Page 45 of Escape from the Green

Was he planning to get his daughter back?

Trap her in the dungeons like he had done to her as a baby? Try to convert her, sway her allegiances, get control of her to use her admittedly strong - and likely growing - skills to create an unstoppable kingdom, to overthrow the allegiance between the Courts?

What then?

Chaos as there had been before?

Light fae slain for simply existing? Chased down like humans chased down prey animals? A sport made of their fear? A spectacle made of their death? A waste of flesh laid out on the forest floor? Heads stuck up on walls?

It had been a long time since those days, but my great grandfather told me stories about how all the fae heads were banned from being displayed like prizes, that they were ordered to be pulled down and buried.

It wasn't just innocent fae the treaty protected either.

If it fell, the humans would be open game again.

Fae could move out from the veil, could steal, rape, pillage once again. Could - as the legends went - enslave them, force them to bring food and wares in exchange for their lives, making fae lazy, bellies fat with power.

The whole world could turn chaotic.

The humans would realize the tales from their bedtime stories were not mere myth, that fae were not little fairies flitting around on filmy wings sprinkling dust, doing no harm. No. They would see that their bedtime stories should have been horror tales told in hushed tones to try to out-scare one another. That fae were bloodthirsty, wicked, intent on playing puppet master to those deemed beneath them. Drinking up all their sexual desires to satiate their hunger, singing songs to them to enslave them as sexual toys for the rest of their lives. Men and women alike, along with those just teetering on the precipice, that plump ripeness of almost-adulthood. Those would be the most prized of all.

It would be chaos.

But, I imagined, Cass was just the kind of fae to crave that, to want to give that to his loyal disciples.

"I'm surprised Jet would go along with it, though," Sal continued as he stoked the fire enough to take the chill out of the air around us.

"Why's that?"

"Because turning his half-sister would give her rights to the throne. Both in birth order and sheer power. Jet has his own skills, I'm sure, but the tales of the Daughter of Both Courts make it sound like she is something the likes of which we haven't seen in generations. But Jet is hungry. To rule. To take over. I don't see why he would go along with this plan."

"Maybe he doesn't know about it," I suggested, but I heard the uncertainty in my own tone.

"Eh, I doubt that," he said, reaching into his satchel to produce a small pile of dried root vegetables and some nuts, putting a pile down on a swatch of fabric like a placemat, pushing it off to his side, silently inviting Smoky down from her tree.

Just seconds later, she dropped down into a squat, hand braced on the forest floor, before she dropped down on her butt, legs crossed, eating the food steadily.

He'd been right.

About her hunger.

About her pride.

About her thinness.

I had thought little of it when I first saw her, the angle making it hard to make out certain things. Like how the notches of her spine could be counted through her shirt, how her cheekbones hollowed out like that of a skeleton, like how her entire thigh could be spanned by one of my hands.

Thin.

She was painfully thin.

Breakably thin.

How her muscles managed to hold her while she swung between tree branches was beyond me.

Each time her attention was pulled to the darkened forest, Sal's hand slipped over, dropping more walnuts down beside her dwindling pile.

I lowered myself down as well, reaching into my bag to produce the giant supply of almonds, seeing Smoky's eyes go hungry even as she pushed more food into her mouth.