“Sidra, get back!”

“I’ll be fine!”

In fact, I’d probably do a lot better if he stopped distracting me. I willed myself to look away from him and concentrate on the strange, worm-like thing he’d pulled out of the lake wriggling against his grip. Its half dozen spindly legs scratched at the stony beach, trying in vain to tear itself free so it could swallow me whole.

Come here, it whispered at the back of my neck. Let yourself be eaten. Find comfort inside the walls of my intestines and melt into the acids of my stomach.

“Well?” Valerien urged, interrupting the sensation entirely.

“Be quiet, will you! I can’t tell if its hold is weak or if your yapping is overpowering it!” I replied. 

“If his yapping does anything, then its hold is weak,” Lin huffed somewhere behind me. They’d been lounging on a pile of cushions and playing with the iron dagger, apparently unafraid of the fact it could hurt them rather permanently. 

Valerien frowned and dug his heels into the wet sand, pulling the creature away from me. It hissed and sputtered and writhed wildly, its white, slimy flesh glistening in the sunlight. I was surprised Valerien had such a solid grip on the bloody thing. He was fae, so I’d never been all that impressed with his strength, but now I couldn’t help but notice it. Especially when he wore so little despite the cold. 

Winter was here. It wasn’t long until the solstice, now. 

I’d been training with Lin for weeks in a row, and though I couldn’t feel myself improving, their pleased grins and the almost proud pats on the back I received after some sessions were increasing in frequency. Valerien hadn’t been always present throughout all this, still disappearing at regular intervals to what I now assumed must’ve been the Court of Hunger. Whenever he was around, though, I’d insisted on finding some horrific creature after each training session and try to resist its compulsion. I thought it would be better to train my mind when I was physically exhausted, since that was when I was most vulnerable.

Today was no different. My body was still a little achy after Lin had tossed me around for a bit, and that pain was vastly more noticeable than the creature’s attempts at control. That had to be a good sign. 

“Can you step away from its jaws, at least?” Valerien whined, and I did, satisfied with the results. “What do you feel?” he asked next.

“I can hear it trying to eat me,” I shouted after attempting to concentrate on the distant whispers again. “But that’s it!” 

“Do you feel compelled to obey it?” 

“Not at all.”  

“Great!” Lin shoved me out of the way and took my place before the struggling creature. Valerien looked between the two of us with growing annoyance and exasperation before finally sighing and letting go. 

The water worm landed in the sand, and upon realizing it was free, its legs stretched out and stabbed into the ground, making itself ready to lunge. Lin matched its enthusiasm and leaped forth, brandishing Grandmother’s knife. The creature twisted around and caught Lin’s body in its pale tail only to immediately let them go with a pained screech — Lin was, quite literally, on fire.

Valerien picked up his coat off the rock where he’d placed it and shrugged it on, his eyes trained on me as he approached and his pretty face stiff with disapproval. 

“Are you pleased?” he said once he was close enough to touch. 

“With what?” I replied. 

Lin hooted with joy somewhere behind him as one of the worm’s legs caught fire. A not entirely unpleasant smell of grilled fish filled the air. 

“Doing this? Day in and day out?” 

I shrank under Valerien’s scrutiny and pretended to pick at something on my elbow. 

Since receiving Sinéad’s letter, I’d been insistent on intensifying my training, to strengthen my mind. Every time, the whispers faded more and more, commands became empty words and my need to obey diminished. 

It felt like progress, and I was pleased. But clearly Valerien thought this was wrong somehow. I was well aware of the fact that Severin’s magic would be far stronger than the magic of these simple creatures. Even if he couldn’t control my actions, he could hurt me to keep me from fighting him. But that only meant I had to grow more competent, not complacent. 

Perhaps there was more I could’ve been doing to get stronger, but it was too late to change tactics now. The solstice ball was a couple of weeks away. I had to be ready.

“We’ll keep going until the last day,” I said finally, my voice loud now that Lin had finally finished the water worm off. “Just to be sure.” 

“That is not what I —!” Valerien ran his tongue across his upper teeth, “I do not see how exhausting yourself and practically crawling into the maws of a monster helps your cause.”

“Oh, that’s rich,” I couldn’t help but scoff. “You were the one who threw these very same monsters at me in the beginning, no? What’s changed?”

His jaw tightened. 

Evidently he thought toying with my safety was fine when he was the one doing it. When he did it, it was a calculated risk — when I did it, I was being reckless. 

“You two don’t even deign to watch me defeat the monster, huh?” Lin scoffed, joining us in the shade of the trees, barely panting. 

“You have ‘defeated’ at least twenty now,” Valerien replied. “I think we have seen the extent of your abilities.” 

“Watch it. You should be nice to me or else you might offend my little friend here.” They balanced the dagger on the tip of their finger. The blade was covered in charred viscera, which I knew from experience would soon crumble off the surface like dust. 

“Is that a threat?” 

Lin smirked at him, “And what if it is?” 

Valerien rolled his eyes. He was in a rather bad mood today, though not bad enough to start any arguments. 

Without another word to either of us, he turned around and headed back toward the shore, past the quickly rotting body of the water worm. 

Lin and I followed, and they kept playing with the knife even while walking. They’d always carried daggers on them, but their fascination with the one thing that could kill them was a little worrisome. Valerien had scolded me for giving it to them. Whatever they were planning, they hadn’t told him either.

“Hey, Lin?” I said as all three of us entered the water tunnel Valerien had created. 

“Yes, sweetie?” 

