Nell Larkspur's Arc

Chapter 18 of 23

Polona's cottage was gone behind them before Nell looked back. One step out the door and the walls folded into mist. The witch kept what she wanted kept. Linny stood on her own feet for six paces, then sagged against his side, and he took her weight without a word. The forest knew him now. That was the trouble. Branches he had passed under a hundred times leaned lower. Roots he had never tripped on caught his boot. A stand of frost-laden pines closed ranks across the path he meant to take, icy branches knitting like fingers. He turned Linny south. The trees turned with him. "You're slowing," Linny said. "I know." "Set me down. I can walk." "You can't." She pulled back enough to look up at him. Her sister's eyes, but harder. Purple hair matted at her temple. Paint still on her cuffs from a life four days ago. "Then tell me why you're doing this." "Your sister asked me." "Lena doesn't ask people. She apologizes at them until they leave." Linny's mouth twisted. "She wouldn't cross the ridge. Not for me. Not for anyone. So either she isn't the one who sent you, or you aren't what you say." He kept walking. His knee gave and caught. A low branch raked his shoulder that had not been there a breath ago. "They say you hunt people," Linny said. "In town. They say the woodcutter on the hill eats the ones who wander up. And now I wake in a witch's parlor and a fae boy is carrying me home before dawn. So which sick game is this." "It isn't a game." "Prove it." He stopped. He had to. His lungs were full of knives and the forest was leaning in to listen. He set Linny against a trunk and braced a hand beside her head so he would not fall. "I love her," he said. Linny went still. "Everyone whose come to my door, I order to leave. They never come back, but she did. Time and time again. I’ve been trying to repay that ever since. I cleared the ice off my hill so she wouldn't slip. I cut my own arm to send the fae east so they wouldn't find her. I made a deal with a witch I couldn't read so she could see you again. I came for you because your sister is waiting in a cellar counting the hours, and if I come back without you she'll never sleep another night. And I can’t bare to watch that. That's the game." Linny stared at him. Then she got her arm under his and took some of his weight herself. "Walk," she said. "You can be in love at the tree line." They walked. The forest fought every step, but the sky was graying at last. When the ridge showed through the pines, the cellar door was already open below it, and a blue-haired figure was running up the slope toward them. He did not fall until she reached him.