• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Anne could see her now; to her younger eyes, of course, Fastia had seemed all but grown, a woman. Looking at her now, in her cotton shift, she was still just a slip, her breasts the slightest of bumps. Her face already had their mother’s famous beauty, but still in girlish disguise. Her long dark hair was wavy from having been caught up in braids earlier that evening.

“Hello, Lew,” Fastia had said, rubbing the lion’s head for the first time.

Elseny had giggled. “You’re in love!” she had accused. “You’re in love with Leuhaert!”

Anne could barely remember who Leuhaert was. The son of some greft or duke who’d appeared at court during one Yule season, a handsome boy whose manners were well intended but never quite right.

“Maybe I am,” she said. “And you know what his name means? Lion-heart. He’s my lion, and since he’s not here, old Lew here will have to do.”

Anne put her hand on the lion’s head. “Oh, Lew!” she said brightly. “Bring me a prince, too.”

“And me!” Austra giggled, slapping the wood.

They’d made a habit of that for the next ten years, always rubbing Lew’s head, even after Fastia married.

She’d closed her eyes in membrance, but as a hand brushed hers, they flew open and she gasped. A girl stood there, a girl with golden hair.

“Elseny?” Anne asked, drawing her hand back.

It was Elseny, looking the age Anne had last seen her.

“Hello, Lew,” Elseny said, ignoring Anne. “Hello, old fellow. I think Fastia is up to something naughty, but I won’t tell if you won’t. And I’m going to be married. Fancy that!”

Elseny patted the wooden head again and then walked back toward the door. Anne felt her breath rushing in her ears.

“Elseny!” she called, but her sister didn’t answer.

She glanced back up and found Fastia standing there.

“Hello, Lew,” Fastia said, giving the bedpost a brush with a hand that lingered. She looked almost the same as Anne had last seen her except that her face was relaxed, her public mask laid aside. It seemed soft, and sad, and young, not so different from the girl who had given Lew his name.

Anne felt her heart clutch. She’d said such angry things to Fastia the last time they’d spoken. How could she have known they would never speak again?

“What should I do?” Fastia murmured. “I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t…”

Anne suddenly recognized the glazed look in her sister’s eyes. She was drunk. She stood there swaying, and she suddenly teared up. She looked straight at Anne, and for an instant Anne was sure Fastia saw her.

“I’m sorry, Anne,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Then Fastia closed her eyes and softly began to sing.

Here’s my wish;

A man with lips as red as blood

With skin as white as snow

With hair of blue-black

Like a raven’s wing.

That’s my wish.

Here’s my wish;

A man to hold me tight and warm

To hold no one but me

Until the stars dim

Until the sea dries up

That’s my wish

She finished her song, and Anne was seeing her through a blur of tears.

“Good-bye, Lew,” Fastia said. As she began to turn, Anne’s silent weeping became sobs. Fastia walked to the tapestry of a knight astride a hippocampus and lifted it. Behind it, she tapped the wall, and a panel slid open.

Fastia paused at the threshold into darkness. “There are many more such hidden places where we are from,” she said. “But that is for later. For now, you must survive this.”

And then came the smell of rotting flesh, and Fastia’s eyes were full of worms, and Anne screamed—

—and sat up screaming, her hand still on the bedpost, just in time to see the tapestry lifting.

THE MAN was so close, Stephen could feel breath on the back of his neck.

“I always thought that was just an expression,” he murmured.

“What’s an expression?” the man asked.

“Gozh dazh, brodar Ehan,” Stephen said.

“Eh, yah, that’s an expression: ‘Good day,’” Ehan replied. “But you know that.”

“May I turn around?”

“Oh, sure,” Ehan said. “I was just trying to scare you.”

“You did a fine job,” Stephen allowed, turning slowly.

He found an almost dwarfish little man with bright red hair