Mandi Jourdan
We emerged from the forest and found ourselves at the top of a hill covered in grass that rose to knee height. The harsh sunlight glinted off each blade, and I squinted at the sudden brutal brightness as the hillside shimmered. At the foot of the hill lay a pond of crystalline blue water that rippled despite the lack of wind. We’d been stumbling through the Younglands, the home of the fae, for at least an hour already, following the trail of the missing citizens of Southrock. Our group was led by Edward, the town’s lord, who had trained himself to use the heightened senses engendered by his lycanthropy even in his human form.
He pulled in a deep breath and turned to me. “The Carvers’ scent goes this way. And there’s something else—something that keeps fading in and out, as though someone’s tried to scrub it clean or mask it somehow, but they couldn’t quite manage. It smells like… well, like this place. Otherworldly, too sweet to be normal flesh or blood, and light, like sugar and air. I suspect it’s something fae.”
As he described the scent, I wondered what I smelled like to him. Like my perfume? Or did his sharpened senses cut down to my blood, too? What had they taught him the previous night, when I’d shared his bed?
“So, someone is guiding them all somewhere together,” I said.
“Are you picking up on anything… else?” asked Charity. She cast a long look at the pond, her expression wary.
“Oh, certainly.” Edward sighed. “There are a few types of being in there at least, so I’d advise caution when we get down the hill. And there’s also…” He frowned, staring at a spot near the pond’s edge. “That can’t be right.”
“What?” I asked, craning my neck but seeing nothing other than grass and water.
“Jessica’s scent goes toward the pond. The Carvers’ little girl.”
“Oh no,” I muttered.
“It could be a trick,” Charity said carefully.
“But they would’ve had no idea we were coming,” said Edward, still staring at that spot at the pond’s right edge.
“Not us specifically,” said Valdra, “but they might’ve prepared for a rescue attempt. I think it’s worth checking out, just to make sure she’s not out here, but… carefully.”
“Agreed.” Edward started forward again, his shoulders tensed this time. I stayed at his side, scanning the area he was focused on, but I couldn’t make out anything through the tall, thick grass blocking our view of the edge of the pond. As we drew closer to the foot of the hill, his steps slowed, and he held a hand out at his side. “I’ll go,” he said. “Just in case it’s a trap, I don’t want you getting dragged into it too.”
I arched a brow at him. “With the utmost respect, I’m not letting you go alone.”
The corner of his mouth twitched upward. “I imagined as much, but it was worth a try.”
“I’ll be back here,” put in Adrien. “Unless I have to drag someone out of a pond, I suppose. So please try not to make that necessary.”
“We’ll do our best,” I told him with my sweetest false smile.
“We’ll be right behind you,” said Valdra, pointing toward the edge of the pond with her mace. “Well, maybe give or take a few feet.”
“Inspiring,” I said with a roll of my eyes as I turned back to Edward. I gave him a nod and a look I hoped was encouraging, and then he closed the remaining distance to the edge of the water, keeping his focus on that same spot as he neared it.
I followed, and when I finally saw what he had been trailing, my heart squeezed in a nauseating blend of relief and terror. It wasn’t the girl—not a real girl anyway. A doll made of cloth lay half-buried in the grass, her arm and its black sleeve protruding unceremoniously from the bent blades where the doll had fallen. Her hair was made of golden yarn, and the detailing in both her plait and her intricately laced and beaded gown suggested an artist’s hand. One of the doll’s feet dragged the surface of the pond, one satin shoe soaked through where the foot floated like a lily pad of the wrong color and composition. For an instant, a terrible thought seized me: had the fae turned the girl into a doll?
“That’s Jessica’s,” Edward said quietly. “I bought it for her a couple of birthdays ago.”
My heart squeezed in admiration and relief. “That’s so kind of you.”
He shook his head, still staring at the doll. “I wanted to do more. It was a rough harvest season and business was slow for the apothecary and the forge—for everyone in town, really. The family wouldn’t accept monetary help, but they allowed gifts for the children.”
“We’ll get it back to her,” I assured him. Slowly, studying the surface of the water for signs of movement, I knelt. I stretched out a hand for the doll.
“Saelia… be careful, please,” Edward muttered.
I nodded and touched the doll’s extended arm with a fingertip, not removing my focus from the water. The pond’s surface had gone still, the ripples we’d seen on approach abating entirely. Encouraged by the pause, I gripped the doll’s arm between my thumb and forefinger and whipped it back toward me.
As soon as I moved, a hand shot up from the edge of the water and latched onto my wrist, gripping tight. I caught my breath and wrenched my hand backward, but the pale one restraining it did not relent. A translucent layer of greenish webbing connected the fingers entangled with mine, and I looked up as a figure broke through the pond’s surface. The being was thin enough that her bones protruded, her long hair a green somewhere between the hues of grass and seaweed and her eyes large and pure black. She had only broken through the water to her shoulders; the arm that held me still was submerged apart from her hand.
“You venture too close for ones who do not wish to swim with us,” she said in a lilting hiss.
“Release her,” Edward ordered, taking a step closer. This put his foot too near the edge of the pond for my liking, and I shook my head sharply.
“Don’t. It’s okay,” I said.
“It is decidedly not okay,” said Valdra from behind me. I heard her move closer. “Let her go.”
A few feet beyond where the woman floated, a shark-like fin bisected the water and then vanished again. The woman looked to Edward and then to Valdra and back to me, her expression calculating. She glanced back to Charity and Adrien and to me again, her grip on my hand not slacking. “What brings you this way?” she asked.
“We seek the one this belongs to,” I said, jabbing my chin in the direction of the doll clasped in my hand. “And others who vanished with her.”
