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“Speak!” Wolf commanded. “The mountains are listening.”
I watched the raven for a moment, hesitating, feeling silly only speaking to the wind.
“I’ve come to learn the true name of the Prince of Thorns,” I said.
Wolf and I stood in the silence again, and as it blanketed us, I scanned the glistening slopes of the mountains as if someone or something might appear at any moment and eat me alive.
But then the mountain spoke, and it was as if its voice were inside my head. The sound resonated, rumbling throughout my body.
“What will you give me in exchange?” the mountain asked.
My heart beat harder in my chest.
“What do you want?”
The mountain paused and then spoke, “Bring me three hairs from the head of the Prince of Thorns, and I will tell you his true name.”
Then the weight that had fallen on me when we landed dissipated. My body slumped, no longer on edge, and I could breathe once more.
I turned to the raven, expecting something more.
“Come, Thing. We must return.”
Climbing onto the raven’s back was harder with the slippery floor beneath me, and I yanked on his feathers as I mounted him. Wolf squawked in pain, but once I was seated, he took flight. I stared down at my hands, tangled with Wolf’s feathers, reminding me of Casamir’s thorns. My vision blurred, mind whirling with ways to secure three of Casamir’s hairs.
Perhaps I could sneak into his room while he slept and pluck them from his head, but where did he sleep in his vast castle? I thought I had been there once, when I first arrived, but his castle was like an endless forest and felt impossible to navigate.
Though I should not care, I wondered what the mountains wanted with his hair. Worse, what if I gave it and received the wrong name?
I tried to recall the exact words I had used when I had told the mountains what I wanted but could not remember.
“Why would the mountains ask for Casamir’s hair? And only three strands?”
“It is not for me to wonder,” said Wolf, whose help, I realized, only extended to his wings, which I supposed was enough.
The selkie still lounged on the rock, and when we landed, he straightened.
“Well, do you have a name?” he asked in a bored tone.
“I have a task,” I said. “But you knew that.”
“Nothing in this world is free,” said the selkie.
I looked at Wolf. “Thank you.”
I was sincere, grateful that the bird had not tried to trick me or leave me on the mountains. Though, I was far more suspicious that he hadn’t done anything at all.
He swept into a bow, one wing to his breast. “My pleasure, Lady Thing.”
“I am not—”
But the raven sprang into the air and flew away before I could finish, and I was left with the selkie, who gestured to the water.
“Drink,” he said. “And you will grow big again.”
The pond was a vast ocean, and my feet sank into the mud as I neared the bank, but I scooped the water into my hands and sipped. As soon as it touched my tongue, my head spun and my world was righted once more.
My stomach revolted, and before I could stop myself, I bent and vomited into the grassy bank.
