family for nearly a decade. Before he went off again." Kip chuckled at this, and then reached down to pull his cloak up over his arms.

Amandie had already done the same. The night was getting cooler, and the fire was mostly embers now. "What happened then?" she asked, hoping she wasn't being too curious. But the gypsy man seemed to be enjoying the audience, and his wife was stretched out sleepily on a blanket now, half-listening to them while she gazed drowsily at the field of fireflies.

"Then—why then he got himself in trouble telling tales to the young Prince Jared," Kip said.

"The man will never learn," Corella murmured.

"Did the king punish him?" Amandie asked.

"Naw, he couldn't catch him. Uncle Wick took to the road with the rest of us gypsies, for a while. He's only been back since the death of the king." Amandie nodded, as though she had known this. She must seem very ill-informed to the two of them, despite the things she'd overheard at the tavern.

"No doubt when we finally get to the Palace, your uncle will be climbing down from the right tower on a rope made of sheets," Corella said from deep in her blanket, with an audible yawn. Amandie giggled slightly, picturing this, and then quickly glanced over at Kip, hoping she hadn't offended him. His expression was still good-humored, at least what she could see of it in the near dark.

"My uncle's getting on in years," he returned. "I think he's finally learned discretion. Besides, he knows now that he was a fool about the Silent Queen. He was taken in by her beauty, same as the Mad Priest was. You know what they say about her, eh? How she bewitched people, even without the use of her tongue. Some even said she was—"

"That's enough of that tale now," Corella said sharply, suddenly waking up. "You know what nearly happened to your uncle when he said that, and what happened to those who were foolish enough to repeat it."

"Aye," said the gypsy man after a long pause, "I suppose you're right." He stood up suddenly, shaking out his long legs and going over to stamp out the fire.

"Please, you can finish," Amandie begged. "I won't tell anyone." She felt as though she'd been on the verge of hearing something very interesting, and having Corella forbid it only tantalized Amandie more.

"No, Corella is right," the gypsy man said, with a note of finality in his voice. "Better not speak ill of those with the power to harm ye, as they say." He went over to his wife, and offered her a hand, pulling her easily up off the ground.

The two gypsies slept in the covered wagon and Amandie slept outside, although they'd told her there was room enough for her as well. Amandie was too bashful to sleep in close company with a married couple. She tucked her cloak around her, and then her blanket as well. She fell asleep wondering what people had whispered about the Silent Queen, and why King Pattrik had punished them for it. She thought of the young priest, and wondered if she might possibly have met Father Jared, on his way to some unknown little village. A place with a Church, and a Village, and a Wood—a place that few ever visited, if any at all.

There had been several other priests, according to the older Villagers, who came after Father Tobas' death and didn't take to the place, but left within a year or six months of each other, saying they'd send someone else back. Until Father Brion had come, that is, and stayed on. He was the only priest that Amandie really remembered. When the others had been there, she was only a babe. She thought about the story that Kip had told her, and how in it Father Brion had been known as the Mad Priest. She had always thought Father Brion to be very kindly, and more than sane enough.

Though the Village folk had called him mad as well, when he took in the faerie child.

The gypsies were a pleasure to travel with; in their company, Amandie thrived. True, they went along at an unhurried pace, going out of the way to play and dance for folk, but their slowness didn't chafe her, as Gleason's had. She became used to singing while Kip played his flute and Corella danced. Soon the gypsy woman became friendly enough with her to tease her, as she often teased her gypsy husband. One day she told Amandie that the increase in coin they received from the towns was due less to Amandie's fine voice, and more to the lads who fell mooning over the Village girl's bright hazel eyes. Amandie blushed and protested that her singing was fair, but Corella just smiled a wicked smile.

The days passed swiftly and the length of the Queen's Road dwindled. Eventually, they came through impressive Queen's Hollow, the biggest city that Amandie had ever seen. On their last day of travel, before they were due to reach the Palace, she almost wished they could go back and do it all over again. She mentioned this to Kip, who grinned and replied that if she felt that way, she might as well stay on the road. When Corella offered, quite suggestively, to find her a nice gypsy lad to take up with, this time Amandie just laughed.

The Queen's Road had ended at the city, and now it was the King's Road they followed, although it was really all the same road. The traffic around them was busier than it had been, though much less crowded than in the city streets. Amandie had tried in her mind to picture the Palace many times, but when she finally got there, she found that her imaginings had been weak and hollow, in comparison with what she actually saw.

The King's Palace rose like an eccentric gem, made from an unpolished stone. It was long and low, for the most part, but it had high sudden towers that were irregular, crystal and shining. As they drew nearer, Amandie discovered that the walls were actually made of quartz—some nearly transparent, some veined with purple, others a cloudy white. Its decorative edgings were quartz as well—pink or ruby-colored. They ran along horizontally, separating different stories of the building. When Amandie and the gypsies were close enough to be nearly in front of it, she saw that it couldn't be said to be low at all, but that she'd simply misjudged its massive size from far away, fooled by the height of the towers.

Of course, Amandie and the gypsies did not take the circular drive to the grand front steps; they were humble folk, so they went round the back. To the left side of the Palace there was a servant's entrance, not quite all the way in the rear, for that would have put them in the Palace gardens. This was where they gave their names to several impeccably attired servants who told them rather disdainfully to pull the wagon over to the side, out of sight, and wait for Kip's uncle to come out.

Amandie hadn't expected to feel quite so shabby; she rarely thought of her dress, since people hardly seemed to notice it. She supposed she'd become a bit conceited by all the flattering little attentions she'd received in her travels. Here, clearly more was expected; these folk had style. Her plan to ask for work suddenly seemed very foolish. What would they make of her, a Village lass, with barely any training at all?

She was brooding over this, fitfully untying and re-tying her green scarf—the prettiest item she owned, when a man whom she judged to be somewhere in his fifties, and who looked like an older version of Kip, came barreling out the side door.

"Kip, my lad—my favorite nephew—I've been waiting for you to come!" he exclaimed, pulling the younger gypsy man into an enthusiastic hug. Then he turned to Corella, who—despite the cheeky things she'd had to say about him earlier—was beaming at Kip's uncle as though he was a welcome sight. Uncle Wick picked her up off the ground and spun her merrily around. "My favorite niece too! You haven't got tired of this lazy fellow, then?" he said, jerking his head in Kip's direction.

Amandie stood back shyly, feeling as though she'd stumbled into someone else's family reunion. "Well now, who have you two kidnapped?" Uncle Wick asked them wonderingly, when his attention finally came to rest on her.

"I'm Amandie, of the Village," she told him formally.

"And what village might that be?" Uncle Wick laughingly asked.

Amandie didn't know how to respond.

Kip saved her by saying, "She's a bit of a thing we picked up on the road, a real country lass." He smiled at her fondly as he said this, and Amandie suddenly felt even grubbier than she had earlier, when the Palace servants had practically turned them from the door.

"I can see that now..." Uncle Wick said, more slowly. "But possibilities... yes, possibilities," he said, walking around her, as though fitting her for a dress. "I presume you have a purpose in coming to the Palace?" he asked more kindly.

"She's looking for work," Corella put in. She had put an arm around Amandie's shoulder, as though to defend her from some of the sport. Amandie appreciated the gesture, but she felt she'd rather speak for herself. "Aye, I met a priest who told me I might do well for the Palace. I think he may even have been the young prince," she said. Kip and Corella both looked at her curiously; she'd not told them this before, in case she was wrong.

"Well, then, we must find you a place here, mustn't we? We wouldn't want the young prince to be disappointed," Uncle Wick said with a grin. Amandie blushed and stammered, "I don't know that it was, for sure..." but Kip's uncle waved this off.

"I know the job for you, lass. Cook's been looking for another girl to serve at table. We'll clean you up a bit, and she can try you out." Amandie wasn't sure whether she was overjoyed or slightly disappointed at this very modest appraisal. The bard noticed, and chuckled. "No worries, lass—if you're a quick study, you'll move up in no time."

Uncle Wick herded them back towards the Palace's side door, exclaiming that the servants who manned it would hear about making his kin wait out in the yard. Amandie let herself be pulled along with them, grateful that she had not, after all, come here alone. She was sure she would never have got through the servant's entrance on her own, or be walking eagerly down the Palace hallways, as she was right now.

The Change

Father Jared had not meant to make friends with the faerie; in fact, he had resisted it all along. He had hoped that by keeping her at arms' length—quite literally—he could avoid acknowledging the unwanted friendship and the problem might just go away. There were so very many reasons that she was dangerous, however tame she might pretend to be. And they were so very significant that he could hardly think of anything else, whenever she was around.

First, of course, was that she could spell him with her voice; her voice, which was like nothing else he'd ever heard, utterly compelling and beautiful. Second was that she was unpredictable. He was used to being in control—he was a prince, after all. He always had been. She made it clear to him that he was not. And third—well, even her tale had told it. If he wasn't quite careful, he'd be leaving foolish gifts under the trees himself.

Yes, being her friend would be dangerous for both of them, he reasoned. It would be like keeping a mountain lion as a pet.

What was even worse was that he had brought this on himself. He'd gone into her Wood—though only out of an overpowering sense of duty—and invited her to come back out of it again. But he had never failed the god before. He knew that what he'd done, in excluding her from the Church, had been an unworthy action. It had to be rectified.

The experience of searching for her in the Wood had been both exhilarating and disturbing, probably in equal measure. Once he'd finally stumbled out of it for good, all he wanted was to go back to the normal, non-threatening existence he'd always had; the one he'd so unwisely taken for granted.

The Wood may have succeeded in making him a believer in faerie magic, but it did not reassure him of its intentions. And so, the young priest's thoughts churned in confusion; he struggled to determine which of the tales of faerie were true, and which were false, and which might fall somewhere in between those two options.

The faerie woman didn't give him a chance to think things over. Instead, she invaded his life completely, making it impossible for him to fully relax.

But after she told him the tale of the Dead Tree, he found himself giving in to it. He realized that there would be no moment when he woke up, and found that this was all a dream—possibly a nightmare. In one very dark, uncharted part of his being, he had felt like he belonged out there in the Wood, overwhelming as it had been. In another secret, unacknowledged part of himself, he felt like he belonged—but no, he would not even think that. There were boundaries to maintain, like the fences around the stone church itself.

But he lived in the Church of the Wood, and now he had a faerie—despite all of his best efforts to the contrary—as one of his closest friends.

So, he finally thanked her for doing the dishes, and gave up on doing them himself. He let her fetch water from the well—as she told him she'd often done for Father Brion—though the young priest was hardly an infirm old man. And he burned her accursed faerie firewood. He made her cups of tea, and let her tell him about the animals in the Wood; he tried not to yawn when she carried on about her problems with aggressive red ant hills. If other humans had any idea how prosaic faerie work could sound, they'd think very differently of them.

To be honest with himself, he let her lull him into security. He even put on the faerie shirt that she'd given him, the one that was woven of a strange white plant. To his dismay, it was the only thing he'd ever worn that didn't itch. But he tried not to wear it all the time, nevertheless. Lady Erin would notice; she could be unbearably smug, when she wasn't being bossy or ingratiating.

He knew it couldn't last. He knew the Villagers would begin to whisper about the priest and the faerie woman. He'd had this happen before; he'd befriend a stray noblewoman at the Palace, one with a modicum of wit or a strong common interest. Pretty soon the servants were taking bets on whether he'd abandon his vows and be married instead.

He knew that this was so because his presence often went unnoticed when he was feeling antisocial, and he had caught them at it. The idea had been ludicrous at the time, beneath his dignity even to acknowledge. He was a priest-in-training, not to mention being entirely uninterested.

That had changed now, like magic. And not the good kind, that Lady Erin insisted she mostly possessed. Thoughts he'd never struggled with before now possessed him. And Lady Erin was oblivious. He thought that he might include that in a new definition of faerie—a magical creature who was oblivious, stubborn, and eccentric.

"You should wear the blue one," the faerie said. He had been trying to shoo her out of his sleeping chamber without actually shouting at her, ever since he'd opened his eyes and found her sitting on his open windowsill. Her feet and legs were hanging into the room and her long black hair was dangling out of it. He would know better next time than to leave his shutters unfastened, no matter how humid the night air.

"I can pick out my own clothes," he snapped, and then regretted it. He reminded himself that he was trying to be nicer.

"Blue is my favorite color," she went on, as though he hadn't spoken. She'd woven him a new shirt, made entirely of what looked like giant bluebells. He reached for the white one with the red and green trim, instead. He knew he was just being contrary, fighting the power of her voice, proving to himself that he was still acting on his own decisions.

"A color is a color," he said, more graciously, as though he simply didn't care.

"But blue is the color of the water. And sometimes the color of the sky," the faerie said sweetly. Father Jared found himself reaching for the blue shirt, and then caught himself again. He scowled, and tugged the other one impatiently on. Really, what was she doing in his bedroom while he dressed? It was entirely beyond him.

"Listen, Erin, you can't be here. You have to come back later, okay? Maybe once I'm up..." There, that was nice enough.

The faerie woman's soft pink mouth drew into a pout. "But you take so long to get up!" she protested. "I've been awake for hours, ever since the sun rose."

Father Jared sighed, and ran his hands through his knotted hair. He knew a comb was somewhere in all this mess, but he was too sleepy to hunt for it.

"You know, you could let me tidy this up," the faerie offered, wrinkling her pert nose at the disorder on his bureau and the open, overflowing chest.

He might still be tired, but Lady Erin was vibrantly awake. And far too beautiful to be sitting on his open windowsill, criticizing his house-keeping again.

"There are certain boundaries," he told her sometime later.

"Like the edges of the Wood?" she asked. Her round face, with its perfectly pointed chin, was turned up towards the sky, which was flowing with clouds above them. They were lying on the pebbly shore of the lake, letting the sun soak into their skin. He had been swimming, and she had come out to watch him. Eventually he'd joined her here on the coarse sand. He was meaning to get up at any minute and walk back to the Church. They were well in sight of the Village, and he shouldn't be seen in her company like this.

But he felt content, and strangely peaceful. He decided to take this moment to talk to her about his room.

Maybe even his life.

"The next time you want to see me, you must come to the Church door, and knock, like anyone else," he instructed her. "If I answer it, you can come in. If not, I'm either not there, or I'm preoccupied, and you should come back later."

"Okay," she said tranquilly.

He felt that this had been too easy.

"No peering into the windows," he clarified. "No coming in the sills, even if they're open."

The faerie turned over onto her side, and leaned her head against her hand to look at him. "Then why do you have windows?" she asked. "Aren't they just like doors? Aren't they meant to be looked into, and out of, and to let things in?"

Instead of answering, Father Jared noticed how damp her hair was. She must have been swimming sometime before him. Of course, it was a blistering hot day, which was why he'd come here himself. He imagined her floating underwater, her hair moving like a black thundercloud. She might not even need to hold her breath.

"Can you breathe underwater?" he asked, distracted.

The faerie blinked and he saw that her lashes were slightly curly at the edges. "Of course. Can't you?" she asked. And then she seemed to think of something and said, "No, I guess not. That would make sense."

Father Jared had no idea what she was talking about. In fact, he couldn't remember what he had been talking about either. It was too hot to think, let alone discuss things properly with someone who didn't have the first idea of what it meant to be human. He lay back down on the shore of the lake, and watched the clouds move across the sky.

"This is nice," Lady Erin said softly, at one point.

"Mmm..." he replied. And so it was. A faint sound from the direction of the Village, like a rustle of bushes, reminded him that he should get up and go, in just a minute, for propriety's sake...

But he didn't.

The reason she became one of his closest friends was mostly because he wasn't very successful at finding other companions. The Village men his age were intimidated by him; they had all noticed his ring. They knew by it that he was a nobleman, even if he didn't choose to make public his status.

The royal stone was a clear crystal quartz, but he had designed this ring himself; he had chosen a purple one instead. He preferred the anonymity it gave him. It kept people who didn't already know from immediately recognizing him as a prince, and then fawning all over him.

In vain the priest tried to moderate his usual manner, but his early training made this difficult, and his own unyielding temperament was another hindrance. So many formalities were observed at the Palace that these Village folk seemed untutored to the point of being without social graces, not that they could be blamed for it.

He had no trouble in conversing with them, but he didn't come to feel attached to any one person, at least no more than a priest would normally become to one who attended his church. Father Jared performed his priestly duties with a scrupulous goodwill, but outside of them he fell into a habit of keeping to himself, apart from the faerie and her whimsical attentions.

Erin was different from the Village peasants, in more ways than being a faerie. She had read all of Father Brion's books—granted, there weren't very many—and she remembered them all word for word. She told him that when she was a child, the old priest had taught her out of them. Many of the Village folk couldn't even read, and those who did, apparently did not read very well. Their ideas and conversation were limited, whereas Lady Erin's were boundless.

She asked him endless questions about Calundra, all of which he answered patiently. She asked him endless questions about himself—of which he answered less, patiently redirecting her attention to almost anything else. Most importantly, he didn't tell her that he was a prince. He made his excuse to the god that this wasn't a deception; it was a form of self-protection.

There was another tale—a tale that he could have told her—and yet one that he probably never would. It was a tale of one of the many kings who warred with the Wood of the Palace. The young priest thought of this tale, and of what it might mean for anyone who felt too intensely drawn to a faerie, and he regretted once again that he had not been more prudent, somehow. Although he could hardly think now of what he might have done differently, or in what other way the situation might have turned out.

The young priest suddenly remembered what he was doing, and looked down at his hands. They had been cleaning the Church's tarnished candlesticks, but now they were trembling instead of polishing. In his mind, he had been picturing the tale, the sort of tale about faeries that the bard had delighted in telling. It was the kind that made the fine ladies of the Palace swoon, and let the fine lords catch them.

As if on cue, the priest heard a slight rap on the door. He set down his rag and went to answer it, although he already knew who it was. Only Lady Erin came to the back door, which let out onto the cemetery. The cemetery had a gate in the fence at the far side, behind the tombstones, and through that gate was the Wood. The other members of the Church used the front gate and the front door of the Church; they would not willingly go so close to the thick trees, not if they could help it.

The faerie woman smiled at him—her breathtaking smiles were a regular occurrence now—and came in with a basket of berries. She set them down on the table after greeting him, and began pulling things off of the shelves. "What are you making?" the priest asked curiously, sitting down again at the table and watching her as she set out flour, sugar, butter, and salt. She meticulously arranged a wooden spoon, a bowl and a cup, and began measuring.

"I'm making you a tart," she answered, beginning to hum to herself. Father Jared inspected the basket of berries closely; they looked like freshly-picked strawberries, small, red and ripe.

"Don't worry," Lady Erin reassured him, "I found them outside of the Wood. The berries in the Wood are different. Better of course, but I don't think you'd want them." She said this with an unconscious superiority, as though his human tastes were faulty, and flashed her perfect, almond-shaped eyes at him.

The priest just shook his head at her, picking up a berry by the stem and biting into the other end. "Not too many," she scolded, "or I won't have enough." He ignored her and picked up another, selecting the juiciest one he could find; he preferred them uncooked, anyhow.

"Erin, what would you do if someone harmed your Wood?" he asked her.

He couldn't keep himself from staring at the basket as he spoke, which he realized now was probably made of faerie cane. There were glowing azure patterns on it, ones that he couldn't imagine being made by anything else. The faerie woman paused in the act of rolling out the dough; she had her sleeves pushed above her elbows and powder on her cheek where she had wiped it with a floury hand.

"They wouldn't. They know better," she said.

"And if they didn't? What then?"

"The beasts would eat them," she said simply. She avoided his eyes after she said this, and began fitting the finished crust into a ceramic pie plate, carefully crimping the edges. He could tell that she was uncomfortable. "I could hardly prevent it," she protested, when a meaningful silence had fallen between them. He knew that this wasn't a full truth; after all, she had prevented the wolf from devouring Irena.

"Couldn't you?" he asked. He had picked up another berry, but now he put it down again. He was no longer hungry. "You have the mark. It would be your duty to make peace. You must know that."

"If they hurt the trees, they would deserve it," Erin said angrily, her pale face becoming openly defiant.

She moved the basket of strawberries away from him, and picked up a wooden knife that was lying on the table. She began to slice them with uncanny swiftness. "You're just a human," she said fiercely. She sounded close to tears at even the thought of her Wood being hurt. "You wouldn't understand." Her knife was miraculously efficient. She had cut the strawberries in an instant, and was spreading the pieces into the tart, covering them afterward with extra strips of dough in a crisscross pattern.

He watched her finish making the tart in silence. She was right, he did not understand. The life of a tree could never compare to the life of a human.

It was another note of tension between them, to complete the symphony that was already there.

After service one week, the gossip he'd been anticipating earlier—and been relieved to avoid hearing about—finally caught up with him. A senior member of the Church, Richard the Mason, a stoneworker by trade, took Father Jared aside. The young priest had been lingering on the threshold of the front door to watch the rest of the congregation scurry back down the little dirt path to the Village. Irena was skipping alongside her mother, and humming something that sounded suspiciously like a tune that Lady Erin liked to hum.

"Father, might I speak to you a moment?" Richard Mason asked, looking uncomfortably like a man who has been delegated to perform an unpleasant task. Father Jared sighed and stepped out further, motioning the older man to the bench at the side of the Church. "Let's sit outside, if you don't mind. The day is fine, and the Church can be a bit confining, after the service," the young priest said to him.

They sat awkwardly next to each other and made casual comments on the weather and the Village, although he held out little hope that this was Richard Mason's actual purpose. The Villagers always walked back together in a group; safety in numbers, he supposed. The older man was intent at first on his hands as they talked—the priest noticed that they were rough and scarred. Then he straightened his broad shoulders, so that they strained against the green and red of his vest, and took a deep breath.

"I've a mind to approach you about something, Father, but I want you to know that I don't mean any disrespect." The young priest nodded at him diplomatically, encouraging him to continue. It would be best to get this over with. "The other members of the Church," the mason began, stressing "other" so that Father Jared knew this wasn't coming only from him, "are worried to see ye spending so much time with the faerie."

Richard the Mason looked over at him cautiously, to see how he was taking this. The priest kept his face smooth and untroubled, and met the older man's eyes fully and—so he hoped—without embarrassment. "The faerie is a member of the Church as well," he said quietly.

"Aye, Father, so she is—though none of us were too sorry when she decided not to come for a bit. Father Brion was a good man, but he was overgenerous, giving her the mark the way he did."

"The god gives the mark," Father Jared admonished.

The man dipped his head in acknowledgement, but said, "Even so, the mark has always been for humans. There's no way of knowing how well it might work on a faerie."

"Do you think the god's power is less than the faerie's magic?" Father Jared asked him, displeased at this.

"Ah, well, now—I wouldn't go so far as to say that," the large man stammered, rubbing his right hand against his left in his lap. "But she's more than a faerie, too. She's a woman. And you're a young priest, if you don't mind my saying so. When Father Brion took the faerie girl in, he was like a father to her; but now—well, the ladies of the Church feel it's inappropriate for ye to be spending time alone with a lass, even a faerie one. I'm not saying I agree with them," he continued hastily, "But it's fair that you should know what's being said." The mason halted in his speech, and looked anxiously over at him for his response.

"I've tried to curb her careless ways myself, but I'm afraid she isn't exactly amenable to all the social conventions of humans," the young priest said cautiously. "She misses the old priest, and so looks for company in me, as the new one. It would be cruel to push her away, especially when she's grieving for Father Brion, so I've allowed her to seek comfort in the Church. That's all there is to it," he concluded, adding formally—and a bit sarcastically, because he couldn't restrain himself, "You may pass that along to the ladies of the Church who are so concerned, and ease their worries."

Richard the Mason nodded several times at this and opened his mouth to say more, but then quickly shut it. He was staring out past the fence, into the Wood, where there had just been a flash of movement. The nervous mason suddenly took his leave with an alacrity that Father Jared was hard-pressed not to laugh at, watching the older man set an admirable pace down the winding dirt path.

"You can come out now," Father Jared said to the trees, suppressing a grin. He had risen from the bench to bid the mason farewell, and now he stood under the rose trellis, which had lately come into bloom. It held neither red, nor pink, nor even yellow roses, but startlingly deep blue ones. Father Jared had a feeling that these were not the same roses originally planted in the garden of the Church, but he didn't ask.

The faerie woman edged out from behind a wide, dark tree, and slowly walked over to him. Her clear black eyes were unusually clouded. They put him in mind of a fog which had risen at midnight, obscuring the moon and the stars.

"Do I trouble you?" Lady Erin asked him. Her eerie faerie voice was uncharacteristically hesitant. Father Jared wanted to reach out and clasp her hands to reassure her, but he suppressed the traitorous urge.

"A bit," he admitted. The god loves truth, he justified to himself, seeing her crestfallen expression. After all, he had been trying to set limits. "But only when you act like a faerie," he added impetuously, unable to keep from smiling. Lady Erin looked up at him in confusion, then read his face and laughed.

Father Jared was shocked. He had joked with her.

He never joked.

He shook his head, feeling a chill, despite the suffocating warmth of a long summer day.

No, he thought suddenly. I didn't want this. But it was too late.

She had already changed him.

The Palace

Amandie settled into her job at the Palace, and found that it wasn't so very different in some ways from working at the tavern, after all. It appeared different, of course. Everything around her was fine and beautiful, with a luxury and splendor like none she'd ever seen before. There were halls full of portraits, and halls full of mirrors. There was a Great Hall, where the King's throne was, an immense dining room that was known as the King's Table—to differentiate it from where the servants ate—a lofty, many-windowed ballroom, and a two-story library full of more books than Amandie had ever known existed. That was not to mention the countless bedrooms, sitting rooms, studies, and parlors.

It took her some time to learn where everything was, and get used to the number of other servants, which was more than triple the size of the Baron's staff. So at first it seemed to her as though everything was different, and that she would never completely adjust. Most of her duties centered on bringing trays to the king's betrothed, as well as the woman who was rumored to be his mistress, the noblewomen in residence, and any other various guests. She also served at formal meals and regularly held events and parties. She found that she was exhausted by the end of the day just from running down endless corridors, and standing on her feet whilst ladies in glittering dresses removed tiny portions from the dishes she offered them.

She discovered that at the Palace, by tradition, only a woman could serve another woman, and only a man could serve another man. She found this to be an unexpected relief, for she was even shyer around the fashionable lords and the king than she was around the fashionable ladies. But it meant that every function was attended by a bevy of servants, to divide the work properly between them.

What Amandie found to be similar to the tavern was the work itself—fetching from the kitchen, balancing trays, dealing with dissatisfied customers in a humble manner. Another less pleasant thing, that turned out to be like the tavern, was that there were eyes here that followed her as well, and tongues that sometimes went with them. Disdainful countesses made fun of her country accent, which she was trying hard to mend, and overly familiar barons looked at her in much the same way that Baron Malkine had—as though she was something to eat, much like one of the chocolate-filled pastries that were the cook's signature dessert.

The head cook, whom everyone called Bonny, though her full name was apparently Bonita, had an iron fist in the kitchen. Otherwise, she was actually very nice. The kitchen staff in general was fairly pleasant, although they could also be peevish when things were busy or when a dish didn't make it out as hot or cold or tepid as it was meant to go out. Not so the lady's maids and the valets and the butlers, who made it clear that they were far above Amandie, even though they were only servants themselves. There was a strict chain of command, and she was on a lower tier of it, though not so low as the kitchen girls or the chambermaids or the gardener's boys.

The gypsies helped make her first month an easier one than it might have been, considering all this newness. They camped in the park-like grounds behind the Palace gardens, coming in and out of it frequently to visit with Uncle Wick. Amandie used her free time, which was very little now, to go and talk with them. In the evenings, they would still light a fire sometimes as they had on the road, and sing songs after eating a simple meal outside.

Wick of the Road—for so all gypsies were called, being thought to hail from no fixed place—was a master storyteller. All three of the gypsies had performed for the king in the Great Hall many times during their visit, enlivening the Palace with their carefree entertainment. But Wick plied his craft for them in private as well, telling tales so compelling that Amandie almost forgot where she was, as she sat back and listened to the rhythm of Wick's deep, mellifluous voice. She loved most all of his tales, but she took exception to the fact that in the scary ones, which were often about faeries, the faeries were always wicked and conniving.

