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“Even now, I want to protect him,” she told Sasha. “It’s never going to change, is it? I wish I could stop loving him, but . . . you should’ve seen him. He hates Irial—for good reason—and has had conflict with Niall, but if I asked him to go to the Dark Court, he would. He’s good, even if he’s not good for me.”
The wolf paused and stared at her. He didn’t, of course, answer, but she was certain that he understood her. Sasha wasn’t an ordinary wolf. Wolves don’t live for centuries. What he was, she didn’t know. Keenan hadn’t known either: a “creature of Faerie” was all he’d said.
Sasha nudged her with his massive head, and Donia resumed walking.
She trailed a thin line of frost in her wake. It wasn’t enough to destroy all of the new buds that were starting to force themselves through the earth, but she wasn’t trying to destroy them. A flux between seasons was natural and right. It wasn’t yet time for true spring. Soon. This year, when spring came, she thought she might retreat to the far north. If I survive the coming fight.
After walking several blocks, Donia realized she was being watched. On the roofs nearby, crows lined up. One after the next, they came.
“You could go,” she told Sasha. “Run.”
The wolf glared at her and then continued to pad silently at her side.
The crows did nothing, but more and more of them swooped in and settled on every visible ledge. Mortals started pointing at the birds. Just what we need. Bananach was flaunting the rules. She was stronger than she’d ever been in Donia’s life, and in her strength, she was brazen.
With a rush of wings, the embodiment of discord and violence dropped to the ground in the middle of the street. Cars honked, and drivers yelled. Bananach didn’t deign to look at them. Her attention was fixed on Donia.
Her feathered wings were fully visible—even to mortals, whose hurled insults made clear that they thought she was “some freak.” She was smiling, a terrible expression of contentment that unnerved Donia. The raven-faery had her hair bound into a long braid that she’d looped up on the back of her head. Some of her black feathers jutted out at odd angles.
“Snow! How lovely to see you,” Bananach called out as if she were speaking to a friend she’d encountered by accident.
“I can’t say the same.” Donia rested a hand on Sasha’s back, as much to steady herself as for the comfort of touching the wolf.
Bananach narrowed her eyes. “Well, that’s not very sociable.”
A car careened to the side, darting into oncoming traffic to avoid hitting the raven-faery. She glared at the mortal driver, and then smiled as a bevy of crows dived down from the awning of a nearby building and effectively blinded him with their number. The car slammed into another—parked—car, and alarms sounded.
“I’ve come to discuss the future.” Bananach swiveled her head back to stare at Donia. “You want a future, don’t you, Snow?”
“I do, and I have a future.” Donia felt the approach of her guards. The tendrils that tied her to her court tightened inside of her. They were here, and she was alternately relieved and terrified. Bananach was behaving so far outside the normal faery-mortal interactions that Donia didn’t know what to expect of her.
“I need you to declare war,” Bananach urged. “Pick a court. We will decimate them.”
“No.”
“Do not test me.” Bananach shook her head. “I’ve no time for this. Not now. Tell me: do we strike the Dark? Eliminate the Sunlight? Both?”
Donia shook her head. “I have no quarrel with them. I’ve made peace with Summer.”
The caw that came from the raven-faery’s mouth was a hideous sound, more so as it echoed through the street from scores of crows’ beaks. “No. You will not ruin my plans. You are strong, and you can bring me the war I seek.” Bananach nodded. “Then, the Darkness. We can start with that.”
“No. Winter stands as ally to the Dark Court. I’ve made that clear to the king’s Gabriel and, previously, to the present and former kings.” Donia let her ice extend into a long sword. She’d not spent nearly enough years training to fight, but she wasn’t going to stand idly by while Bananach killed her. “We shall have peace between the courts.”
“Do you know what would enrage the Summer King? I know,” Bananach singsonged.
Winter Court faeries—invisible to mortal eyes—came up behind their queen.
Scrimshaw Sisters drifted to stand on either side of Donia, and the lupine prowled the street. As minutes passed, the traffic decreased. Mortals mightn’t see the fey other than Bananach, but they felt the tension in the air. They detoured away from the street, away from War and her violence, farther from the spot where destruction gathered like the storm clouds in the sky.
“I will allow your court the choice to be with me or under my foot.” Bananach tilted her head and stared at Donia. “What will you choose for your faeries? Shall I kill them, or will they serve me? Give them into my keeping, and I will spare you.”
“They are mine.” Donia exhaled the words with a scream of wind. “My court will not serve you.”
The crows all took to the air as one, and as they did so, Evan stepped in front of Donia.
“So be it,” Bananach said.
Donia couldn’t properly defeat War, but she could slow her. Donia did what she’d not thought she could do when she’d first faced the raven-faery: she stood against her with every intention of fighting. She exhaled all of winter that she could summon in that instant; ice covered the street, clung to the cars and storefronts. It was the perfect environment for her fey, but War hadn’t ever waited quietly when the climate was cruel: Bananach merely smiled.
