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A delicate painted brow rose on her doll-like features, and she scrutinized me for a long moment before pushing up out of her stool and disappearing into the darkness of the warrens.

I didn’t have long to wait. Even if it felt like I would wear a rut into the earthen floor of the only place in the entirety of the warrens that I was sure the rest of the sleeping humans could not hear me. I had tested it, when I first returned to them, after my convalescence at the temple. It was amazing how healing screaming at the top of your lungs into the clay walls really was. It at least prevented me more than once or twice from marching up the spiral stairs into Daróg’s chambers and slitting both of our throats.

Green Man appeared first, pushing the tattered tunic that he usually wore into the baggy threadbare breeches. When he saw me, the deep scowl that had dug into the leaves and bark that made up his face cracked into a pleased smile, and he hugged me tight. “Thought we’d lost you there, Cricket. Been beating myself up about it since you didn’t show back up in the warrens. Almost went down there after you myself.”

“It was good that you didn’t come looking for me. I didn’t survive it. But I’ll tell you more about that when the others arrive.”

Emerald appeared next, pushing sleep from her eyes with a shimmering dark-green translucent hand.

I would never get tired of looking at the masterpiece that was Emerald. Whomever had thought of a woman made of the glittering gemstone she shared her name with was brilliant. They had taken their time with her, created her with the utmost eye for detail. Even the smoke that filled the cavities within her sparked with opalescence that was stunning to behold. When her eyes fell on me, that smoke sparkled with small mirages of fireworks, and she threw her icy arms around me and hugged me tight. Her hands found my face, and the images within the smoke flitted one after another in a dizzying whir of stills. She seemed to dart between concern and joy, chastisement, and elation.

I laughed and hugged her back. “It’s okay, Emerald. Calm down, I’m fine.”

The smoke in her chest coalesced and throbbed with the image of The Raven followed by a mist-covered graveyard and a splash of blood that slid down the cage of her ribs.

I snickered. “That would be harder than you imagine, Emerald. And I don’t encourage you to try it either.”

“Are you planning on telling us why you’ve gathered the three of us in this midden heap in the dead of night? Or shall the four of us make tea and toast your good fortune?” Violet asked, bringing up the back and scooting the heavy wood door closed behind her.

I tugged the three of them as deep into the toilet room as I could, away from the doors and into the deepest part that would swallow up the sound. They listened in total silence as I regaled them with the tale first of The Oaken Rose and the deal I had made in the gardens. I had suspected that the tongue lock that she had worked into that deal had been removed when my mother had pulled them from me. But I wasn’t certain that it would be totally removed enough for me to speak freely in the presence of others. But it had been. Leave it to a goddess to accomplish thorough destruction of something so barbaric.

When I got to the part about the King, Emerald flashed bright red and glowing black with her anger at how I had been treated. Flashes of knives and hammers and meat being smashed under them all played along her arms and chest. The other two sat quietly, though I could see flames dancing behind the fissures in Violet’s face.

I told them everything, all that I had heard. All that I had seen and everything I had experienced while I was away from them.

None of them moved a single inch or showed a single emotion, aside from the occasional image that was quickly suppressed under Emerald’s skin.

As I finished with the story of my mother and the revelation of who I was, I fell silent, joining them in the heaviness in the room.

I watched the three, trying to gauge how this wealth of information hit each of them. None of them showed any emotion. Green Man could have been a bush, and I would have believed it for how still he had gone.

Emerald was the first to react, and pandemonium followed her as she leapt on me, dragging me to the floor. Fists pounded into my flesh and then, finally, her icy fingers wrapped around my throat. Rage twisted and contorted her shimmering face as she leaned her weight against the squeezing.

I fought back, my legs and hips kicking and bucking to try and dislodge her. It was no use, though. She was blind with rage, and its unnatural strength fueled her grip. I clawed at her wrists, trying to free myself, but my nails slid right off her without finding purchase as it should have in flesh.

There were no images playing under her skin. No indicator of what she was trying to communicate. The smoke within her swirled like it was caught in a maelstrom, and there was nothing else.

My eyes bulged. My lungs burned from the lack of oxygen. Tears stung at the edges of my slowly darkening vision. I barely even felt the slight tugs on Emerald’s vise grip until her hands finally came loose, her nails catching on my skin and leaving burning claw marks in their wake.

Green Man held the wild cat that Emerald had become back, wrapped in a cage of his arms and vines.

“Explain yourself. Immediately,” hissed Violet, venom the likes of which I had never heard from her dripping from her words.

“I swear.” I coughed and doubled over, trying to catch my breath into beaten lungs starving for air. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything about any of this. I swear it on my grave.”

Violet watched me through barely slitted eyes. Green Man struggled with Emerald.

“And I guess, now that you’re Fae, you’ll be killing Emerald for touching your dainty neck,” Green Man barked, and I looked at the struggling Emerald.

I took a deep breath, stepped closer to the pair, and took Emerald’s face in both of my hands, one on each cheek, which she promptly tried to bite. I captured her gaze so she would hear me above her anger. “For everything that has been done to you, I would have thought less of you had you not tried to kill me.”

Violet stilled behind me. Green Man stared daggers into me. Emerald calmed slightly and looked to Violet for guidance.

“What Fae trickery is this?” Green Man demanded.

“None. I am human. I am Fae. I am both, and I am neither. Don’t believe me? Let her go. If she wants to kill me for what runs through my veins, let her. She’s owed that rage. She’s owed that vengeance.”

Green Man did just that, unwrapping Emerald as I spread my arms wide so she could see I meant it. Was it crazy? Yup.