“A treat,” Aunt said, and it sounded like a warning. “Uncle, shall we go home?”

“As you wish, my lady.”

Scratch watched them leave with a sense of relief, the trees parting slightly to let them through. Soon, the sound of Aunt and Uncle’s footsteps faded, two lines of tiny flowerbeds the only evidence that the magical beings had been there at all.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Silence fell. Scratch’s heart thumped an insistent pattern on her ribs—go, go, go, do something. She couldn’t move. Brella stood on the other side of the clearing, blank eyes staring out at the spot in the trees through which Aunt and Uncle had disappeared. She looked wrung out like a washrag, her clothes rumpled and her skin oddly colorless. Darkness ringed her eyes, adorned with the spidery evidence of burst capillaries. Blood lined two of the fingernails of her right hand, evidence of biting or picking, neither of which Scratch had ever seen her do before. Her slumped shoulders rose and fell with uneven breathing.

When she spoke, her voice was scratchy. “He’s a katydid.” Her eyes didn’t leave the trees. “Uncle. Aunt is some sort of flower fae. They were both born in the forests.”

Brella swayed on her feet. Scratch shot out an arm, then pulled it back just as quickly. Something told her not to touch. Not yet. Thankfully, Brella stayed upright.

“Katydids live for only a year. Sometimes a little bit more, but not much. He’ll die soon.” She took a ragged breath. “He’s died so many times. Every year he dies, and every year Aunt cries for him. She cries so hard all of her flowers shrivel up and die. She’s left naked and alone.”

Brella closed her eyes and breathed, those thick eyelashes clumped together like spikes. “The forest loves her. It needs her flowers. So when she cries, after her flowers have gone, the forest grows her a new Uncle, right from the ground. Every year, the new Uncle remembers a little more from his other lifetimes. Mostly, he forgets. So she tells him, every year, everything they’ve been through. They’re impossibly old; well, she is. She has centuries of life to catch him up on. And she does it every time he returns. Because she loves him so, so much. She loves him so much that the loss of him wilts her, strips her.”

Scratch trembled, locking her knees to keep herself standing.