You’ve had nothing before, she reminded herself, though her own voice was weak in her heavy head. You can make it all up again.

And there in her mind, as if summoned, was Frances. Her woods-wild eyes revealing truth after truth, melting off Scratch’s armor, revealing skin that stung with newness. The princess, at least, deserved the rest of her life.

“I’m coming to get you,” she whispered into the dying fire. “Whether you like it or not.”

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

From the second the small party slunk into the streets to the moment they crossed the forest’s tree line, Scratch barely took a breath. She allowed herself to fill her lungs when the forest rose up around her, the heady scent of damp earth and piney wilderness sluicing the filth of the dungeons from her insides. The dawn crept pale blue on the trees, chill and gentle, staining the brown bark gray. She breathed and breathed.

She didn’t miss the irony that the forest, dangerous, mysterious, and largely avoided, would be her refuge. It was unforgiving, a home earned by those who could survive it. There were the animals, of course—bear, coyote, wild dog—as well as the packs of bandits who staked their claim to swaths of land, camps with unmarked barriers so subtle an intruder wouldn’t know they had trespassed until the blade of a bandit’s knife kissed their throat.

But the threats of beasts and bandits were nothing compared to danger of the fair folk, the magical creatures who not only occupied these woods, but had, according to legend, drawn every tree from the earth. The clever Ivinscontian might call the fae a myth; the cleverest wouldn’t say such a thing out loud, for fear the fae could hear. People disappeared in these woods, lured by ghostly light or the crying of a baby who didn’t exist. Scratch’s mother, being from the Lakes, was more concerned about sirens and kelp spirits, but even she knew to warn her daughter: stay out of the forest.

“Okay. We’re safe.” Brella dropped her pack and sat herself on a mossy, flattish rock. Here in the woods, she looked marginally less stern. “We should rest a bit.”

“We’ve just arrived,” James objected, though he sat anyway. He had stopped drooling, but rusty gunk caked his split lip and his black eye had gone purple. “Surely we ought to get some distance between us and the city.”

“We have time.” Vel picked a few leaves off of a nearby bush, crushed them in his palm, spat in them, and offered them to James. “Press this against your lip.”

James blinked. “If that’s what you enjoy, we can discuss it.”

“It’ll help.” Vel seemed to try for firm, but a smile crept through. “Trust me.”