"But that can't be so! I happen to like faeries!" she finally exclaimed one night, after he had finished telling a particularly gruesome tale about the Wood of the West. The faerie in this tale had been a man, and he had sang a song so falsely tender and loving that it had drawn all of the young women out from a nearby village. They had wandered off into his wood, where he had enthralled them all and kept them as his slaves. "A faerie doesn't need humans for servants!" she added, indignant. "They just want to be left alone, and for humans not to harm their woods."

Wick just stared at her, his lined face baffled. His skin was not so tan as the other gypsies, no doubt from living indoors, but it was still surprisingly brown. The bard sat cross-legged around the fire facing them, and Amandie had just interrupted the respectful silence that falls at the end of a well-told tale. Kip and Corella were on either side of her and they both stirred; they had been listening quietly as well. For whatever reason, Wick did not wear the Palace uniform, but his own clothes. They tended to be black, with occasional silver accessories such as rings or bracelets. The only note of color to relieve this was a strip of brown leather decorated with multi-colored beads, which he used to tie back his long gray hair.

"Well, child, I've rarely heard that one!" Wick replied, with a merry laugh. Amandie relaxed a little; she had been afraid he would be angry with her for what she had said. "It's an interesting opinion you have, but I'm afraid the evidence is against you, lass. Don't make the mistake of doubting the moral of a tale, simply because it's only a story. Humans and faeries were ever at war; neither could live in harmony with the other."

"I don't see why not," Amandie declared stubbornly. "If we had respected them, they would have respected us." She wasn't going to tell anyone about Lady Erin; not after learning that, compared to the outside world, the Village was positively friendly to faeries. Not to mention that Lady Erin had made her promise to keep the Wood and the Church and the Village a secret.

"It's like oil and water, Amandie," Corella said, unexpectedly. "They just don't mix together; they're always fighting to keep apart."

"Aye, lass," Uncle Wick said, his voice sounding suddenly sad. "That was always the way of it. But it's no matter now, one way or the other. The faeries are all gone." The older gypsy man gazed off into the fire for a moment, and then shook his head. "You've never met a faerie, or you'd not speak as you do," Wick said gravely. And then he got up rather suddenly, kissed Kip and Corella on both cheeks, and bid them all a goodnight. Amandie did not walk back with him to the Palace, though he graciously offered her his arm. It was Kip and Corella's last night before going back on the road, so she declined the escort. Instead, she stayed out as late as she could at the fire, postponing the moment of goodbye in the morning.

When the gypsy couple had left, Amandie tried hard not to feel too lonely. She shared a room with several other girls, whom she'd tried to befriend, but so far they seemed to be either falsely polite or frankly uninterested. Eventually she took to seeking refuge in the Palace chapel at off hours, when it was quiet. She came there regularly for holy day as well. Holy day in the chapel was more elaborate than in the Church of the Wood, but folk dispersed from it quickly afterward to go back to their duties. In the Village they had always walked back together and lingered to talk, often sharing a common meal.

Amandie missed this, but she appreciated the beauty of the chapel, with its stained glass windows and gilt-edged altar, and she came to find contentment there. Yet despite this elegance, she still thought wistfully of the plain stone benches in the Church, and of its dim, forest-filled windows and brightly burning torches. She thought that the calls of the songbirds which punctuated the services at home were even sweeter than the choir that sang special cantatas here. But the familiarity of being in a place of the god eased her mind, even if there were ways in which it couldn't compare.

There were two things at the Palace that Amandie didn't pay enough attention to—as it turned out—until it was too late. One was that a certain lord—Lord Quentin was his name—seemed to crop up anywhere and everywhere that Amandie went. He was charming about it; he commented on her newness and asked her name, then another time he complimented her on how steadily she walked with a heavy tray. He picked up a napkin that she dropped on the floor, when she was clearing up after dinner. He just happened to have an extra flower, when he was finished handing them out to all the ladies going in for afternoon tea; he gave it to Amandie as she went by with a plateful of finger sandwiches.

The other thing that she failed to notice was that there was often someone else in the chapel with her when she went to meditate. There could be any number of people in it at any given time, but one face showed up more often than all the rest, at least when she happened to be there herself. He was a nondescript boy who wore white, instead of the Palace uniform, which meant he must work in the kitchen. But this was a surmise that she made later about him, because for the most part her eyes just registered another benign-seeming person of the mark, and left it at that.

Lord Quentin did not have the mark, however winning his smile might be, so Amandie didn't think any more on him than she ought. She couldn't escape knowing that he was an unusually nice nobleman, with a courtly manner which seemed to extend to almost all of the ladies in the Palace, even the ones who weren't particularly young or pretty. This gave her a better opinion of him, rather than not, for it seemed to make his manner more habitual, and less aimed at her. Amandie had resolved that she would never be fooled again by a markless man. Indeed, even back when she had thought the Baron loved her, she would have been giving up a great deal to be with him.

A woman of the mark usually married a man of the mark; the reverse was true as well. What often happened was that an unmarked person would convert, for the sake of a sweetheart's favor, and all was well. But the god didn't grant the mark to a man or woman simply because someone else loved them, so there was no guarantee that this would work out so well. Amandie had decided that she wasn't even willing to think about someone who was unmarked as a candidate for her affections; that way, she would know someone's attentions were honorable ahead of time.

These two things that she had not paid enough attention to collided one day, when she least expected. She had been sent out to the herb garden to pick rosemary for the cook. This was really a kitchen girl's job, or a fetch boy's, but Amandie had volunteered, since Bonny was in a tizzy over the Lords' Luncheon. Amandie couldn't serve at the table, being a woman, and she'd felt useless watching people hustle around with preparations. They were so intent on what they were doing that they didn't even bother to give her a job, even though she still had a half hour of potential work, before her afternoon off.

She was selecting the freshest of the sprigs that she could find—Bonny was very particular about her ingredients—when Lord Quentin happened to stroll by, just in her line of sight. He was walking by himself in the formal Palace gardens, which adjoined the kitchen garden by a small brick-lined arch. There was a low brick wall that attached to this, which one could see over, and served more as a decorative border than anything else. Lord Quentin saw her and waved, and then ducked in through the arch.

He bowed cheerfully, greeting her as though she was a fine lady and not a Village girl crouched down on the ground, with mud on her dress. It had rained late in the night yesterday and the ground of the garden's herb patch was soft. The rosemary she had bundled into her apron was still wet; it gave off a scent more powerful and fresh than any of the perfumes which Amandie had smelled on any of the disdainful countesses, the ones who liked to comment on her "quaint" country accent.

"Here, let me help you," Lord Quentin said, offering his hand to her as she awkwardly tried to rise, without causing the herbs she'd just picked to tumble out of her apron. She was the one who was supposed to curtsy to him, as well as the one who should be offering him assistance, Amandie thought, dismayed by the situation. But she could hardly refuse, so she accepted his help with a shy murmur of appreciation.

"You have the mark, I see," Lord Quentin said, forgetting to let go of her hand. Instead, he tilted it so that the three circles caught the light, and seemed to dance on her palm. "I've always thought it such a pleasant thing—peace, truth, goodness—what a lovely idea," he said, smiling tranquilly at her. Amandie thought first that he had got it wrong—it was purity not goodness, and second that she wanted her hand back—but didn't want to be rude about it. Not when he was apparently entranced by the glowing mark.

"Yes, my lord," she said demurely, and then added, "There are many servants in the Palace with it," hoping it might encourage him to stop looking at her as though she was particularly special.

"I know I probably shouldn't tell you this," Lord Quentin continued blithely, "but the other day a group of young noblemen were trying to determine who was the loveliest of all the ladies in the Palace—silly, I know—but most of them are, I'm afraid," Lord Quentin digressed. "Anyway, they kept throwing out names, but I couldn't come up with one myself, because..." he paused, and his habitually sweet expression grew even sweeter, and at the same time, more serious, "... well, because the only one I could think of was you, you know."

Amandie felt her heart falter for a second. She was standing in the kitchen garden with a dirt-smudged skirt, and the handsomest lord in the Palace—for she couldn't help knowing that he was—and also the most charming—for who could fail to admit that either—had just told her that she was lovely. It was rather like one of the wistful daydreams she'd had, before she left the Village, and met the Baron, and been abused by him instead.

Amandie never knew what might have happened next—it seemed very likely that Lord Quentin would have kissed her, by the look in his eyes—because a brusque voice suddenly called out, quite loudly, "Amandie, you're wanted in the kitchen! Bonny is having a fit—she needs to put that rosemary in her sauce!" A short, nondescript boy wearing kitchen white followed this rather forceful voice. He came out into the kitchen garden and stood with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at Lord Quentin, or Amandie, or possibly the fact that Lord Quentin was holding Amandie's hand.

"Ah, I'd not meant to keep you from your work," Lord Quentin said apologetically. He did not let go of Amandie's hand guiltily, as she might have expected, but instead brought it to his lips in a cheerful kiss. "I'll be running along then," he said, with another very nice smile, which even included the disapproving kitchen boy. He disappeared back through the arch and out into the Palace gardens, singing to himself the second chorus of a popular love song.

Amandie was floored. She felt giddy; she didn't know what to do with herself. She stared at the kitchen boy, and then started to laugh at his expression, and then she stopped again, realizing he thought she was laughing at him. She wasn't, though; she was laughing at life, which was just too peculiar sometimes.

"Be careful," the unknown kitchen boy said more softly, his face less forbidding now that Lord Quentin was gone, but still troubled. "He may be one of the better ones, Lord Quentin, but he's still a lord."

"And I'm only a serving maid?" Amandie said, offended—though she'd been thinking the same thing herself. She breezed by the plain-looking boy, saying pertly, "If I'm wanted in the kitchen, I'd best get going, then." The boy didn't try to follow her, at least not that she saw. After she brought her herbs to the cook, who did not seem to be frantic at all, and wasn't even working on a sauce, Amandie left for her room and her time off. She spent the afternoon taking a much-needed nap; she'd been up late the last night, waiting on ladies at a fancy ball. And she was more than happy to temporarily escape thinking about what had happened, through the medium of sleep.

The end result of her little tête-à-tête with Lord Quentin was not, as one might think, that Amandie fell desperately in love with him. She really was too sensible for that. Although Lord Quentin seemed to be a fair way to falling in love with her. He continued to pay her endearing compliments, whenever a chance presented itself, and he often regarded her with a certain tender affection, so much so that she would have had a hard time not thinking of him, had she not been thinking of someone else.

Hawk wasn't bird-like, nor was he usually commanding, although he had stood up to Lord Quentin quite manfully, or so Amandie thought. He might better have been named Sparrow, but apparently his mother had thought to give him a prouder name than that. Despite this, he was an ordinary sort of fellow, even-tempered and, as it turned out, usually quite bashful. Amandie discovered that the latter quality was very prominent, once she knew him better. It must have taken a great deal of courage for him to have come out into the herb garden like that.

She had looked for him around the Palace after the incident, and she had thought she didn't see him. Then she realized she had seen him and simply overlooked. She'd been more impressed by his voice than his appearance, and after she'd taken umbrage at what he had said, she'd hardly even glanced at him as she left. It turned out that he wasn't a kitchen boy at all; he was one of the junior chefs in the kitchen, a position just under the cook.

In fact, he turned out to be no less than Bonny's son. Amandie had been bringing the serving trays to and from the kitchen for months now, and he had been in it. Not to mention that she'd eaten with him at every meal, though there were a great many other servants, and she didn't know them all by name, even now. Still, she was annoyed with herself for not having known he was there. He was also the boy that was so often in the chapel, she realized.

So, the end result of Lord Quentin's interference in her life was not that she fell in love with Lord Quentin, but rather, that she developed a rather frustrating crush on Hawk, the junior chef.

When she finally tracked him down and took him to task about it, he apologized profusely for what he'd said in the garden, telling her that she'd taken the opposite of what he meant. In fact, he went so far as to say that Amandie was too fine a lady for even Lord Quentin, who didn't have the mark. "I've seen you in the chapel, so I'm sure that's important," Hawk concluded. And then he blushed, and wouldn't talk to her again for several days.

This was a shame, because Amandie had instantly forgiven him. In this, she surprised even herself. But the apology was so nicely given, and she'd been quite relieved by Hawk's interruption, upon reflection, though she admitted she was slightly disappointed at the time. All in all, she was touched that he'd thought to protect her honor. And now that she knew he was there, she took notice of him.

She made a point of talking to him whenever she was in the kitchen. This seemed to make Bonny happy as well; apparently Amandie wasn't the only one who had ever overlooked the junior chef. And the more she talked to him, the more she liked him. He was sensible and quiet—and when she complained about not being able to get rid of it, he told her he liked her Village accent.

Pretty soon, Amandie couldn't help wishing that Hawk had been the one to take hold of her hand in the herb garden, and refuse to give it back. Unfortunately for her, whereas Baron Malkine had been relentless, and Lord Quentin was obviously still interested, Amandie couldn't even get Hawk to pursue her. The junior chef's comment about her being a lady, which she'd thought of as only a nice little speech, turned out to be what he actually thought. He treated her as though she was leagues' above him, as though she was being nice to him only because it was in her nature, and she couldn't help it.

To make it worse, since nothing in her kitchen escaped her attention, it wasn't long before Bonny guessed Amandie's secret inclination. Soon the cook was silently laughing at both of them.

"You and that lad of mine circle around each other like little boys learning to wrestle," Bonny told her one day, when they were both alone in the women's bathhouse. Amandie had been leaning back into the large common pool, enjoying the scalding hot water, but now she sat straight up. "I don't know what you mean," she answered primly. "Hawk and I are friends. And we're hardly fighting."

Bonny was a big woman, and her laugh was big as well. "Well, my dear, I wish you luck on it. I'm like you—I know what I want and I go after it—even if my son's too thick in the head to do so himself." Amandie protested uselessly at this, because Bonny just went on with, "I've told him to take you into Queen's Hollow on your day off, but who knows if he'll listen to me. No grown man likes to be told to do something by his mother. And he's that certain a pretty thing like you would never look his way twice."

Amandie was mortified. She hid it as well as she could, soaping herself up and then playing with the bubbles. "I'm sure that Hawk isn't interested in me," she said, with what she thought was a convincing show of diffidence. "And I think he's nice, but that's all, really."

"Mind, I'm rather astonished myself that you like him," Bonnie continued, as though she hadn't spoken. The cook wiggled around a little, making a large splash, "Even if I am pleased at it. You have good taste, lass; you'll not find another boy like my Hawk." Bonny nodded at the tub, and Amandie realized that she had just been given permission to like a young man by his mother; a retiring young man who gave no sign of returning her affections. She tried hard not to groan, or to laugh.

So, Bonny had noticed her little flirtations, even if Hawk had not. Indeed, Amandie'd never tried so hard—or so unsuccessfully—to invite a man's attention. She should probably have been more subtle about it, she thought to herself. If she wasn't careful, her friendly behavior alone would scare him off; that's if being practically instructed to like her by his mother didn't accomplish the same end first. Amandie sunk her head down under the water in shame. When she came out of the bathhouse later, with burning red cheeks, she blamed it on the heat of the tub.

But even though she got her hopes up about her day off, because of what Bonny had said, Hawk didn't ask her. As it turned out, he was either entirely too bashful, or truly uninterested.

"I need you to fetch me a jar of pickles from the storeroom," the cook said to her one day, when Amandie came into the kitchen with a half-empty breakfast tray. Amandie looked at Bonny curiously; the head cook was in the middle of baking a cake, and the junior chefs around her were working on other desserts. But the large, blonde-haired woman just winked at her and went back to beating a frothy batter with brisk, even strokes. "It's for later," she said cheerfully.

The storeroom was anterior to the kitchen, and down a short flight of stairs that led underground. It was cool and dark down there, but several high-set windows let in enough daylight that Amandie didn't need a lantern. The door to the storeroom was open, and she went directly over to the sturdy wooden shelves at the back of it, which were covered in jars and boxes, and began to hunt for pickles. She heard a slight noise behind her and to the left, which made her swing around, pickle jar in hand.

Hawk was sitting on a large barrel, one in a collection of barrels that were pushed against each other at the far wall. The tops of these formed a sort of bench, and they were directly underneath the rectangular window, so that the sunlight slanted down onto them. Amandie hadn't looked in this corner of the room when she first came in; she hadn't expected anyone else to be in here. "Oh, hello," she said, when her surprise had finally passed. Now Bonny's wink made sense to her. "What are you doing in here?" she asked Hawk.

The young chef was frowning at the jar of pickles in her hand, as though they were an odd choice, and then said, "I like to come here on my break, to read." Amandie noticed then that there was a well-worn leather book in his lap. "You don't want those, you know," Hawk continued. "They're spicy. If they're wanted for the sweet potato salad, for the picnic tomorrow, they should be sweet."

"Oh, thanks," she replied, feeling rather silly. Bonny hadn't bothered to specify a particular type. Amandie went back to the shelves, and located a different jar. Instead of leaving, though, she sat down on the barrel next to Hawk, putting the jar down in her lap. She shifted on the barrel uncomfortably, wondering how he wasn't bothered by its hard, bumpy surface. Their knees touched.

Hawk drew his away. He moved his body back against the wall, giving her more space.

Amandie tried not to take this personally. "What is it?" she asked, indicating the book that he was nervously clutching. She wasn't particularly fond of reading, herself, but clearly Hawk was, if he spent his spare time in a dimly lit room with only a book for company.

"It's... um... nothing really. Just some... poems," he answered. Amandie watched him tuck the book away to one side, and considered him. She didn't know how she'd ever thought his face was nondescript. His nose was slightly crooked, and his eyebrows were startlingly dark compared to his platinum streaked hair. These were definitely distinct, she concluded, although his exact features did seem to fade from her mind when she was away from him.

Amandie didn't know anyone else who read poetry. "Read one for me," she suggested. Hawk glanced over at her, but didn't reach for the book. "They're... they're not really appropriate for reading aloud," he said quickly. A slight red stain crept onto his cheeks.

Her interest in the book quickened, but she only shrugged and said, "Oh, well. No matter then." Both young people were quiet for a moment, and then she began, "I was thinking of going into Queen's Hollow on my next day off..." Amandie pressed her hands tighter around the pickle jar. It was practically an invitation.

"Oh, that's—that's nice," Hawk stuttered. "To—to do what?"

Her mind went blank. There had been many interesting things at Queen's Hollow when she passed through it with the gypsies, but she couldn't seem to think of an answer to this, as it hadn't been her purpose in bringing it up. Frantically, she searched her mind, and then blurted out, "I need a cream... for my face," she finished lamely.

Hawk looked at her face, and Amandie was suddenly conscious of the faint freckles that had appeared on it during her pleasant ramble with the gypsies. Judging by his mystified expression, he was considering whether she had a hidden skin disease, or was just expecting a case of the spots. "Well, that's good," he finally answered.

Amandie sighed, and picked up her jar of pickles, to bring to the cook. She bid Hawk a good morning, and left him to his reading. Face cream—of all the things to think of, she chided herself, as she climbed up the short stone steps. She had never used face cream in all her life; she'd never even remotely needed such a thing. Now Hawk would either think her paranoid, or vain.

I should have told him I was looking for a book, she thought wistfully.

Bonny took one look at Amandie's face when she set down the jar of sweet pickles on her work table, and then shook her head. "Little boys wrestling..." the head cook muttered to the fancy cake she was decorating.

The Dream

King Lukas considered the Baron's letter carefully. He had sent the messenger on his way swiftly, as the Baron had suggested, so that the lad—Gleason it had been—could help keep an eye on the situation. Gleason would go home to this Village of his, and report back about what had happened during his absence. This was news that King Lukas desperately wanted. He needed to know for certain whether his brother had been compromised by the faerie, like the rest of the folk of the Village. His brother was a fool to go there, King Lukas thought bitterly. Then again he thought, And I was a fool to let him.

If he'd had even the smallest suspicion that his brother would ever find the place—that it even existed—he never would have let him go. Although it was difficult to stop him from doing as he pleased, once he'd attached to an idea, short of locking him up. Jared had never been one to do as he was told. And he was also hard to refuse, King Lukas thought, as he settled wearily into his bed for the night. He had dismissed his servant, and the large bedchamber that in the daylight was brilliant with rich colors—with purple and red silk fabrics on the walls that perfectly matched the patterns on the upholstery and the bedspread—now was dim and extremely quiet. It was the perfect setting for an entire host of unwelcome thoughts.

Yes, Jared was hard to refuse, but not impossible; that was the difference. And if one had Jared on one's side, other people tended to listen. His brother was very useful, in more ways than one. He settled disputes that the king couldn't; he convinced the nobles to do important duties, ones that they had no vested interested in doing, of themselves. King Lukas had assumed his brother would find the Mad Priest, retrieve the medallion, and come back to the Palace, all in good time. Jared would have had his little adventure, and be ready to settle down and become High Priest, in earnest.

But he had not. Instead, he had wandered into a faerie Wood, and probably fallen into a faerie's trap. King Lukas had no idea exactly how much danger a faerie might actually pose to his willful brother, but it was still not good. The king contemplated what he might have to do, if news of his brother's defection was confirmed. The Village was another problem, of course, but it was a hidden one, and well-contained. He might have to deal with it, eventually. But Jared—well that was a different matter. Jared was King Lukas's brother. And King Lukas wanted him back.

Preferably, alive and unharmed.

It was probably these thoughts that led him into the dream. The dream that he hated, above all others; the one that he knew, no matter how hard he pushed it away, would always come back to haunt him.

In the dream, he was eight years old again, small and defiant and inquisitive. He had come into his brother's nursery, which connected to the queen's chambers, and he was peering into the bassinet. He knew that he wasn't supposed to be doing this by himself; the queen would always chase him out. But Prince Lukas was fascinated by having a brother, after being an only child for so many years.

The baby was pale and dark and—even to a slightly jealous sibling's eye—perfect. He reached out a tentative hand, wanting to touch the sleeping child and to stroke the soft, strangely woven blanket. Then he heard a sound, and snatched his hand guiltily back from the crib.

Footsteps were coming down the long hall, and he wasn't supposed to be in here. The young prince dashed into a closet, filled with shelves that held clothing and blankets. Then he peeked out through the large keyhole, which framed his view of the nursery in an hourglass shape. The queen came into the room, closing the door firmly behind her. She sat down in the chair next to the slumbering baby, and began to hum a sweet, simple tune.

Prince Lukas stiffened from behind the closet door—he had never heard his stepmother make so much as a sound before. Everyone said that she was mute; that she couldn't speak at all.

The nursery door opened again, and suddenly his father came in. The king was fair and bearded, and wore a heavily brocaded blue and purple robe, lined with a rich brown fur. His wife looked up from the bassinet with a smile of welcome, and he went over to her, putting his hand on her shoulders and gazing down at the baby himself.

The queen flinched away from him.

"Are you all right, my dear?" the king asked, surprised at this.

The queen smiled at him reassuringly, and then said, "You look hungry, my love. Here, eat this." She pulled a piece of fruit from her dress pocket, as though it was a perfectly normal thing to store it in there. Prince Lukas was astonished. He was always getting scolded by his nursemaid for leaving crumbs in his pockets. It wasn't something that he imagined adults did.

The king took the piece of fruit, which was a deep dark red, and just looked at it. It was shaped something like an apple, but it was too small to be one. "Eat this," the king murmured absently, bringing the fruit to his lips. He finished it in two bites, and a bright red juice dribbled down his chin, staining his beard. When he had finished, the queen leaned in closer to him and wiped the juice away with her fingers. Then she went back to the baby's crib, and started humming again.

The king stood where he was for a moment, and then slowly turned. Prince Lukas caught a glimpse of his father's eyes, which looked unfamiliar now, and overly bright. He passed a hand across them, and it trembled slightly. He said to the queen, rather abruptly, "We should name the child, my dear. It's been too long. People will begin to wonder."

The Silent Queen turned her blazing blue eyes on him, and flicked back her long red hair. "He already has a name, but I suppose you must call him something," she said tranquilly. "What do you suggest?"

The king regarded her with confusion. "Jared, I thought... an old family name. What do you mean he already has one?" he asked her.

"Nothing, my dear," the queen replied, soothingly.

"Well, then," the king answered, "I must get back to the Great Hall. There's been trouble about the trees, again..." The queen's attention, which had gone back to baby, snapped over to the king again. "What trouble?" she asked sharply.

"Oh, just a few extra ones, growing out of the boundary. The royal steward wants to trim them back."

"You won't harm the trees?" the queen asked, coming to her full height, which was nearly as tall as a man.

"Well, my love, cutting them back seems like a sensible idea," he protested.

His wife's face grew hard. "You will not cut the trees," she stated, in a low, even voice.

The king's eyes went wide, and then grew unfocused. "I will not cut the trees," he repeated quietly. The queen sighed, and then moved her hands against her dress, smoothing it down. "That's good," she said approvingly. And then she bent forward and straightened the collar of his shirt.

"What was I doing?" the king asked her, confused.

"You were going back to the Great Hall," she prompted him gently.

"Ah, of course." The king smiled genially at her, lifted her hand to kiss it, and then left the nursery. The queen went over and closed the door behind him. Then she came back to the bassinet, and began to hum again.

Prince Lukas moved his eye away from the keyhole, and sunk back into the blackness of the closet. He felt frightened and almost sick. The Silent Queen wasn't silent at all. She was controlling his father with her words.

The dream faded, and King Lukas sat up in his bed, his heart racing. He was covered in sweat. It was over now, but the horror of it still lingered in his mind. His body convulsed in a sudden coughing fit. He reached over for a glass of water from the jar on his bedside table, but knocked it to the floor instead. He gave up and leaned back in the bed, wiping his mouth with his night sleeve, and leaving bright red flecks on the white fabric.

Yes, he needed his brother back, the king thought dully.

Jared was useful to him, in more ways than one.

The Royal Seal

Father Jared's cup had grown cold while he read the letter that the Village lad had brought him. It was not a good sort of letter, with happy news of home; no, it was the kind that made one's tea grow cold in the reading of it. Its words invaded the little stone church like a brooding rain cloud, one which appeared on an otherwise sunny day. As the young priest read them over one more time, Lady Erin came in quietly through the back door, as though she had sensed trouble. "Knocking, remember?" he murmured, without looking up.

The faerie went back to the door, which she had already closed behind her, and rapped smartly on it from the inside. Then she took a seat across the table from him, just as he sighed again. "I wouldn't trust a letter brought by that person," she said unexpectedly. Father Jared finally glanced up, taking in her worried frown.

"It was just a Village lad that brought it," he replied, trying to remember what the boy had looked like. He had been a plain sort of fellow, rather unattractive, but hardly sinister. "Besides, it was sealed," he said, unthinkingly showing her the red wax dot that he had cut open. Lady Erin's eyes narrowed onto it, but the young priest was too preoccupied to notice.

Instead, he looked around the living space of the Church, which had grown to feel like home in the past several months, perhaps even a home he'd never had. A thick traveling cloak hung by a hook from the back door, and a pair of black boots sat underneath it. The fireplace was next to this, along the wall facing him; right now it was cold and empty. The days were not yet autumn, although the weather hovered on the brink of it. He had come at the beginning of summer, and now it was nearing its end.

By now he knew every detail of this room, even in the dark, or with his eyes closed. Next to a small desk there were two chairs in front of the fire, on top of a handmade hooked rug. These chairs were more comfortable and padded than the chairs at the kitchen table, where he and Lady Erin sat. A small crate, standing on its end, served as a bookcase, and a cabinet to the side held a set of mismatched dishes. To the far wall, perpendicular to the door, was the cast iron stove and the low sink, along with the shelves that held boxes and jars of food and cooking spices. An intricately carved clock hung on the wall behind the kitchen table, and the doorway next to it led down the hall and into the other private room of the Church, a rather untidy sleeping chamber.

This held a simple bed, a bureau, and a half empty chest—half empty only because most of its contents were littered about the floor. There was generally a vase of flowers on the bureau, which seemed to appear there by magic, meaning they undoubtedly came from Erin. This was the self-same faerie who was patiently waiting for him to focus back onto their previous conversation. She was uncanny in this; she could be companionable for hours, only to vanish back into her Wood in an instant, with very little warning.