“Why are you doing this?” 

I’d been wondering for a while, hoping to get a glimpse of their true motivation indirectly, but they’d always kept our conversations to the topic of my training and asking them outright behind Valerien’s back seemed disingenuous. Besides, this wasn’t urgent — I was just curious. 

“Doing what?”

“Helping.” 

“Do I need a reason?” they asked nonchalantly. 

“I thought the fae didn’t do things just because. Valerien must’ve promised you something in return, no?” 

“Maybe he’s helped me before, and this is me repaying him?” 

“Is it?” 

Valerien glanced over his shoulder, exchanging looks with Lin that didn’t seem like either warnings or apprehension, rather like they were both confused over my questioning. 

“We’ve known each other for a very long time, darling,” Lin said cryptically. “At that point, you start helping without need for repayment.” 

Now the silence between us turned a little awkward as I chewed on that reply. Grandmother had said the fae only dealt in bargains. Did that apply exclusively to their relationships with humans? Was there a specific time limit to where bargains no longer applied? Or was it simply that the fae weren’t quite as soulless and draconian as their rules would imply?

“That’s not what my grandmother told me of the fae,” I said as we emerged from the lake near Sorrow’s Nest.

“And your grandmother knows every fae that ever existed, everywhere?” Lin scoffed. Then their face softened and they wrapped an arm around my shoulders as we walked. “Both Valerien and I are special little faeries who don’t always play by the big scary rules. You wouldn’t be here if we did.” 

I stared at the back of Valerien’s head, but he didn’t even turn around, much less say a word. 

Him, a rule-breaker? I had suspected he wasn’t entirely like the rest of his ilk, and Briar had told me as much, but outright disobeying? Interesting. Perhaps that’s what had gotten him in trouble in the first place. 

“Wait, where am I going?” Lin stopped in the middle of the path and let go of my shoulders. “It’s almost bedtime for little old me! Toodles!” 

They didn’t even wait for a reply from either of us before turning into a shrike and flying off into the darkening sky. I heard Valerien scoff, but still he didn’t say anything. Instead, he resumed walking without waiting for me.

I stood still for a moment, staring at the small dot that was Lin’s bird form until it shrank away into nothing. Loneliness settled over my shoulders where their arm had just been. Even though I’d spent little time in solitude since arriving here, there was still an odd feeling of abandonment in my chest. Neither Lin nor Valerien were my friends, strictly speaking. Nobody here would give a toss if something happened to me. 

Then again, would anyone at home? Even if I saved Sinéad, I knew I wouldn’t be welcomed back a hero. I’d be the girl who ventured into the fae lands and returned. Associating with me would no longer be just unfortunate, but outright dangerous. Maybe it would be better if I didn’t return at all … 

Which meant there was nowhere for me to go. 

“Sidra.” 

I started. Valerien hadn’t left. 

He’d only walked a few paces ahead and was now standing on the path, waiting for me to catch up. I lowered my head so he wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes and hurried after him. 

“Sorry, I got lost in thought,” I mumbled. 

“I noticed.”

The day was darkening quickly, and Valerien had to summon a handful of blue light to light our path through the sparse woods. I trailed a few steps after him. Would he demand something of me if I asked him for a favor? Maybe I shouldn’t phrase it as an exchange but more of a request that he could either deny or accept. 

I caught up with him quickly, “Hey.”  

Valerien gave me a suspicious look over his shoulder — his way of showing curiosity.

“I was wondering … Remember when you said I wasn’t a prisoner here, and you would take me back home if I wanted?” 

“If you provided a good explanation for wasting my time, yes,” he drawled. 

“Well, I don’t have an explanation, but I wanted to visit Dorotea. It isn’t long until the solstice now and I …” 

The words died on my lips. 

When I first left home, I’d told myself I was happy not to say goodbye, because doing so would only hurt more. But now, when the threat was so clear and I knew what I was up against, and the solstice was getting closer and closer … I wanted to see them. It was a selfish desire, a search for comfort and familiarity. A need to see my people for what could be the last time. But it would feel cruel to visit them without Sinéad, to get their hopes up when they could lose her for good.

There was only one person I could go to without hurting everyone involved.

“There’s someone I need to see,” I finally said. 

I thought he’d say no. Despite having grown quite familiar with the expressions of Valerien’s face and thinking it looked quite displeased in the blue light, he proved me wrong by nodding once. 

“I have not been very far south,” he said, stopping in the middle of the trail leading from the lake to the Nest. “I will travel as far as I can, then fly ahead to find another place to open a pathway through.” 

“It’s all usually covered in snow at this time of year,” I replied, trying not to sound too enthusiastic. He was willing to take me there, tonight! “If you can, look for a small cottage north of the wall. If not, there should be a river further south that isn’t too far from the town itself.” 

He nodded again, “Can you make it back to the Nest on your own?”

“I’m not a child,” I answered incredulously.

“So you say.” With that, Valerien turned into the oversized magpie and headed back toward the lake, disappearing into the darkness of the treetops against the icy surface in the distance. 

I stood in the silence for a while, almost wishing I’d asked him to escort me back to the Nest. I could make it alone, of course. But the silence and creeping darkness made me painfully aware of my solitude. Even Valerien was better than nobody at all. 

Y'all, we're two thirds into the book! Getting closer to the end! I'm probably gonna be posting some other stories while I work on the second book, which won't be as polished as this one unfortunately (it was meant for traditional publishing), but I hope you'll enjoy them nonetheless!