She took a long moment to ponder his answer and then turned around. The Queen waved her hand through the air and in front of me, the air rippled like it did on hot summer days, distorting the colors beyond. It bled together into red, gold, black, and white, and then combinations of the four. A scene emerged from the amorphous blob, a scene I couldn’t tear my eyes from. It was the girl in the alley. She was in a forest with scraggly pines and lofty oaks all around her. Saplings and briars tore at her skirts as she stumbled through the woodland, calling out for someone. Probably her brother. She spun in circles, trying to get her bearings. Sweat clung to her fair skin and wet the dark tendrils of hair at her temples.
Coeur’s voice cut through the silence. “She seems quite lost. An easy situation to find oneself in while in the deepest part of the wood, but an unfortunate one. She could walk for days and not find her way out. Or something larger, fiercer, and hungrier than she could descend upon her.”
I tried to stand, but an invisible force pushed me to my knees again. “She is a huntress, this girl,” the Queen continued. “Do you see the snare she set just beyond the briars? She will make a formidable partner. You’re quite lucky,” Coeur offered with an evil grin. She turned to Glenlyn. “Bring her to me.”
In an instant, he vanished. I wasn’t sure if he used his own power, or if Coeur spirited him out of the palace, but I knew the moment he reappeared in front of the girl. My heart leapt into my throat at the sight of him behind her. He wiggled his nose and transformed into a small, white rabbit.
As the briar bushes she’d been tangled in withdrew from her, her mouth gaped open at the sudden turn of luck. She took advantage of the reprieve and ran out of the thicket and into the open, where the same snare Coeur pointed out a moment ago had tightened on the hind leg of a fluffy white rabbit.
The animal struggled to free itself, just as she’d been doing only seconds ago. When it saw her approaching, it panicked. She took slow steps toward the creature, its red eyes widening as she drew near.
A loud clap of thunder made them both jump. The sky, which was sunny moments ago, filled with clouds and thunderheads quickly tore their way across the heavens. She turned to the rabbit again and muttered something before removing a knife from her boot.
She set her jaw and squared her shoulders. Coeur thought she was a hunter? She wasn’t. It was clear she’d never felt the slippery thickness of blood on her fingers before. Her hand quivered and her nervousness drove the hare into madness. She tried to calm it, but before she could slit its throat or even cut the rope that held it, the rabbit managed to escape the snare and bolted into the thicket to hide.
Her lips formed a curse and she chased after the rabbit. I couldn’t look away. Her desperation to catch the animal was palpable. She was still hungry. Where the hell was her brother, and why wasn’t he providing for her? Something inside me rumbled with fury, but that was stupid. She was only a girl; a girl I’d met for all of a few moments. What did I care if she was starving?
But I found that I did care, which was why I watched intently as the rabbit found new places to conceal itself. I watched as she found it again and again, only for the animal to slip out of her grasp, just out of reach. It never strayed too far. No, the creature Coeur sent – the fae she dispatched to lure the girl to her castle – was skilled. It promised exactly what she needed and stayed close enough to taunt her and give her the slightest inkling of hope that she might be able to catch it. He toyed with her.
It was the cruelest thing I’d ever seen, and I knew what she was in for when she got here. In that moment, I’d have given anything to keep her safe.
My stomach clenched tight. “Just let her go. This doesn’t involve the girl.”
When Queen Coeur erased the image in front of me, my chest felt like it might cave in on itself.
She’s gone.
“I make the rules,” she whispered.
CHAPTER FOUR
ARABELLA
The sliced skin on my legs and thighs burned as I chased the blasted rabbit through thickets of thorns. How he managed to free himself was beyond me. Oryn promised me that the snares worked, that whenever game was caught up in them, there was no way for the animal to get out. He was wrong.
Then again, he was a man...and men had crazy ideas. Like going into the wilderness without an ounce of water, or placing all his trust in sprinkles of glittering dust that he placed around us at night—which apparently was the important “supply” he procured from the man in the purple waistcoat. Supposedly, it would keep the fae from seeing or smelling us. And there was the fact that he wanted me, someone who’d never set a proper snare in her life, to set over a hundred through the forest, but not before dousing me in the same glittery dust. Dust that was now tatty and sweated off. Fresh torrents of driving rain finished the job by pounding any remaining dust off my skin and clothes.
It started sprinkling when I was caught in the briars, but now the sky was bawling. I was heartbroken with the knowledge that this torrent wouldn’t end any time soon. Thunder rumbled across the sky in waves, making the earth beneath my feet tremble and the hair on my arms stand at attention. The sky was as aggravated as I was, and maybe just as starved.
I chased the rabbit, my meager belongings tied across my chest, through the seemingly endless woodland. Maybe it was infinite. But the rabbit would be worth the struggle if I could just reach him. It was fat enough to feed us for days if we were careful. The wily beast would hop a few feet to the left, and then when I almost had him, he’d hop ahead to the right, zig-zagging his way through the woods.
At times, he would act almost carefree, sniffing the ground, his tiny nostrils flaring. But then his beady red eyes would find me and his flight response sent him scurrying away again. Always barely out of reach.
I hoped he didn’t find his burrow and hide away in a hole too deep for me to pull him out of. Oryn would kill me if I lost him. He was the only animal we’d seen for days, and we were too far into the forest to turn back without food.
My brother had left me while he went on a mission to find water and told me to set snares along any animal trails I saw. That was easier said than done. The whole forest was composed of a labyrinth of trails, forking off in every direction. Close enough to touch his wintry fur, the rabbit suddenly leapt away again and paused to nibble on a leaf.
Now that I thought of it, it seemed more likely that Oryn had taken me into the woods and left me. How was he supposed to find me after he got water for us? Maybe the magic dust would beckon him.
And maybe this rabbit could fly...
Either way, I was on my own now. I had to catch this wretch and end it so I would have the strength to keep going. My mouth was drier than a desert and I was beginning to tire. If I could catch the damned thing, I’d let the rain pour into my mouth until it pooled and rivulets spilled out the corners.