"I've had a letter from my brother," the young priest said, finally. He took a sip of his cold tea, and grimaced. "He's not well, and he's asked me to come back." Father Jared watched Lady Erin's face as he said this, trying to gauge her response. The faerie said nothing, nor did she stir for a bit. Then she stood up and went over to the fireplace. Kneeling in front of it, she began to lay down kindling. "You don't need to do that, right now," he protested gently, wishing she would come back again so that he could see her face. "It's not even chilly."

Erin just ignored him and waved her hands over the branches, singing a snatch of a tune, so that they flared up into a merry blaze. She didn't back away from it when they had caught fire, as she usually did, which rather surprised him. The faerie had never seemed to like being near to the fireplace before, although the dead faerie wood burned without smoke, seemingly endlessly. It didn't burn as hot as the grass bundles did, but it smelled a thousand times better; like tree sap and fresh spring leaves.

"Will you go, then?" she asked at last, keeping her back to him.

"I think I must," he replied, moving restlessly out of his chair and coming over to her, in front of the brightly burning fire. She straightened back away from it as he approached, and sat down in one of the armchairs. He warmed his hands briefly, and then took the chair next to hers.

"What does your brother do?" she asked quietly. He hesitated, and then told her, "He manages a large estate."

"Does that mean you'll do it for him, until he recovers?" she asked, her eyes on the fire.

"Possibly. At the very least, I'll help take care of him, until he's better." Which was a great deal more complicated than it sounded, he thought. There were any number of things that could come of this letter, and not many of them were ones he predicted liking.

"Where did you say you lived, before you came here?" Erin asked, still not looking at him. Her typically pallid profile was tinged with a warm glow from the light of the flames.

"Just outside of Queen's Hollow," he answered uncomfortably. It was all true of course, even if it was misleading. Lady Erin nodded, as though trying to picture this on the map of Calundra, the one that happened to reside in the leaflet of one of Father Brion's books.

"When will you be back?" she asked.

"I'm not sure." Father Jared didn't really want to think about leaving, let alone returning to the Palace and then trying to convince his brother to let him journey out from it again.

"You still don't really trust me," she said, her expression growing tenser.

"I don't think it's possible for a human to fully trust a faerie," he answered, a bit more bluntly than he intended. But there was no point in pretending he was being open, when it was clear to both of them that he was not. And after all, he'd hardly promised to tell her everything about himself. He hadn't even wanted to get close to her, Father Jared thought, with a sudden pang.

Erin got up from the chair, in that quick way of hers, and crouched down in front of him. Her black eyes were fierce. "That's because you haven't told me who you really are! I know that letter held the royal seal; I recognized it."

The young priest's heart skipped a beat. He wasn't quite sure if it was fear he felt, or something else. "I've told you as much as I can," he defended, somewhat feebly. Erin just looked at him, the fire making a halo around her black hair.

Then she gently laid her palm against his cheek.

As it had been the last time, the soft feeling of her fingers on his face was shocking, but pleasant. He held his breath, but Erin breathed softly, not moving, letting her hand rest where it was.

And then she said, "Maybe you don't even know yourself." It was almost a whisper. Her fingers moved away from his skin, leaving it cold where their faint warmth had been.

And then—as swiftly as she'd come—she left, before he recovered himself enough to speak.

It took him some time to get the Church in order, and to tell its members of his decision to leave. He promised to send them another priest, if it turned out he was unable to come back, and he bid them all farewell, for the time being. He took his time shutting up the living quarters of the Church, and packing up his things. When everything was done—so much so that he was ready to pull on his cloak and boots and leave the Church of the Wood for what might be the last time—he realized that he was waiting for something.

Erin hadn't reappeared, after their last conversation. Since then, he had expected her to drop by at any moment, but she had not. She hadn't even come to the Church for the last holy day. Thinking of this, the young priest distractedly tugged on his heavy outerwear, and then slung his knapsack over his shoulder. He walked out through the front door of the Church, and passed out through the front gate.

As he walked, his eyes scanned the dark trees that bordered the dirt path. He saw nothing between them, not a hint of motion. The Wood was abnormally still; blacker spaces than usual seemed to have fallen between the trunks, replacing the filtered sunlight that had shone between them less than a week ago, before he and Erin had last spoken.

The faerie was nowhere to be seen. The Wood was completely unrevealing.

Still, he lingered at the last portion of the path, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. He passed slowly by the lake, where he couldn't help but see an image in his mind of the two of them, half-dozing on its shore. He reached the first of the houses of the Village, and then turned all the way back around, gazing off into the Wood.

She wasn't going to say goodbye, he realized. This was it.

He told himself that he blinked his eyes because of the angle of the sun, as he made his way through the Village. Certainly, he managed to wave and smile at everyone who waved and smiled at him. And if his steps were heavy, well—he told himself—it's always hard to leave a place where one has been happy for a time.

Father Jared thought of Night, then, as he climbed through the valley, heading for the stump at the top of the hill. Night would have gone feral by now; the cantankerous beast always been on the verge of it. He was pretty sure that Night had not been troubled at being left behind, unsaddled, with no bridle or burdens.

He'd thought of going back for him, but he was fairly certain that a normal horse would never tolerate the Wood, even if one could be brought through the Dead Tree. He had a feeling, though, that Night would not have gone far; the farmer's over-grown fields had been good grazing. The young priest grinned, wondering if he would be able to catch him.

Father Jared placed his hand against the bark of the Dead Tree. This time it only sighed, and did not speak to him. He stumbled through, coming out the other side and into the old farmer's fields. Night was nowhere to be seen, but there were plenty of other horses, and men on them—men with swords—all pointed at him. There were even a few crossbows, trained at his head.

The young priest stared at them all, bemused rather than scared. It didn't occur to him that this was anything other than a mistake, until he saw the Baron. Father Jared's gaze focused on Baron Malkine, who should have known better, and suddenly he felt outraged. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded.

"You must forgive me," the Baron said, in a pleasant drawl, "if I don't tell my men to step down right away. You see, I know where you've come from; I've had some experience with it myself, though only from a distance." Father Jared shifted in front of the tree, feeling more vulnerable at these words than he had at all of the weapons that were trained at him.

"My brother won't be pleased when he hears you've been threatening me," the young priest said tightly.

"Actually, your brother was the one who asked me to threaten you," the Baron replied, seeming to find this amusing. Then his handsome, bearded face grew colder. "The king thinks it enough if you swear by your mark that you've not fallen under the faerie's evil influence. Myself... well, I'm not so certain."

Father Jared pulled his shoulders back, trying to think on his feet. If the Baron's instructions had been anything other than a precaution, he'd be dead already. Unless the man was just playing with him. The young priest tried not to feel betrayed—he'd not make any judgments against his brother based solely on anything this man said.

"Then I'm happy to reassure you that the faerie has no evil influence, at least none that I've ever experienced." The young priest held up his left palm, and he saw the eyes of the men around the Baron go to the mark. "I swear by the god, I am free of sorcery. I make my own decisions."

"And would one of those decisions be not to hurt me and my men—and not to kill your brother the king? I don't know... after speaking to a faerie, I'm not sure we can trust you not to go on some mad spree of destruction..." the Baron said. But he did not appear to be too concerned, despite these words, unless it was an all act.

"I'm a priest," Father Jared snapped. "And a prince, in case you've forgotten. I serve not only Calundra, but also a god of peace, truth, and purity." There was a moment of silence after this, and every eye remained on his marked hand, as though expecting it to suddenly go bare. When it did not, there was an easing of stance from the Baron's men; swords and the bows lowered, pointing to the ground instead.

"A pathetic god, if you ask me," the Baron replied rudely. "I didn't," Father Jared growled. The men on the horses shifted uncomfortably, and there was a murmur from one of them about disrespecting the young prince, aimed in the Baron's direction.

"Well, I'm content to offer you my services, then," Baron Malkine replied, with a sudden show of civility.

"Would that include removing yourself and your men from my path?" the young priest asked belligerently, losing his temper with the situation.

"I'm afraid that's not possible. You see, I've been asked to escort you back to the Palace. You're right, you know, your brother wouldn't be pleased if I let anything happen to you," the Baron said, clearly relishing this.

Father Jared steamed quietly for a moment, and then told himself it could be worse. He hardly needed an armed guard, but it wouldn't do to fight about it.

"Very well," he said, as ungraciously as possible. "But first I need to locate my horse. He should be around here somewhere..." He wasn't sure why he was so certain Night would have stayed in the vicinity of the Dead Tree, waiting for him to come back, but he felt that it was so, nevertheless.

"If you mean that vicious brute over there," Baron Malkine replied, inclining his head in the direction of the farmhouse, "I thought I recognized the animal." The Baron moved his mount aside, and Father Jared saw Night come around the side of the farmer's broken-down fence, shaking his head curiously at all the commotion. Father Jared smiled; the horse's coat was covered in burrs and his long black mane was tangled with leaves and dirt. He looked healthy, and unusually happy, as though he'd just been rolling on the ground.

The huge black horse saw the young priest, and whinnied. It was a much better welcome than Baron Malkine's.

His welcome back at the Palace was also significantly better than his near death and interrogation at the Dead Tree. "So, brother, have you come to kill me then, and put me out of my misery?" the king asked him humorously, leaning back into the bed after another coughing fit. King Lukas's usually ruddy face was almost as pale as the young priest's. After greeting Father Jared, and being reassured as to the state of his mind, King Lukas had dismissed the servants that had been hovering about him with cool cloths and pungent medicines. Now it was only the two of them.

Father Jared settled wearily onto a chair by his brother's bedside. He was tired from his journey, which he'd kept at a merciless pace—partly to spite the Baron and partly because of a growing sense of worry about his brother, after hearing the details of King Lukas's condition from Baron Malkine's gossip. Father Jared had rather hoped the king had exaggerated his illness in the letter, in order to have an excuse to bring him back; but hearing the Baron talk of it, the young priest feared that he had not.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said now, pouring a glass of water for his brother and lifting it to his lips. The change in him was shocking; this illness must have been progressing rapidly for many months. King Lukas grinned slightly, as though humored to have a young priest as his nursemaid, but accepted the assistance. "So, tell me about your Wood, and your Church," the king said, when he had finished drinking. Father Jared watched anxiously as his brother closed his eyes and rested his head back against the pillows. "Did you find the Mad Priest," at this his brother glanced over at him briefly, before closing his eyes again, "and was he still as mad as ever?"

"There's not much to tell. Father Brion was already gone when I got there; I never even got a chance to speak to him." Father Jared wondered if it was his imagination, or if his brother's drawn face hadn't suddenly relaxed a bit at these words. "The Church is small, and the Village is too, though many of the folk have the mark, more than one would expect for its size. The Wood is..." Father Jared's voice failed him. A sudden image of Erin had overwhelmed him; he took refuge in smoothing out his brother's bedclothes. "The Wood is a large collection of trees, that's all," he finished.

"No need to fuss," his brother said, pushing his hands away, with a show of peevishness. "Do you mean to tell me, then, that the Wood isn't enchanted? I was assured by that boy—Gleason—that it was. Even the Baron thought so, and he's not a man to be fanciful. Well, at least not about trees," the king chuckled.

"There's a type of magic there, I suppose," the young priest replied, carefully. "But none that should worry us. Not here." His brother opened an eye—a bright blue, keen one. "And the faerie?" King Lukas inquired.

Father Jared was silent for long enough to make the silence itself sound significant. "The faerie is part of the Wood. I don't quite understand it myself. But she bears the mark, and as far as I know, she's done no harm to anyone."

King Lukas's other eye opened as well now, and he gazed at the young priest with intense concentration. "Just because she's done no harm yet, doesn't mean she's not capable of it. You mustn't go back there, you know."

The young priest shifted in his position by the bed, as though the chair he'd drawn up to it was uncomfortable. "We don't need to have this conversation right now. We can wait until you're better," he told his brother calmly. It was only as he said this that Father Jared realized he had every intention of going back to the Church of the Wood, and just as soon as possible.

"No, brother, that isn't going to work. You won't convince me this time." King Lukas laughed, as though at a private joke. "I'm afraid you can't make me live, just by telling me to do so." As if to illustrate, the king fell into another coughing spasm that lasted several minutes. When the fit had finally passed, Father Jared tried to tell his brother to sleep, and that they'd talk in the morning, but he wouldn't listen.

"Now," he said weakly. "Now is all I have left. You must promise me something." He had sat up in the bed very earnestly. His face was flushed, and his eyes looked feverish.

"Of course," Father Jared replied soothingly. "Just sit back and rest, and don't worry about it."

King Lukas shook his head, adamant. "You know I'm fond of Selena, enough so that I've allowed her to persuade me to postpone my marriage to Lady Odith—several times, in fact," the king struggled with another brief, rasping laugh, "but she hasn't given me any heirs, even illegitimate ones."

Father Jared tried to control his face, which he knew was registering disapproval; Selena was the king's mistress, and they'd fought over this issue, many, many times. "Which leaves you my heir, of course," the king concluded. When Father Jared began to shake his head, his brother groaned at him. "Choosing someone outside of the direct line, from amongst the quarreling factions, that would be a terrible mistake and you know it. Enough to start a civil war."

The young priest didn't want to admit that this was true, but it was. His brother continued, with a look as though the words were costing him the last of his strength. "You must promise to be king after me, and to marry Lady Odith, as I should have done. It will bring her family back in line with the royal blood; anything less, and I fear there will be blood shed."

After this speech, King Lukas finally sank back against the silken sheets of the bed, his face white and his body trembling. He reached out a hand towards his brother, and Father Jared clasped it. The young priest suppressed the automatic feeling of distaste at the contact and took the king's hand in his own.

"Promise," King Lukas insisted.

"I promise," the young priest replied, in a low voice. "But only so that you will stop worrying, and go to sleep, so you can get better."

"I knew you wouldn't like it," his brother replied faintly. "You always were a difficult man. Tell me, brother, which are you less happy about me leaving you—my kingdom, or my fiancée?" King Lukas laughed then, once more, and coughed until his breathing grew ragged. Father Jared anxiously watched his brother's chest rise and fall until he was certain that the feeble young king was asleep, and then he finally let go of his brother's hand and sought his own chambers, which seemed to have grown strangely drafty and foreign to him after the close snugness of the Church.

Several weeks passed and despite his brother's faithful companionship the king seemed to grow no better. If anything, his condition worsened and Father Jared spent more and more time by his bedside, reminiscing about their boyhood scrapes, reading to him, or simply keeping him company while he napped.

"Brother, I need to ask you something," Father Jared said at last, once the king's breathing had evened out after another bout of coughing. He'd not meant to bring this up now, but he was beginning to fear that Lukas was right; it looked as though the king actually did have little time left.

King Lukas breathed quietly, but did not answer. Father Jared decided to go on. "I need to know if the rumors are true—the rumors about my mother." He wasn't sure why he was certain his brother could tell him, when he'd never been willing to speak of it before, but he felt strongly that this was something that the king had been withholding.

"What do you think?" his brother whispered. He had closed his eyes again, and he didn't open them.

"I think they must be," Father Jared whispered, his heart sinking. And yet he had been convinced, at one time, that they were only malicious lies.

His brother sighed. "She was, you know. Father made me swear never to tell you, but it hardly matters now. You must believe me, though—you aren't like her. She was just as evil as people say. I'm sorry that it was so."

Father Jared bowed his head, which felt now like it ached with an incurable headache. "Why did you protect me? Why did Father, knowing what I was?"

His brother moved restlessly on the bed and opened up his eyes again. "I've watched you very carefully, brother. You've always been more human than faerie. By the god, you're a better human than I am," he exclaimed softly, gazing into his brown-haired brother's eyes. "I would have had Baron Malkine kill you, had you come out of the Wood different. I couldn't have risked peoples' lives..."

"I know," Father Jared said quietly. "You don't need to fear that, ever." His brother nodded, and said, "I do know. I have your promise." King Lukas gripped his hand and the young priest did not take it away, despite the feeling of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. "It never mattered to me, you know. I've always loved you, brother," the king said faintly.

"And I you," the young priest whispered back. The sick king's grip finally relaxed, and his eyes blinked closed, this time for good. Father Jared made his brother as comfortable as he could, and watched him closely while he fell into a fitful slumber.

It wasn't until morning came, and the young priest awoke from an awkward position, half-reclined in a straight-backed chair, that he realized his brother had mocked him for the very last time.

The New King

The Palace was astir with news of Prince Jared's return, and King Lukas's death. Amandie found that some of the servants in the Palace had been quite fond of the ailing king, whom she did not know very well herself, whereas others gave a token of respect to his passing, or were clearly indifferent. She had seen the young prince for herself and recognized him immediately as the priest she had met in the tavern, but Amandie had not been noticed by him, nor had she approached him. It didn't seem right to disturb him with such a tenuous acquaintance, especially when the entire of the Palace was involved in preparations for King Lukas's funeral, and the entirety of Calundra, perhaps, was involved in preparations for Prince Jared's coronation afterward.

Several weeks had passed since Prince Jared's return, from a little unnamed Village where he had been serving as priest, and the swift arrival of these two momentous events consumed everyone's attention. But Amandie did want to talk to the young prince—young king now, she reminded herself, for the coronation had been yesterday. Not to pick up on their last conversation, which was inconsequential to anyone but herself, but to ask for news of the Village, and possibly even of Lady Erin herself. For the young priest must surely have met her in the Church. Amandie had felt a sense of concern about the faerie lately, a vague unease that she couldn't quite shake.

It is not easy to approach a king. Despite his friendly manner earlier, the new king's handsome face was habitually sober and, for the most part, his demeanor was forbidding now. He set the Palace in a flurry, turning away King Lukas's mistress. She left in style, going to live at one of the royal country estates which people said that the new king had generously given to her; still, on the whole it was unsettling. He also wound up changing the fashions at court, which had been given to bosom-spilling dresses; suddenly all the ladies of the Palace were wearing high collars, and sending for their seamstresses. This made Amandie laugh; she'd found the revealing cuts a shock herself, when she first came here. The young prince may have given up his priesthood to become a king, but he still bore the mark; clearly purity would be a new kind of regime here.

Black was also in evidence, in respect for King Lukas's passing. Amandie and the rest of the servants wore armbands, but the King himself wore black entirely. This fact made Wick of the Road stand out less, or so Amandie thought, when she came across him in Lady Odith's room. Lady Odith was not alone with the bard, of course; they were having a cozy chat with many other ladies present, all crowded into the medium-sized parlor of the Yellow Room, as Lady Odith's chambers were called. This was for the canary-colored curtains, and the splotches of yellow in the fleur-de-lis on the unusually thick rug.

Amandie brought in a silver tray full of snacks, light fare such as fruits and cheeses, cut daintily into pieces. She set it on the low table in the midst of the couches and chairs. The ladies' eyes immediately fell on the tray, exclaiming how famished they were, and how lovely the fruit looked, but Uncle Wick's attention fell on her. "Well, lass, I haven't seen you in a bit," the bard said cheerfully, reaching for her hand and pulling her over. Lady Odith glanced over at Amandie in the act of taking a delicate bite from a buttery cracker topped with creamy herb cheese, as though seeing her for the first time.

"Lady Odith, may I present Amandie of the Village. Amandie is an honorary gypsy," Wick said, with dramatic flair. The introduction was hardly necessary, since she had been serving Lady Odith and the others for months, but the lady regarded her closely and said, "Are you new here, girl?" as though it was the first time they'd ever met.

Amandie curtsied gracefully, privately cursing Wick for pointing her out. The bard didn't let her reply; instead he answered Lady Odith smoothly by saying, "Amandie comes from the same Village that King Jared lately returned from—isn't that so, lass?"

The young Village girl tried to hide her surprise. She wasn't sure how Wick had made this connection, as she never talked about home with anyone, but apparently he had. Perhaps the coincidence of two nameless villages was all that had drawn them together in the bard's mind; but looking at Wick's sharp gray eyes, Amandie wasn't certain. "I'm not sure," Amandie replied. "I haven't had a chance to ask him."

The attention of the entire group fell on her now and one of the women—dressed in a tightly laced black and white dress, tittered at her. "No, I don't imagine you have," Lady Odith said, her face struggling to keep back a condescending smile. Amandie felt her cheeks begin to glow red; she hadn't meant it to sound as though she had a right to chat with the king—though come to think of it, hadn't she? She was one of his subjects now, and just as good as anyone else. Amandie kept her head tilted proudly, refusing to be made shy.

"Ah, I'm certain that it is," the bard said casually. "And I'm also certain that the lovely Lady Odith," and here the bard picked up Lady Odith's heavily ringed hand, and kissed it decorously, "would love to know more about the king's travels, since he's been too busy to share them with any of his friends." Amandie couldn't help wondering if Wick had decided to humiliate her because he was bored, or if there was something else going on. The gray-haired older man could be thoughtless, but he had always been kind to her, at least he had been before.

Lady Odith was wearing full black, apparently in heavy mourning for her intended's death, even though the rumor was that she would soon be betrothed to the new king. Her golden hair was sleekly braided onto her head in an elegant coronet, studded with flashing black diamond pins, or so Amandie assumed they must be, from the way they sparkled. The dress contrasted nicely with her peach-colored skin, rather than washing her out, as black robes seemed to do for the young king. All in all, Lady Odith was young and beautiful, though her expression right now was far from pleased.

Amandie couldn't help wondering if she resented being handed over—like a pair of used slippers grown too tight for an eldest child—or if Lady Odith had secretly preferred the serious brown-haired prince to the fair and jovial one. She tried to remember that the lady might be grieving, so she said nicely, "I can tell you a little of my Village, if you like, but it's not very interesting. It's just small, and the folk are hard-working. Most of us have the mark, and we do our work honestly, and try to live in peace." She self-consciously held up her palm, hoping that it might distract some of the ladies from the topic of her home, and lead on to another discussion. Preferably it would be one that she might escape from quietly.

Lady Odith lifted her hand as well, with a small smile of satisfaction; the mark glowed out brightly from the smooth skin of her palm. "I've only just taken it," she said calmly, "at the king's request, of course. I must say, it is different from what I expected."

Wick's face grew mischievous. He ignored Amandie's mark, and instead reached out for Lady Odith's hand, pretending to inspect it.

"Just making sure it's genuine, my lady," he said when she raised her eyebrows at him. Lady Odith laughed, and then pulled her palm away. "You are incorrigible, Wick. Have no fear, it's not make-up; it won't wash off." Some of the other ladies nearby, who had been watching them with interest, laughed at this; some were too busy eating or having their own muted conversations to give their full attention to Amandie and Wick and Lady Odith.

"Aye, so you've passed, then," Wick said, his gray eyes twinkling at Lady Odith. "I assume you do know it was a test?" he inquired. The bard's tone was frivolous, but Amandie heard a slight edge beneath it. Lady Odith sat up straighter, and frowned.

"Nonsense. You speak too freely, bard," she said reprovingly. "I have no need to prove myself to the new king. The house of Penth has always raised its ladies in the strictest manner, regardless of religion."

"I beg your pardon," Wick said smilingly. "It was only a joke, my lady; no one doubts your honor. Certainly none who's aware of Lord Leigh's prowess with a sword, nor of his unforgiving temperament." Amandie was beginning to hope, now that the conversation seemed to have moved beyond her, that she might edge away without drawing anyone's attention. Wick seemed to be determined to bait the lady, and Amandie had no desire to be associated with it.

Lady Odith frowned, her lovely face marred by the rather prominent wrinkles that it made in her forehead. "My cousin would not duel with a man for no reason. And now that I have the mark, he hardly needs concern himself any longer with my reputation. The mark speaks for itself—isn't that right, girl?"

Amandie had nearly made it to the door, but now she turned around. "Yes, my lady," she replied, curtsying again.

"Bring us some sparkling wine, as well," Lady Odith said in response. It was a clear leave to go.

Amandie sped down the hall to the kitchen, not bothering to look back to see whether Uncle Wick would have preferred her to stay, in order to ask her more uncomfortable questions. In her haste, she rounded a corner blindly and walked smack into someone.

"Ooof!" a familiar voice exclaimed. It was the voice of the young priest from the tavern; it was a voice that was hard to forget.

"Your majesty, I'm so sorry—it's all my fault—I wasn't looking..." she babbled, trying to right herself at the same time as she tried to bow to the king. Amandie succeeded only in wobbling all the more dangerously. King Jared gripped her elbow, and set her upright with an easy motion. "No damage done," he began, and then he stopped and stared at her, letting go quickly. "I know you!" he exclaimed, with a look of dawning recognition. "You're the girl from the tavern."

"Yes, your majesty," she said, making the bow she had failed to make before, and then hardly daring to look up at him.

"So, you came to here to show off your skills," the young king said, pleasantly. His face, which lately had seemed very different from the eager face of the young priest she had once met, lost some of its new restraint.

"I thought, after what you said, that it sounded like a good idea." She did look up then, and she smiled. The king smiled back at her; the first she could remember seeing since his brother's untimely death.

"Well, then, how do you like the Palace?" he asked her. "Here," he said suddenly, "walk with me to the ballroom. I have to meet my steward there—he insists he needs my input into the next event," the king added, heading down the corridor in the direction he'd been going before Amandie almost knocked him down. The Village girl trailed along next to him, since he obviously expected her to follow.

"I do like the Palace," she said a bit breathlessly. "But I miss... the Village." She glanced over at him as she said this. The young king came to a dead stop, and then stared at her. "Which village?" he demanded.

"Well, there's only one, where I come from," Amandie replied uncertainly. Perhaps it was too forward of her to ask the king for news of home, she thought.

But King Jared's face lit up. "Ah, so that's it. I thought there was something about you—the red and green ribbons, I suppose," he said, his eyes traveling to the braided bracelet that was tied around Amandie's wrist.

"Yes, your majesty," she said, curtsying. The young king looked for a moment as though he was trying not to laugh, and she remembered that she had already bowed, and didn't need do so again until he dismissed her.

"I wondered if you might tell me how they are—the Church, and the Village..." Amandie's voice fell, even though there was no one else around, "...and the Wood?"

The young king's smile faded; he didn't answer but his face grew pensive, and then sad. "They were all well, when I left them," he said, at last. "And I will see that they stay that way," he vowed suddenly, his dark—almost black—eyes gazing past Amandie to the wall behind her, as if at something that wasn't there.

Amandie felt a certain tension ease away from her; she had feared, deep down, that this nice young king was no different from the rest of Calundra: hungry for power, greedy for land. "Thank you, your majesty," she said in a whisper of gratitude—mostly for Lady Erin.

King Jared blinked, as though only just remembering that Amandie was standing there. "We must speak more of this later," he said, his face settling back into its more habitual expression; sober, and slightly melancholy.

Amandie took this as it was meant, as a dismissal, and bowed to him correctly. Then she turned around and sped back down the corridor towards the kitchen, this time taking care to look where she was going.

"Everything all right?" Hawk finally asked, when she had come in and stood by him for a while. She was fiddling with an apple corer he had left at his right elbow. He was working on the topping for what appeared to be a strudel. Everyone else in the kitchen was busy, and for some reason, Amandie wanted to be close to someone who was quiet, and who didn't make her feel overawed or awkward.

"I think so," Amandie said. The junior chef looked over at her, but didn't move away, even though Amandie was slightly crowding him.

"Want a piece?" he asked, indicating another bowl in front of her that held apples coated in several different spices.

"Mmmm," she replied, reaching for one.

The Baron's Revenge

Heartbreak was just as good an excuse as any for being foolish enough to get captured—or so Lady Erin thought.

It all began when she watched the young priest walk calmly away from the Wood and into the Village, probably for the very last time. He had stopped and looked for her before he entered it—she had seen him—but he had not called her name.

If he had, she would have come.

It wasn't merely pride that kept her from saying goodbye to him. It was also defeat; she had tried to befriend him, and she had failed. He was not what he said he was and without the truth, he was right; he would never trust her. She knew he couldn't be lying to her consciously—not him, a priest with the mark. Oh no, his story must run deeper than that. She was fairly certain that she had just not said goodbye to a prince of Calundra; of which there were only two, and one was the King now.

