LITMIR.BIZ

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old and gray, and my four-year-old kid brother was older than I was, even if it had been a hundred years, and everyone I knew was.

      I gasped and veered my thoughts from that path, refusing to think about it. Home would be the same as it always was. I could finally go back to school, learn to drive, maybe even go to prom this year. Maybe Puck can

      take me. The thought was so ridiculous I almost laughed out loud, choking on unshed tears. No matter how much I wanted a normal life, there would be a part of me that longed for this world, for the magic and wonder of it. It had seeped into my soul and shown me things I’d never thought existed. I couldn’t be normal and ignorant ever again, knowing what was out there. Faery was a part of me now. As long as I lived, I would always be watching for hidden doors and figures from the corner of my eyes. And for a certain dark prince who could never be mine.

      I must’ve fallen asleep, for the next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes and the room was bathed in hazy starlight. The flowers had opened completely and were glowing as if tiny moons nestled between the petals, throwing back the darkness. Ethereal moths and ghostly butterflies flitted over the carpet, delicate wings reflecting the light as they floated between blooms. Careful not to wake Puck, I rose and wandered into the flowers, breathing in the heady scent, marveling as a feathery blue moth landed on my thumb, weighing nothing at all. I breathed out, and it fluttered off toward a dark figure in the center of the carpet.

      Ash stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by glowing white flowers, eyes closed as tiny lights swirled around him. They shimmered and drew together, merging into a luminescent faery with long silver hair, her features so lovely and perfect that my throat ached. Ash opened his eyes as she reached for him, her hands stopping just shy of his face. Longing shone from his eyes, and I shivered as the spectral faery moved right through him, dissolving into tiny lights.

      “Is that … Ariella?” I whispered, walking up behind him.

      Ash whirled around, his eyes widening at the sudden interruption. Seeing me, several emotions crossed his face— shock, anger, shame—before he sighed in resignation and turned away.

      “No,” he murmured, as the ghostly faery appeared again, dancing among the flowers. “It isn’t. Not in the way you think.”

      “Her ghost?”

      He shook his head, his eyes never leaving the specter as she swayed and twirled over the glowing carpet, butterflies drifting around her. “Not even that. There is no afterlife for us. We have no souls with which to haunt the world. This is … just a memory.” He sighed, and his voice went very soft. “She was always happy here. The flowers … remember.”

      I suddenly understood. This was Ash’s memory of Ariella, perfect, happy and full of life, a yearning so great it was given form, if only for a moment. Ariella wasn’t here. This was only a dream, an echo of a being long departed.

      Tears filled my eyes and ran down my face. The gash on my cheek stung where they passed, but I didn’t care. All I could see was Ash’s pain, his loneliness, his yearning for someone who wasn’t me. It was tearing me apart, and I couldn’t say anything. Because I knew, somehow, that Ash was saying goodbye, to both of us.

      We stood in silence for a while, watching Ariella’s memory dance among the flowers, her gossamer hair floating on the breeze as bright motes swirled around her.

      I wondered if she really was that perfect, or if this was what Ash remembered her to be.

      “I’m leaving,” Ash said quietly, as I knew he would. He finally turned to face me, solemn, beautiful, and as distant as the stars. “Have Goodfellow take you home. It isn’t safe here any longer.”

      My throat felt tight; my eyes burned, and I took a shaky breath to free my voice. And even though I already knew the answer, even though my head was telling me to shut up, I whispered, “I won’t see you again, will I?”

      He shook his head, once. “I wasn’t fair to you,” he murmured. “I knew the laws, better than anyone. I knew it would end … like this. I ignored my better judgment, and for that, I’m sorry.” His voice didn’t change. It was still calm and polite, but I felt an icy hand squeeze my heart as he continued. “But, after tonight, we’ll be enemies. Your father and my queen will be at war. If I see you again, I might kill you.” His eyes narrowed, and his voice turned cold. “For real this time, Meghan.”

      He half turned, as if to leave. The glow of the flowers made a halo of light around him, only accenting his unearthly beauty. In the distance, Ariella danced and twirled, free from sorrow and pain and the trials of the living. “Go home, Princess,” murmured the Unseelie prince. “Go home, and forget. You don’t belong here.”

      I couldn’t remember much of the night afterward, though I think it involved a lot of sobbing into my quilt. In the morning, I woke up to snow drifting in through the roof, coating the floor with heavy white powder. The flowers had faded, and Ash was already gone.

PART TWO

      CHAPTER NINE

       The Summoning

      The evening following Ash’s departure, Puck and I hit the edge of the wyldwood.

      “Not far now, Princess,” Puck said, giving me an encouraging grin. A few yards from where we stood, the snow and ice just … stopped. Beyond it, the wyldwood stretched before us, dark, tangled, trapped in perpetual twilight. “Just gotta cross the wyldwood to get you home. You’ll be back to your old boring life before you can say ‘summer school.’”

      I tried smiling back, but couldn’t manage it. Even though my heart soared at the thought of home and family and even summer school, I felt I was leaving a part of me behind. Throughout our hike, I’d kept turning around, hoping to see Ash’s dark form striding through the snow after us, gruffly embarrassed and taciturn, but there. It didn’t happen. Tir Na Nog remained eerily empty and quiet as Puck and I continued our journey alone. And as the sun sank lower in the sky and the shadows lengthened around us, I slowly came to realize that Ash wasn’t coming back. He was truly gone.

      I quivered on the verge of tears but held them back. I did not want to have to explain to Puck why I was crying. He already knew I was upset, and kept trying to distract me with jokes and a constant string of questions. What happened after we left him to confront Machina? How did we find the Iron Realm? What was it like? I answered as best I could, leaving out the parts between me and Ash, of course. Puck didn’t need yet another reason to hate the Winter prince, and hopefully he would never find out.

      As we approached the colorless murk of the wyldwood, something moved in the shadows to our left. Puck spun with blinding speed, whipping out his dagger, as a spindly form stumbled through the trees and collapsed a few feet away. It was a girl, slender and graceful, with moss-green skin and hair like withered vines. A dryad.

      The tree woman shuddered and gasped, clawing herself upright. One long-fingered hand clutched her throat as if she were being strangled. “Help … me,” she gasped at Puck, her brown eyes wide with terror. “My tree …”

      “What’s happened to it?” Puck said, and caught her as she fell. She sagged against him, her head lolling back on her shoulders. “Hey,” he said, shaking her a little. “Stay with me now. Where’s your tree? Did someone cut it down?”

      The dryad gasped for air. “P-poisoned,” she whispered, before her eyes rolled up and her body turned to wood in his arms. With the sound of snapping twigs, the dryad curled in on herself until she resembled little more than a bundle of dry branches. I watched the faery’s life fade away, remembered what Ash had said about the fey and death, and felt terribly, terribly sad. That was it for her, then. She’d simply ceased to exist.

      Puck sighed, bowing his head, and gathered the lifeless dryad into his arms. She was thin and brittle now, fragile as spun glass, but not one twig snapped or broke off as he carried her away. With utmost care, he laid the body at the foot of a giant tree, murmured a few words and stepped back.

      For a moment, nothing happened. Then, huge

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