The woman—a merrow, if I wasn’t mistaken—tilted her head to the side. “You came here willingly? Seeking others who did not?”
“Yes,” said Edward, sliding his other foot closer and shifting his weight more firmly to the bank of the pond. “We mean you no harm. Let her go, and we will move on in peace.”
The merrow glanced over her shoulder as the silvery white fin surfaced again, and something like panic flickered across her face before her expression smoothed out.
“If only I could,” she said. “I am sorry—as you have a task you must perform, so do I.”
Edward swallowed. “And what is that task?”
“I’m the distraction, of course.”
In a flash of long limbs and longer tails with fins sharpened to points, a pair of sleek silver bodies whipped out of the water. One of them grabbed me by the shoulder and hauled me forward, and I caught a glimpse of the other’s tail whipping Edward’s feet out from under him. I forced myself to cut off my reflexive scream, slamming my mouth shut tight with the biggest gulp of air I could manage, and strained my eyes to keep them open as the hands dragged me below the surface. I struggled to put my feet under me to kick at whoever was in range.
Like the hillside above me, the water was preternaturally lit, this illumination coming from pale green moss that clung to the rocks and gems and shells embedded along the pond’s edges. The light glinted off the eyes and scaly tails and razor-sharp claws of the fae surrounding me—more than I could count in a glance, as the pond stretched down much farther than I’d imagined from the surface.
As Edward hit the water beside me, I watched more half-person bodies ascend toward us. Some of them resembled the merrow who still clung to me, and I realized that the shark-like fins belonged to another type of fae similar in appearance to the merrow but much more sinister. These women had dagger-like teeth and silver flesh that bled into their shark tails, and when, as one, they opened their mouths, a chorus of hauntingly beautiful sound began to reverberate through the water.
Sirens.
As soon as the song started, my limbs froze. I ordered my body to move, to resist, but it refused to obey my command. In my periphery, I saw that Edward had stopped struggling as well, his arms splayed out at his sides, bubbles of air escaping from his mouth, which he hadn’t managed to shut in time.
My heart raged against my ribs. No. He only got close enough to the water because of me.
I felt the icy hum of my magic returning to my palms.
Please, I begged my patron—the goddess who had blessed me with my power. Please, help us.
I heard a splash from above and realized that Adrien had broken the pond’s surface when I caught a glimpse of him at the edge of my immovable vision. His hand gripped my upper arm—Not me, save Edward, I thought; he didn’t get enough air—and as Adrien attempted to haul me upward, more of the sirens began to sing.
I felt Adrien freeze at the same moment I deployed a burst of ice from each of my palms. A shriek cut through the water, and the merrow released my hand, flitting out of sight behind the group of sirens forming in front of us. Blood burst into view as my other hand’s detonated magic cut open the side of the siren pulling me down, and she bared her teeth with a melodic hiss.
Despite the large breath I’d taken above the surface, my lungs ached for air. We were sinking, the three of us and our captors, and the portentous green light from below surrounded us now. I could see several places where the ground beneath the pond arced back into deep caves and long tunnels that twisted out of sight, and I wondered how far this underground web stretched and how many people had fallen prey to its residents.
The burning in my lungs intensified. There were multiple sets of hands on each of us now, siren bodies shifting to block my view of Edward and Adrien as they dragged us down.
Please, I begged my patron.
A shockwave of cold rocked the water. Sirens screamed, their song cut short by cries no less beautiful but much less pleased, and scattered. The one holding my shoulder hissed out, “Another time, lovely,” and then she released me, turning with a swish of her tail that I knew instantly had sliced open my ankle.
A rush of water like a tidal wave pushed me upward, and a moment later, I was thrust above the surface. I gasped for breath that was immediately knocked from my lungs as my back hit the grass, and I coughed and spluttered, blinking water from my eyes and shaking it from my body, which had finally returned to my control. Edward and Adrien landed on either side of me, each of them quaking with violent coughs. On reflex, I reached for Edward. He was struggling hard to regain his breath, his expression pained, and I’d started to haul myself closer to him when his coughing suddenly stopped, his breath evening out as though something had spontaneously dried the water from his lungs. His face relaxed and he closed his eyes, and when I was certain he was breathing normally, I let myself collapse again.
Lying on the bank, I could only process the scene above ground upside-down, but even so, it was enough to startle any words I might’ve managed to form from my mind. I understood now what had kept Charity and Valdra from rescuing us: they stood with their weapons drawn, facing a semicircle of people comprised of flesh and tree bark, some with branches protruding from their heads like horns or crowns, all with flowers laced into their hair and seemingly sprouting from their limbs at odd intervals. Their clothing looked woven from the tall grass surrounding us, and the weapons they carried were rough-hewn versions of spears and bows no doubt carved from the forest we’d just left. Dryads, if I recalled my lessons properly.
But they weren’t what made my heart stick in my throat.
Standing between the arc of dryads and my party was a statuesque woman in a long silver gown, her dark hair flowing cloak-like behind her in a nonexistent breeze. Her hands were outstretched, silver and black energy crackling over her palms and sparking out in warning bolts each time a dryad dared to move. Even a few yards away on the ground, I could feel the cold air her magic radiated, and I saw fear in the face of every fae staring at her.
My patron turned her head toward me and smiled as our eyes met. Then the
expression evaporated, a lethal severity slipping into its place.
“That one is under my protection,” she said, pointing an index finger at me. “As is anyone she claims. Harm them and face my wrath.”
Mutters passed around the half-circle of dryads, and after a moment, one of the men dropped to his knees, laying his bow down in the grass.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said.
“Hail the Black Queen,” said one of the women, kneeling.