She had noted the similarity of name; but "Jared" was common enough. And who would imagine that a man of royal blood would become a priest or—what was more unusual—a humble country priest, at that?

Ah, the faerie thought, with a pang of betrayal. She knew now why Father Brion had requested this man to come. It made her wonder why the old priest had not spoken to her of it. But he had never wanted to talk of his life before the Church of the Wood. It had pained him, Lady Erin thought, remembering the blue stone; she had not wished to make him sad by insisting he talk about it. Now, though—now she would have liked to demand that he tell her the whole story, from start to finish, leaving no details out.

And she would have, if his body had not rested in the Church cemetery, a long green mound that she often grew flowers upon.

Even as she did so now, singing a scattering of day lilies over it, part of her resented her discovery of Father Brion's secrets. The young prince could not be her kin even so—although half of him must be faerie—there was no other explanation left. But the Wood of the Palace had not been related to her Wood; it was younger, and the two faeries that had lived in it—twins, her mother once told her—had not been the best sort of faeries. No, Lady Erin mused, not the best sort of faeries at all. They were some of the ones who had grown embittered by the Wars; they sought to meddle in human affairs, to bring an end to them by subterfuge or possibly even violence.

Lady Erin's family had always believed in leaving humans alone—in fighting a purely defensive war. She didn't know what the faeries from the Palace of the Wood had done, or why, but clearly this part-human young priest was a result of it. It was a thought to make Lady Erin shudder.

Nothing could be worse than marrying a human, she thought.

Lady Erin lovingly contemplated her numerous dark trees, thinking that—to be fair—her family had been able to stay separate from the Faerie Wars, in a way that other faeries had not. The Wood was the first wood of all Calundra, it was secretive and ancient. It protected itself better than all the other woods had, in a way that only it knew how. The faeries of the Wood—which had dwindled to her alone—could afford to follow a more peaceful path.

She had not been given any specific set of instructions on how the Wood's magic worked. It was not the way of faeries to write things down, and her parents had died when she was very young. Perhaps there was more to it—more that they never had a chance to teach her. But Lady Erin wasn't one to worry. She knew that the Wood was her Wood, and that she was its faerie; that was the heart of the magic. The rest was intuitive.

She tried to go back to life as usual, after the young priest left. She swam in the lake, and sat dripping on its pebbly shores as the clouds blew by. She tended to the trees, and she conversed with the animals. When a new priest eventually did come into the Wood, she even went back to attending the Church. He was a timid man, by the name of Father Derek, and he had clearly been briefed by the Villagers to leave the faerie strictly alone. Lady Erin wasn't bothered by this; it was many weeks before she even felt the need to speak to him, considering how nervous he was.

But speaking to the new priest was also part of her downfall. It wasn't actually Father Derek that she was interested in; she desperately wanted news of Father Jared, and the Villagers just weren't talking about him enough. The death of the king—who must be his brother—she had overheard that, and something about a coronation. Then people would look her way, without looking at her fully, and the conversation would stop. It was extremely frustrating. News of the outside world was hard to come by in the Village, if not nearly impossible. It was clear that everyone else knew something that she did not.

The faerie approached the timid new priest just outside of the Village, as he was coming up along the dirt path. She thought that he might be less frightened of her here, out in the open. She did her best to appear harmless and insignificant.

"Hello," she began.

The timid man fell to his knees and covered his ears with his hands.

Lady Erin sighed.

"Hello?" she said, again, trying to motion him to get up, without actually touching him. "It's okay. I won't hurt you. Look—remember?" She held up her left palm, and pointed to the mark with her right finger.

The priest scrambled away from her. Then he turned and pelted back into the Village, which was only a few feet behind him, especially going at a run. The faerie thought to herself that her approach seemed to have been something of a disaster. Then she heard a short, unpleasant laugh. A familiar figure stepped out from behind one of the nearest houses, and walked down the Village street to the start of the dirt path.

"Making friends with the new priest, I see," Gleason called out, putting on a show of coming bravely forward, especially considering that he had been skulking behind a house only a moment before.

Lady Erin was tempted to make a rude gesture and vanish into her Wood, but she didn't. Gleason had brought Father Jared's letter, which meant that he had been outside. As unpleasant as he was, he might have information.

"Maybe," the faerie answered. "At least I'm not as mean to people as you are—I actually do make friends." This was not a good way, perhaps, to lead up to a request for news, but she couldn't quite help herself. The very sight of him made her skin crawl.

"And I suppose you're wondering what's happened to one of those friends?" Gleason guessed. He had paused at a safe distance from her, but he was close enough that it wasn't a struggle to talk. The houses of the Village now sat squarely behind him; they were both standing on the dirt path, and the Wood was at Lady Erin's back.

"If you have news you want to share of the outside, I wouldn't mind hearing it," she replied cautiously. Gleason hadn't spoken to her since the accident at the lake. If he was talking to her now, it was because he wanted something, and that couldn't be good. Lady Erin shivered, feeling cold, although the early autumn wind had never bothered her before.

"Well, then, I bet I know which news you're looking for—news of Father Jared. Or King Jared, I should say now." Lady Erin's eyes widened. So, he had taken over the management of his brother's estate.

No wonder the Villagers hadn't wanted to mention this in front of her. To them, she would always be some evil faerie woman, one who might have a wish to sway the new young king to some dark purpose of her own. No doubt they feared this even more, considering the amount of time they'd spent together while he was here. That is, assuming they'd figured out who Father Jared was. Apparently Gleason had—and he'd probably told the rest of the Village already, as he was telling her right now.

"And Father—King Jared—is he well?" She couldn't help asking this; it was all that she could think of—he had looked so sad when he left, and she hadn't even said goodbye.

Gleason grinned meanly at her, looking very satisfied. "Oh, aye, he couldn't be better. In fact, he's to be married soon, to the Lady Odith."

Lady Erin felt like someone had just hammered a nail into one of her trees, to put a sign up.

No doubt the sign read, "Fool."

"Do you... do you know this Lady Odith?" she stammered. Why would a boy like Gleason know a lady from the Palace? she chided herself. Nevertheless she continued, "Is she... is she nice?"

"I've met her myself," he said proudly, folding his arms across his chest and puffing it up. "She's loved by all, for her kind ways. And she's very beautiful." The plain, mousy-haired boy couldn't contain his smugness at Lady Erin's troubled expression.

"She can't be," Lady Erin said, without thinking, and then caught herself. "Oh, you mean for a human." She hadn't meant to be rude, although Gleason made her think rather ill of most humans. Now she knew why he had come out to speak to her; he was gloating.

"Yes, well, that's what King Jared wants, of course," he retorted triumphantly. "A human bride."

Lady Erin didn't answer. She just turned her back on the unpleasant boy, with his unpleasant news, and went off into her Wood. But the words haunted her as she ran, dogging her quick steps.

"What good are humans, anyway?" she said softly to the brown spotted rabbit who was sitting on the ground next to her, almost in her lap. The rabbit quirked its long ears, and then took another piece of clover blossom from the flat of the faerie's palm. The little doe swiftly chewed it down, the fluffy purple end sticking out and twitching with its chewing motion, until all of the purple had vanished, along with the rest of the stem.

Lady Erin sighed and stood up, shaking out her crumpled dress. "A human bride," she muttered to herself. It must be an arranged marriage. It must be something that someone had forced upon him, ostensibly for the good of Calundra. It must be—

Lady Erin told herself to shut up. She wasn't going to waste her time thinking about this again.

He will hate it, she thought as she climbed to the top of the tallest tree in the Wood. She found a sturdy branch, and hung upside down, hoping that the unwanted thoughts would somehow magically fall out. He couldn't even stand touching people, although she doubted it was as bad for him as it was for her, since he could stand touching them at all. And that made her think of touching his cheek, and she almost lost her purchase on the branch and tumbled off.

It took several weeks of this to wear her down. She didn't go back into the Church, nor did she go back to the Village. She didn't want to give the timid new priest a heart attack, and she didn't want to hear any more from that horrid Gleason, who would probably enjoy torturing her with further news about how wonderful and beautiful the Lady Odith was, and how happy King Jared would be with his... human bride.

It might have been those words alone that drove her out of the Wood. One day, in her faerie house, she discovered herself packing a bag. And the next morning, she quietly took a walk—just a walk, she told herself—into the Village at dusk. She passed through the long main street as unobtrusively as possible, and then climbed up the sloping green hill to the Dead Tree. She had been meaning to talk with it, after all.

Why are you letting Gleason out? she asked it sternly. He can't mean well.

He's only a human, the Dead Tree sighed. I doubt he means any harm.

What do you mean? she asked it incredulously. Those aren't your instructions! Most humans are cruel, and unkind. You're supposed to know better than that!

The Dead Tree quaked under her hand, confused and afraid. That isn't what the other faerie said.

What! What other faerie? Lady Erin demanded. Now she was growing afraid herself.

Lord Cal. He touched me with his palm. I'm sorry... it was confusing. But his touch said that humans were safe.

Lady Erin could feel the tree's allegiance; it was divided. This man—was he dressed as a priest? Did he have brown hair? she asked it swiftly.

Yes, the tree breathed, grateful that she had understood.

You must not let anyone else in or out, for the time being, she told it. Do you understand? I am closing the portal. I am going outside.

I promise, the Dead Tree answered.

Lady Erin had to be satisfied with this, despite her lingering misgivings about the tree's reliability. It would still respond to another faerie, of course, and perhaps to one with faerie blood—as it had with Father Jared—but to a human it would be nothing more than a great black stump.

The faerie took a deep breath, preparing herself to enter the human land.

You should not go out, the tree said. There is danger.

What danger? she asked. Of course there is danger, was what the faerie thought.

You know I do not see with faerie eyes, or even human ones. I only know what I feel where I am touched. The ground complains of humans to me; it tells me that there is something bad.

At this, Lady Erin dismissed the Dead Tree's warning. It was a wonder that the ground could stand the humans at all. And of course the Dead Tree didn't want her to leave. The Wood was angry with her as well; it sulked in the back of the faerie's mind in stubborn leafy protest.

This was the culmination of Lady Erin's downfall. She emerged from the Dead Tree into the human land, and hands immediately grabbed her. She opened her mouth to tell them fiercely to leave her alone, and something hit her on the forehead. There was a sharp pain...

And then there was nothing at all.

Yes, heartbreak was as good an excuse as any for getting captured; Lady Erin thought when she awoke with an aching head, feeling foolish. She was gagged, and bound, but not in a dungeon or prison cell, or any other place that was dank and dark. There were tight ropes binding her arms and legs to a sturdy chair, and she seemed to be in a bedroom, judging by the other furniture. There was even a certain amount of sunlight. She was someone's captive, she thought, looking around as much as she could, thankful she could still move her head from side to side.

It was definitely not the sleeping chamber of a peasant. There was a massive bed, with a square canopy over its top and pillar-like wooden posts. The posts were carved into the shapes of men—what looked like warriors, holding swords. These sentinels defended a bright blue satin bedspread, with long golden fringes hanging off the sides. There were curtains attached to the canopy bed, white ones with a diagonal blue pattern. There was a marble fireplace on the far wall, and several square tables with bulbous legs. Lady Erin searched the room for something to tell her where she was, but she had a feeling she knew already. If she was very unlucky—and lately it seemed that she was—this would turn out to be one of the many fine rooms in Baron Malkine's manor house.

He was the only one she could think of who would have any special reason to want her although it could be that she had randomly happened to stumble into a particularly brave and unfriendly group of people. But she doubted it—someone had known she was going to come out of the Dead Tree. They had been ready to silence her, before she spoke. They had expected a faerie—and they had captured one.

But they wouldn't be able to keep one, Lady Erin thought grimly. She struggled with her ropes for a while, and then she tried to tip herself over in the chair, but it felt like it was bolted to the floor. In the end she gave up and conserved her energy. She would wait for her captor to come back. She craned her head around for anything she might have missed in the room. To her right was a window and to her left was the giant bed. Behind her—Lady Erin wrenched her neck around—behind her there seemed to be a very large, very wide mirror. She caught a glimpse of her reflection, of her head trying vainly to spin like an owl's.

There was the sound of a heavy tread, and of a key in the lock. The door opened slowly, and Baron Malkine came into the room. He turned and shut the door behind him, bolting it from the inside.

"Well, my dear faerie," the Baron said, "I hope you like your room. You see, the last time you were here, I didn't get a chance to invite you to stay for the night." The Baron gestured as he said this, as though he was a gracious host, showing his guest around. Then he pulled up a chair directly in front of her, and sat down in it cheerily, as though they were going to have a cozy chat.

"I apologize for tying you up like this. I know it's not very nice."

The Baron reached out and stroked her cheek. Lady Erin's body went rigid. "The thing is, the last time you were here, you took something away with you—something that I rather enjoyed having." His fingers skipped over the fabric that was painfully wound around her mouth, and then moved down to her chin. "I'd prefer to have it back again, so we might reach a deal—you and me. Or, I might just kill you. I haven't decided yet." The Baron's fingers were scalding her; the faerie thought it was quite possibly worse than being killed, to be touched by him.

Lady Erin tried hard to think about something else, to focus her mind.

"So then," the Baron said, finally removing his hand from her face, and dropping it casually down on one of her bare, rope-encrusted forearms. He pressed down on it gently; it was excruciating.

"I can see this happening in several ways. One, you can promise not to spell me in any way. I know that you bear the mark; I even know how precious it is to you, or so I've been told. So you won't lie. Not if you want to keep it." The Baron's florid face was still smiling, as though he was making light conversation, but his eyes were flat and cruel. "If you do promise, then maybe I can loosen that gag, and you can bring back my ability to enjoy life." He finished this by pressing down somewhat harder, his fingers pinching into the bare skin of her arm.

The Baron's touch alone, regardless of his words, was making her dizzy with agony; but Lady Erin was still conscious enough of what he was saying to be furious with him. He did not deserve to be set free from her enchantment. If he had promised to change, if he had shown that he had learned something—but no, he was as ruthless and unkind as ever. She shook her head defiantly at him, and kept shaking it, for good measure.

The Baron set aside his falsely pleasant manner, apparently for good now.

"I think I might be able to change your mind about that," he said. "You know, you told me I could never harm another woman—or love one, for that matter—but you didn't say anything about faeries."

Lady Erin felt suddenly sick, and very, very frightened. If only he would move his hand away—if only he would stop touching her.

The Baron's grip suddenly released, and the faerie felt as though she might faint with relief. But it was only because he had found something else cruel to do with his hands. He proceeded to pull out a sharp-looking knife from a sheath on his belt. He held in front of her, and looked into the faerie's eyes, which glared defiantly back at him. The faerie still felt a dull ache where he had touched her; the knife didn't scare her nearly as much as his hands had.

Then he roughly grabbed a handful of her hair, and sawed it off. The black ends fell to the ground. Somewhere in the Wood, a handful of dark trees splintered in half, as if from a lightning strike.

"Now, if you want to cooperate with me, just nod and I'll stop," the Baron told her politely.

Lady Erin fought briefly against the gag and her unyielding bonds, and then shook her head at him. She wouldn't help him—not now, not ever. She hated him.

The Baron took hold of her chin, and drew a long cut down it.

This was the Baron's first mistake: harming a faerie.

Lady Erin gritted her teeth, and wrenched her face away from his hand, not caring if the knife nicked her even further.

"You aren't making this easy," the Baron said. "But then again, easy isn't fun," he said, with a new sort of smile. He reached out and turned over her left palm. He had to wrench it to do so, as it was still tightly bound to the chair, and she was resisting the motion.

Swiftly, he cut a line through the three interlocking circles, marring them forever.

This was the Baron's second mistake: insulting the god.

Lady Erin felt the god cry out—she felt her own faerie blood boil—and she made an inarticulate sound deep in her throat, a wail of outrage and distress.

The window to her left shattered.

The mirror behind her broke.

The pieces flew through the room like a hurricane. Half of them landed in the Baron's chest, and he dropped the knife, staggering backward. Lady Erin grabbed hold of one of the jagged edges of the mirror with her good hand as it flew by. Awkwardly, she tried to use it to saw at the ropes. The Baron clutched at his chest, his eyes wide with horror, and then suddenly crumpled to the ground.

A piece of the faerie's mind was still in shock, that this was what she had done. But the greater part of it was working frantically to escape, as the Baron gurgled, and groaned, and slowly died. She could hear footsteps in the corridors, and voices yelling; then someone was shaking the locked door.

Lady Erin tried to calm her mind. She was getting nowhere with her one tiny shard; she couldn't maneuver it. She thought of the sound she had involuntarily made, and then she thought about what she wanted. She pictured it very clearly, humming a wordless tune, as much as she could hum with the gag still on.

Vines started to creep in through the broken window. They were pretty ivy vines that grew outside the Baron's house. Lady Erin remembered seeing them the last time she was here; they covered almost all of the back side of the manor, though the front was free of them. The vines crept up to Lady Erin's chair, and then began to unknot her ropes. When they had loosened them sufficiently, the faerie pulled off her gag and then nearly fell over, trying to stand up.

Her face and her hand were bleeding, her arms and legs felt useless, and the Baron was still dying. Lady Erin did not attempt to get any closer to him, to check on whether he was still alive. Peace, she reminded herself unwillingly, and then thought, someone might be able to save him. She went over to the door on unsteady legs, and unbolted it with her right hand. Before anyone had a chance to thrust it open, she had darted out the broken window, and was climbing shakily down the ivy on the back of the house.

A worried manservant burst into the Baron's room to find it in utter chaos. An empty chair was covered in half-knotted ropes, and a fragmented mirror showed him a small portion of his own stupefied face in its few remaining shards. A shattered window lay in pieces on the floor, with strange vines climbing over the sill and into the room, apparently from the outside.

Baron Malkine lay gasping for breath in a corner of the room, his chest embedded with huge, wicked-looking spears of glass. He was bleeding profusely.

As the manservant watched, the Baron took one last shuddering breath, and died.

The Wild Horse

Lady Erin knew by touch that Lily had magic in her. The great white horse snorted softly and nudged again at the faerie's hand. Happily, she reached up to stroke the broad ivory-colored neck.

The faerie woman had limped away from the Baron's manor on foot, still in a state of shock, without even thinking of taking a horse from the stable on her way out. But the Baron's horses were likely domestic creatures anyway, ones that would have been finicky and nervous to ride. She might have soothed one enough to manage it, but Lily was a much better prospect.

Lily had come when she called.

Lady Erin's hands traveled to the white forelock and brushed it aside, tracing a deep whorl in the top of the horse's head. Ah, she thought, that was the reason. Lily was a wild horse, a descendant of the unicorns that had once roamed freely throughout the dark woods of Calundra. Over time they had bred with the humans' horses and a beast like Lily was the result. She was larger and stronger than an ordinary horse and, by reputation, practically untamable. It was said that a wild horse was too swift to be caught and too fierce to want to keep. But Lily had told Lady Erin that she would take her where she was going. The horse was young and eager; indeed, with her unicorn blood she might well outlast many generations of men, before she ever felt old.

In the company of the lively white horse, the journey became less of an ordeal and more of an adventure. The faerie's hand still throbbed and a clutch of horror wound itself around her chest whenever she thought of what had happened, but she was also entranced by the new sights and sounds around her. There was a strangely commonplace feel to the rest of Calundra, with its vast sunlit farmlands, drowsy little villages, and oxen-drawn wagons that rumbled noisily along pitted dirt paths. The faerie stayed clear of these other travelers, keeping Lily cloaked in a spell of semi-invisibility. If anyone were to notice them they would only see a humble peasant girl and an over-sized plow horse; for the most part human eyes passed over them as though they weren't there at all.

It was tiring, though, maintaining this illusion, so eventually Lady Erin persuaded the horse to leave the beaten track she seemed so keen on following. The horse and rider deviated from the main road onto a narrower path that tended to curve around and become indistinct in spots. Lily knew the route better than the faerie did and she balked some at this, but Lady Erin was insistent.

The faerie woman was exhausted, even if the horse was not. Their new road rambled along through a handful of barren fields and neglected barns until it finally came to a pause at a ragged patch of land with only one small tree in it. The trail could be seen to pick up and widen on the far side, but for now its impression was all but gone.

The misty afternoon made this abandoned lea seem even lonelier and more unattractive than it was, but Lady Erin told her opinionated mount that it was a perfect place for them to rest before moving on. She climbed down off of the tall horse rather stiffly and then walked slowly over to the diminutive tree, feeling relieved to be on her own two feet again. She wasn't used to riding, bareback or otherwise, let alone for days at a time. The faerie had seriously considered giving up and going back to her Wood several times, but the thought of her original purpose was enough to keep her going. Even so, she missed the Wood intensely, and she knew it missed her just as much. This sojourn in the human world would be but a brief one, if her current feelings were anything to go by.

Lady Erin glanced down at her battered clothing as she stumbled along, and realized dimly that she should be taking better care of herself. She had halted to eat and sleep, of course, but only out of sheer necessity. There were orchards where she'd harvested fruit, tasteless and dry as it was, and mushrooms she had eaten, which held a fuller and earthier flavor, discovered by the side of a jumping brook. She'd even woven a bandage from a field of wild flowers and wrapped it around her aching palm, with an herb and mud poultice to help with the healing.

But she hadn't felt safe enough to stop anywhere for very long. The open meadows and blazing sun were alien to her, and the idea of approaching a human settlement made her skin crawl. As intriguing as the towns and villages were that she saw in the distance, she was unwilling to risk making contact with anyone who might be unfriendly. Her opinion of humanity in general had recently plummeted.

Lily was chewing contentedly on something behind her, a blackberry bush of some type. Lady Erin stood underneath the sad tree and considered it closely. Poor thing, she thought, sympathetically laying her uninjured hand against its peeling bark. The faerie closed her eyes and spoke to it gently, hardly hoping for a response, but deep within the tree there was a faint stirring and then a whispering answer from the leaves above. She opened her eyes and glanced up at them. The leaves were plentiful but their coloring was anemic, and a scattering of lacey holes broke the flat surface of their toothed silhouettes.

The faerie sighed. The tree was dying a slow and painful death, but it was not a magic tree. She didn't know if she could help it, especially since the tree's spirit seemed to have mostly given up. But then the bark beneath her hand trembled slightly and Lady Erin identified a yearning in it that hadn't been there before. Maybe there was something she could do, the faerie thought. Humans had planted these trees, but they were rooted in the soil of Calundra. It wasn't impossible that it would respond.

Lady Erin began to sing under her breath, not wanting to overwhelm her patient before she could get a feel for what it might want.

Loose strips of bark began to reattach to the trunk of the tree. The sickly leaves shook and then grew larger and more succulent, the lacey holes closing up. Finally, the branches stretched upwards until the entire tree had grown several feet. Its leaves now fluttered high over her head instead of limply drooping down around her.

The faerie stepped back and began to sing in earnest. She watched with satisfaction as the entire tree straightened up proudly, as though it had been hunched over all this time. The bark darkened from a light brown to a deep chestnut interspersed with thick black lines. The bright sun, which had been beating down uncomfortably on her head, was suddenly obscured by lofty round branches and healthy green leaves which gave off an exotic shine.

Lady Erin lay down under the shade of the one enormous tree which now dwarfed the scraggly landscape of the untended lea and the deserted farmlands beyond. She took a blissfully long nap, breathing in the comfortingly familiar scent of living wood, while the great white horse grazed peacefully nearby.
Part 4

The Wish

Everyone who came to the Palace admired its gardens and even though he lived there and was therefore used to them, the bard was no exception. In fact he walked in them more than most; as a gypsy he was used to being outside. But whenever he was restless or worried he went out past the gardens, further down, to the rolling stretch of parkland that had once been a wood so thick it couldn't be seen beyond.

There was a massive boulder at the edge of this vast and grassy expanse, and it was perched on this that the lithe, black-garbed figure of the bard could often be found. Not that folk ever looked for him there, for the Palace servants tended to be a superstitious lot, and there was a feeling to this still, green park that most of them didn't care for, a deep sadness that seemed to well up from the ground. Wick felt it too but for him it was almost a balm, a place to release his own bitterness and confusion without feeling that he had burdened a more peaceful spot.

A land was not just something to grow crops on, the bard thought. As a lovely faerie had once told him, everything has a spirit: the essence of what it is and what it wishes to become. The park beyond the Palace gardens wished for something it could never have again and so did the bard, which was why the two got along. Wick had come here today to see his way clear of a particular problem which closely related to this.

King Lukas's death had presented Wick with a conundrum. While the king was alive a certain fiction had been maintained which Wick had long ago agreed to, resentfully at first, but in a way that had become second nature to him by now. If everything had gone according to plan Father Jared—who was King Jared now—would already know of this and Wick would have nothing to brood about, seated on his favorite rock.

Matters were complicated by the fact that the young priest had never trusted him. The fretful gypsy man watched as a vulture soared high overhead, its dark wings fanning out over the pristine verdure of the park. I should tell him, the bard counseled himself. But he thought of the reasons behind what he had done and what King Jared might make of them and then shook his head. He had broken a promise; told more lies than he could ever justify. A man like Jared would never understand.

He would take a night or two away from the Palace, Wick decided, and get some distance from the matter. The bard's hands traveled over the rough surface of the rock, which scratched at the skin on his unmarked palm. Red as blood, he thought distantly, when a trickle of it appeared among the deep creases.

Her hair had been red as blood, her eyes as blue as the cloudless sky...

The King's Table

Amandie wasn't surprised to find Lady Erin near the side door of the Palace, patiently waiting for her in the shadows near the trees—ordinary apple trees—as though she had expected Amandie to come out. Amandie had known the faerie was there, somehow. She had even felt that Lady Erin was coming, for several days now. What she didn't expect was to see the faerie looking as though she'd been to hell and back. "I need a bath," the faerie said abruptly.

Amandie nodded at her rather stupidly; that much was clear enough. Lady Erin's chin had a long angry cut down it, and she was holding her hand awkwardly. Her dress was torn and dirty, and her hair was oddly ragged in places. "It wasn't a very good trip," the faerie lady said grimly, as though this explained everything.

"Did you walk from the Wood?" Amandie asked, glancing around.

Lady Erin shook her head. "There was a white horse—Lily—but I think she's gone off to join the others."

Amandie thought a moment, and then said, "Stay right there." She dashed back into the Palace, surprising the other staff, found what she was looking for, and came flying out again. She threw her long traveling cloak over Lady Erin's shoulders, and pulled it up over her head. "Come this way," she told her. It was a wonder someone hadn't seen her already; there were curious looks in Amandie's direction from the side door, but they didn't seem to focus on the faerie properly.

Lady Erin passively let Amandie guide her around to the back of the Palace, and into a little used entrance that led more directly to the common bathhouse. It wasn't a house really; just a large room with a sunken tub that was big enough for two or more. It was empty now; Amandie would have to heat water on the stove in the corner, and fill it. She started the process, finding Lady Erin a seat first, on one of the benches.

Amandie hoped Lady Erin wouldn't mind bathing here; she was a lady, after all. There were private baths in the fine rooms of the Palace for the noblewomen; each set of chambers had its own. The bathhouse was just for the servants. There was a schedule here; women in the evening and men in the morning. It was past the men's hours, thankfully; the sign on the door had already been flipped.

As she warmed the water, she thought about how ridiculous she was being. Lady Erin was a faerie. She probably bathed in the lake, or in streams, or some such. "This is an interesting place," Lady Erin said, confirming her suspicion. "What is it?"

"I'll fill the tub with water, and then you can bathe in it," Amandie answered. She came over to the faerie and sat down. "What happened to you?"

"Baron Malkine happened," the faerie lady said, and then began to shiver.

It took quite a while to get Lady Erin through the bath, as well as to unravel all of her somewhat incoherent story. Amandie began to think, doing this as gently and carefully as possible, about what she was going to do with the faerie woman now that she was here at the Palace. Lady Erin solved this for her by saying, quite simply, "You're going to present me to the king, of course."

