I’m still screaming, but now it’s into Olani’s ear, thrown onto her horse in the seat behind her. I stop screaming, but I cling to her with shaking arms. This faerie horse gallops so fast I don’t want to think about what would happen if I landed under its hooves.

When I catch my breath, I say, “Olani!” again. An unfamiliar feeling rises in my chest: hope. Maybe she’s already broken the spell on herself, maybe she recognized me, maybe she’s riding with the hunt so she can protect Isolde.

“You joined the hunt at the right time! We’ve almost got it!”

Or maybe not.

“Olani!” I try again, desperately. My arms dig into her ribs so tight I’m sure she can hardly breathe, and my face is buried in her shoulder. She’s wearing a forest-green doublet so thick with embroidery of flowers and leaves and little birds that it practically counts as armor. In her other hand, she holds a spear with a wickedly sharp point. “It’s me! Olani! Don’t you recognize me?”

Apparently, she doesn’t. We overtake a faerie with pale green skin on an emerald-colored horse, and Olani throws back her head with a laugh.

I want to stop her. I want to shake her so hard she wakes up, to snatch the reins out of her hands. But that won’t do any good because this horse is the only way I have of possibly catching up with Isolde. Still, I shout Olani’s name over and over, until my throat is raw, because there’s nothing else I can do. I can’t help but feel that trying to use magic to stop her would just make everything worse.

For the first time, faeries are paying attention to me. I didn’t matter to them when I was just some glamoured changeling or when I was pretending to be one of them, but now that I’m starting to ruin the game, I’m making myself a target.

I imagine two identical black foxes, bleeding crimson into the impossibly green grass, and shudder. It won’t come to that.

Olani urges her horse faster and faster. I watch the faeries’ blurry faces as we pass them. A few look jealous, but most cheer her on. They want her to kill Isolde, I realize. The thought turns my stomach. And she wants to do it. She leans forward in the saddle eagerly, spear raised.

And there’s nothing I can do about it. My arms shake with the effort it takes to hold on. Everything hurts, and I’m taking in breaths in ragged gasps I can’t seem to control. My heart beats faster than the horses’ hooves, frantic and desperate. I scan the ground in front of us desperately, wishing for my eyes to be sharper than hers, sharper than the faeries’. I need to be the one who sees the fox first.

I wonder if Isolde knows what’s going on or if she’s lost somewhere under layers of the fox’s fear. I wonder if she’s still herself.