Page 9
Anya stayed silent, fists trembling at her sides.
Sira tucked Rosalina back into her arms. “Very well. Goodbye, Aurelia.”
Shadows rose, licking along Sira’s cloak. Rosalina waved out a hand to try to grasp one. They coiled around her face, her chubby legs.
Anya stumbled forward. “Wait!”
“I’m going for a walk,” Anya said, keeping the tremble out of her voice. She stepped into the kitchen, finding it near spotless. George stood with an armful of blankets in his hands, no doubt making up the bed for Eve. It had rained after all.
He paused and looked at her, searching for the meaning. “I was just about to come check on you. Thought you might have fallen asleep in the rocking chair.”
Anya turned away, unable to look at him for another moment. If she kissed him, if she said goodbye, she would not be able to leave. She wasn’t sure how she’d found the strength to leave the nursery, to set her baby down in the crib. Seek below the surface, Rosalina, and may the hidden beauty of the world be yours. Love is your greatest strength. Those were the last words she’d uttered to her daughter as Rosalina drifted off, oblivious to the cruelty of the world she’d been born into.
George was still speaking, but she tuned him out, yanked on her boots, and left without taking a jacket. The moon had returned. It was so bright, it illuminated the cottage and Briarwood Forest beyond. Anya closed the door behind her.
Sira slunk out from a shadow on the side of the yard. “Ready, my queen?”
“Away from the house,” Anya said. “So George doesn’t see.”
Sira sighed, no doubt annoyed to walk anywhere. Anya moved into the forest as a ghost, following after Sira, who sneered every time her cloak caught a branch or night dew brushed her arm.
“Surely we must be far enough away by now.” Sira grimaced.
Branches broke behind them, then a voice: “Anya! Annie! Where are you?”
“Run,” Anya said, grabbing Sira’s arm. They flew between the trees. Were they far enough away for Sira to use her shadows? What would George do if he caught them?
Sira would kill him.
They tore deeper into the forest, and Anya saw it: the rosebush she had planted yesterday, a path into the Vale.
George would find her eventually. He knew too much, all her stories, the history of the fae world. He would find a way in.
“Wait!” Anya gasped, pulling Sira to a stop. “Let me take his memories. Let me change them. Otherwise, he’ll never stop searching for me.”
“What do I care of that?” Sira said. “You are already mine. It matters not what the human does.”
Tears flowed down Anya’s cheeks, and she trembled. “Please, Sira. You have what you want. If he forgets, then he and Rosalina will stay here forever and never cause you any trouble.” Her voice cracked. “For whatever friendship we might have held, please.”
Sira’s eyes darted back and forth, her mind working fast, trying to contemplate all the situations. “You have until the shadows pull you under. That is all.”
Blackness spread beneath Sira’s feet, reaching out for her. Anya was running out of time.
She walked a few paces away and knelt in front of the rosebush. You’re beautiful, she told it, brushing a hand along the thorns, but you need to close for a little while.
Magic coursed through her, an enchantment seeping into the earth. The brambles tucked deep into themselves. Twenty years it would sleep. And when she was old enough, her daughter would find her way home.
Sira’s shadows crept farther, beginning to climb up Anya’s legs. She stood just as the thicket behind her broke and George rushed through. Her body became light, became fae, the illusion of Anya fading away forever.
Her husband’s eyes grew wide as he was bathed in her light.
With a final breath, Aurelia unleashed another terrible curse. A magic of hers that had found its way into those of Autumn.
The decay and alteration of memories.
Aurelia wove into his mind, where so many precious things lived. The meeting in the desert, all those decades ago, all the magic they encountered—she turned it nothing but ordinary. George was not born over a century ago; he was only a young man. The stories of the fae changed to those of a normal life.
All she kept was the love. Their love. I will love you across the ages. I will love you in the desert, under a blazing sun, or in the deepest depths of the jungle. I will love you when the rain pours down and we’re covered in mud or when the night is so dark, the only light beams from your heart.