"I'll have to get you something else to wear," the Village girl said, holding up the faerie woman's dress, which had always been strange, but had never been full of holes and covered in blood before. Lady Erin sighed in agreement.

"All right then, stay here for a moment," she said again, wrapping the faerie woman securely in a towel. "Don't talk to anyone—at least not yet," she suggested, hoping the faerie wouldn't take offense. Lady Erin just nodded, and lay down on the bench, as though she might take a nap.

It took some doing to find a dress for her. In the end, she found one in the room of a maid who had taken one to repair the buttons, which were loose. Amandie felt guilty taking it—she had seen the maid working on it just the other day, which was how she knew about the buttons—but she told herself that she was only borrowing, and that she would give it back.

Trickier than finding the dress was to get Lady Erin to wear it. "What is this thing?" she exclaimed pettishly, tugging at the high neck. "It's scratchy, and suffocating. Isn't there anything else?"

Amandie sighed, and for the first time she began to think about what she was doing. This was going to lead to a whole host of trouble. Of that, she had absolutely no doubt. "What are you doing here, anyhow?" she asked. "You didn't come all this way just to tell me about the Baron, did you? And to meet the new king..." Amandie's voice trailed off, and she looked at the faerie more closely.

Of course, she thought. Amandie had talked to the king several more times, since their first rather brief conversation. They had reminisced about the Village, and the Church, and the Wood. And she had heard the way he said Lady Erin's name, whenever it came up. "You've come here for him, haven't you?" she asked the faerie. Lady Erin blinked at her, and then shrugged.

"We're old friends. I thought I'd pay a visit. Congratulate him on his upcoming marriage," the faerie woman said, her voice growing tight.

Amandie whistled. "But you're a faerie... and he's—"

Lady Erin interrupted so swiftly that Amandie didn't even get a chance to finish her thought. "That doesn't matter. I just need to see him."

The two women stared at each other for a minute, and then Amandie slowly shook her head. "I don't think I understand, but of course, I'll help. The king will be at the ball tonight, after the dinner..." Amandie paused. The ball would include dancing; she didn't think the faerie would like that much.

"I suppose I can show you into the King's Table, where they'll be eating." Lady Erin nodded, apparently satisfied with this plan. The dress was actually quite pretty on her, Amandie thought, as she helped Lady Erin finish buttoning it up. It was a rich ruby red, made entirely of velvet, and it had pearl buttons that ran all the way up the front of the bodice to the high collar.

There were pieces of white lace at the sleeves and the neck, and the skirt was full and wide. It fit the faerie somewhat snugly, but that only accentuated the slender curve of her figure. Unfortunately, it was rather short in the sleeves and the hem, but Lady Erin's wrists were lovely, anyhow, as were her feet and ankles.

Amandie's gaze rested on the bare feet with dismay. Well, hopefully no one would be looking down, she thought.

"Am I ready?" Lady Erin asked, impatiently.

"Yes, but you should put this back on until we get there," Amandie said, handing her the traveling cloak again. The faerie looked at her doubtfully, but then tugged it over the dress and brought the hood up.

"They are going to know I'm a faerie eventually," she told her, sounding slightly amused. Amandie sighed and said, "Yes, but maybe we can get close to the king before that happens."

The Village girl and the faerie moved quickly through the corridors of the Palace together. People greeted Amandie cheerfully, but they didn't seem to notice the other woman at all. She wondered, not for the first time, if this was some sort of faerie magic, and if so, just how far it extended. Was the faerie invisible to everyone else? Amandie could see Lady Erin just fine and people could obviously see Amandie.

The head server, a grumpy woman in the best of moods, passed by and snapped at her, "Why aren't you at your post?" Amandie apologized, and they hurried on. The woman was right, she should have been there already, standing quietly up against the wall and waiting for the guests to come in. Hopefully no one else would notice her absence. Then Amandie glanced sideways at the calm hooded faerie lady walking next to her and thought that no one was going to notice anything other than Lady Erin tonight.

The wide double doors to the King's Table were already open, and fine lords and ladies were milling about inside the large dining hall. They were all talking and waiting for everyone else to arrive. "I'll leave you here," she whispered to Lady Erin, ducking in and finding her spot against the wall with the other serving girls. They glared at her for showing up late and making them look bad, but she just smiled, unconcerned now. She gazed back at the open double doors where she had left the faerie, waiting expectantly for her to throw off the cloak and emerge into the chattering throng.

King Jared arrived first, from a smaller door at the other side of the room. This was as usual; the king had his own private hallway to the dining area, probably because it made a better entrance. He came over to Lady Odith and gave her a dutiful nod.

Lady Odith was wearing a cream-colored silk, with blue and silver trimming. Amandie thought that she didn't look nearly as nice as Lady Erin did, even in her borrowed clothes. The king still wore black, but there was gold trim to the edges of the robe's sleeves, and a gold chain across the front. Underneath it, he wore a deep purple, with black at the waist.

Amandie craned her head back towards the main entrance, standing on tip-toe because the crowd had surged forward around the king, blocking her view of it. Slowly, though, it parted, like a wave. The voices in the room died away, one by one. A path had opened to the two double doors, and Lady Erin stood at the end of it. She hadn't spoken, but whatever aura of secrecy she had created earlier must be gone, because every eye in the entire room was turned towards her tall figure, framed in the wide doorway.

Amandie expected her to come forward, but she didn't. Instead, King Jared drew slowly towards her along the open path, staring at the faerie as though he expected her to vanish at any moment, like a vision. He stopped directly in front of her, barely a pace away. Lady Erin didn't move, or speak—she just looked at him.

"You shouldn't be here," he said. Amandie could only see the back of his head now; she couldn't tell what his expression was, but his tone was soft.

"I came to say goodbye," the faerie lady answered. Her sweet, unearthly voice rippled out into the dining hall, and there were audible gasps and exclamations.

"It's a long way to come for that," the king said. But he did not sound upset that she had done so.

"Then I suppose you should invite me to stay," she replied. There was a murmur of sound, as if the room behind them was trying to shake free of its stupor.

The king reached out and took the faerie's hand. Then he turned around and tucked it under his arm. He addressed the company around him formally, saying, "May I present the Lady Erin. She will be joining us for dinner tonight."

There was another ripple of sound, but no one stirred, until a few of the ladies started to faint, and a few of the lords remembered to catch them.

Amandie tried not to smile. It was going to be a very interesting dinner.

If Amandie had expected the king to seat Lady Erin next to him, she was disappointed. He sat her at the far end of the table, very courteously, and then went back to the middle, settling his fiancée on his left, where she usually sat. His right was taken up by one of his advisors, a short, balding man with a squeaky voice, whose name was Lord Tomm.

The chairs next to Lady Erin remained mysteriously empty. Amandie had noticed several frightened-looking guests slipping quietly away, so there was more than enough room now at the usually crowded table. Not everyone was seated, though; Lord Quentin came in through the double doors late, as was his wont, and looked around cheerfully for a free spot. Oblivious to the tense atmosphere, he sat down in one of the vacant chairs on Lady Erin's right.

Amandie became the faerie's personal server during the meal, because none of the other serving girls would even approach her. Lord Quentin smiled at Amandie nicely as she came over with each dish, meaning he was often looking in Lady Erin's direction. Because of this, and in keeping with his usual friendly manner, the hapless lord wound up valiantly trying to make conversation with the faerie lady. She gave him a few short nods in appropriate places, but otherwise kept her silence. Her gaze rested solely on the young king and his fiancée, further down the table.

Despite her attention, King Jared did not appear to notice the faerie's eyes on him. Amandie didn't see him look Lady Erin's way, even once. To all intents and purposes, the young king seemed to be in deep conversation with Lady Odith and Lord Tomm, and the other nobles around them.

Finally, Lady Erin gave up on the two things at once. She turned her black eyes fully on Lord Quentin and interrupted his rambling monologue.

"You don't have to talk to me," she told him.

Lord Quentin's handsome jaw dropped. He had missed the faerie's arrival, and although he had surely noticed her unusual appearance, she was still a beautiful lady, dressed in a fine gown. But when he heard her voice—there was no way he could be uncertain any longer as to what she was.

Amandie almost felt sorry for him.

"Soup, my lady," she interrupted, holding the ladle suggestively over Lady Erin's bowl. The faerie peered into the tureen, lifting her eyebrows.

"It's... it's very good," Lord Quentin stuttered. His smooth manner had deserted him, but apparently he was going to bravely soldier on with being polite. "I've had it before. Mushroom, if I'm not mistaken?" He addressed this last part to Amandie, almost pleadingly.

"Yes, my lord, it is," she replied. Lady Erin accepted the soup dubiously, picking up the coffee spoon to dip into it. Amandie wasn't sure if she could get through an entire evening of this with a straight face.

Strangely enough, though, Lord Quentin seemed to have almost relaxed by the end of the last course. Soon Amandie was serving Lady Erin dessert—a spongy slice of lemon cake—which the faerie poked at with a fork, as though it might do something other than wait patiently on the plate for her to eat it.

Lord Quentin had successfully waded through an entire seven courses of the faerie's odd replies and absent-minded manner. When she hadn't hexed him during the fish or the meat, he had allowed himself several extra glasses of wine, to celebrate. Amandie wasn't filling these herself, of course, but she noticed that the tall, gangling serving boy opposite her had been over with a bottle several times.

Amandie poured some champagne for Lady Erin to go with her dessert. The faerie sniffed at it suspiciously, and took several small sips, before setting it down. Unfortunately, this caught Lord Quentin's attention, and he said to her, "You and I must have a toast or two. Come, you've hardly been drinking anything at all." Amandie stared at him in amazement as he said this; then she realized that poor Lord Quentin was slightly drunk.

"I thought the bread came with the salad," Lady Erin said, puzzled.

Lord Quentin began to laugh, but then caught himself. He really was nice, for a lord, Amandie thought. "No, no, you lift your glass, like this, and we say something, and then we knock them together a bit."

Lady Erin just stared at him, bewildered.

"Here," Lord Quentin said, picking up the faerie's glass and placing her hand around it. Lady Erin's eyes went wide with surprise at the fumbling touch.

"Enough!" a voice echoed from across the table. The king was on his feet, glaring irately at Lord Quentin. Amandie was just as shocked as everyone else. She could have sworn the king's attention was elsewhere entirely.

Lord Quentin's hand fell back from Lady Erin. He looked utterly dumb-founded.

"It's all right," Amandie whispered to him, sympathetically. "Lady Erin just doesn't like to be touched." She glanced over at Lady Erin as she said this, wondering if the faerie would be angry with her, but her attention wasn't on either of them. She was staring across the length of the table at the king.

King Jared took leave of his guests rather hastily, abandoning them to sherry and coffee without him. Lady Odith had half-risen, apparently either thinking to persuade him to stay or wishing to go with him, but he appeared not to have noticed the gesture. The king vanished swiftly through the side door and down his own private hall.

Lady Erin got up from the table and quietly disappeared in the opposite direction. The faerie went out through the double doors she had come in by.

Lord Quentin stared at Amandie in confusion, his expression still somewhat shocked. She couldn't help herself; she patted his hand gently and said, "Lady Erin's a faerie. They're like that." Lord Quentin slumped back limply into his chair, muttering something inaudible.

There was a rising murmur of voices, reaching a crescendo of sound, and then Lord Tomm stood up and silenced them all. He said, in his quavering voice, "Lords and Ladies, I think it's time to adjourn to the ballroom, for some dancing."

Amandie did laugh, then. They were all going to go on with their evening as planned, just as though nothing had happened. This was the Palace, after all.

The Harvest Ball

Even though they had left the King's Table in opposite directions, King Jared knew there was no possible way that he and Lady Erin were not going to wind up in the same place eventually. The ballroom filled with people excitedly talking—most of them about the faerie no doubt—and then the music began. Its quick tempo invaded the king's mind with restless thoughts and made him long for the evening to be over.

Privately, he detested balls, but like everything else he did lately, he hosted them because it was expected. This one was a harvest tradition, and it had always been his brother's favorite. The music was distracting if nothing else and he managed, quite successfully, to avoid doing anything other than idly watching while other people swirled around.

Everyone knew that the king preferred not to dance, so he was spared the necessity of making conversation with any one person in particular. He avoided Lady Odith, though it was clear she wanted to dance with him, and he had promised to do so with her at least once tonight. The king was relieved to see Lord Leigh ask her instead, before his fiancée succeeded in determining his position behind several other nobles.

In a far corner of the room his pushiest advisor, Lord Tomm, was involved in a conversation with several others of his advisors, which undoubtedly boded well for no one. King Jared had had a very hard time at dinner trying to convince everyone that nothing was wrong, that it wasn't unusual for a faerie to visit the King's Palace, or to be on good terms with a member of the royal blood.

Lady Erin's arrival was something of a political disaster. Unless it strengthened his reputation for being formidable merely by having survived it, King Jared thought grimly. The thought of a faerie somewhere out there, roaming around the Palace, made his head hurt—or maybe it was the volume of the music.

He'd been trying to leave the ballroom surreptitiously for a while now, circumnavigating the roaming crowd, handing out reassurances left and right as he walked. Finally he reached the exit, and stepped out into the stone atrium that connected the semi-detached, high-ceilinged ballroom to the rest of the Palace.

Lady Erin was standing on the open balcony, to his right, the one which looked out over the Palace gardens. She was still wearing the red velvet gown she'd had on at dinner. Although nothing could detract much from her general loveliness, it looked strangely exotic on her. He'd never seen her in anything other than her own blue and white dress, or another very like it.

The young king came up to her, feeling as though he'd known that she would be standing right where she was, as though it was the reason he'd felt overwhelmed in the ballroom and wanted to come out. She watched him approach, calmly, her black eyes fathomless. Suddenly the young king was irritated beyond all measure. She had no idea of the trouble she'd caused.

"What are you thinking of, coming here and terrifying my entire Palace?" King Jared demanded.

"What are you thinking of, marrying a human?" she retorted, her dark eyes snapping. The vehemence of her answer made him take a step back. Why should she care who I marry? the king wondered.

Nevertheless, King Jared felt something squeeze inside his chest. "It's a political arrangement. I made a promise to my brother—and I am a human."

But he couldn't stop himself from adding this time, in all truth, "For the most part."

"So you know now," the faerie woman said, her manner warming. "What happened?"

"My brother told me, right before he died," King Jared said, remembering what his brother had said about him, and what he'd made him promise.

"I'm sorry," Lady Erin told him quietly. He wasn't certain if she was telling him she was sorry for his brother's death, or for what his brother had kept from him until just before he died.

"I'd rather not talk about it. Clearly, you've guessed my secrets—even one I never realized I had."

Erin nodded gravely at him, her pale face sympathetic. The young king sighed wearily, and then went to stand next to her on the balcony, leaning back against the railing.

"There are a great many duties that go with being king, including marrying for the good of Calundra," he told her, his eye falling on the door to the ballroom, where Lady Odith was probably still dancing, and where his advisors were probably still plotting, and from which light and music spilled out.

"Why did you come?" he asked her again, but more gently now. "To chide me for having kept things from you? Surely if you'd wanted to say goodbye, you could have done so before I left."

The faerie woman had been gazing at him steadily as they spoke, but now she became unaccountably shy. Her mouth drooped, and her long black hair flowed forward around her face, hiding her expression.

"I was lonely," she said. "The Wood is too quiet. Father Brion is gone, you are gone too—and the new priest is scared of me." The king started to chuckle at this, but then stopped at a plaintive look from the faerie.

"I missed you, Father Jared," she said, shaking back her black hair, which was strangely ragged in places, and looking up at him.

The naked candor in her eyes made King Jared's heart begin to ache. He looked at her face very closely, as he'd not done before, and for the first time noticed a long, half-healed cut on it. He resisted the urge to reach out and touch the place on her chin where it was. No doubt she'd been climbing trees and wounded herself—although he'd never seen her with an injury before.

"Don't call me that," he said absently, still looking at the cut, and noticing now also that she had a bandage wrapped around her left hand. "My name is Cal."

Once he'd said this, he knew it to be true. The Dead Tree had been right. And then King Jared's forehead creased in confusion. What was he thinking?—his name had always been Jared.

Erin's pale brow furrowed, as well. "And I am Erin, Lady of the Wood," she said, as though it was somehow required.

"I know your name," he said distractedly. He'd wanted to ask her what happened to her hand, but he'd lost his focus. When she said her name like that, he'd felt the last of his doubts about her disappear, winging away into the swiftly setting sun.

King Jared looked at Lady Erin and saw her as he had when he met her for the first time, before he knew she was a faerie.

She was the most beautiful creature in the land, even in that ill-fitting gown. The sunset was casting an orange glow on her hair, but her eyes were still the color of the darkest trees in the Wood. The line of her mouth was a faint pink rosebud in her otherwise pale face; right now it looked as soft as a petal.

King Jared, or even Lord Cal for that matter, had never kissed a woman. He had never wanted to. He'd been a priest for many years, and he didn't even know how.

But he leaned forward and kissed Lady Erin.

It was not a light and gentle kiss, as a first kiss should be. It was a wild and hungry one. And once he'd begun, he found he could not stop. His lips moved from her lips at last, but they only slid to her cheek and then down to her neck. He could taste the Wood itself on her skin—tangy and sharp—and he wanted more of it.

His mouth eventually brushed up against her high collar, a frustrating barrier of lace and velvet. The king tugged at it impatiently with a hasty hand. A handful of pearl buttons flew off in all directions and scattered to the floor, hitting it with a pinging sound. The ruby red dress fell open to reveal the rest of the faerie's pale neck and the white swell of her bosom.

King Jared pushed away from her in surprise.

Erin's black eyes were wide and her breath was coming out in short gasps. A long red scratch had appeared on her lower throat; the stone on his ring had accidentally grazed it. Tiny drops of dark red blood welled from it, and dropped down onto the faerie's dress, red absorbing invisibly into red.

King Jared became dimly aware of a squeaky voice that was pestering him. "What is it?" he snapped without looking. Lady Erin had backed away from him until she could go no further, and now she stood, trembling, against the unyielding stone walls of the atrium.

"Your majesty, Lady Odith is looking for you. You promised her a dance." King Jared realized then that the voice belonged to one of his advisors, Lord Tomm.

"Tell her I've gone to bed."

The voice made a few more feeble sounds of protest and then a muted "Yes, your majesty" when it couldn't get his attention. Footsteps trailed away, back into the noisy ballroom.

The faerie and the king were alone again.

King Jared couldn't tear his eyes away from Erin's startled face. He couldn't believe what he had done. He opened his mouth to apologize, but all he could think about was kissing her again.

The king turned and fled, in a way that was not very kingly. He strode through the Palace, pushing aside anything and anyone that crossed his path. When he reached his chambers, he shut the door, and bolted it. Then he sunk down onto his bed, and let his bewildered head fall into his hands.

He had promised his brother that he would take care of Calundra, and that he would marry Lady Odith. Instead, he had just kissed an innocent faerie, who was not his betrothed—he couldn't imagine wanting to kissing Lady Odith at all—and he had hurt her in the process.

The young king was not inclined to be overly lenient in his judgments of people, even in his most private of thoughts.

At that moment, he despised himself.

The Song

Lady Erin rested against the cold hard wall of the atrium and drew in deep, steadying breaths. Father Jared—no, King Jared—no, Cal—had kissed her. It was all very confusing.

She did not know how humans kissed—the very idea made her nauseous—but she knew that Jared had kissed her like a faerie, and not like a human. Thinking of this, her hand drifted up to her mouth, and then back down again to her ripped collar, which still hung open. Her eye caught on something tiny and milky white that gleamed on the floor in the fading light.

A pearl button.

Lady Erin laughed.

Dreamily, she began to gather up buttons, humming as she did, counting them one by one until she had reached twenty. When she'd collected them all, she straightened up and slowly walked out onto the balcony and then onward down the wide stone steps to the side.

She wandered out into the Palace gardens, and as she did so, she began to sing. It was a faerie song, a song of love that a faerie might sing to a sweetheart. She had never thought to have reason to sing it.

Lady Erin sang as she strolled along the neat sandstone paths, admired the emerald green bushes, smelled the cultivated flowers, and finally trailed her fingers through the water in the rose-colored fountain. When she had reached the second to last stanza, she realized something. The music coming from the ballroom had stopped.

The faerie had been singing with her back to the Palace, but now she swung around.

The windows of the Palace were all aglow for the evening's festivities. In every open window and on all of the many balconies, human eyes watched her, and human ears listened. The floor-length windows of the ballroom had been flung open and ladies in fine gowns and gentlemen in fancy dress spilled out into the garden. Servants hovered around their edges in more humble attire.

Erin searched the human faces one by one until she found the one she wanted. He was standing in a high second story window, directly in front of her, but at a distance. His hands gripped the casement and his mouth was rigid. The expression in the dark eyes that gazed back at her couldn't be determined.

The faerie thought for a moment, translating in her head. Then she sang the last verse of the faerie song in the human tongue, so that he would understand it.

She sang it sweetly, and with feeling.

The humans, who had been staring at the faerie before this, immobilized, suddenly sighed and began to drift about like leaves on a slow current. Hand reached for hand, arm linked with arm. Heads leaned on shoulders, and feet strayed off in search of someone else.

Soon the back of the Palace garden was filled with couples.

But King Jared stayed where he was. He did not come down. When the song was done, the faerie woman waited, but although the king's silhouette disappeared from the window, it did not appear in the garden.

Lady Erin stayed by the fountain until the sunset faded and the sky above darkened into full night. The moon rose and the stars came out. There was the sound of hushed human laughter, and the rustle of feet in and around the garden and the Palace. Chamber doors opened and closed, and people straggled about, mostly in groups of two, none of them as solitary as she was.

The faerie blinked away her tears, and then walked on, leaving the fountain and the garden behind. She did not call for Lily as she left, because Lily had found company as well. She passed by the white horse, standing in a paddock beside a large black one. The faerie thought she could go by foot, or find another wild horse; for her, the Wood was not so far.

If King Jared changed his mind, he would know where she was. And if he didn't... well, her Wood needed her, even if he did not.

The Faerie's Goodbye

King Jared spent a long and sleepless night after the faerie left, staring at the ceiling in his chambers. The darkness finally ebbed, with excruciating slowness, and the first light of dawn crept in through the tightly shut window. Although he did not want to, the king thought of the morning that he had found the faerie on his windowsill, and argued with her about what color shirt to put on.

And then the young king groaned, and buried his head in his pillow. He could still hear the song she had sung—the entire Palace must have heard it—and there was no doubt in his mind now why she had sung it, nor why she had come.

It was his fault too, of course, King Jared thought as he sat up and began to pull on a random assortment of clothing, the first ones his hands happened to encounter. He had just finished straightening them, and swiping at his hair with a comb, when there was a knock on the door.

The king frowned, and went to answer it rather reluctantly, dreading to find either an irate fiancée or an annoyed advisor on his doorstep already, with the sun just barely up, and him having neither slept nor managed to untangle his thoughts during the whole of the previous night.

He opened the door and two breathless young people tumbled in on him. One he recognized—the Village girl, Amandie, and one he did not. This second was a nondescript-looking boy with light hair and a bashful look in his eyes. He was another servant in the Palace, that much was obvious, and he was just as haphazardly dressed as the young king, if not more so. Amandie was untidy as well; her light brown hair, usually quite neatly braided, was loose and long.

"Your majesty," Amandie began at a rush, "I'm sorry to disturb you, but we were wondering—since you used to be a priest—could you marry us?"

The king's mouth opened. He stared at the Village girl in astonishment. "What?"

Amandie began to blush, furiously. "You see, we looked for the priest, but there are so many people missing everywhere and even the ones who are left—oh dear, well, you see..."

"We couldn't find him," the boy standing next to her finished up. The king noticed now that they were holding hands.

"Undoubtedly he's still asleep in his bed, like everyone else," King Jared snapped. "I'm sorry, but I'm sure this can wait for a more regular time and place..." The disappointment on the two formerly bright young faces smote the king's conscience.

Amandie looked at the boy, and the boy looked back at her. Then she turned to the king and said, "Please? If you don't mind, it's... it's something of an emergency..."

The king ruffled his hair, and glared at them. When neither of them budged, but only stood and gazed at him hopefully, he sighed. It appeared that the only way to leave his chambers in peace this morning was to perform a binding ceremony.

"Join your marks together," King Jared said shortly. If you still have them, he couldn't help thinking. He had just noticed that the boy's shirt was on backwards.

Amandie's left hand grabbed the boy's left hand.

"Do you promise to live a life of peace, purity, and truth together?" the king asked grumpily.

"Yes!" they both said in unison. The boy with the slightly crooked nose beamed at Amandie, and then squeezed her hand.

"Well then, go and do so," the king said, gesturing towards the open door. The two stared at him uncertainly.

"Is that all, your majesty?" Amandie asked.

"Yes." The king managed to say this politely, because they both looked so happy. There was great deal more to the regular ceremony, of course, but that would do it.

The boy that he had just married to Amandie—without even bothering to find out his name, the king realized—grinned and with surprisingly boldness swooped in to plant a kiss on the Village girl's mouth.

The king discreetly turned his back on them. He went to open the window and looked out over the garden, where Lady Erin had sung to him last night. He hoped it wouldn't take Amandie and the fair-haired boy long to remember where they were.

Apparently, it did not. By the time the king had turned back around, they were both gone. King Jared blinked, wondering if he'd somehow imagined the whole thing.

He found himself thinking something very similar again and again, as he came out of his chambers and made his way through the Palace. He tripped over a sleeping couple at the foot of the stairs—two servants whom he hadn't known were together, and who shouldn't be sleeping there even so—and then he nearly stumbled into Lord Quentin, who was sheepishly slinking back to his room wearing last night's clothes.

That wasn't quite so remarkable, but being nearly bowled over by Lord Tomm, coming out of Lady Amelea's sleeping chambers—that was significantly unusual. And discovering the cook fast asleep in the kitchen with the butler by her side—well, that was enough to convince King Jared to skip breakfast, though he had come down for an early morning snack, not wanting to disturb anyone.

And that was only the beginning. Angry shouts reached him as he was making his way back from the kitchen—Baron Rogan was in the midst of challenging Lord Kade to a duel. Lady Miranda, Baron Rogan's wife, was clutching Lord Kade's arm and sobbing. King Jared did his best to separate the two, and then sent them all off separately to cool down. There were three more such altercations—none of them reaching the same point of deadly earnestness, but vociferous enough, with yells about whom had been found where, and with whom, and why—and by then King Jared had had enough of it all.

He escaped out of the Palace through one of the back doors, stepping over a pair of serving boys cuddled together and slightly sprawled across the hall. He walked out into the Palace gardens, past the flowerbeds, and even past the rose-colored fountain. He took in a deep breath of clean, fresh air and began to curse all faeries everywhere—even though there was only one, really—in a loud and unfaltering tone.

A pair of emerald green bushes to his right suddenly stirred. Lord Leigh sat up, and blinked hazily at the king. "I do say, that's rather rude," he began, and then Lady Odith sat up next to him as well.

Lord Leigh's mouth suddenly snapped shut. Lady Odith went pale. She brought a shaking hand to her hair, which was half-tumbled down and full of grass and leaves. "Where... where am I?" she asked uncertainly. Her eyes fell on Lord Leigh, whose shirt was unbuttoned and who didn't appear to be wearing any trousers. He grinned at her self-consciously, and Lady Odith's hand flew to her mouth. She went red as a ripe strawberry, taking in Lord Leigh's disreputable appearance, and then she turned her gaze onto the king, in horror.

King Jared began to laugh. He sat down on a nearby bench, and shook with uncontrollable laughter, until his eyes watered and his lungs were tired.

The Outcast

Gleason faced the moment of his death bravely. He had been trapped in the Village for some time now; the stump was no longer working. Or it could be that it just wouldn't let him out. And there was really nowhere in the Village to hide, just the houses and the main street and the outlying farms. If the faerie wanted him, she would find him. So he stayed where he was, in his mother's house, although it was hardly hers anymore since she'd been dead for over fifteen years.

