Two steps, and she was free, free for as long as the rose stayed in his hands.

Thief.

She growled deep in her throat.

She should have killed him. Instead, she would show him the meaning of loss, as it had been shown to her.

Her howl swept down the mountain like the fall of a knife, sowing fear in its wake.

As he had taken, so would she.

As she had lost, so would he.

A rose for a rose, a thorn for a thorn.

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

He called us to him as the daylight waned.

“My daughters,” he said, his voice a low rasp. “I was afraid I would never see you again.”

We waited for more.

“I am so very, very sorry for all of the trouble I have brought on you.”

Aspen assured him that he had brought no trouble at all. Juniper stroked his hand. I met his eyes. There was terror in their depths, and a regret that surpassed the loss of friends and business.

“I am so very, very sorry.” Tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Father,” I said, earning shocked looks from my sisters for my tone. “What happened? Where are the Locklands?”

“Rowan.” Aspen shook her head at me. “He is ill. He needs rest, not questions.”

“Please, Rowan,” said Juniper, her lower lip quivering.

I looked into their faces. Neither of them had stopped to consider what would happen to us if Avery’s father and brother were dead. The reasons for our flight from the city were well known, and in the mountains, where superstition held sway over logic and curses exacted justice, I did not want to think about what our neighbors would decide to do with us between now and the spring thaw, should they conclude we had brought our bad luck with us.

“She is right to ask,” my father said to them, sitting up with painful slowness and placing a wind-roughened hand on his injured leg. “I should have stayed in the mountains.” He hushed my sisters’ protests. “I must speak to Avery.”

“Tomorrow,” I said, thinking of the beasts outside the door. “Aspen’s right. You need rest.” I paused, no longer sure if I wanted answers. “Are they . . .?”

“Dead,” he said. In the silence that followed his words, he murmured something else.

“What did he say?” I asked my sisters.

“‘Mercy,’” said Aspen, turning to me in confusion. “He said ‘mercy.’”

“Mercy brought you home,” I told him.

He made a strangled sound, and it took me a few seconds to realize it was laughter. Then his eyes focused, and he saw the sword leaning against the hearthstone.

It had been a terrible thing to see my father cry, and more terrible still to see him afraid, but nothing was as terrible as the sight of despair breaking him, aging him, crippling him before my eyes.