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I go limp, my breath rushing out of me in a wheeze. It shouldn’t hurt this bad, but it does. He knows what happened to me when I was a slave. The evidence is written all over my body in scars. But he let me go. Let the Catcher take me. All those times he told me he didn’t care for me—he was serious. The Catcher may as well have gutted me with his sword. And he may yet.
“Get up.” He grabs my hair and wrenches me to my feet as I scream into the gag. “We have a long way to go thanks to that winter realm trash.”
My scalp burns as I peer around. We’re in the woods again, but these trees are different. Not dark green like the ones in the winter realm, but lighter, airier somehow, and bits of fluff and fairy dust seem to float through the air. Like the Greenvelde, but not the same. Where are we?
“Move.” He pulls me along as fairies scurry into their hiding places.
There’s no point fighting him. The manacles have already proven that. He seems to know where he’s going, though I can’t tell one end of the woods from the other. Not that any of it matters. If he returns me to Granthos—and it certainly looks like he will—I’ll kill myself. I will not be a slave. Never again.
“Stop dragging.” He slaps me so hard the gag comes loose and the inside of my cheek splits against my teeth.
I’ve been hit harder. I blink away the pain and try to steady my steps, matching his pace as best I can.
“I hope you enjoyed your vacation in the winter realm.” He glances at me, his silver eyes as beautiful as they are cruel. “Granthos is anxious to have you back, and I can guarantee you that this time, he’s never letting you out of his sight.”
“The winter queen will pay you.” I know Taylor will do whatever she can to help me. It isn’t easy for me to put faith in another person, but her? I’d bet my life on it.
“This isn’t about coin.” He shrugs then swipes a curious fairy out of the way.
She skitters through the air, her pearly wings flapping furiously as her feet come perilously close to the ground. I gasp and try to reach for her, but she rights herself just before she touches Arin. Fluttering away through the trees, she leaves a golden trail in her wake.
I glare at him. “It takes a particularly vile creature to cause a fairy to touch the ground.”
“Killing fairies was child’s play for me.” He grins. “Literally.”
I shudder. A dying fairy is nothing to smile about, and the mournful sound they make as they turn into a weeping willow sapling is enough to haunt me for a lifetime.
“Monster.” I want to spit at him, but he’d just slap me again. “And what do you mean ‘this isn’t about coin’? I thought coin was all you cared about.”
“It is.” He shoves me forward, and I trip over a fallen tree while he laughs. “But this is a special bit of payback.”
My knees are already scraped and dirty, but now they’re bleeding again.
He smiles as I pull myself to my feet. “Do those unseelie idiots in the winter realm think I don’t know who’s been impersonating me? Phinelas isn’t half as good as he thinks he is.” He grabs my elbow and wrenches me along beside him. “Sure, he saves a few of you filthy changelings here and there, but I bag plenty more. And when I got the chance to take you right from under their noses? I jumped on it.” He sighs with satisfaction. “I wish I could see the looks on their faces when they realize their favorite changeling is back to being a slave. Gareth failed to best me, and I’m sure you noticed he didn’t bother following to retrieve you. The winter realm is pathetic. They couldn’t even protect their own.”
“Yeah, you really struck a blow.” I roll my eyes. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly a star of the winter realm. I’d just gotten there. You think you took their favorite changeling? I’m not even their second- or third-favorite. Maybe I’m down in the twenties somewhere. I don’t know. The winter queen just got mated. Her heels are in the air right now, and she’s screaming the king’s name. She’s not going to care about what happened to me. I don’t know where you got your information. But I do know that my disappearance won’t cause any of the winter realm fae to lose sleep over me.” I swallow hard, because deep down, I believe my own words. After all, Gareth didn’t come through the portal for me. Despite fighting for me, and telling me—wait, was Gareth talking to me in my head back in the winter realm?
The Catcher interrupts my thoughts, “Don’t try to trick me, changeling. Gareth almost killed me for snatching you.”
“So?”
“So, I don’t believe you.” His eyes narrow. “You mean something to them. Enough for them to fight for you. Dumb of Gareth, of course, to fight for a changeling slave with no more worth than the mud under my boot.”
“You’re wrong.”
“About which part?” He snorts and shoves me forward.
This time I keep my footing. “Gareth didn’t come after me. If I were as important as you say, he would be here killing you with embarrassing ease.” I return his earlier smile. “So, you can stop patting yourself on the back any minute now.”
“Mouthy changeling.” Another backhand from him, and I’m on the ground again, pain streaking across my face. “I’ve had enough.” Dropping down to his haunches, he repositions my gag, then forces me to my feet.
At least the fabric soaks up the blood. I want to keep my head up, to stalk toward my death with strength and resolve. But instead, I find myself caving in, hunching my shoulders, and becoming the same wretched slave I was when Taylor first found me in the dungeon. But this time will be worse for me. Escape isn’t taken lightly, especially not by Granthos. My chin drops, and I focus on the forest floor, the flowers that grow along the fallen trunks, and the burrows where animals take shelter as we pass. Though I try not to think about Gareth, my mind keeps returning to him. He didn’t follow me here, but he did try to save me in the winter realm. I should give him credit for it. He fought for me when no one else would, so that’s something. I’ll take that memory with me to my grave and thank him in my heart.
We walk for hours until the light begins to fade and the will-o’-the-wisps begin to glow in blues and greens all around. Cresting a hill, the Catcher stops and lets out a grunt. “Finally.”
Beneath us, the palace spreads out like a tropical bird as the capital city of Byrn Varyndr settles into a warm night.
Home.
A chill cuts through me, and my knees threaten to give. But the Catcher leads me ever onward, marching me to my death with sure steps.
6
Gareth
“And there’s more where that came from!” I brandish my knife at the bloody kelpie that stares at me from the water’s edge.
It blinks slowly, the blood between its crooked fangs oozing into the seafoam. The creature tosses its head like a horse, but its depthless eyes hold nothing but ancient fae malice. With a hiss it dives into the surf, its scaly green tail splashing me as a parting gift.
I lie back and stare at the azure sky while trying to catch my breath. The kelpie put up a vicious fight, and my leg burns from the corrosive venom in its bite. I keep the knife in my palm. There’s no way to know what dangers lurk in the trees at my back. The waves gently lap against the shore as I recover, my body expelling the poison as I focus what little healing magic I have on my leg.