And yet, he still thought of it as hers. He could almost see her sitting at the warped kitchen table, cutting vegetables for soup with a sharp knife, her grizzled brown hair falling out of its bun as she did so. His little sister, Ginger, would be playing on the floor at her feet with a scrap of a doll. Gleason had kept the house in good repair all these years, humble though it was; it looked much the same as it had back then. Although recently he'd had enough coin from his work with the Baron to add a few niceties to it, to replace some of the fading fabrics and supplement the much mended furniture with a few better pieces.

Of course, he'd not meant to stay here. He'd intended to go back out into the land, and start his life over somewhere else. He thought, then, about the plan with the Baron and how it must have gone wrong. His job had been to lure the faerie out, and he knew he'd been successful; he'd seen her go. Of course, he'd also meant to follow her, and that part had not worked; that was when he'd realized he was stuck. He had waited, not exactly patiently, for something to happen since then—for the Baron to come in, or the faerie to return, or the tree to change its mind and let him out.

He was lucky enough to be out near the old stump when the faerie finally did reappear. He had hoped she wouldn't—that she might be gone for good. That hadn't been a specific part of the plan—Gleason didn't want to think he had blood on his hands, even faerie blood—but the Baron had not seemed a forgiving sort. He was not a kind or gentle man. Whatever he had done to Amandie, which she would only frustratingly hint at, had shaken up the Village girl enough that Gleason was left with a different sort of feeling about the Baron when he went back to report to him. Still, revenge against the faerie wasn't harming an innocent. The faerie was pure evil; she deserved what she got.

And yet, even though Gleason had made this same statement to himself many times over, when the faerie woman came in through the mysterious portal of the stump wearing a muddy red dress, and looking strangely devastated, he didn't feel what he had expected to feel. He knew that it was only her warped faerie magic that made her seem tragically beautiful. But it wasn't magic that told him he was relieved she wasn't dead. It was his better self; something he'd tried hard to be rid of, but never quite could.

The Village boy ducked behind the large red barn, his stomach queasy. He was sure that the faerie hadn't seen him; she didn't seem to be paying attention to anything other than her Wood. The barn behind him was something he'd been using as cover for some time now, spying on the stump whenever he wasn't busy at the Pub washing dishes, which was the only job he could get in a place like this.

Everyone in the Village hated him. They always had, and they always would.

The red barn belonged to Seff, who used to be a friend of his. Maybe still was, in a way, although they had fallen out after the lake incident. Seff had blamed him for what the faerie had done; the simpleton had actually been terrified that going into the water had somehow cursed him. As though it was my fault, Gleason thought.

Seff had refused to speak to him for years, but lately the large man's anger had softened a bit. These days he thought Gleason was happy to spend his free afternoons helping tend to his cows, in exchange for the occasional bucket of milk. The man had always been something of an idiot, although it was good to have someone to talk to again, even if it was about crops and animals.

There had been a time when Seff's simple existence would have been Gleason's dream. Seff had a wife, not too pretty but hard-working and with a decent sense of humor. He had four squabbling children, a house and a barn, and enough land to grow food for their keep and sell the remainder in the Village. It was everything his mother and his sister should have had, and never did. Gleason shook his head at the memories, glancing cautiously around the corner of the long red wall to see if the faerie was still in his range of vision.

Yes, there she was, drifting back to her Wood as though she'd just gone for a stroll and decided it was time to come home again.

So, the Baron had either failed to eliminate her, or he had convinced the faerie to reverse the spell on him and let her go as he'd claimed he would. Gleason had doubted whether the Baron was a man to keep his promises. Of course, he might not have had much choice in the matter. Gleason tried to get a better look at the faerie's face, without giving away his position. If he was not mistaken, which was quite possible from this distance, she looked as if she'd been crying rather fiercely. Her eyes were swollen and red. That was good, he thought. It meant that at least part of the plan had worked.

But somehow, it didn't feel good.

It can be hard to hate someone for a very long time without inadvertently growing close to them. It is not a tender closeness, nor a welcome one, and yet there it is, nonetheless. The faerie, and what she had done to him—or what he thought she had done to him—had been in Gleason's mind for as long as he could remember. He had watched her in secret whenever he could; imagining ways he might make her suffer for the humiliations she'd brought on him.

It had been one of the highlights of his life to see her jealousy at the news he'd brought of King Jared. And yet he had realized, even in his pleasure, that he was still spelled by her. He had wanted her to keep talking even after she left, as hurt as he'd intended. He'd wished for her to come back if only to hear the sound of her voice again.

And for that, he hated her even more.

Gleason considered then, as he leaned against the red barn, whether he would continue to wait for the faerie to hunt him down, or whether it would be better to just face her and get it over with. He couldn't decide which was worse. A sudden hope, though, made him stay where he was.

It was possible, now that she was back, that the black stump would let him pass. He waited, then, his back against the barn, until he knew she'd had enough time to reach her Wood. Slowly he moved away from the red wall, and stepped around the corner. The valley was empty, except for the people in the Village. Gleason walked quietly over to the broken tree, heart pounding, and laid his hand against the bark.

Nothing happened.

It was a death sentence. He was stuck in this Village, forever, with a faerie who wanted to kill him.

Gleason went home then and put his affairs in order. He wondered, with a black humor, if he should pick out his casket now while he thought of it. At least they wouldn't bury him in the Church cemetery, near that accursed Wood. He was unmarked; they'd put him in the plot to the side of the hill, just outside the Village. His mother and his sister were already there, so at least he'd have company. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad; nothing in his life had ever turned out right—maybe his death would.

In the end, after several weeks of jumping at every shadow and startling at every noise, he decided to change his mind and switch to the other option: he'd rather just get it over with. He wondered if he should attempt to go out in style; after all, he might be able to chop down one of her trees, before she got to him.

Gleason's dark blue eyes lingered on the axe by the door, hung up on the wall by a hook, along with various other useful implements. He tried to picture himself using it on one of the tall dark trees by the lake—those would be the ones he'd choose to have a go at, if he did. And yet, the Wood had always been there, ever since he was a child. He had more memories of it than just that one day by the lake. He remembered going down the long dirt path to the Church with Amandie, when she was a cheerful little girl with light brown pigtails. Not a stuck-up flirt, like she was now, toying with every man that she could.

Gleason forgot about the axe in his anger at his cousin. Instead of reaching for it, he stomped past and over the threshold, slamming the door of his mother's house shut behind him. He stalked through the Village, before he began to second-guess himself, and came to the start of the dirt path, which was packed hard from the feet that trod it, without fail, once a week, to the Church.

It was holy day, as Gleason well knew, and the service would just be ending. Most likely, she would be there. She would come out from the front door, and he would let her see him. And then, well—Gleason hadn't come entirely unarmed. He had a knife in his boot, though he doubted very much he'd get a chance to use it.

The path through the Wood—which he hadn't taken much since he was a child—was not as long as he remembered. To his short legs it had seemed like forever, and the dark trees were something out of a nightmare—towering over him with their spooky green leaves and white blossoms and glowing red fruit.

They were no more reassuring as an adult, but they didn't seem quite as tall, nor did he hear them saying things, as he had often thought they did when he was a kid. Then, he imagined they whispered to him, tempting him to go off the path, murmuring of treasures that might be found. Maybe even of a wild herb that could cure a certain fever, should he enter the trees and look.

The Wood said nothing to him now, but it pressed around the path, its branches rearing up over his head, its leafy depths gloomy and uninviting. Gleason reached the door to the Church just as the service was letting out. The Village folk gave him curious looks, some of them going so far as to say his name and nod, but they didn't ask him what he was doing there. Probably thought he was stupid enough to try to repent, Gleason thought morosely.

To look as though he had a legitimate reason for hanging around, he said a few words to the priest, who was anxiously glancing over his shoulder at the Church in a way that convinced Gleason the faerie was still in it. The nervous man eventually made his escape from their forced small talk, going back inside the gate and disappearing somewhere around the side of the stone building. Finding a place to cower until the faerie had gone, Gleason thought scornfully.

Well, he wasn't going to cower. He would face the moment of his death bravely, even if he was starting to think now that he'd done little else in his life that was brave, or good. He would never get a chance to make up with Amandie, and he hadn't even bothered to say farewell to Seff. Well, it wasn't as though either of them would actually miss him. In fact, Gleason thought dully, there was probably not a single soul in the entire Village who would mourn at his grave, that is, if they even found anything left of him to bury. Have I been a fool? the plain, rather unattractive boy thought, for the first time since his mother's death.

Everything that had happened since then suddenly seemed a blur; he hadn't been happy, but then again, he didn't particularly deserve to be happy, seeing as how he had failed them. He had hoped at one time, very briefly, when he'd first seen Amandie in the tavern, that things might be different. But she had never really cared for him. And she'd made it abundantly clear that she never would.

The faerie came out the front door of the Church, and saw him. She was wearing her own bizarre dress again, made of flowers or plants or something else that came out of the Wood. Her black eyes went immediately to his stiff figure, standing outside the gate, but her wan, rather unhappy-looking face did not register any strong emotion, merely a mild distaste. Gleason was suddenly less scared of her than he was insulted. He had tricked her; she should be furious and vengeful. Surely her false loveliness would strip away and she would become the monster he'd always known her to be, as dark and hideous as her Wood.

"What are you doing here?" she asked haughtily, coming up to the gate and laying a pale hand on it as though to open the latch, but standing just inside it, instead. She was smart, Gleason thought. It put her at the advantage, because he didn't want to come any nearer the Church. It possessed a feeling of power that repelled him; it was just as judgmental as the god's followers were. It did not want him.

"How was your trip?" he asked cruelly.

The faerie's eyes narrowed, and then filled with recognition. "You knew..." she suddenly hissed. The fury he'd expected before suddenly filled the too-perfect features of her face. "You told me on purpose! You knew I'd leave! Do you have any idea what you've done? The Baron is dead because of you—he nearly killed me, and harmed my Wood!"

Blood started to pump in Gleason's ears with a rushing sound. So the Baron was dead. But the faerie couldn't have been the one to kill him, or she would never have been able to enter the Church. Which meant that whatever happened next, she probably wouldn't do it herself. Gleason looked around uneasily at the Wood. She would send one of her creatures to devour him; that much was clear.

He'd rather die at her hand. At least if he did, she would finally lose the mark. Yes, she would lose something she cared about—he would take it with him.

"I can't say I'm sorry to hear about the Baron," he said boldly, coming as close to the fence as he could make himself, so that he was within arm's reach of her. "But I am sorry he didn't kill you first. What happened—did you use your magic to spell him, and then convince the god, with your evil tongue, that it was an accident?"

The faerie's hands were clenched at her sides, and he could feel a sort of wind gathering around her. Gusts of dry leaves swirled at her feet, and several threatening howls broke the stillness of the Wood. "Why?" the faerie asked him, through gritted teeth. "Tell me why you shouldn't share his fate! Remind me about peace, and purity, and truth, Gleason—or I swear, I swear..." The faerie woman seemed to run out of words. The sky around them darkened and several large drops fell from it, splashing onto the shoulders of Gleason's red and green jacket.

"Because you ruined my life when you called me a thief!" he said fiercely, as he'd always wanted to say to her. "My sister and my mother died, friendless—do you have any idea what it's like to lose the only people you care about—to be hated by everyone, because you don't have the mark—to be forced to do something by a spiteful, meddling faerie and nearly die from it?"

Gleason was shaking now; he wasn't sure if it was from fear—for the faerie seemed to grow larger in her temper and the Wood felt like it was creeping up on his back—or if it was anger that was making him tremble. And yet, he didn't reach for his knife, as he might have. If he did, she could claim she was defending herself, that she was justified in killing him.

A thunderous rumble vibrated from the ground up into Gleason's chest, and his body jolted. It started to pour, the water coming down in great sheets. He was doused in an instant. He wondered if the faerie meant to drown him this time on dry land. "Do I know?" the faerie yelled. "Do I know what it's like to be hated, and feared, and cast out? Do I know what it's like to lose someone, to have my heart be broken? What do you think I am, you foolish, foolish boy? A stone? A brick? An inanimate object?" The rain was falling on the faerie too, running off the ends of her black hair, but she seemed neither to notice nor to care.

"Go ahead then, drown me—finish what you started by the lake!" Gleason shouted at her, too far into his rage to care either.

"I should!" the faerie yelled back at him, as the thunder sounded again. Gleason braced himself. He faced the moment of his death bravely, with his head held high and his hands clenched at his side.

But nothing happened.

No creature came tearing out of the Wood to devour him. No bolt of lightning flashed down and struck him.

Instead the rain and the rolling thunder just went on around them, like any ordinary cloudburst. The faerie was staring at him, her eyes suddenly uncertain, as if she'd said something that shocked even herself. A new look came over her, one that Gleason had never seen before. He wiped the water from his face with his sleeve, thinking he must be mistaken.

The faerie looked as though she regretted something. "No," she said, her voice a little ragged from all the shouting. "No, this is stupid. I wronged you, long ago, and I never apologized, because I detested you too much. And I still detest you," she said quietly, as if he had ever doubted it, "but I won't harm you. Not like this."

Her face and her voice had grown calm now, and he felt that whatever she said next, he would not be able to keep himself from doing it. "I want you to leave my Wood, and my Village. You will go out through the Dead Tree, and it will be for the last time. You can never come back." Her words rang out into the wet and stormy Wood, final and grim.

And then she disappeared around the side of the Church, just as the priest had done, leaving Gleason to stare at the empty spot where she had been, while the rain slanted down off of the trees and continued to douse him.

She hadn't killed him.

Instead, she had apologized. And then she had given him something. A thing he'd desperately wanted, and had given up all hope of having.

A way out.

The Shift

The king had not been sleeping well. He had dreams, and after his dreams he would wake up abruptly with words still on his lips, words that he himself could not understand. The young king tried going to bed earlier, and then he tried going to bed later. He changed his bed sheets, switching from silk to cotton, and then back again. He sometimes had a snack before bed; he tried not eating anything at all. He wrote down his worries in a journal that he kept by his bed, hoping that it would give him peace of mind. When he found himself writing, "Erin," over and over again, he stopped.

Still, he dreamed of the faerie and he awoke to find himself speaking in the faerie tongue.

Life at the Palace resumed, after many hiccups. King Jared was good at sorting things out, at least for other people. He managed to convince some to repair their relationships, and others to abandon them or begin new ones. There was a spate of hasty marriages—including Lord Leigh and Lady Odith—which deprived the young king of a bride. But King Jared wasn't seen by anyone much to mind. His advisors almost immediately began proposing alternatives, but the king turned a deaf ear to their suggestions. He told them all rather sternly that if, and when, he decided to marry, he would most certainly make his own choice in the matter, without their interference.

The king would have liked to take refuge from the Palace's new liaisons and scandals in riding his horse, and he did so, but even being with Night was another reminder that things were different. A wild horse, a white one, had mysteriously appeared in Night's paddock one day. Seeing the way that Night acted around her, King Jared didn't bother to try to remove the stray animal. Before long, there was small pinto foal as well, which Night was surprisingly gentle with.

The king was tactful and patient and the problems of Calundra's temperamental noble families slowly resolved, but his dreams did not. He was afraid that he would slip one day and start speaking faerie in the middle of the Great Hall, but thankfully the words only seemed to plague him at night.

During the day, his mind was clear and his judgments were sound; as a king, he was most effective, and soon his subjects began to call him things like "fair" and "just". The king wasn't certain that "Just King Jared" was how he wished to be remembered, but it was better than "Inconstant King Nathaniel", as one of his predecessors had been called.

Another thing that plagued him, apart from his dreams, was a certain song that people would hum. It seemed that the entire Palace knew the tune, and the young lords took to singing it to the young ladies whom they were fond of, which made the young ladies blush. People even seemed to know the words—though they couldn't have heard them more than once—which made it all the more uncomfortable. Needless to say, the king banned this song, but he couldn't entirely prevent the tune from falling occasionally from someone's lips, when they weren't paying attention.

To fall under a faerie spell is a dangerous thing, and King Jared was not a fool. He did not entirely trust what he felt, nor did he believe that what he felt mattered, regardless of whether it was real or not. What mattered was the good of Calundra, and that good did not seem to him to be compatible with the substance of his dreams or, even less, the secret longings of his heart. Believing this as he did, it is quite likely that King Jared would have found a way to cure himself of his oft interrupted nights, had someone else not taken steps to assist him.

It was Wick, the bard, who couldn't leave well enough alone. The bard liked to tell his tales in the Great Hall, which could hold a bigger audience than anywhere else in the Palace, and so after the King's Court one day, he approached the king with a tale. The Court was a time when any of his subjects could bring a matter before the king, for consideration. King Jared had just dealt with several farmers who were complaining of a drought, and now he was resting back on his throne, and drinking some water, for the discussion had made him rather thirsty.

"If it pleases your majesty, a little amusement perhaps?" Wick asked the king, approaching him with a smile. The king was not partial to tales, but the rest of the hall, which always had an overflow of interested spectators for the King's Court, murmured with enthusiasm. King Jared nodded wearily to Wick, and then tried to hide a yawn as the bard began. He was less worried today that he would find the bard's tale disturbing, as he often did, and more worried that he would fall asleep listening to it.

"As the story goes," Wick began, "King Felsa was a kind and just king, well-loved by his people. But he was a king without a project, and every king wishes to do something significant with his reign, something that his people will speak of afterward, and remember him by. So King Felsa decided that he would do what many other kings had tried to do, and failed. He decided that he would be the one to clear the Wood of the Palace, and so set the Palace free of its shadowy influence.

"Now, some of you may not remember the Wood of the Palace, for it was cut down long before many of you were born, though not, indeed, by King Felsa, as some of you may already know. Indeed, the Wood of the Palace was cut by King Pattrik," Wick nodded respectfully to the young king, "King Jared's father, and that is another tale in and of itself. But I digress; I meant to speak of the wood, so that all could picture it, even those who have never seen a wood before. The Wood of the Palace was no ordinary collection of trees. It was a true faerie wood—tall and thick and wild—and as black as its faerie's heart."

King Jared sat up straighter in his chair, and frowned at the bard. He knew this tale; everyone knew it. The bard could only have one motive in telling it to him now, and the young king was not happy with this. But Wick had the rapt attention of the Hall, and he continued on, apparently oblivious to the young king's displeasure.

"It was into this wood that King Felsa sent his subjects, armed with axes and saws. His brother the prince—Prince Rhykab—went to oversee them, albeit from a safe distance and with a heavily armed escort. Prince Rhykab was known for having a tender heart; indeed, almost all of the ladies of the Palace were enamored of him, although he had yet to choose a bride.

"Prince Rhykab saw what the beasts of the wood did to the first of the cutters and he was horrified. He went back, and told his brother the king that the project must be called off. Now, King Felsa valued his brother's opinion; indeed, he loved him very much, so Prince Rhykab was successful in this. The project was abandoned, somewhat to King Felsa's dismay, for it meant that he would have to find a new one to take its place. Life should have continued peacefully for all at the Palace, now that the wood was to be left alone... and yet it did not.

"Before he had left the wood, Prince Rhykab had caught a glimpse of the faerie in it—a splotch of white behind the trees, a pair of ebony eyes. He had barely seen her; she had not come all the way out. She had been watching as the beasts of the wood howled in retribution and savaged the humans. She had overseen as well, from a safe distance. And the young prince could not get this glimpse of her out of his mind.

"The idea of the faerie woman took deadly hold of him; the thought of going down into the wood, of seeing her more fully, had a power he couldn't resist. One day, Prince Rhykab snuck out of the Palace in servant's clothing, to make it less noticeable what he did. He came to the edge of the wood and, in an instant, the faerie appeared to him. The prince fell to his knees; she was hauntingly beautiful, and he was already half in love with her. But the faerie was not pleased to see him; in fact, she was so angry with him that her straight black hair seemed to stand out around her head.

" 'I know who you are,' she said in a rage-filled voice. 'You have been very foolish to come here, and now you will pay for it.'

" 'Please—forgive me, fair lady. We didn't know what we were doing. I have told my brother to stop cutting your wood, and he has listened,' the terrified prince said.

" 'You have injured my Wood, and I will not forgive you for it,' the faerie said. 'Instead, I will exact a punishment. You have taken the lives of my trees. For every tree that you cut, you will take a human life in return.'

"The faerie had said this in a silvery, mesmerizing voice. The prince's eyes went blank, and then his mouth went slack. 'For every tree that I cut, I will take a human life in return,' he whispered back to her.

" 'You will begin with the one that you love the most,' the faerie told him implacably.

" 'I will begin with the one that I love the most,' the prince whispered back again.

"And so he did. The first life that he took was that of his brother the king. He tried to take another, but the Palace guards had already plunged seven swords into his chest."

With this chilling statement, Wick brought the tale to an end. He made a low bow to the king, and then straightened up, his eyes traveling around the hushed Hall with satisfaction. They came to rest again on the king, who did not look sleepy, but rather was sitting up very tall on his throne. "Thank you, Wick," the king managed to say, quite stiffly. "I can think of other tales that would please me more, but I'm sure that the rest of Hall appreciates your craft." The older gypsy man smiled at the young king, and then began to speak again, but King Jared interrupted him.

"As you so eloquently stated, few here remember from personal experience the woods or the last of the Faerie Wars. Thankfully, Calundra is at peace now, and has nothing left to fear from either. Seeing that this is so, bard, I believe that your tales of evil faeries can finally be retired."

King Jared meaningfully held the gypsy man's eyes with his own, until Wick's gaze dropped. The bard nodded thoughtfully, not seeming exactly surprised by the king's words, but looking troubled. He waited respectfully for King Jared to dismiss him, which the king curtly did. When the bard had gone, the Great Hall began to quietly empty, and soon the king left as well, his duties for the day being done.

Some tales are true, and some are false, and for some it can be hard to tell the difference. This is a saying that is known by practically everyone in the land of Calundra. As for the tale that Wick had told, it wasn't purely a fiction of the bard, as much as King Jared might have wished that it were.

The story was based on certain historical facts. A skeptical young Prince Jared had once located the unembellished account of it in the King's Records, and read it for himself. Prince Rhykab had slain his brother the king and all who had witnessed agreed that the faerie's magic was the cause.

King Jared dreamt again that night. When he awoke there were tears on his cheeks and strange words in his mouth. He had dreamt this time neither of the Wood, as he often did, nor of Erin in it. He had dreamt that he was the faerie in the bard's tale, and that he had just felt his beloved trees being cut.

It had felt like someone was slicing off his fingers, one by one.
Part 5

The Beggar's Bridge

Gleason made it to Queen's Hollow before his money ran out. He'd drifted badly since leaving the Village, wandering here and there without much purpose, but eventually it became apparent even to his scattered senses that unless he stopped and replenished his funds, he'd be in serious trouble. Accordingly, he took a cheap room in the least fashionable quarter of the great city and began to look around for a job.

He'd been turned away from numerous promising establishments already when he felt a faint tug at his trousers. Immediately, he glanced up to see a quickly fleeing shape in the crowd. The Village boy didn't need to check his pocket to confirm that his purse was gone and he didn't waste time shouting "Stop thief!"

Gleason took off.

The urchin was swift on his feet but Gleason had a longer stride and was well conditioned by his time on the road. He pursued the boy down bustling cobblestone streets, through a busy square, and into a hidden alley that split off in several different directions. It was partially obstructed by overflowing bins of refuse, stacks of empty crates, and crisscrossed items of laundry which hung from eccentrically strung lines. It was no doubt the perfect place to lose a pursuer, but the thieving child never got the chance.

Gleason sprinted forward and pounced on him.

The small boy wasn't about to give up without a struggle. "Get off!" he hollered, his childish voice muffled by Gleason's constricting arms.

"Give me back my purse," Gleason answered through gritted teeth, "and maybe I'll think about it."

"I didn't take nuthin!" the little boy squealed, thrashing around wildly. They wrestled heatedly for a few minutes longer until the Village boy managed to pull the slippery child's overcoat off. Ignoring the boy's loud protests, Gleason patted the jacket and then held it upside down.

"Hey, that's mine," the disheveled child whined, but it was already too late. The contents of the coat's numerous pockets fell to the ground. Gleason spotted the striped red and green drawstrings of his leather purse and snatched it up. "Not a thief, huh?" he said coolly. "And I suppose this is your first time borrowing a man's coin?"

The dirt-smeared face before him suddenly lost some of its belligerence. Gleason pegged the child at about eight or nine, unless his growth was particularly stunted. "Please don't turn me in," the little boy begged, changing his manner completely. "My sister would be so mad. I told her I had a job at the fish market, but they don't need anyone. I won't do it again—I swear."

The little boy's eyes filled with tears, a few of which rolled down plump cheeks that had yet to lose their babyish look. Gleason shook his head, torn between irritation and amusement. The child had a winning act, if he could cry on command. "And I suppose the rest of these are yours as well?" he asked dryly, indicating the litter of objects on the ground.

The boy hung his head and mumbled something about other people in the crowd dropping them. With an effort, Gleason made the corners of his mouth turn down. "Your sister, huh?" The boy's head shot up, a hopeful look in his eye. "Please, sir, my sister works really hard. She doesn't know. I—I don't usually do it, but she always looks so tired. I just wanted to help," he finished, sounded appropriately miserable.

Gleason stared at the child for a moment, and then sighed. "I'll tell you what; if you've told me the truth—if you do have a sister who takes care of you—I won't turn you in. And if you've lied to me, well, then you can spend some time in the poor house and maybe they can teach you a safer skill than picking pockets," he finished, feeling more than a mite hypocritical.

The boy shifted back and forth on the balls of his feet. For a second Gleason was sure he would make a run for it. The Village boy had almost decided to let the child go; he was probably well-habituated to this sort of life, but then the small boy asked, "What about these?" Gleason followed his gaze back to the other items on the ground. One was a lady's silk handkerchief and the other was a brightly jeweled bracelet, which looked to be made of rhinestones, and the rest were assorted petty coppers. None of it was very valuable and turning it in would only look suspicious. Gleason had no desire to mix with the City Watch. "Best leave them where they are," Gleason advised.

The boy's lips trembled. "But someone else will only take them," he protested.

"So let them," Gleason retorted. "Now, are you going to show me this sister of yours, or am I going to take you to the Watch, so that you can hand them back in person?"

The boy pushed back a thick shock of honey blond hair from his eyes, which traveled from the stolen objects to Gleason's set expression, and then over to the dark corners of the alley. "All right," he said, "but only if you promise not to tell her what I done." Gleason raised his eyebrows and then nodded. Maybe the child was telling the truth. At the very least, it would be interesting to find out.

The little boy darted away but then paused, clearly expecting Gleason to follow. They moved through the city at a good pace, though nothing to compare with their earlier frantic run. There were several times when he almost lost the child, zigzagging in and out of back streets, through the side doors of a neglected garden, and down an endless pair of steps that terminated in an apparent cul-de-sac with a concealed opening behind the last somber-looking house.

Soon enough, the Village boy had become well and truly turned around. It crossed his mind that following a thief, even a pint-sized one, could very well become dangerous. But then again, he wasn't exactly a refined gentleman himself. He could hold his own in a brawl, he thought nervously, as they traversed yet another square, this one with a sluggish fountain in it, and then came to a quarter of the city that was even more rundown than the last.

A single wide street let out from the far end, sloping down to a wharf at the water's edge. He hadn't realized they were this close to the Demya, the bright blue, slow-moving river that ran the length of Queen's Hollow, neatly dividing it in half. Its sparkling depths were spanned by a multitude of bridges, some large and well-traveled, others barely wide enough for a person at a time to cross. But the bridge they came to now, by following the river's edge to what appeared to be its southernmost point, was one that Gleason had only ever heard about.

The massive crumbling structure had been designed on a grand scale at one time, when its stones were white and gleaming, but over half of it had fallen into the river and now the stones were dull and gray, covered in a creeping grime. What was left of it was entirely covered in tents and makeshift shelters, as though a large party of local residents had whimsically decided to camp out for the night.

Gleason gaped at it in awe. "This is the Beggar's Bridge, isn't it?" he asked, trying not to sound too impressed. There were many tales about the bridge, ones that he had listened to as a child. As the main story went, a magnificent bridge had once been built by an ambitious king who had taxed his subjects mercilessly to pay for it.

