Silva began to tremble, a horrible sense of déjà vu seeping into her veins. She recognized these crooked trees. Recognized that placid little pool, surrounded by flowers. Recognized it well enough to realize . . . it was different this time. There was no grotesquely oversized moon casting its white light down on the trees, no leering shadows, concealing hidden torments.
The same softly filtered light from the flower market glowed over the horizon here. It was dawn. Birds were chirping, the air smelled sweet and fresh, the day in all its promise stretching out before her endlessly. It was different, but this was unmistakably the same wood. This was the closest she’d come since she’d started her journey to find him.
“Tate?” she called out, unsure if she was shaking from fear or adrenaline at that point. “Tate?”
Her voice seemed trapped by the branches, wavering through the forest, the echo carrying farther than it should have in the wide open space. She called his name again, startling a cluster of birds. Silva ducked as they erupted from a crooked tree, feeling foolish as she did so, that ever-present stone in her stomach turning once more.
This wasn’t right. Sheknewthese trees, but this wasn’t right. She had never before seen them dressed in budding greenery as they were now, had never seen the way the early morning sunlight seemed to catch between their twisting branches. Her feet had never trodden over small clusters of wildflowers the previous times she had stood beneath these trees.
He wasn’t here. She would not find him here in these golden-lit woods. Her eyes filled with tears, the ever-present hopelessness that she could not do anything to change the situation enveloping her fully. She would not find him here. She was on the wrong side, and he was lost to her still.It is always night in her Majesty’s forest. Always night in Autumn . . . and always dawn in Spring. And now, she wasn’t even sure how to return.
“It’s a beautiful morning today, is it not, dear heart?”
Silva turned slowly at the sound of a voice, trembling like a leaf. She heard a small, childish giggle somewhere to her side, her head whipping around when something caught in her peripheral vision, a small form darting through the trees, hiding.Doing a poor job of it, because they couldn’t stop making noise, small baby peals of poorly concealed laughter but trying all the same.
It was then that she saw her. Silva knew who she was immediately.
Unlike her frozen sister, the dewy-faced Queen of Spring was an explosion of life and color. Her face was doll-like and pert, with peaches-and-cream skin, a rosy flush at her cheeks, and a small, upturned nose, bearing a spray of freckles over its bridge. Her sapphire eyes were wide, her lips full and pink, resembling a porcelain doll Silva had owned as a child.
Her hair hung in thick, golden waves down her back, and instead of a tiara, she wore a magnificent headpiece of antlers, coated in their spring velvet. Greenery was caught in the antlers’ tines, branches of pussy willow with fuzzy-soft catkins, a vine of flowering jessamine, and at the center, cradled in moss and branches, a bird’s nest holding three baby blue eggs, trembling with life.
She was told this was not the court. That she would not lose time at the market, and that the market was all it was, that she was free to browse, to look and to leave. Silva no longer felt free to do anything.
“You ought to stay a spell, lovely girl. We can get you refreshment and whatever comforts you require. Itissuch a beautiful morning.”
Silva shook her head, forcing her mouth into an approximation of a smile. She wondered if this doll-like Queen could see the way she shook. “I appreciate the courtesy, your Majesty but I’m not staying. I’m only here to look.”
“You won’t find him here, sweetling. At least, not yet.” She paused, giving Silva a wide, twinkling smile. “Why should you go troubling yourself to seek out my sister’s realm? Death is all that awaits in Night’s Court. Death and darkness. Why wouldyou go, when Spring is so beautiful and welcoming? He will pass through this way eventually, and won’t he be so delighted to find you here waiting for him?”
Her voice was musical and light, nearly hypnotic. Silva’s eyes fluttered shut, too heavy to stay open, weighted down as she was with all she was trying to accomplish. Itwasbeautiful here. It would be easy to find a comfortable place to sit, to enjoy this glorious golden morning — the birds chirping sweetly, the air still carrying the smell of flowers and candy floss. It would be better than going back. Back to her puppet play, back to a husband she didn’t love, to the world that still expected her to be a mouse. Back to a life without him, alone. She was Orpheus, standing at the edge of the world, afraid to move forwardandafraid to look back.
“Think of it, sweetling. You’ll be this young and beautiful here forever. Your child will be born in a gentle light. You can put all these hard decisions behind you. And he’ll make his way back here eventually. All things do.”
Spring borrows what Autumn will demand repaid. She wouldn’t be free here. She would be borrowed.Do not become another debt collected. Silva opened her eyes.
For the first time in nearly two years, she did not feel a flutter of life beneath her breast. There was no heartbeat thumping beside her own. Her hands shook as they raised, going to her front. Her stomach was flat, as flat as it had been the day she’d ridden in the backseat of Ris’s car, on her way to a weekend trip with her new work friends. Her body was devoid of life beyond her own. Her baby, the only piece of him she had left, was gone.
The little giggle caught her attention again, darting through the trees, and Silva whirled to find it, tears brimming in her eyes and overflowing.
“Where is she? Give her back to me!”
“You would be free to rest here as long as you wanted, beloved. You could be safe here. Welcomed. For as long as you need.”
“And in payment,” she choked out, voice shaking with her tears, already knowing the answer, “you’ll take my child.”
The queen recoiled, a hand going to her throat as if Silva’s words shocked her to the core. “Oh course not, my lovely dear! There’s no cost for rest, save for the time you spend doing so. Your child would be bornofSpring. She would belong to Spring, as shebelongshere. As will you! And as I said, he would find his way here. All lost things do.”
“And how long would that take?”
The Queen shrugged, smiling sweetly. Her dress was formed by leaves and petals, overlapping one another, too many to count, swaying as she moved. “Time enough,” she answered lightly. “And won’t he be so happy?”
He wouldn’t be. That much, she knew.
Tate would be horrified to find her here, to find their child bound to this court, as had been done to him. Another family shredded and reaped to the other side, everything he’d told hernotto do. He would be horrified at all she had done, most likely.He wanted you to live your life, made you promise not to look back, not to wait for him. And you broke it.
“Give her back to me.Rightnow.”
The smile on the doll-like queen’s face hardened. “Careful, dearest. There’s no cost for courtesy, but don’t mistake our kindness for charity.”
