He brought the axe down. Time slowed, frost blooming over my skin while rain began to fall outside the window. The Huntress lay between us, her face turned toward the rain and her dark hair spilling over the roses like black blood. Around her the briars stirred. Thorns rustled against each other as the vines shot across the floor, climbing up Avery Lockland’s legs and sinking into his flesh. The axe fell from his hands and bounced harmlessly off the flagstones as blood streamed from a hundred punctures. When the thorns reached his throat and face, he screamed. I left him there. He would live, which was more than I could say for the wolf at his feet, but I did not believe in vengeance anymore. Nothing undid death.

I crawled to the Huntress, collapsing beside her. “You said you put a curse on her to save her,” I said to the witch, wherever she was. “How is this salvation?”

“Poor child.” The witch’s voice rumbled with the strength of mountains. I did not look up. I heard her stoop to place a hand on Avery, and his ragged breathing calmed beneath her touch. “I had to know if she could ever love, and the surest way to measure love is loss.”

“No,” I said, resting my head against the Huntress’s cool cheek. “There are other ways. You could have just asked me.”

“She was willing to give up everything for you.” The witch’s words fell on my ears like a whisper of frost.

“And now you’ve taken everything from me.”

“Have I?” She knelt on the Huntress’s other side and placed a gnarled hand on her breast. “This is not death, child. She is merely feeling her mortality. She may yet die, though, without your help.”

“I’ll do anything.”

“Would you give up your own life?”

I looked up into her eyes, and what I saw there was colder than the water of the lake. “Yes.”

The witch considered this. “You would not be the first to die for her,” she said.

“I don’t care.”

“She would never forgive you for making such a choice.”

“I don’t care,” I said, the words turning into a shout.

“But I do not want your life, child.” The witch smiled to herself as if this should have been obvious. “A rose for a rose, a thorn for a thorn. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

Understanding blossomed before me.