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He was as still as a statue, in a down jacket and a woolen cap. He stared past the three of them as though they weren't there. His skin was darker than Luis's, but his lips had gone pale with cold.
"Hello?" Luis said, waving his hand in front of the guy's face.
The man didn't move.
"Look," Corny said. He pointed through the evergreen trees to a woman in her fifties standing by herself. Her ginger hair fluttered in the slight breeze. Squinting, Kaye could see other spots of color along the lake. Other humans, waiting at attention for some signal.
Kaye's gaze dropped to the man's chapped fingers. "Frostbite.”
"Wake up!" Luis shouted. When that got no response, he slapped the man across one cheek.
The frozen man's gaze shifted suddenly. Without a trace of expression he threw Luis to the ground and stomped on his stomach.
Luis groaned in pain, rolling to his side, his body curling up defensively.
Corny threw himself at the man. They fell backward, cracking through the thin ice of the lake as they splashed into the shallow water.
Kaye rushed forward, trying to pull Corny onto the shore. A hand closed on her arm.
She turned to see a creature, as tall and thin as a scarecrow, shrouded in tattered black fabric that whipped through the air. His eyes were a dead, pupil-less white, and his teeth were clear as glass.
Kaye's scream died in her throat. Her nails scrabbled at the creature's arm and he let her go, pushing past. He moved so nimbly that by the time she'd turned her head, his skeletal hand was on the frozen man's throat.
Corny splashed up onto the bank and collapsed in the snow.
The creature pressed a thumb against the man's forehead and hissed some words that Kaye didn't know. The frozen man moved slowly to resume standing like an indifferent sentry, clothing soaked through and dripping.
"What do you want?" Kaye demanded, taking off her coat and wrapping it around a shivering Corny. "Who are you?”
"Sorrowsap," said the creature, bowing his head. His hair was thin and coiled like the tangle of roots beneath a weed. "At your service.”
"Great! That's just fucking great." Luis held his stomach.
Corny shuddered reflexively and pulled the coat tighter.
"My service?" Kaye asked. Looking across the forest, she saw the other human figures walk back to their original positions. They had been coming, had been perhaps only moments away from entering the fight.
"The King of the Unseelie Court commands that I guard your steps. I have followed you since you left his court.”
"Why would he do that?" Kaye blurted. She thought of Roiben covered in collapsed dirt, his face as pale as a marble tombstone, and she closed her eyes against the image. He should have been protecting himself and been less worried about her.
Sorrowsap tilted his head. "I serve his whims. I need not understand them.”
"But how could you stop the frozen people like that?" Luis asked. "This barrier has to have been created to keep you out more than us.”
At the question, Sorrowsap smiled, his clear wet teeth making his mouth look poisonous. He reached into a sack beneath his robes and threw down what at first seemed like green leather lined in red silk. Then Kaye saw the fine hairs dotting the surface and the sticky wetness underneath. Skin. The skin of a faery.
"She told me," said Sorrowsap.
Luis made a noise in the back of his throat and turned away like he was going to retch.
"You can't—I don't want—" Kaye said, furious and terrified. "You killed her because of me.”
Sorrowsap said nothing.
"Never do that! Never!" She walked up to him, hands fisted. Before she thought better of it, she slapped him. Her hand stung.
He didn't even flinch. "Just because I am to protect you does not give you governance over me.”
