An answer wasn’t expected, clearly. The moth didn’t spare her a backward glance as he strode into the adjoining room, the heavy doors closing with a thud.
Silva shivered. High above, she could see the sky. The snow drifted down, although it never reached her, dissipating before it collected on the grey stone floors. There was nothing ornate in the space, no glittering spires or whipped cream mounds of her imagination, but neither did it resemble the endless, gaudy expanse of her mother-in-law’s table. The same flat, grey-whiteseemed to encase everything, like the personification of seasonal affective disorder.
She waited. Waited longer. At length, Silva realized that it was entirely possible thatthiswas the punishment for wandering, and that she had been left to freeze to death in this silent, snowy hall. She was shaking by the time the doors opened again, the moth coming back to her with no haste in his step.Duration. That’s the punishment.
“Follow. You are to be received by our Lady.”
He did not spare her a moment, turning back the way he’d come, obliging her to force her frozen limbs to work. When Silva was able to catch up enough to peek around him, she understood whatreceivemententailed, and wondered if freezing to death might have been the better option.
The throne room opened before her in a wide, echoing expanse of pale stone and frost. Pillars rose in clean, severe lines toward the ceiling, only to be lost in the wide-open sky. The snow still fell. At the far end of the room, the throne waited. It was carved from a single mass of ice, as flat and grey as the rest of the room, and the queen who sat upon it was as still as the stone and ice around her.
The white fox had followed them into the building, making her squeak in surprise when it passed them on the aisle, moving swiftly. Silva wasn’t sure what she was expecting. That it would sit beside the frozen queen as a pet, perhaps. Instead, the fox rose up on two legs, transforming before her eyes into a slender fae with a thick white tail.
When the moth stopped walking, Silva nearly trod upon the edge of his wing.
“A wanderer. At the gate.” His voice was as flat and disaffected as it had been outside in the snow. “She says she wants to leave. She possesses a key.”
Silva considered that she could always throw her key as a distraction and make a run for it. Her footing was more confident now that she was indoors, and she refused to just stand there and wait to be eaten.Youarean elf. Youwon’tgo down without a fight.
The moth stepped aside, leaving Silva exposed, quaking in her little fur-lined boots.
It was the fox’s turn to speak. “You stand in the Court of Winter. You will plead your case directly to Her Majesty, the Queen of Ash and Silence.”
Silva trembled, waiting. The queen barely stirred, saying nothing.
She’s certainly living up to the name. She fidgeted for what felt like a small eternity under the woman’s clear, colorless gaze.You really are going to freeze to death, right there in front of them.
The fae woman on the throne was beautiful at first glance, but the longer Silva looked, the stranger her appearance seemed. Her skin was bone white, her hair neither blonde nor silver, a slush-like platinum, hanging in frozen clumps around her shoulders. She wore a crown of icicles, more in keeping with her own imagination, Silva thought, but the longer she looked, she realized that, too, was the Queen’s hair, pulled up and frozen in points. Her face was gaunt, the shadows of her bones like dark bruises on her cheeks, as if she, too, were frozen in place, starving to death as a result. The woman’s dress was as dreary and grey as her throne, and as she shifted, Silva could not discern where the throne ended and the dress began.
“This is Winter,” the Queen said abruptly, making Silva jump. “What remains after the harvest is taken. Speak, if you wish it.”
A slow breath, steadying herself. She would not be afraid. She had a lifetime of preparation, and Silva of the Daytime never missed a line.Shewas no amateur. She would be sweet. Shewould be charming. And she would keep the upper hand, to the best of her ability.And if you can’t, you beg. Knowing when to walk away from a hustle was key to enacting the next.
“Y-your majesty.” Silva’s voice wavered in the cold.So much for not being afraid. She was terrified, and there was no point in pretending otherwise, but that didn’t mean she would forget her country club courtesies. She didn’t know if she was meant to bow or curtsey, deciding she was shivering too badly to perform either. “I apologize if I’m not supposed to be here. I didn’t know. I-I’m looking for someone, and I thought I had a right to passage. But I’ll leave right now, with your permission.”
The ghost of a smile curved the corner of fae woman’s thin lips. “You would leave so quickly after traveling so far? It is not without pain that you obtained a key, I am certain. And yet you would leave without that which you came seeking?”
Silva felt the world slow, even as her pulse raced. Hope was a dangerous thing to hold onto, she already knew, but her heart didn’t care. The rest of the room seemed to hold its collective breath, the Queen and the fox both waiting for her answer.Duration. This is how they kill you. Slowly, in the cold.
“Is he here?” Her voice was little more than a whisper, too afraid to allow her hope to echo through this flat, grey hall.
The Queen cocked her head, the movement so small it was barely a movement at all, appraising Silva. Her eyes were the color of ice, pale and untroubled, they took her in without haste. “You are afraid.”
All Silva could do was nod. Of course, she was afraid.And yet. There was no alarm bell sounding in her head, no prey instinct screaming at her to flee. She was afraid, but it was not the same fear she’d possessed standing within view of that placid little pool. She was afraid, but she was not terrified. Not yet.
“Yet you still crossed. Why, I wonder?”
Don’t cry. If you start crying, you won’t be able to stop.Her tears seemed intent on not following her directions, burning at the corner of her eyes. “Because someone was taken from me. And not knowing where he is or if he’ll ever come back . . . the not knowing isn’t something I can live with.”They took him. Gone, gone. “He belongs at home, with me. With his family. He was taken from us. And I want him back.”
Another ghost of a smile. The Queen considered her again, slowly. “Not all that is taken has been stolen, child. Do not mistake loss for theft. And not all that is lost must be followed.”
She had spent too many months following this trail. Too many nights holding in her tears, too many days feeling despondent. Too much pain to be told not to follow him now. “And yet I’m here, following,” she gritted out. The heat of her tears was the only warmth in the room.
“That does not make him yours to take.”
“Then whatishe?” Silva shot back, a flash of frustrated temper she could scarcely control.
The Queen raised a non-existent eyebrow as she gave a one-shouldered shrug. “A debt collected. Reaped for Autumn’s harvest. As is all.”
