Faerie Winter - Janni Lee Simner [31]
The Lady lifted her arm. Elin launched silently into the air, brown wings and red tail spread wide. Kyle disappeared beyond the houses, and Elin followed him.
I ran after them, knowing that Kyle couldn’t possibly outrun a hawk, knowing I could do little to protect him from one. My torn sweater sleeves flapped in the wind.
I saw a blur of gray. Matthew slammed into my side, knocking me to the ground. I felt his hot breath on my face, his paws on my chest. I looked up, gasping. His teeth were bared, and his eyes held a wildness that reminded me of the crazed dogs he’d once saved me from.
“Matthew,” I called softly. He shuddered, and for a moment his eyes were Matthew’s eyes once more. He whined and backed off me. “That’s right, Matthew.” I got to my feet, held out my hands. “It’s only me, Matthew, only Liza—”
The Lady walked up beside him and put a hand to his back. “Well done, my wolf.” All recognition left Matthew’s eyes. The Lady scratched him behind the ears, and he flopped down beside her, his tongue hanging out one corner of his mouth.
“Let him go.” I kept my voice low, controlled.
The Lady’s fingers grasped my wrist. “I don’t think so, little Summoner.” Her voice was cold, and that cold settled deep inside me. My legs trembled, weak as water, and I knew that the time for running was past.
“How did you come to possess a leaf of the First Tree and first line, Liza?”
The words burrowed down beneath my skin. My lips moved. “My mother gave it to me.”
I hadn’t meant to speak. Why had I spoken?
“Indeed?” The Lady’s fingers brushed my hair. I have no protection now.
I wanted no protection. I tilted my face to look into the Lady’s bright eyes. Had I noticed before how beautiful she was? Beautiful as the ice storms that coated trees in winter, bringing them down one by one. Her hair glimmered in its net. She had fireflies bound into it, alive as the butterfly Elin had worn. I couldn’t stop staring at them. So pretty. She smiled, and my fear shivered out of me.
“How did your mother come to possess such a thing?” The Lady’s words were sharp as ice, cutting through skin and bone and thought, digging deep inside me for answers.
Her voice hurt, the way a knife’s blade hurt. I longed to hear it again. “Caleb—Kaylen—gave it to her.”
The Lady went utterly still. “Indeed?”
I wanted to kneel at her feet, but she put one hand on my shoulder, fingers digging through my jacket, forcing me to stand. “So Tara yet lives?” She spoke my mother’s name as if it tasted bad. I nodded, grateful it wasn’t me who’d made the Lady unhappy.
Her fingers dug deeper, surely bruising me, but I didn’t mind. I hoped my pain pleased her. The Lady released me, and I fell to my knees. “You will take me to your mother,” she said softly. “After my granddaughter kills the boy and retrieves the leaf. We shall all visit Tara then.”
The Lady reached down and stroked my cheek, where the crow’s claws had scratched it. I shivered at her touch. “You want to see your mother, don’t you, Liza?”
“Yes.” I wasn’t sure quite why I’d left her. “I miss Mom.”
“Of course you do. Perhaps when this is through, I shall let you be the one to take her life at last. You would like that, yes?”
Something about the Lady’s words didn’t make sense, but I couldn’t puzzle out what—and I did want to please her. “Of course.”
The Lady laughed and took my chin in her hands. “So weak, human minds. You’ve always been weak. That the Uprising happened at all is an insult that will be avenged, though the Realm itself winds down. Come with me, Liza.”
I stood and wrapped my fingers around hers, trusting as a child. I couldn’t remember when I’d last trusted anyone like that.
I’d trusted Matthew, hadn’t I? I held out my hand to the wolf, who stood once more. He snarled and drew away, and I wasn’t so certain.
The Lady turned slowly around, as if looking for someone else. Johnny, I realized. He wasn’t here. Of course he wasn’t. “Johnny does that,” I said. “Disappears, and hides, and sneaks up on people.” I lowered my