Many of them had lost their homes and livelihoods, unable to keep up with the rising costs. When the bridge had unexpectedly collapsed several years after its completion, the people all said it was a sign from the god. The king had eventually been made to relent, but many of the inhabitants of the city were already ruined and had no recompense. These penniless people claimed the bridge as their own, re-naming it Beggar's Bridge, in caustic tribute to king who had made them so.

"Aye, it is," the boy pronounced. "Best place in the city, other than Queen's Hall," he said with a modest grin. Gleason snorted at the thought. Queen's Hall was an imposing building in the finest district of the city, one which held fancy dress balls that were as exclusive in invitation as they were lavish in entertainment. The Beggar's Bridge might be a landmark in its own right, but it was hardly one that made the tour when visiting noblemen came to town.

Gleason followed the child cautiously as the boy picked his way through closely pitched tents and lean-to's, waving at several other grubby urchins and making respectful hellos to a series of ragged-looking adults. Eventually they came to the far left of the bridge, about three-quarters of the way down.

The child stopped in front of a worn woolen flap, and then glanced back at him worriedly. "Promise?" he asked. Gleason nodded and the child drew back the tent flap, disappearing inside. After a moment of debate with himself, Gleason followed.

"Jimmy! You're back early," a soft voice said. Gleason blinked in the dim light of the cramped shelter, waiting for his eyes to adjust. "Who's this?" the voice asked, sounding surprised.

"I brought a... friend home," Jimmy answered, gesturing at the Village boy, whose vision had finally cleared enough to make out a slim shape in the far corner of the dome-shaped room, sitting on a patched wooden chair that had several rungs missing from its bottom half.

The girl was younger than Gleason had imagined, though she must be nearly as old as he was. She shared the boy's honey blond hair—on her it was neatly braided to one side—and her face was clean and unblemished, apart from a set of slight purple smudges that lay beneath her questioning eyes.

"A friend?" she repeated dubiously.

"More an acquaintance," Gleason clarified. "Actually, I was just making my way through the city, and your brother offered to show me around."

Jimmy had gone to stand by his sister's chair, half-shielding her with his short body, but now he smiled back at him, clearly pleased by this.

"And you brought him here?" the girl asked her brother incredulously. Her lips were nearly colorless, Gleason noticed, but her eyes were a bright sea green, and they had just turned suspicious.

"I asked to see the parts that normally get left out," Gleason quickly replied. Clearly the child had been telling the truth, he thought; there was no point in reneging on him now. "Here boy," he said rather imperiously, pulling a coin out of his purse, "as we agreed upon."

Jimmy didn't need to be told twice. He danced over to the Village boy and pocketed the coin with alacrity, grinning all the while. "No problem, mister," he said cheerfully. "Anything else you'd like to see?" Gleason shook his head, feeling the incident hadn't exactly made the right sort of impression on the child. He probably should tell the sister what Jimmy had been up to, but he didn't have the heart. And it wasn't really his business, after all.

"Jimmy, you haven't introduced us," the girl said reprovingly. She looked as though she was still trying to figure the whole thing out. "I'm Bethany," she offered, getting up from the chair and setting a delicate piece of sewing on the small round table in front of it. "But most people just call me Beth." The table and several falling apart chairs seemed to be the only furniture in the tent, other than two bedrolls and a crate full of foodstuffs. "Would you care for a drink?" she offered, as though he was a guest now.

Gleason was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable. He didn't know why he'd come in the first place, and he certainly had more important things to be doing with his time. He declined the offer quickly, telling the slim, weary-looking girl that he'd best be getting back before it was dark. Indeed, the only light in the tent came from a flickering lantern that hung down from a central pole, and the space was barely illuminated by it now.

He ducked outside, letting the woolen flap settle back into place, only to discover that the sun had already gone down and a swollen white moon was rising over the water. "Wait a minute," the girl's soft voice called, and Beth stepped out after him.

He glanced around, noticing how crowded it had become on the bridge. Several more residents seemed to have come out of their shelters or just returned to them, and a group of rough-looking men were gathered around an open fire, taking lusty sips out of various earthenware jugs. Loud voices drifted over to him, a harsh edge to their indistinct words.

"I'll walk you back a ways," the girl said quietly. "Folk don't take to strangers around here."

Gleason met her eyes briefly, discovering that she was significantly shorter than he, although he wasn't a tall man himself, and far too thin, or so he thought. He remembered the coin he'd given the boy—which he could hardly afford—and suddenly wished it had been more.

"All right, then," he replied doubtfully.

There was no point in trying to find his way back alone through an unfriendly crowd, but neither was he entirely comfortable with the escort. The girl took the lead, keeping close to his side. They moved slowly through the dying light, along narrow lanes formed between tents, skirting several rowdy groups which had congregated around large communal fires.

Several people called out Beth's name or nodded to her in a neighborly manner, but they stared at the Village boy disapprovingly as the two of them passed by. When they neared the edge of the bridge, Gleason suddenly realized she would be walking back by herself and came to a quick halt.

"If you point me in the right direction, I'm sure that'll be enough," he said hastily.

The girl looked at him intently, as though she was having trouble seeing him in the fading light. "Where are you staying?" she asked.

"In the miner's district, on the east side," he answered. There were no mines in the city, of course, but that was what people called the area full of jewelers, craftsmen, and pawnbrokers where there were also a few affordable inns nearby. Beth gave him detailed directions, helping orient him to where the bridge was in relationship to the rest of the city, and then they both fell silent. The Village boy turned in the direction of the wharf where he and the boy had come from, and opened his mouth to bid her goodbye.

"Did you really ask Jimmy to show you around?" she interrupted. She must have been turning the question over in her mind for a while, Gleason thought.

"In a way," he answered, feeling guilty at the lie. The girl's already waxen lips pressed together, becoming nearly white. "He seems a good lad," he offered, trying to distract her.

The lips came apart and Bethany sighed. "He wants to be good, but there's more temptation to do otherwise right now."

It was a statement that Gleason understood perfectly. For some reason, it touched him more than anything else had in a very long time. "Don't give up hope," he murmured. "I'm sure things will turn out."

The girl just stared at him. "And is that your experience of it?" she asked crisply.

"No," he admitted, rubbing his eyebrows at a mounting tension behind his eyes. "Actually, I believe I've made a right mess of my life."

Suddenly, the girl laughed. It was a surprisingly pleasant sound, one which bounced off the rolling surface of the water and the decaying stones of the bridge like an unusual occurrence. "Better luck to you then, traveler," she answered softly, reminding him that he'd never given her his name.

"Gleason," he said, with a crooked smile.

"Gleason," she replied, her sea green eyes shimmering in the moonlight.

"Thanks for bringing my brother back," she added, and then her slim form vanished around the dark bulk of the nearest tent, before he could come up with a suitable reply.

The Words

Sometimes interference can be a good thing, such as when one is about to make a terrible mistake, like marrying for duty instead of for love. Other times it can backfire. The bard's cautionary tale had the opposite effect on King Jared than the bard no doubt intended it to have.

Instead of continuing to struggle with his dreams every night and sleep-walk through his mornings, the young king appointed one of his advisors to manage the Palace in his absence, saddled up Night for a good long trip, and told everyone who needed to know that he was taking a much needed vacation.

A king does not usually travel alone, and King Jared was no exception. He had a small retinue which accompanied him to one of the royal country estates—the easternmost one, which was near to Olcasse. Once in the country, the king let his housekeeper know that he would take a few weeks to himself, to rest and relax, and would prefer not to be disturbed by anyone. He sent his retinue back, and kept only a few servants in the house.

And then, one day, the king did not show up for dinner. As King Jared usually ate breakfast and lunch in his rooms and it wasn't unusual for him to skip meals, at first his absence was not noted. Finally, when someone did get the courage to knock on his door, there was no answer. Eventually, the housekeeper came herself and found a note on the king's desk, telling her that he had taken a small trip, and that he would be back in good time. The king also requested that she keep the matter to herself and go on about her duties as though nothing was wrong, as nothing was wrong.

This was how it happened that Night got another chance to graze in the old farmer's fields, and King Jared once again heard the Dead Tree welcome him. The young king approached the valley, and the Village in it, with a cheerful heart. In fact, every step that he took seemed to remove some care from him, until by the time he had reached the Wood, and the Church, he felt practically weightless.

King Jared did not waste time wandering in the faerie's Wood, now that he knew where he was going. He found that the faerie had been right; her house was barely fifteen minutes from the Church. And yet, although he arrived there with an ease and a speed which he'd hardly expected, the king halted at the thorn bush entrance, thinking that he was not yet ready to enter the faerie's house.

He felt certain that she was at home, although he could not say exactly why this was so. Still, he looked at the evening blue of the flowers, and the wicked-looking needles of the thicket, and he did not go inside. He could have called out to her; in fact, he could have called her name at any time, and she would have come. But his mouth was dry, and his throat seemed to be strangely constricted. He had not actually planned what he would say to the faerie, when he saw her again. He didn't know if she would welcome him, or if she would be upset.

In the end, he decided that there was nothing to do but go on. King Jared steadied his nerves, and entered the tunnel that led through the thicket. The scent of the roses was not as overpowering this time, nor did the sharp thorns try to catch on his clothing.

He emerged unharmed into the yellow grass-carpeted room, with the dark woven branches over the top. The faerie was not resting in her tree root chair, nor was she lying on her mossy stone bed. She was sitting on the ground, next to her mirror-like pool and she appeared to be looking into it at something, although all that the young king saw was a reflection of the trees and the sky above.

"You didn't knock," the faerie woman said, without looking up.

King Jared laughed, letting out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "There's no door," he reminded her.

Erin looked up then, and smiled. She was wearing her faerie dress again—white, with flowery blue dots—and the pieces of her hair that had been so oddly cropped when the king had last seen her, had grown back again.

"Would you like something to drink?" she asked him, as he stood awkwardly in front of the entrance to her house. Without waiting for a reply, she scooped up a cup of water from the pool in front of her, and brought it over to him. King Jared took the cup without protest, and drank the faerie water. It was ice cold, and it tasted like the first snowflake of winter.

"How is everyone at the Palace?" the faerie woman asked politely, when he had finished drinking and handed her back the cup. "You can come in and have a seat, by the way," she said, indicating the tree root chair where he had once found her, still and silent. The young king sat down rather tentatively, and Erin took a seat on the mossy bed, tucking her lovely pale legs underneath her white and blue dress.

"The Palace..." he began slowly, as though trying to remember what it was. "Well, I suppose the Palace is finally recovering from your visit," he finished. He had been feeling immensely content a moment ago, perhaps an effect of the faerie water, but now Lady Erin's question brought back to him all of the troubles which he had so capriciously left behind.

Erin's eyebrows rose. "What does that mean? Surely spending one rather tedious dinner with a faerie hasn't permanently harmed anyone?" She snorted slightly upon saying this, as though humans were entirely too ridiculous.

King Jared, who had only a moment ago been overjoyed to see her again, after having missed her rather intensely for over a year, suddenly remembered why the faerie annoyed him so much. "Dinner was not the problem," he snapped. "The problem was afterward, when you set a spell on everyone!"

Erin's soft pink lips parted, and she stared at him. "A what?" she asked incredulously.

"The song—the song you sang, that made the entire Palace act like lovesick fools!" he exclaimed, leaning forward in the tree root chair, and coming to his feet for emphasis. The faerie's pale face was frustratingly smooth and untroubled. After all of the difficulties he'd been through because of that one night, the young king was close to losing his patience with her at this show of indifference.

"It was only a song," she replied, having the effrontery to seem actually amused.

"Only a song?" he repeated. "Only a song?" he said again, beginning to stride around the faerie's house. "Do you know how many people lost their marks because of that song?" Erin's mouth turned down a bit, but she did not interrupt him to apologize. "Do you have any idea of the trouble it caused?"

She was frowning now, in earnest, but her manner was hardly apologetic. "It's not my fault, what foolish humans will do," she said, with a defensive shrug.

"Then I suppose it's not your fault that Lord MacAlister nearly killed one of my stable boys," he went on, furiously, "because he was found with Lady Rebecca! Nor that Lady Rebecca has since run off with that same stable boy, and been disinherited by her family. Nor that this ruined an otherwise perfect alliance between two noble families of Calundra who have been feuding since the half century mark!" The young king was standing directly in front of the faerie woman now and she had calmly risen from the stone bed to face him.

"No, it's not," she said fiercely. "It was only a song. They didn't have to listen! And I didn't even sing it for them!" At this point, if the king had been paying more attention, he would have noticed that despite the vehemence of her protest, the faerie woman was close to tears. But he was not; he was too frustrated for that.

"Only a song!" he fumed, reaching out to grab hold of her arms, as though he might shake some sense into her. But when his fingers closed over her bare skin, he felt his anger evaporate, and whatever else he had been going to do fled from his mind. For a moment, they were both silent, and then he found himself saying something very passionately to her, something which unfortunately did not come out in the human tongue, but instead came out in the language of his dreams. Whatever it was, the Wood echoed with it, and Erin's coal black eyes went very, very wide.

"I'll get my things," she said abruptly, gently disengaging his hands from her arms.

The faerie woman turned and looked around her house, seeming a little lost. The young king was more than a little lost himself; he felt ashamed of himself now, for losing his temper and shouting, and he had no idea what he had just said to her nor why she didn't seem to be angrier with him than she was. In fact, Lady Erin was humming to herself as she randomly picked up a feather, a stone, a beaded necklace, and a small wooden hair brush and set them carefully into a bag which had been lying near her stone bed.

King Jared watched this in bemusement, and then finally asked, "What on earth are you doing?"

Erin smiled at him—a very sweet, breathtaking sort of smile—and came back over to where he stood, slinging the bag over her arm. "All right, I'm ready," she said happily, gazing into his eyes. The young king felt like he had missed something very important. "Ready?" he repeated. "Ready for what?"

The faerie tipped her head to one side. "You told me you couldn't stop thinking about me after I left. You said I was your heart's desire, and you begged me to come back to the Palace with you, and be your Queen." She smiled again, more shyly this time. "It was quite a pretty speech." Then she looked puzzled for a moment. "I didn't know you spoke faerie."

King Jared stared at her. He noticed, for the first time, that she was wearing a strange sort of necklace, one that appeared to be made up entirely of white buttons. Slowly, he reached out and touched it, and then his hand traveled up to the faerie's cheek. It moved around to the back of her neck and tangled in her long black hair.

"Did I say I loved you as well?" he asked softly.

And then he pulled her into a deep kiss, and the Wood seemed to sigh.

So that was what he'd been saying in his dreams all this time.

The Untold Tale

"Well, old friend," Wick said to the strange green mound that was once Father Brion's body, mopping a kerchief across his brow to catch the drops of perspiration that not even the Wood's dark shadows had managed to dry. Wick had been on the road for a significant span of time. He was dirty and tired and right now he longed more than anything else for the cool and comfort of his chambers in the Palace again. He couldn't call himself a true gypsy anymore, the bard wryly thought, to even entertain the idea that somewhere else might be better than where he was right now.

Gypsies don't settle; home was something that you carried around. When he'd packed his traveling bag, which could still hold all of his possessions, he knew that he'd be gone for a while. Most of the reason for this trip was a promise to himself that he'd pay his last respects to Father Brion and see what sort of a refuge the unhappy priest had found out here in the east, in a place that wasn't supposed to exist.

Father Brion had written to him of the Church of the Wood, of course, and Wick had intended to visit him here all along. Just as he'd intended to do something else, he thought somberly. Something he'd tried to do already and failed at, more than once, which was the remainder of the reason he had finally come.

Wick looked up at the tall dark trees, where broad leaves fluttered in a breeze that he could neither hear nor feel, and then around at the stone walls, where Father Derek was no doubt spying on him out of the windows of the back door of the Church. Then he knelt down at the side of the grave, unfazed by a possible audience. Nothing could be more natural to a storyteller, after all.

"So," he said to the mound, flicking his long gray hair away from his hot neck, "have we righted a wrong at last..." The sharp gray gaze considered the Wood again, wondering if he had just seen a flicker of eyes or if it was only a trick of the light that had gleamed yellow, like a giant cat's iris. "Or have we only made a new one?"

Stories were never quite as simple as people thought, the bard mused. For every tale of victory there was another tale of loss, depending on which side one had taken or the comrades one had chosen in the strife. For every tale of love, there was an opposite tale of heartache, for love was a thing that by nature chose one and excluded others, casting the luckless behind.

Wick considered the mound more carefully and then pulled an item out of his patched brown bag, a bag that had seen just about as much travel as he had over its lifetime. He cradled the object in his palm, revealing a small scrap of fabric with an unusual weave to it, and then opened up the cloth to expose a fluffy bit of scarlet inside, the sight of which brought an involuntary glitter to the gypsy's eyes.

"Ah, Rose..." he whispered, unabashed by the tears that rolled down his sun-darkened cheeks. "Forgive me, love. I should have done this long ago, but I couldn't bear to be parted with it." The bard's gaze remained on the grave, his hand slowly lowering to his lap. His fingers suddenly closed around the square of fabric and the red gleam that shone out from the wispy object in its center was momentarily extinguished.

He closed his eyes, postponing the moment. He sat hunched over the grave, for a long while, as the Wood lay motionless around him. Then he opened his eyes again and unclenched his hand, setting a single lock of red hair down in the lush green grass. He gazed at it for a few minutes and then stood up, dusting off his black trousers, noticing how old they were and how ragged the hems had become.

He took a few irresolute steps towards the cemetery gate and then paused, turning back again. His eyes searched the green mound for the lock of hair he had so reluctantly parted with and a feeling of relief washed over him when he spotted it. I can't do it, he thought, returning to the grave. I can't just leave it here like this.

He knelt back down and stretched out a hand to pick up the lock of hair again. A cool breeze came suddenly out of nowhere, stirring the bright feathery ends before his fingers could make contact. She had been so beautiful, he thought, his hand pausing in the action and falling back to his side. In his mind's eye a vision of the Silent Queen rose up, a smiling faerie with vivid hair and blue-speckled eyes.

Of course, they had known what she was. She had secretly spoken to all of them—the priest, the king, and the bard—but she had also told them how good she was, how she had come to bring an end to the pointless wars and to unite Calundra. And they had believed her, enchanted by her loveliness, by the beguiling words that fell so sweetly from her mouth...

Wick's face tightened, as if in pain.

Her death had been beyond horrible to watch. Father Brion had not gone to the execution, but Wick had. It was a moment he would never forget; one that still haunted his nights. The necklace of stones, which none had dared to remove, had split with the force of the axe and the blue rocks had flown out in all directions, creating more commotion from the crowd than the actual beheading itself. He had found one later, after everyone else was gone, and brought it back to Father Brion, letting him know that the deed was done.

Wick's remembrance was abruptly interrupted by another cool breeze, which seemed to whisper almost lovingly against his neck. It was then that he noticed the lock of hair moving again in the wind, twisting as though it had a life of its own. The flame-like ends seemed to grow longer.

The bard flinched, but held his ground.

The hair had shaken loose from the scrap of fabric and now it began to change, transforming from something soft and insubstantial into something solid and hard. The separate strands came apart and then thickened, reaching down into the earth like roots, and then up into the sky. The upper parts became branches, which continued to grow and weave around themselves—until where a simple lock of red hair had been there was now a bush, with shiny green leaves so dark that they were almost black. The red branches of the bush were covered in bright blue berries, tiny and iridescent, as though fragments of the sky were trapped inside.

The bard let out a soft sigh. With a trembling hand, he reached out to touch one of the dark shiny leaves. His fingers made contact with the smooth surface gently, stroking the delicate veins that ran down its center. Then he shuddered and his hand dropped away from it. "Roselyn..." he said again. The bush contained something of her essence.

Instead of comforting him, it only brought back more fully the sense of having lost her.

Without warning something swooped past his shoulder and he cringed away from it, his heart jolting painfully in his chest. But the movement was only a bird, a tiny thing with a brown-capped head and prickly little feet. It landed on a bright new branch and began to peck at a berry with its sharp beak, eventually fluttering off in an opposite direction, back into the Wood. Wick laughed then, a humorless self-mocking laugh at himself and his nervousness.

It was time to be going now, he told himself firmly. He gave the mound and the bush that now graced it one last look, and then strapped his bag on his shoulders, his lined face determined. He retraced his steps through the cemetery's back gate and around the stone Church, then onto the long dirt path. His heart was still beating a little too fast, but he strolled purposefully beneath the dark arch of the Wood's branches, trying not to think too much about what might be concealed in their depths.

Trees like these ones would make anyone nervous, but they were also magnificent, the bard thought, even taller and darker than the ones near the Palace had been. Thinking of that wood still broke his heart, although he had to admit that the grounds around the massive quartz walls had felt freer after its cutting, as though a great weight had been lifted from the center of Calundra.

It is difficult to both love and fear a thing in equal measure; eventually one or the other will win out. Roselyn had been like that, and not even Father Brion had been impervious, although the priest's feelings for her had always been more disinterested than either the king's or the bard's. Wick had hoped, at one time, that the priest might recover from what had happened. But some roads, having once been followed, can never be turned back on.

The bard tried to shake off a growing emptiness, just at parting with a lock of her hair, which he feared could never be filled. Even by the knowledge that he'd finally kept his promise.

He sighed then, quickening his pace on the path, which broadened slightly as it neared the leaf-bound door of the valley. It was a door made of light and warmth, and the bard stepped through it into the sunshine with a feeling of relief. The dark Wood lay at his back; he felt like he could breathe again. The sharp smell of its bark and the oppressive odor of its blossoms were quickly left behind.

His pace quickened as he came into the Village, his spirits more buoyant than they'd been for some time. He had discharged a duty—let go of his part in a troubled past—and now he was ready to purchase a frothy pint and congratulate himself on a job well done. Or at the very least, drown my sorrows, he thought.

The only pub in the Village was inconveniently narrow on the inside, so much so that the bar was split between its two longer sides, with the main portion in the middle serving drinks and the stools pushed up against the remaining walls. Wick had been in here already to learn the whereabouts of Father Brion's grave, so he greeted the barkeep with a friendly smile and was rewarded by a pint of the same weak variety of ale that he'd suffered through the night before.

The bard was a sociable man, though, and not difficult to please, even if the Village Pub was nearly empty at this mid-afternoon hour. He took a seat next to the only other customers around, an elderly man with a curly white mustache and a sunburned fellow with his arm in a sling, who was wearing a pained expression that indicated the injury was either recent or its healing was somewhat troubled.

"Afternoon," Wick said graciously, enjoying the wetness if not the flavor of his beverage. "Lovely day, now."

"Aye, and so it is," the old man said, introducing himself as Neals the Weaver and his associate as Paint, a name which intrigued the bard.

"Are you a painter, then?" he asked the man curiously.

The sunburned fellow shook his head. "No, but I tumbled into a bucket of paint when I was a child, and they've never let me forget it." He looked down at his arm and said a bit ruefully, "'Fraid I'm rather clumsy, as you can see for yourself."

The white-mustached man, the one called Neals, clapped the injured man on the back. "You should've seen him—white as a ghost he was—head to toe." The bard was confused for a minute about whether this referred to the former or the latter incident, but the old man went on to say, "and when his mother tried to bathe it off him he started clawing like a wee kitten. Climbed right out of the tub, paint and water everywhere. By the god, what a mess it was!" Neals shook his head, chuckling at the memory.

"Aye, you do delight in telling me so," Paint answered, rolling his eyes. "I've no memory of it," he explained to the bard. "Not sure it happened myself. Granddad is ornery enough to have made it up one day just to pass the time," the younger man said with a wink in Wick's direction.

"Couldn't have been more than two or three," the old man continued, as though his grandson hadn't spoken. "You were a bonny lad though, once we got the paint off." He chuckled again and then took another sip of his drink. "And don't you believe him either—his mother will tell you so—and half the Village saw him running round like a banshee, all shrieking white."

The bard liked a story better than anything else, and this one brightened his day considerably. He eyed the sunburned man, who looked a bit sheepish now, and filed the snippet away for his own re-telling later on.

"Is it true what they say about the king?" Paint suddenly asked. "Folks said that you talked of a wedding to come..." The young man's voice fell and his brown eyes became fearful. "Can it be that King Jared would marry her, knowing what she is and where she comes from?"

The bard shifted on his stool, considering how to respond. He had been unfortunate enough to be away when the mysterious faerie woman had showed up, but certainly King Jared's longing for her had been in the air at the Palace long after she was gone. He was only surprised at how well the young man had resisted it. But he'd seen defeat in the king's eyes that day, when he'd begun the tale of King Felsa and the impatient young man had cut him short.

If the stubborn boy had not interrupted the telling, he might well have heard the story that remained untold now. Although to be fair, Wick could see at first how his tale seemed to be weighted against the matter. But then again, for some people a nudge in the wrong direction was better than a shove in the right one.

The bard took another sip of ale, staring at his brown hands as they pressed against the warm glass. "Aye, it appears that he would. But if anyone can handle a faerie, it would be the young king," Wick replied pleasantly, looking up at his companions. It was Kip and Corella who had told him that King Jared was bringing the faerie back to the Palace; like the rest of Calundra, they had already heard the rumors that he intended to make her his bride. Wick knew that he should return as well, come clean and finally tell the king his long, sad tale. It was a truth that needed to be told.

"What will become of us?" the old man with the white mustache was mumbling, shaking his head at his grandson, who looked rather unhappy now as well. "It's a madness, for sure."

"We'll be all right, granddad," Paint comforted him. "Nothing ever changes here. You should know that by now," the younger man teased him. "You've been telling the same story every night for the last twenty years, I reckon."

Neals grinned a grin that was missing several teeth. "Well, lad, a good tale is worth telling again. As I'm sure you'd agree," he appealed to the bard.

Wick smiled and nodded. He took another drink of his watery ale and thought of the many tales he had told, and the many others that he had not.

He suddenly realized that the two Villagers were expecting something more from him than a distant gaze; an answer, perhaps, or more news about events that were still going on. The bard launched belatedly into a string of gossip about the staunch young king, freely mixing his facts with opinions, appreciative of the rapt audience. The pub started to fill as the day came to its close and soon he had a ring of faces around him, and a scattering of entranced eyes. Faeries weren't the only ones who could weave magic, he thought with a certain satisfaction.

The older gypsy man finally finished his stories, picked up his bag, and waved farewell to his listeners at the pub. As he walked down the main street of the Village, he thought of Roselyn, and of King Pattrik, and of young Prince Lukas. He thought of a lock of hair from a beautiful faerie, and of a tall dark wood with a hidden menace at its heart.

He told himself, as he climbed the path up the hill to the Dead Tree in the early hours of evening, that he had only waited to see what manner of king Father Jared would turn out to be, before entrusting him with the truth about his past. He had waited to know what the young man felt about the faerie of the Wood. He had waited...

...for courage, the bard finally admitted to himself. Courage to let go of his most painful and precious secret; a secret which had come to define him.

The tale of a lock of hair which had grown into a red bush.

The mystery of why an innocent faerie had been willing to shoulder the blame for a terrible crime...

The tragedy of how one woman could be loved by three men—in such different ways—only to be betrayed by them all.

The Ceremony

The king's subjects did not welcome Lady Erin back with open arms. They stared at her and whispered; some of them decided to be brave and others decamped from the Palace in the middle of the night. The only one who whole-heartedly embraced the faerie was Amandie and that while kindly meant was also an unfortunate shock, as the Village girl momentarily forgot the faerie lady's dislike of being touched.

But the sight and more particularly the sound of a faerie have their own fascination. Lady Erin tried not to use this indiscriminately, aware of its possible side effects, but there were only so many frightened glances she could take in at one time. So if there were words that she murmured to people who might not otherwise have accepted her, and if there were moments when she made herself seem meeker than any faerie was—well, may the god forgive her and may King Jared continue not to notice. Because there was no conceivable way she was ever going to give him up.

Fortunately, not everyone in the Palace was terrified of her; many had listened to her song in the garden, which by now had become a favorite tale in and of itself. The spell that she had unintentionally cast had haunted not only the king's dreams. The magic of its sweet words still lingered by the rose-colored fountain, a soft shimmer of longing that made one of the nearby wooden benches a common trysting place for lovers now.

