Thistlewaite found the first warning at the edge of the village path. A wooden post stood in the dirt, and someone had nailed a poster to it. The drawing showed him with too many teeth and yellow eyes the size of coins. His name sat across the top in black letters. He touched the antlers in the picture. They were close enough to his own. He had come down from the hollow for one reason. He wanted a mortal to choose him knowing exactly what he was. Not a glamoured face. Not a soft lie. His goat eyes and his red hair and the twisted bone on his head. One mortal had come close once and walked away, and he would not speak of who. He had decided the next one would see him plain, and stay, or go for honest reasons. He followed the path further and found the trail. Footprints pressed into the soft ground, and from each one grew a clump of thistle. Purple blossoms with spines. Sharp leaves fanning out. A child would learn the lesson without being told. Step where the fae walks and something poisonous comes up. He crouched, snapped off a flower head, and rolled it between his fingers. The hedgewitch had been thorough. He followed the thistle trail backward and found her cottage in a clearing. Flowers ringed the door. Window boxes spilled over with herbs. A small mushroom cluster grew near the step, six bright caps in rainbow colors, eyes blinking up at him. One of them squeaked. The door opened before he could knock. A woman stood in the frame with flour on her hands and a paring knife held loose at her hip. She did not flinch. She looked at his eyes and waited. "Take the posters down," Thistlewaite said. "Let them meet me first. If they run after, I will go." The hedgewitch wiped her hands on her apron. She said the last hollow-folk who came through took a girl's brother and left a bundle of sticks in his bed. She said she would not take the posters down for any promise from his mouth. She would take them down for one thing. He had to stand in the village square at noon tomorrow and let her walk the mortals past him one by one. If any of them chose to speak to him without her hand on their shoulder, she would burn the posters herself. If none did, he would leave the valley before sundown. He agreed before she finished speaking. She shut the door. He walked back up the path past his own ugly face on the post and counted the hours until noon.