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Augium ore. I run my thumb across the surface, admiring the flecks of glittering mineral in the dark material. It looks like he found a good seam, and I’m about to ask about it when the noise of the market is pierced by a single, blood-curdling scream.
The terrible sound comes from nearby, and I turn, with everyone else, to search out the source. Between a gathering crowd I see a woman, about forty years old, on her knees in the dirt. I go to step closer, but a heavy hand rests on my arm, and I look up to see Maidar’s goat-like eyes unusually worried.
“Don’t,” he says. “There’s nothing you can do.”
I like Maidar. Not once in the time we’ve been dealing has he ever tried to convince me to trade something I might regret—like my youth, or my talent with metalwork. He only ever asks for tangible things, fae coin, plants, and books. He’s never tried to trick me yet. Which means I should probably listen to him now.
But the scream sounds again, a cry of anguish, and I pull free of his hand. I want answers. Like a fire burning within me, I have to understand. My father always says this impulse is the only stupid part of me. He likes to remind me that curiosity killed the cat, and I don’t have nine lives. But it’s more than mere curiosity that pushes me forward, now. Someone’s in pain, and maybe it is foolishness to assume I can help, but I have to at least try. It’s what my mother would have done.
When I get closer, I feel cold. There’s something familiar about the woman…a resemblance I can’t quite place while her face is twisted with sorrow and fear.
“Please,” she moans, her words catching in her throat between sobs. “I tried to finish it in time. I really did.”
Her cheeks are streaked with tears, her eyes lifted in terror.
“So many excuses from your lying mouth, seamstress.”
Through the crowd, I glimpse a hand reaching out to brush the woman’s hair. When it pulls away there’s a streak of silver running through her locks. I move forward until I have a view of the woman standing over the seamstress. No, not a woman. A fae. Her skin is white as a lily, and the braid coiled down her back shines like she’s woven sun rays into it.
“I beg you, please, just give me more time,” the human groans.
“Time? Time?” The blonde fae’s angry voice borders on a shriek. “I needed that cloak before the solstice. I was supposed to wear it to the ball. What use do I have for it now?” She darts her hand out again and brushes the woman’s cheek. It is just a light touch, but the seamstress flinches away with a gasp, and I see that she has a smattering of wrinkles where the fae touched her that I’m sure weren’t there before.
With a start I recognize her. Her name is Clara and she works in the town over from my village. Her cousin lives four streets down from me and does embroidery for her—pretty creations that I could never afford. But the Clara I know isn’t that much older than me—twenty-five, perhaps. My blood chills a few more degrees as I take in Clara’s brown hair now shot through with gray, her face etched with crow’s feet, and realize why she’d first screamed. The punishment has already begun.
“We can’t just stand here,” I murmur. My feet itch, begging me to run forward, to do something, but the rest of me rebels against them, holding me rooted to the spot. That scream, the perfect, rageful face of the fae woman, locks my body with fear.
“She didn’t uphold her end of the deal,” says a familiar voice, and I look over to see Jethro, our village’s butcher, with his wife, Gertie, in the crowd beside me. It doesn’t surprise me to see them; people come from far and wide to attend the market. “The treaty is clear,” he grunts with a terrible finality.
I gape at him. The treaty might allow someone to take matters into their own hands if a fair bargain is reneged on, but everyone knows the fae don’t make fair deals in the first place.
“Yes, but?—”
Gertie hushes me. “Don’t go looking for trouble or you’ll end up like her. And you’ve got your father to think of.”
I think she means well, at least more than her cold husband, but the reminder of my dad only makes me feel worse. How will Clara’s family feel, knowing no one helped her? How will I ever look her cousin in the eyes again?
“I’ll make you as many cloaks as you like, just stop, please,” Clara begs.
The blonde simply tosses her head. My heart sinks. She isn’t going to change her mind.
“It seems you have no problem wasting my time,” the blonde rages. “And I want it back.”
I can’t look away as the blonde fae’s hands fasten around Clara’s shoulders. For a moment, I think she’s just going to hold her there, then the skin of Clara’s face begins to sag and her cheeks sink inwards, growing gaunt. What brown was left in her hair fades, first to gray, then white, then the hair itself thins, dropping from her scalp in clumps. She screeches, trying to pry the fae’s hands away, but her own are now so thin that they can only tug ineffectually at the lady’s wrists.
Finally, her cries falter and she coughs, spitting out teeth one by one, her mouth an empty cavern of pink gums. Only then does the fae step away, satisfied.
My hands shake with anger and horror, but I tell myself there’s nothing I can do. Moving against a fae who hasn’t wronged me personally would break the treaty. At best, that’s a death sentence. At worst…well. There’s always a chance the fae in question might take things into her own hands first. There are some things worse than death.
Instead of fighting back directly, I do what I can—breaking free from the crowd and going to Clara, I throw myself down in the mud beside her.
“It’s all right,” I say gently between her sobs, but I don’t think she can hear me. I reach out to touch the frail hand clutched over her face, but she draws away, her glossy eyes taking in the terrible border of fallen teeth and snowy hair that surrounds her.
She scrambles to her feet, her sparrow-like legs carrying her surprisingly quickly away from the clearing. She’s running, nearly stumbling with each step, and we’re close enough to the twining line that it doesn’t take long for me to realize what she’s planning.
“No, don’t!”
The twining line is the fairy ring that separates the market from the human realm. All you’ll see is empty field until you step across it and the barren dirt of Styrland suddenly gives way to the bright colors of the market. Bright too is the border of toadstools that marks the line with unnatural neatness. They’re deep purple, delicately formed, and extremely poisonous. As beautiful and deadly as the fae that await you on the other side.