The king may have spent a woeful year of his life sorting out tangled affairs but there were many at the Palace who owed to the faerie's words a long coveted sweetheart, or who had stolen away a prize that was already secretly theirs, under cover of that night. It turned out that none who had heard the song could bring themselves to question her place at the king's side, whether they liked it or not.

And King Jared was not formerly a priest for nothing. Once the faerie had settled into Palace life as much as possible, he arranged for her to swear an oath, in a room full of edgy witnesses. It was meant to be a vow of eternal peace with Calundra, although it did not go exactly as planned for several reasons. Even so, in the end it limped passably along.

"If you would raise your left palm, my lady," the High Priest began, his wary blue eyes only too willing to focus away from the faerie's enchanting face and onto her outstretched arm. "Very well, repeat after me. I, Lady Erin, do solemnly swear—" The High Priest's heavily jowled face suddenly blanched. "By the god," he whispered, his richly decorated prayer book slipping to the ground.

Lady Erin looked down at her hand to see what had caused the older man to flinch. Ah, of course. Three circles still glowed brightly from her palm, but they were bisected now. A white ridge ran through two of them and in the place where it did, there was no light at all.

Her hand had been permanently scarred by the Baron's knife.

"I am sorry, but—but this—this is most irregular," the High Priest stuttered, glancing helplessly around at the hushed crowd, who looked ready to lift their skirts or hitch up their trousers and run. King Jared, standing protectively at Lady Erin's side, practically glowered at the priest.

"The mark still glows, does it not?" This came rather unexpectedly from the bard, who had been lounging against a pillar looking bored but now suddenly came forward, his lean darkness a stark contrast to the priest's formal light green robes. The gypsy's gray eyes met King Jared's dark ones briefly and then came back to rest meaningfully on Father Ibri.

"Why, y-yes," Father Ibri—for that was the High Priest's name—was forced to answer. He had come to the Palace from a noble family in Olcasse, being a cousin of the late Count Olcay, and had been appointed by King Jared himself. No doubt the once grateful priest now wished that he was safely back in his last church, where things were always quite regular and no man of the mark ever brought home a faerie woman to be his wife.

"Then I see no problem," the king swiftly pronounced, his gaze sweeping across the room to include the noblemen and advisors, and a few of the staff in higher positions who had also wished to come. The gathering of witnesses shifted uncomfortably, but none opposed him. Father Ibri pulled himself together and the ceremony went on.

Lady Erin dutifully repeated the oath, not that it was one she would have chosen, and of course her mark remained true, as was seen by all. In fact, it appeared to pulse more brightly with the end of the ceremony, bathing the priest's prayer book with its slightly deformed shape, which now made one full circle and four semi-circular lines. At this, the tense human faces could be seen to relax and even the High Priest seemed reassured of the legitimacy of his part.

"Sorry to put you through that," Cal told her softly afterward, lifting the inside of her hand to his mouth and kissing the broken lines around the mark. After savoring this for a moment longer, Erin gently tugged away her hand. There was no one else around to see them, which was a good thing; then again, in another way it was not. Several long weeks stretched between a drowsy afternoon in the Palace gardens and the wedding itself and purity was not a thing to be trifled with; no, not with all that rested on her keeping whatever remained of her poor mangled mark.

A troubled gloom fell over the faerie's face but despite the king's repeated inquiries, she did not share with him its source. They'd discussed the cause of the scar on the way back from the Wood, which was several months ago now. That is, Lady Erin had told him the facts of what happened, glossing over them some. She doubted the Baron's demise would prevent Cal from wanting to kill him again if she spoke too plainly about what he had done.

It was the scar itself that caused her the worry, not the memory of what had made it on her palm. The mark had felt different since that day. Erin had not felt the god turn away from her when the Baron died, and yet somehow there was a distance. It made her uneasy, as though the knife had sliced through something more than just her skin; taking a little peace with it, possibly some truth as well. Lady Erin shook her head at the thought and told herself not to be fanciful. The god was still with her regardless of what had happened to the mark.

But she was glad she had taken her hand away from Cal's mouth when a dark figure appeared in the Palace gardens, and she recognized the now familiar shape of Wick the bard. King Jared stood up from where they had both been seated, on the bench by the fountain, and came forward to greet him eagerly. "I wanted to thank you," the young king said, "but then you disappeared."

"You might not thank me when you hear what I have to say," Wick grimly replied. His eyes rested on the faerie for a moment and then returned to the king, who now looked puzzled. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you," the bard continued, "but it never seemed to be the time."

The young king's easy manner grew colder. "Is this about my mother, again?"

"Yes," Wick replied, "But it's not what you think. I began to tell you of her guilt, long ago, because that was the story that everyone was told. What I never got to—because your father didn't wish it—was the tale of her innocence."

Lady Erin made a small sound which neither man noticed, intent as they were on each other. King Jared was staring at the bard, his entire body tense.

"Tell me then."

The bard made it all the way through to the end this time—to his mistaken belief in Rose's duplicity, to his horrified discovery, only after her death, that she'd been guiltless. It couldn't change anything now—no amount of remorse could change the past—but she would have wanted her son to know.

And now he did.

The Bride

The ceremony with the High Priest was only the first of many such tests that were subtly devised for the faerie. There were informal salons and formal dinners; there were endless structured events and countless last minute introductions. Some days Erin barely saw the king at all, which meant he was either closeted with another set of worried nobles or in session with his disapproving advisors.

"You'd think I wanted to burn the Palace down," he grumbled to her late one evening, "instead of having a wedding in it." The faerie, who had missed him for most all of the day, had given up ideas of purity and was lying on the floor of his sleeping chambers with her head in his lap. She had snuck in, of course, and it was late enough in the night that no one would be disturbing them. The king's hands combed absently through her tangled black hair and when his fingers hit a snarl, they deftly teased it out.

"We could get married in the Wood," she suggested, not very hopefully.

The king let out a small, amused snort. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he grinned. "And who would stand up with you? The wolves? An owl?"

Lady Erin yawned. "It would have to be at night, if we wanted an owl." The faerie was getting sleepy, and the king's lap was warm. "I thought mornings were more traditional."

"They are, my love," the king murmured. "Would that tomorrow were the one..." Erin felt his lips touch her forehead, but she had already slipped away into a dream of the Wood. Her Wood, that she missed so much, in darkness. The night birds flew out from the trees, and the bats swooped down on a horde of unlucky insects. A porcupine clicked its hollow warning against a badger, as it lumbered by...

Over the next few days, she did her best to appear both complacent and docile. She let a bevy of twitchy ladies give her advice on the wedding, and used a few very honeyed words to soothe them into feeling they were utterly essential in helping her know what to choose for this, or for that, or for something else she hadn't even known about. There was talk of flowers and rings, of food and decorations.

She sweetly deferred to everyone else's opinions, as she cared for none of it, shamelessly garnering their approval and support in the process. Not even a faerie bride could keep a room full of noblewomen from the full enjoyment of plotting a royal wedding. That is, until the conversation came around to the Dress, which seemed to be regarded as some sort of holy object.

"Oh, you must have Lucille fit you," Lady Amelea breathed, as though this was a treat to be greatly looked forward to and not an idea that made the faerie's stomach curl up into a ball. She glanced around at the collection of brightly colored silks and velvets on the humans that surrounded her, and couldn't hold back a shudder.

"I have something already," she said firmly, watching their disappointed faces fall. There was no way she was going to spend an entire day wanting to shred her own wedding dress with her nails, the better to get it off. Her pretty, pastel-colored parlor went quiet, and the ladies, who had previously been twittering so happily, like a great flock of songbirds, grew silent—as though they had just seen the shadow of a hawk.

Despite her confident rejection of their assistance, the faerie found herself putting off the matter of the dress until it could be put off no longer, unless she wanted to wear the one she already had on. She escaped into the garden one day after breakfast to see what there was to work with, and found it even more depressing than she had thought. The over-vigilant, rather unfriendly gardener would be sure to notice if she raided his flowerbeds or clipped up some of his beloved grass. Besides which, the colors and textures were all wrong.

Lady Erin went back inside and rustled through her new chambers, which were far too numerous and much too large, until she found what she wanted. The bag she'd packed earlier had been nearly forgotten, but there it still was, kicked halfway under the bed but otherwise unharmed. She pulled out a ruffled black feather, and smiled.

The faerie woman went over to the window seat, and opened up a pane of glass. Holding her small token out into the breeze, she sang a swift little song, and then let it fall down. Following this, she retrieved a book from her dresser, and then sat down patiently to wait. She knew that it wouldn't take long. It couldn't; there were only three days left before she'd need to wear it.

At least she had only to worry about the one dress, she thought, as there would be no coronation to follow the wedding. A faerie woman might have been accepted as the king's bride, but she would be queen in name only, with no official power. This was despite the fact that King Jared was generally believed able to resist faerie magic, as the tale of her song had spread a rumor of his immunity both far and wide, courtesy of Wick the bard.

And if it made the humans feel safer, she was willing to overlook the insult.

Not everyone gets their wedding dress delivered by ten black crows as Lady Erin did, later that night, nor should they necessarily accept it, if that was the manner in which it had come. But this was exactly what the faerie had expected, of course.

Years afterward, people spoke of the glory of that particular wedding gown. For anyone who has ever walked through an orchard in springtime, and thought that no other place could ever be as vibrant or alive, such was Lady Erin's dress. And if the weave was strangely reminiscent of delicate star-shaped flowers, bearing the sugary aroma of wild plums, and if the jewels that glittered from it resembled a scattering of morning dew drops—well, it was glorious nonetheless.

The real treasure, however, was the diadem, a circlet of golden leaves which shed a sunlit splendor over the faerie's midnight black hair, and cast a murmuring glow over her pale brow. The only jewelry that she wore was a single blue stone threaded on a humble string, which fell just to her collarbone. After what the bard had told them about Cal's mother, she wore it proudly.

Lady Erin sighed and straightened to her fullest height, holding her head up high. She might be the most feared and dreaded bride in the history of Calundra, but she was also a faerie. None would ever again see the like.

It wasn't the best-attended wedding to grace the enormous columns and the smooth marble floors of the Great Hall. That honor had already gone to King Halak's wedding to Lady Vilette, when after seven long years of persistent courtship, the diffident noblewoman finally ran out of ways to tell him she'd rather not.

The Palace was so full, the day that Reluctant Vilette graced the bride's corner, that several people were accidentally shoved out of open windows when the king at last arrived. Hence the tradition to leave all the windows closed in the Great Hall during weddings; even summer ones, which were resultantly hot and oppressive. A little sweat was nothing compared to getting one's finest clothes torn apart on a bank of emerald bushes just outside.

It may not have been the biggest of weddings, but it was definitely the quietest in recent years, and the one with the driest eyes. Not a whisper of air stirred as the king and his bride said their vows. Not a tear sparkled on a single curved cheek—although this was only because Amandie, who proudly stood next to Lady Erin, was smiling too much to cry.

None of this made even the slightest impression on the faerie. All that Erin saw were Cal's dark eyes as he walked towards her, burning like a faerie wood fire. All that she heard was the beating of her own heart, singing a rushed staccato song.

And all that she felt was the touch of his hand against hers, a different sort of heat than a human's touch, one that seared without pain, that made her dizzy but not ill, and which let off a burst of brilliant light from between their clasped palms. It was a light that did not come exactly from the god, but from something deeper and more primitive, a force in Calundra that the land—and certainly its people—had nearly forgotten about.

And that was more than enough.

The Faerie Queen

Jimmy had climbed up on the base of the statue to see out over the heads of the jostling crowd. Gleason glanced up at him nervously, but was reassured to see that the boy had a firm grip on the pitted surface of the stone man, who represented one of the former kings of Calundra, King Felsa the Slain. The present king of Calundra was out there somewhere amidst the crowd, approaching in state along the city's broadest avenue in the company of his new bride. It was the Mayday Festival, and by tradition the royal entourage led a procession through Queen's Hollow and up to the steps of the great cathedral, in honor of the god's renewal of springtime. The faithful believed that if the god was not honored for the passing of the seasons they would fail to come, but Gleason was sure that this was just a superstition.

Bethany, however, seemed to think it was possible, at least judging by the pains she had taken to clean out her small tent and pin flowers on the woolen flap which served as a door. The slim girl stood close by Gleason's side, an unusually warm spring sun beating down on her fair hair and touching her cheeks with the faintest hint of color.

She looked up at him excitedly, and Gleason couldn't help but feel a little more cheerful. He wasn't quite sure how he'd become such good friends with the impoverished siblings, but by now he was a well-known figure at the Beggar's Bridge, easily recognized by a wide circle of their destitute friends.

The brother and sister still eked out a living sewing and running errands—Jimmy's new job—but Gleason's luck had changed for the better since they first met. If anything, the more he visited them the less he looked like a man liable to frequent such a spot. This was because he'd found himself work with a reputable jeweler, first hawking the older man's wares on the street and then eventually helping design some of the trinkets himself, something he'd discovered an unknown talent for in his deft fingers. He dressed better now in honor of his new occupation, whereas Beth's clothes were even more carefully mended and Jimmy, despite his sister's best efforts, was just as scruffy as ever.

"Do you see the faerie queen?" Beth asked him. He was reminded of how much shorter she was as she stood on tiptoe and tried to peer around a large man's back. They'd all been waiting patiently in the square for nearly an hour as various parts of the procession went by: gypsy dancers, children's choirs, carts of early fruits and vegetables that were handed out to needy people in the crowd, and finally the Queen's Hollow orchestra, which had just favored them with a selection of popular tunes as they marched by. "They say she's lovelier than anything anyone's ever seen," Bethany added hopefully.

Gleason scowled at the thought. "She's magic, if that's what you mean, but I don't think she's any lovelier for it."

Bethany's eyes flew over to him, oblivious now to the clamor around her, even though the king's guard passed chanting a battle hymn and then stopped to flourish their swords. "You've seen the queen?" she breathed in astonishment.

"Aye, well... we grew up in the same parts," the Village boy replied evasively. All at once his remark seemed very injudicious. Bethany clearly thought he was a better person than he actually was. The last thing he wanted to do was admit to her he'd once plotted against the faerie's life. "I don't know her all that well, but I used to see her around."

Thankfully, Beth's attention was distracted from him by a loud shout from the crowd. Gleason watched as a large carriage turned the corner and then rolled into the square, drawn by two unmatched horses, one black and one white, both equal in strength and height. The open carriage had gold trimmings and a dark red interior.

In it sat a tall, serious-looking man wearing a blue and white robe, with the king's crown on his dark brown head. Next to him was a slender woman sitting up very straight. Her pale face was rather stiff, in sharp contrast to the black hair that cascaded loosely about her head, stirring in the light breeze that ruffled the flowery garlands in the square all around them.

The volume of the crowd surged with enthusiasm at the sight of them and a spontaneous showering of flowers was thrown out at the royal couple, most to be trampled under the horses' hooves, but some of which landed in the carriage itself. A few of these were well-aimed enough to wind up in the faerie queen's lap.

"Oh my, she is beautiful," a soft voice next to him sighed. Gleason looked down at his friend's plain face, noting how wistful it was.

"In a fine gown, you would look just as well," he said loyally.

Beth's lips curled up into an unexpected smile. "No, I could never look like that. Nor do I need to," she said firmly. "I'd be happy for Jimmy to have a pair of britches that fit and myself a new apron. But at least we're free to do what we want; fine folk like that, well, I'm sure they pay a price to be as lovely as they are."

At this, Gleason smiled back at her. He'd been dreading the Mayday festival, which Jimmy and Beth had both begged him to come to, but now he felt like it was going to be all right. Once the king and queen had entered the cathedral, the crowd would spread out and then the real party in the streets would begin. People were still calling out the king and queen's names, embellished with many kind compliments, but Gleason looked up hoping to find that the royal couple had already moved on.

Instead the carriage was as close as it could get, albeit separated from them by the noisy throng. From the red velvet seat a pair of dark eyes gazed out expressionlessly over the multitude of heads and then fastened deliberately on the Village boy's eyes. Gleason felt all of the air leave his lungs. The faerie queen was staring directly at him, and there was no doubt that she had recognized him for who he was.

She is beautiful, he thought despairingly. Her eyes were as black as the resentment and anger that used to choke his heart. The queen held his gaze for what seemed like an unpleasant eternity, and then Gleason felt a small hand creep up protectively to rest on his arm. The coal black eyes flickered, following the motion. Gleason looked down too and saw that Bethany's face had gone rigid. Her lips were white again, in that way of hers, pressed together by some strong emotion.

The faerie's expression changed almost imperceptibly and then Gleason heard Jimmy holler, "Hey, pretty lady!" from up above. A scattering of laughter broke out in the crowd. The little boy was waving energetically at the slow-moving carriage, a huge grin on his dirt-streaked face. The queen's tense manner suddenly dissolved into a sweet smile.

She reached down into her lap, selected a yellow rose, and then tossed it in the boy's direction. Jimmy leaned out from the statue with one hand and caught it in a grubby fist. The crowd went wild with cheering. The carriage lurched and then rolled along, and Gleason breathed a sigh of relief.

When the moment had passed, he couldn't help but notice that Beth had left her hand where it was on his arm. He was tempted to claim it for the rest of the day, and wondered if he dared to do so. The sense that things would turn out all right came back to him again, in full measure.

"You'll tell me the truth of that, sometime?" Beth asked quietly, her soft voice barely audible over the rumble of the crowd. Gleason looked down on the honey-colored head, unable to bring himself to answer the question all at once.

"Aye, I will," he finally said, vowing it was a promise that he would actually keep this time.

The Dark Trees

Amandie brought the tray in to Queen Erin and set it down on the mosaic table that stood next to the large bay window, where the queen habitually sat. The young queen looked up at Amandie from her comfortable place on the well-padded seat, and gave her a friendly smile. "You know you don't have to do that anymore," the faerie told her. "You're a lady's maid now. Not that I particularly need one."

"I don't mind," Amandie replied, taking the cover off of the tea pot and getting ready to pour. But when the queen shook her head and patted the blue and pink flowered cushions rather insistently, Amandie dutifully sat down. "Anyway, it gives me an excuse to visit with Hawk," she continued. "And you do need someone to take care of you, you know—especially now," the Village girl concluded, drawing a strangely woven green blanket up over the queen's lap, so that it covered the gentle slope of her stomach.

The queen laughed and patted the bump fondly. "Well, I suppose I could use a little pampering. But I don't ever think I'll get used to being fussed over," she said, resting her head back against the wall. The queen sighed, then, and her gaze drifted out to the vista that lay beyond the sparkling panes of glass. It was much the same attitude that Amandie had found her in when she first entered the queen's chambers. The light from the window turned the queen's dark hair glossy and highlighted the shape of her nose. Her soft pink lips were pressed together, which might have made her appear displeased to some, but Amandie knew this only meant that the faerie was probably thinking about something, and didn't want to talk.

When the queen remained silent and apparently distracted, Amandie looked out into the garden herself. Although the Village girl wasn't quite sure that "garden" was the right word for it anymore. A wall of dark trees had grown up almost to the edge of the Palace; some had even pushed their way in between the emerald green bushes of the garden itself.

Black roots snaked across several of the neat sandstone paths, and the carefully manicured flowerbeds no longer possessed flowers that grew all to the same height. Amandie had heard the head gardener complaining that they had become unmanageable; more like weeds than flowers these days, she'd heard him muttering to himself.

In fact, the gardener wasn't the only one complaining about the mysterious trees, which seemed to have grown up over night and were gradually encroaching on the Palace. Amandie had heard more than one heated discussion on the matter; some had even made their way into the King's Court. Farmers came in to complain that tall dark shade trees had sprouted up in their fields and lords came also to lament that their orchards were being invaded by wild fruit trees with snowy white blossoms.

King Jared listened to them all patiently, but his response was inflexible; the trees were not to be cut. In fact, he had even set a punishment on it; anyone found guilty of trying to harm the trees was subject to banishment, a dire consequence that many dissidents took to calling both harsh and unjust.

Amandie got up quickly, feeling like she needed to do something useful with herself; she couldn't get accustomed to just sitting around. She poured out a cup of strong, brown tea and firmly handed it to Queen Erin, testing the pot first to see that it had not grown cold. The queen accepted it graciously enough, but showed little interest in actually drinking it. Amandie offered the faerie a small plate of delicately frosted cookies, ones that she had coaxed the cook to make fresh this morning, knowing that they were the queen's favorite. Queen Erin took a brown bell-shaped one with an almond-flavored glaze.

"What you really mean is that you'll never get used to being fussed over by humans," Amandie said suddenly, going back to their previous conversation. "When your trees fuss over you, you don't mind," she said, perceptively.

Queen Erin nibbled at the cookie and gave Amandie a secretive sort of smile. "They are lovely, aren't they?" she murmured, looking back at the window. "You like them too, don't you?" she asked, with a worried little frown.

"Of course," the Village girl replied, wistfully. "They remind me of home."

The queen nodded and ate the rest of the cookie absently, turning back to the window again. It was tempting to slip into the queen's mood of quiet contemplation herself; to let the hour pass by without actually getting anything done, but Amandie eventually roused herself. She began to tidy the queen's sleeping chamber, pulling the sheets smooth on the bed, and picking up assorted shirts and dresses off the floor.

She straightened up the queen's dresser, putting necklaces back into boxes and rearranging a whimsical collection of objects—a golden leaf, a black feather, a small wooden knife. She set upright a stack of ancient-looking books that had pushed over their bookend, righting them and putting them neatly into alphabetical order.

"Stop fiddling and come sit down next to me again," the faerie chided her softly. "And have something to eat yourself," she said, waving an indolent hand at a bowl of fruit on a nearby stand. Amandie obediently went over and picked out a dark, red fruit and sat down next to the queen. She took a bite of it, and a bright red liquid gushed down her chin, with several drops managing to fall onto her neat lavender and gray trimmed dress. "Oh, dear, not again," Amandie sighed, rubbing at the spot. "This juice just doesn't come out when I wash it."

The queen merely laughed, and then shook her head. "That's what happens when you wear human clothes."

"And I suppose your dress never stains?" Amandie replied testily. But the queen did not appear to be paying attention to the conversation anymore. Instead, she leaned forward unexpectedly and took one of Amandie's hands into hers. "You won't leave me, will you?" she asked the Village girl intently. "Cal says there's talk that some of the people in the Palace might go, because of the trees. I know you say you don't mind them, but will you stay, even if others go?" The queen searched Amandie's face carefully as she said this, her expression anxious. Amandie felt a possessive sort of glow, thinking that the queen both cared about her and relied on her company.

"Of course not, my lady. I mean, my queen," Amandie soothed, giving her a reassuring smile. The queen's black eyes, which had grown very pensive, brightened immediately. "Hawk and I are very happy here," she continued, gently squeezing the queen's hand. It was true; she had never felt so happy, although she wasn't quite certain that the dark red fruit she had just eaten wasn't a part of that. But she could hardly be a lady's maid to someone she couldn't even touch, so she had been eating the fruit regularly, ever since King Jared had brought Lady Erin back to the Palace to be his bride.

"That's good, then," the queen replied, seeming satisfied with her answer. The queen's long, pale hand drifted back to her blanket covered stomach, resting lightly on it, and her gaze returned to the window. It really was a sweeping view of the Palace gardens, Amandie thought again, even if it didn't seem to be much of a garden anymore. Not with all of those wildflowers springing up in odd places, and with those songbirds frolicking in the rose-colored fountain, where no birds had ever bathed before.

She took another piece of fruit and tried to eat it more neatly this time, but the juice still managed to drip down onto her dress. They really were rather addictive, she thought, licking her fingers to catch the last of its tart sweetness. She tucked another piece into her dress pocket, to give to Hawk. She knew that the queen didn't mind if she shared it with him, or whomever else she might want. In fact, Amandie rather felt that it was important to do so, although the faerie woman had never told her such.

The door to the queen's chambers opened, and King Jared came in, his handsome face looking both vaguely irritated and tired. Amandie stood up again quickly and began to bow, but the young king waved it away. "Sit, sit down," he said, "Surely we don't need to stand on ceremony here." He patted Amandie on the shoulder, and then came over to Lady Erin, who had perked up greatly at his arrival. She reached out a pale hand in her husband's direction, and the young king's face grew tender. "How are you, my love?" he asked, kissing her gently on the lips and then sitting down in the section of the window where Amandie had been sitting with the queen before.

"I'm fine," the queen replied, becoming suddenly cheerful. "Amandie takes very good care of me," she said sweetly, giving the Village girl a warm smile. Amandie smiled back at her, and began to pick up the tea things, clearing them away. She shifted over the plate of cookies to accommodate the empty teacup, and placed the lid back on the sugar jar. As she did so, the king settled back against the inset wall of the window, and drew a loose cushion under his right arm.

"How was your Court?" the queen asked, leaning forward to smooth back the king's rich brown hair and tuck it under his crown.

"More trouble with the trees," he sighed, taking the crown off as though it was uncomfortable, and resting it on his knee, where it looked in danger of tumbling to the floor.

"They'll get used to them," the queen said, sounding a great deal more positive than she had before, when she had spoken of it with Amandie. Amandie balanced the tray carefully and walked quietly to the door of the queen's chambers, carefully opening it with her free hand.

"Mmm..." the king replied, his voice fading away as Amandie let the door swing closed behind her. "I certainly hope so..."

Some tales are true, Amandie thought, as she made her way to the kitchen, tea tray in hand. She set it down near the dishwashers, and took the plate of uneaten cookies over to share with Hawk. Hawk smiled at her and reached for a cookie shaped like an oak leaf, with a coffee-flavored glaze on it. "And how is the queen?" he asked, taking a large bite. "Well, enough," she replied, taking a star-shaped cookie for herself and licking at the cherry-flavored sugar on it.

"That's disgusting," he told her, around his next bite. Amandie made a face at him, and then went over to where a black crow was resting on a branch near the kitchen window, begging for scraps. She opened the sash and crumbled the rest of the cookie onto the windowsill, waiting for the crow to grow bold enough to flap over to the sill and gobble it up. For instance, it's true that every faerie has its wood, and every wood has its faerie, Amandie thought. Even a faerie that has yet to be born.

"You should leave the poor bird alone," Hawk put in, interrupting her thoughts. "Everyone knows that crows can't be tamed."

Amandie just shook her head at him. "You'll see, one day he'll come and get it," she cheerfully replied. For it's a false tale, the Village girl thought, that you can never tame a faerie creature—that it will always be wild. And then she smiled, as the crow hopped closer on the branch.

Ah, but then... she thought, coming over to Hawk and resting her head against his arm, which was a good height for it, and which made him put his arm around her properly even though the rest of the kitchen was busy getting ready for the Ladies' Luncheon. Then there are the other tales, the ones where it's hard to tell the difference...

The Last Tale

There is a land that has neither rolling green hills, nor fertile croplands, nor bountiful sunshine. And yet, it is a strangely beautiful land, in its own dark way. It is a land that is all woods, full of tall graceful trees that blot out the sun. The woods there are endless, black, and deep. Humans once foolishly named this land Calundra, but it has no need of that name now, because humans no longer live in it, only faerie folk.

No one knows exactly what became of the humans that used to live there. Some say that they grew unhappy with the trees and built great boats and sailed across a wide sea to a treeless land. Some say that the beasts of the wood grew angry and devoured them. And some say that not all the faeries in the wood were always faeries, but that certain of them were once humans, who ate of the fruit of the trees and told the woods their names, and lost their humanity, in doing so.

There is a tale about this land, a tale that is often told. They say that in the heart of all of the woods there lives a terrible and beautiful Faerie Queen and her half-faerie consort. In the ruins of a great Palace, long ago built by human hands, they have many faerie children and laughing faerie grandchildren, who play in its roofless rooms and scramble over its crumbling walls. They dabble their fingers in its rose-colored fountain, and flit amongst the trees of the wood, pale and wild. They eat the trees' red fruit and make crowns of its snowy white blossoms.

But the truth of this tale cannot be known, because no humans have ever dared venture into the woods.

And certainly if they did, they would never come out.
The End

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