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He’s taken me to Faerie.
The land of the fae isn’t the kind of place you easily come back from, whether you go willingly, like some deluded people have been known to try, or, like me, are tricked into being brought here. I feel sick. I very well might have seen the last of Styrland. My friends. My father.
And apparently, it’s not the first time Ruskin has brought someone here, given his knowledge of how kidnapped humans tend to react to the transition. How many people has he snatched? Is it just stupid, desperate women like me? Or does he take anyone he feels like—children, the elderly? I’ve heard stories, of course, of the fair folk whisking away the young and strong to be their servants for eternity. They’re free to do as they wish if a deal isn’t upheld, the treaty allowing them to mete out whatever punishment they choose to a human who has gone back on their word or failed to deliver as promised.
The deal. I’d almost forgotten. It’s the only thing I have to protect myself, and I cling to it now.
“We had a bargain.” I put every ounce of my acting abilities into it, attempting to sound confident, unafraid. The fae smell weakness, and if I can swallow back my fright even for just a moment, then I hope it might make him take me seriously. “You said you would give me my liberty, but you’ve done precisely the opposite.”
He tilts his head at me, looking genuinely curious, like an eagle examining a meal that has suddenly done something other than cowering and waiting to be eaten.
“How so?”
I keep my voice calm, walking through my thoughts like I’m not explaining them to someone who’s just abducted me.
“If I am here against my will, and I am, then you haven’t given me freedom, but simply taken me from one prison to another. I didn’t say that I wanted liberty from the castle only.” Within fae magic, there are still rules. The fair folk can be trapped by their own laws and regulations just like mortals. It’s rare, but there are fairy tales where clever, careful humans don’t end up the victims of their magic. I don’t know if I’ll be clever enough, but I have to try.
“Right and wrong, Eleanor Thorn,” Ruskin says, his gaze piercing. “We agreed I would give you your freedom, but you did not specify when the freedom needed to be granted. Freedom you shall have…but only after you complete your job for me.”
My heart sinks. He’s right, of course. Playing over the conversation at the castle in my head, I know I didn’t say “now” or “today.” Stupid, stupid, stupid.
My anger flares, and before I can stop myself, I bite out a response that sounds way too defiant.
“If that’s how you want to play this, then I can make gold for you at home. I don’t need to be a prisoner to do it,” I say.
He immediately leaps out of the chair, kicking it aside with one powerful swipe. I flinch back, bracing myself to be the next thing he kicks. Anger is written on his face again, and I don’t want to be the target of it—but he turns away from me, and I get a strange sense that his fury isn’t directed at me, as such.
“How many times do I have to tell you? I have no use of your gold.” He sounds bitter. Sunlight frames his body in front of a window, making him an imposing silhouette of wide shoulders sweeping down into narrow hips.
I exhale, glad he’s not about to charge at me, but still deeply and frighteningly confused.
“But the deal?—”
“The deal was that you’d use your alchemy skills to help me.”
How had I missed so much? Yes, that wasn’t the same as making gold at all. As usual, a thousand questions rush at me, but I don’t need to ask the most important one, because he starts to explain.
“You have mastered the art of turning ordinary materials into gold—rocks and living things, correct?”
“That’s part of the process, yes,” I say. I can hear how I sound more timid now, still rattled by his outburst, my own anger partly washed away by his.
“My task for you is to learn how to reverse this process. You must find a way to return something already transformed to gold back to its natural state.”
A strange laugh claws its way up my throat, but I stifle it.
“It can’t be done,” I blurt out instead.
He turns and I can tell I’m definitely the focus of his irritation now.
“People would say the same about any form of alchemy. Just because it hasn’t been done, doesn’t mean it can’t.”
“But it’s about reversible reactions…the product simply can’t return to reactant state.” I know I’m slipping into shop talk that won’t make sense to people who don’t spend their days reading up on chemical formulas and metallurgy. To my surprise, Ruskin’s eyes don’t glaze over like most people’s, but he does seem unmoved by my protests.
“You found a way to do the impossible once, Gold Weaver, and you’ll show such ingenuity again, I have no doubt. The promise of ever seeing your home again should prove a good motivator. But if not, I’m sure I could find another way to inspire you. Perhaps I need to make a little visit to whatever backwater you come from so I can meet your family and friends…”
He sounds so matter-of-fact, so resolved, as his eyes glitter dangerously. It lights a fresh spark of rage within me. How easily he threatens to take away everything I hold dear.
“You bastard,” I spit.
