“Oh,I mean…Puck…”
“Of course.” Oberon sighed again, but did not push the issue. “I feared that if Titania saw you, a half-human child in place of her own daughter, she might have done you harm. She is not a monster, but…the wrath of a grieving mother spares nothing and no one. Since I could not keep you in our world, I had to prepare you for a life amongst humans.” He slowly reached out to touch the white braid hanging over my shoulder. “I used the strongest magyk I know to glamour you, change your appearance, suppress any signs of your fay blood. And I chose Locksley because your father had spoken of it many times. He said it was a peaceful place, where women cared for one another, safe from the machinations of powerful men.” I nodded slowly, my heart aching at the idea that my father had helped shape so much of my life, even after his own was taken.
We stopped walking and I realized that we were now standing behind the Bower, in front of the tallest, broadest pine tree I had ever seen. It grew separate from its fellows, up against the base of a foothill with the side eroded away into a rocky bluff. A canopy sprouted from the top, but only a few large limbs protruding from the trunk. Each one of these supported a structure that looked, from my vantage point, like a balcony. I also spotted narrow openings, like arrow slits, carved into the trunk at regular intervals. It was a tower, with faint, warm lights shining from the windows.
“My home,” Oberon said, “and yours too, now, if you wish. I have a room ready for you.”
“Thank you.” I swallowed hard, the thought of being away from the Hollow causing an odd twinge of sadness.
“Before we go in though, I thought you might want to see…” He waved, indicating the base of the tree’s trunk, where I could see markings in the bark. They were tiny handprints, stick figures, strange symbols and letters, and a sloppily-written name.
Lyric.
I stepped forward to brush my fingers over the handprint. She must have only been a child when she had burned it into the tree somehow, because it was less than half the size of mine. I dragged my eyes away from the carvings to look back at Oberon.
“You said that you glamoured me, as a baby, to suppress signs that I was fay…” He raised an eyebrow and I continued. “Does that mean I might have my own magyk, besides the healing gift? Something…real?”
Oberon nodded, his face solemn. “I cannot say what it might be, but I think it impossible that you do not have one, considering who you are.”
“Can you unlock it?” I asked. “Un-glamour the magyk, like what happened with my ears?”
“I would like to try, yes,” he replied, appearing slightly surprised at my eagerness. “If you are to fulfill your bargain and banish the Rot, your simple healing magyk will not be enough.”
I turned my hands in front of me, wondering how it might feel to channel light the way Devil and Titania did, or to control shadows like Oberon, then met his dark, keen gaze. “When can we start?”
Gently, Oberon covered my fists with his fingers and said, “Tomorrow, after you are rested. For tonight, I would like you to try something simple.”
He faced the trunk of the tree and closed his eyes, then called out two tendrils of silvery shadow. “Our magyk is merely a physical manifestation of our connection to the Arden, and so we use the shadows or light, or whatever form the gift takes, to send our power into the environment. To control and command the world around us.”
“Like when you created that chair last night?”
“Exactly, but the source of our gifts, ofallmagyk…” He took my wrist and moved my hand forward, pressing it to the trunk of the tree. “…Is her.”
“Her?” I whispered.
“Her,” Oberon breathed. “The Arden. The Huntress. The life running through the earth beneath you. It is her blood, her beating heart, her spirit. Stay still, close your eyes, andlisten.”
I put my other hand on the tree and tried to find what he was talking about, but all I could feel was rough bark. With hunched shoulders, I let my eyes close and pursed my lips, but then a gentle hand pressed on my upper spine.
“Your body is not the source of magyk, but it is a channel,” Oberon said. “You must let it flow freely. Relax and let go.”
Only when I released my breath and unclenched my muscles did I finally feel it.
A thrum.
A rush.
A pulse of life beneath my hands—like a song, or a drum beat. A bow being pulled across the strings of a fiddle. The tiny wing beats of a moth fluttering against my skin. The steadythud thud thudof Will’s heartbeat when I laid my head on his chest. A burst of emotion shot down my body, like it was being forcefully drawn into a bubbling current running through the tree, and the words rushed out of me along with it.
“I feel something!”
“Excellent!” Oberon crowed. “It seems, in spite of the barriers I placed, you have maintained some connection with the Arden. Tomorrow, we will see exactly what that connection is. Now, watch.” He put a hand on the tree beside mine and his shadows poured into the bark, twisting the wood and molding it into a simple door, with carvings of bears running along the edge and a handle made from a polished roots. He pushed it open and stood aside for me to enter. I found myself in a dimly lit, circular entry room at the base of a twisting staircase, and bent to remove my boots out of habit.
The stairs led up through the center of the massive, hollow tree, which was lit by glass sconces full of magyk fireflies, like the ones Devil made. The first landing we came to had a single, open archway leading into a small kitchen. For some reason, the idea of Oberon, Faerie King of the Arden, cooking his own food made me giggle. But then a plump, brown-skinned woman appeared in the entry. A pair of small goat horns grew from her head and when she walked forward, I heard the clopping of hooves beneath her long skirt. Another faun, like Larch and his children.
“Marina,” said Oberon, “this is Ceres. Anything you need, she will help you.”
The woman took my hand and dropped into a low curtsey.
