“He has men gathered, patrolling the edge of the forest,” Will murmured, “and the Iron Fist is out in the streets. People can barely leave their homes. Everyone’s afraid.”
“We have to take her back,” said Devil. At his words, Helena sat up again and began to cry, pulling her knees to her chest. “Johar is using her as an excuse to invade the Arden! If we don’t send her back, how many of our people will die?”
“I amnotsending her back!” I snarled at him. “I won’t be reduced to that. Besides, Johar is clearly looking for any excuse. If we send her back, he’ll just claim she’s a changeling assassin, kill her, and invade the Arden anyway.” I put my hands on either side of my head and turned away, trying to think through the sound of Helena’s desperate sobs.
“Then we have no choice but to involve Oberon,” Devil muttered. “It’s likely he already knows about some of this, but we have to tell him about Helena too. If Titania finds out about this escalation, we all know what happens…”
“War,” said Jon quietly. Helena began to rock back and forth on the table and Will went to try and comfort her.
“Devil will come with me to deliver the gold to Locksley,” I said, turning back around. “Let me speak to Tuck before we do something we cannot take back. If anyone will have the answer, it will be him.”
“Oh, I cannotwaitto see you explain all this to an old man of the Church,” Devil laughed derisively. I just shot him a glare.
“That’s the other thing,” said Will. “They have the Iron Fist posted outside Locksley now too. Archbishop Piers isn’t going to last much longer, and I don’t know what will happen when he goes. They haven’t named a replacement yet, which makes me nervous.”
“They’ll probably just install your fucking father in his place,” I grumbled. “Are you sure Johar hasn’t been poisoning Piers or something like that?”
Will’s face went taut. “At this point, nothing would shock me. The Prince and my father both have it out for Locksley. I just wish I knew why.”
“Gods be damned,” I groaned, sitting down on top of a chest.
“Nothing’s broken here that can’t be fixed,” Will said, crouching beside me and gently pulling my hands away from my face. “Alright? We’ll get through this. I promise. Now, before you take any of this gold, we should check it. If Johar did send that caravan through the Arden on purpose, I wouldn’t put it past him to have marked the coins somehow, to trace them back.”
“Good idea,” I said, sliding off the chest and opening the lid. Devil gave me a look, then beckoned to Jon, and the two of them vanished upstairs. Will and I worked in relative silence, checking each coin for anything that looked suspicious, until finally I looked up at his haggard face and was compelled to speak.
“You look awful, Will. Is your father—”
“I’m fine,” he snapped, then heaved a long sigh. “I’m sorry. I swear, I’m alright. He’s not…he’s not hurting me. Just keeping me busy, running messages and things. I hate it, but it’s the only way I can help right now. He still trusts me, so I’ve been able to feed some useful information to Tuck, at least.”
“And what about Jon?”
“He’s desperate for me to just stay in the Arden. He can’t understand why I keep going back.”
“You’re trying to save people.”
Will’s answer was stiff. “He’s such a good man, May, but…sometimes I think there’s a reason he hasn’t broken that curse yet.”
“You and I were raised to give everything to others,” I said gently. “It’s different here. Jon and Devil and the rest of them, they have to look out for themselves, because no one else does. Don’t be too angry with him for wanting to spare you from martyrdom. I think he loves you.” I leaned in to kiss him on the cheek just as Devil came back down the stairs, armed with his longbow and a quiver of arrows, with Jon behind him looking sour. Deciding that the coins were likely safe, I closed the chest and pulled Will into a tight embrace.
A few minutes later, both wearing thick, hooded cloaks and carrying the gold between us, Devil and I left the den.
I waited until we were uphill from his oak tree before saying, “I don’t want Oberon involved yet. Can you not trust me to figure this out on my own?”
He scowled. “I do trust you, May, but you command no army, nor do you employ any spies, besides maybe Prim. Oberon has a network. He has informants, and he has soldiers. We might need them to help fix the mistakewemade.”
“But Oberon’s only concern is for the Arden,” I said, “and I will not sacrifice one of my homes to spare the other. There must be another way…”
“Sometimes, there is no other way,” Devilreplied quietly.
My magyk only got us as far as the edge of the trees, so Devil’s Lightweaving had to conceal us both as we walked toward Locksley’s eastern wall, where the Iron Fist was not posted. Since he needed both his hands to maintain the mobile cover, I carried the chest of gold alone, trying not to betray the fact that I was struggling with the weight of it, especially since a light rain was still falling and causing my hands to slip. Normally, the small back gate was always kept locked, but I had long ago stolen a spare key and left it behind a loose stone in the wall in order to facilitate secret meetings with Will. Holding our light-shield steady with one hand, Devil dug it out and unlocked the door, which required him to duck to fit through, even without his wings on display. Inside the Abbey walls, I set the chest of gold down hard, then paused to look around. But I was overcome by unexpected emotion, and stayed rooted to the spot even as Devil moved past me.
“May? What is it?” he asked.
“My garden,” I whispered. The dusky glow of late evening illuminated each neat row, throwing misshapen shadows across the fallow space between. All the summer vegetables had already been harvested, but there were some rather impressive pumpkins growing along the base of the wall, and the winter squash looked perfectly ripe. I ran my fingers over the soft carrot tufts growing at my feet, then pulled one out just enough to see the bright orange flesh. In my absence, the Sisters had kept everything thriving. Devil put a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I reached up to take it.
“I suppose…I wasn’t really needed here after all.”
“The Arden needs you now,” he said, placing a tender kiss on the side of my head. “Ineed you.”
