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Markham, Juliana’s father, was no exception, although it had been three years now since he’d quit his position, gathered his daughter and a handful of possessions, and fled to the forests of Autumn like a criminal committing a crime.
Not that, as far as Juliana could work out, he’d done anything wrong. “I just fancied the change of scene,” he’d tell her. Or, worse, “It’ll do you good, daughter. You’ll see,” with no elaboration whatsoever.
That was the best and worst thing about being mortal, Juliana had decided. The fact that you could lie and be lied to.
Although Juliana initially hated living in the woods, she soon came to find enjoyment in it. Life there was definitely more difficult, but Juliana found it easier in so many other ways. Yes, you were at the mercy of the elements, and you could go hungry if there was no food to be found. Some days you couldn’t get warm or clean or dry, no matter what you did. There was no magic to fix you if you got hurt.
But there were also no fae with their tricks and glamours, no lies that weren’t lies, no bargains and markets where you could haggle with flesh and bone and memories.
And no spoilt princes, barking orders, pulling your hair, putting frogspawn in your morning tea or moving your chair away as you tried to sit.
She missed the food, though. And the magic.
“Are you going to tell me why we’re returning, yet?” Juliana asked, staring at her father.
Markham smiled. He was a handsome man, with brownish hair, warm, sun-speckled skin, and green eyes like the forests that he shared with Juliana. He appeared somewhere in his mid-thirties, although she knew his actual age to be twice that. His ageing had slowed when he entered faerie as a young man. If he stayed, he’d live to be a hundred, maybe more. If he left…
You could only enter Faerie once. The way closed for mortals if they left. No one was sure what rule applied to mortals born in Faerie, and Juliana wasn’t about to find out first hand. Why would she even want to leave? She’d heard the mortal world was dull and ordinary, that people died young, that women were denied the sword, that water came from wells, and everything was cold and drafty.
That world has nothing for me,she told herself.Nothing at all.
“I already told you,” Markham explained. “We’re attending the tournament.”
“You told me what,” she said, “not why.”
“The winner is granted a boon.”
“You want to win it?”
“I’m fairly sure I will,” he said.
“We packed a lot.”
“Your point, daughter?”
Juliana sighed. She half-wished he’d give her an outright lie if he wouldn’t speak the truth. “Are we staying, Father? Are we moving back to Acanthia?”
“That depends on the outcome of the tournament.”
Juliana shook her head, not bothering to chastise him for not telling her earlier. There was no arguing with her father, no dragging information he didn’t wish to divulge.
I miss Iona,she thought wistfully. She missed Iona and Cedany and Aoife and Alia and Eoghan and Albert and Dillon and—
Her father told her the ache would grow less, in time, like they were a scab that would heal over. But instead they were a scar, one that would rise up unbidden, out of nowhere, impossible to heal.
Soon,she told herself,you’ll see them soon.
Shortly before dark, the trees grew sparse, and they hit the main road. There were three entrances to the capital, three gates in its great thorn walls—Autumn, Spring, Summer—each entrance as grand as the last. The Autumn Gate was wreathed in red-gold leaves, like the plumage of a fat bird, trembling in the quiet breeze. Beyond it, the cobbles trailed up the hill towards a silvery palace tumbling with vines, giant blooming flowers spilling out of the turrets on the sides of Spring and Summer, mushrooms and lichen clinging to the part shrouded in Autumn.
Home,whispered Juliana’s thoughts, although she tried to squash them.
It didn’t matter. The word curled around her heart like the vines at the palace gate, blooming with wistful sentimentality.
“Happy to be back?” Markham asked.
“I bet the food is nicer here.”
Markham barked a laugh. For all that she could lie better than most mortals, Juliana was used to faerie speech, dodging the truth but speaking no falsehoods.
