Vel looked up from the untouched scone in his hand. “Dozens?”

“Yes, child. I may not know who she is, but I can certainly feel the eyes on her. The hands reaching for her, too. And the steel.” She licked her lips. “I can taste it.”

Scratch’s stomach clenched. “Swords.”

“There’s wealth around her.” Nana held out her hands, palms forward, grabbing at nothing. “A bounty. The people are desperate for her.”

Brella made a sound that might have been a growl. “They can’t have her.”

Well, that was surprising. A jolt zinged across Scratch’s stomach, followed by a fizzing warmth. But, no—it probably wasn’t personal. Brella needed her to fight off more pursuers, or to factor in whatever mysterious end, whatever secret, the woman still held close. Despite herself, Scratch felt her ribs tighten.

“Of course, they can’t, Umbrella. I can smell how important she is.” The fae’s tulip nose twitched. “In ways you haven’t begun to understand.”

Scratch raised a hand, confused and tired and a little warm with anger. “How am I important?“ There was enough she didn’t know, enough knots to unpick. She couldn’t stomach another.

“It’s not for me to tell, child,” Nana replied, infuriatingly calm. “Things will be revealed as you’re meant to know them. Now.” The fae’s focus was palpable, a poke rather than a caress. “Your name.”

“Patience,” she croaked, stiff and uncomfortable. “Patience Keyes.”

Nana opened her mouth. It was dark inside.

“Not that name, child,” she hissed, displeasure curling her lips.

“That is my name.” Though it lifted the hairs on the back of her neck. She still heard it in her mother’s sharp voice, raised in anger. Patience. Patience!

“No.” Nana’s voice took on a strange timbre, an added chorus of voices underneath hers, pulled from somewhere deep. “I need the name you are called. The name you are known by. That is the name with power. Far more power than the name you were given at birth.”

“I—” Her words died in her throat. She felt ten years old again, rising from her first fight with scraped knees and dust in her eyes. “Really?”

Nana’s fire dimmed. “Really, child.”

“Scratch.” As she said it, something like the reverse of a shadow, a little negative space of light, traveled from her mouth to Nana’s. The goat woman opened for it, held it on her pink tongue, then swallowed. As she did, the room came into sharp focus. The wooden walls weren’t simple at all. Symbols and words etched in an inscrutable language ran the length of the beams, glowing with faint light. The gurgleberries glistened in the scones, lightning bolts of yellow energy running beneath each rosy membrane. The glowing flowers dangling from the ceiling opened their mouths, revealing rows of tiny, needle-sharp teeth.

“Oh,” Scratch said.