So does Folly. “Did I just hear the tree?”
“Apparently.” Yarrow regains his composure with a grin. “Which means Lord Chestnut here is very old and powerful. That’s just a compliment, mind, I’m not coming onto you.”
Sure you aren’t. Satyrs are all the same.
Clear communication makes bargaining easier, at least. “No need for stereotypes. I wanted to ask a favor.” Yarrow pauses, his grin steady even as he cringes. “I mean this in the least sexual way possible—could I hide inside you?”
Unfortunately, while I believe in the chasteness of your wish, I must decline.
“Do trees usually talk like this?” Folly whispers. He’s shaking—with what on closer inspection appears to be stifled laughter.
Ignoring the question, Yarrow asks, “Why do you have to decline? Can you recommend any of your neighbors?”
They cannot agree either, the tree says.We’ve already made bargains with the man behind you.
Shit.
Shoving Folly behind him, Yarrow whirls around. His axe thuds into his palm as he faces his opponent. But there’s no blow to counter.
Moriath sits thirty feet away, atop a tree stump throne that wasn’t there a moment ago. Shadows swirl between the throne’s roots, and the bark changes with every blink. Oak, birch, cedar, pine. Wearing the guise of the copper-eyed fae, Moriath leans on one elbow and smiles.
“Stay close behind me,” Yarrow warns Folly, gathering his magical essence into the blade of his axe. He’s lost the element of surprise, but he’s still a better fighter than this shapestealer. If Moriath would stop fucking running away. Yarrow hasn’t had a chance to set up a binding circle with Crocus’s mushroom spores. He’ll need to get close enough for skin contact instead.
The only problem is keeping Folly safe. Maybe if Folly uses the invisibility powder?—
Moriath gestures.
Pardon the inconvenience, the ancient chestnut tree says.Just fulfilling a bargain.
The ground convulses, and Folly’s yelp pierces Yarrow’s heart.
Stumbling, Yarrow reaches for Folly. He only gets one glimpse of wide, mismatched eyes before a mass of earth and roots surges between them. Yarrow dodges one heaving treeroot. The next sweeps his feet from under him. He lands hard on his hip, rolls up in the spray of wet earth.
Pain whites out Yarrow’s vision. The binding curse sears his nerves, as if ripping his heart from between his shattered ribs.
Folly’s twenty feet away, slumped against a ridge of dislodged dirt. The ground between them is broken with deep, treacherous crevices Yarrow can’t see the bottom of.
The ground between Yarrow and Moriath is clear. Yarrow moves, his decision instant. A snarl of agony curdles his throat. He can’t save Folly if Moriath lives.
Even though this is going to hurt them both.
Moriath’s copper eyes widen. His shadows spiral up, twisting in and out of his form. Then he’s the grizzled human witch.
“If you’re going to be likethat,” Moriath rasps. He reaches into a spell-pouch, then traces a shape in midair with dark-stained fingers.
The pain vanishes.
Yarrow staggers, just ten feet from the stump throne. The lack of pain is like a splash of ice water. Numbing, shocking. Yarrow braces himself for the next wave of torment, but it doesn’t come. This isn’t a new curse.
The binding is gone.
“Folly!” Yarrow calls out. But across the broken glade, Folly doesn’t respond. All Yarrow sees is his small body, slumped beneath his beautiful midnight robe.
“He’s just unconscious,” Moriath says. “I need him alive before I take his shape.”
The binding is gone. Exactly what Yarrow and Folly wanted. Of all the possible solutions, Yarrow never imagined Moriath might lift the curse willingly.
Nothing else has changed, though. Moriath is a murderer. He threatened Folly.
