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“No,” she said. “Magic has nothing to do with why I love you.” She laid her palm against my face. “It’s because you’re honest.”

“Honest?”

“You’re just as you appear. You never pretend, you never lie. I knew I could trust you. That’s why I love you.”

My throat was too thick to speak, and I bent in and kissed her instead. “Sleep now, my darling,” I managed at a whisper. “It’ll be a long day tomorrow.”

She nestled closer to me, pressing her face into my neck. I was asleep before her breaths turned heavy.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The next day passed as the day before. We rode from dawn until after dusk, the mountains in the distance growing and rising into the colorless sky. We reached the next inn a few hours after nightfall. After a warm meal, Lilja and I fell into bed.

A few hours after we had set off on the third day, the terrain sloped steadily upward, and our speed slowed as the horses struggled uphill in the snow. The forest grew close here still, the trees crowding in on the road like fortifications of some magical castle. It didn’t snow, and that was a blessing at least.

It was almost noon when Lilja pointed in among the trees. “Halt. In there.”

I reined in the horses. “What is it?”

“It’s my father’s mound. I recognize it.”

I followed the direction of her finger and squinted. Something dark rose behind the slim trunks of the firs. When she stood to jump down, I took her arm. “Are you going in there?”

“He’s dead.”

“But could there be someone or… or something else there? Another elf?”

She narrowed her eyes as she tilted her head. “No. Elves can sense the nearness of others, but I feel nothing.”

I jumped down, then held out my hand. She took it, and I helped her dismount. Alma and Helena got out, and together we stepped over the low drifts that lay at the edge of the road. In among the trees, our boots sank into the thick carpet of pine needles, muting our footsteps. The snow was sparse, kept out by the roof of branches above us. The smell was sharp, one of resin and rot. The rifle hung over Helena’s shoulder, and that calmed my pounding heart a bit.

I took Lilja’s hand as we neared the mound. It was larger than I had imagined. Many times bigger and taller than a house. A few trees grew on its side, elms or oaks if I had to guess, and they stretched their black, naked limbs up toward the sky. A crow sat on one, and it watched us with its little black eye. It cawed as we neared. The sound echoed in the close silence of the winter forest, and Lilja took my hand.

I hesitated at the edge of the mound, but Lilja didn’t, and so I followed her up onto the slope. There was more snow here, but withered grass peeked out. Certainly no lilies-of-the-valley grew here this time of year.

Walking side by side, the four of us made it to the top. Being up so high afforded us a view we hadn’t had from the road. We were very near to the mountains now. They weren’t like the picturesque depictions of the Alps you saw in books and on photographs. The Dalarna mountains were flatter and less jagged, but dressed in snow nonetheless.

Helena kicked a tuft of grass. “How’d you get inside?”

“Magic,” Lilja said.

“Could you do it?”

“No. Only my father. He let us out, but only on the mound.”

“So you couldn’t run?”

“No. It was like shackles, his magic.”

“What a bastard,” Helena said, and I suspected I knew what she was thinking because I was thinking the same thing. Probably Alma was too. If Helena had been held by chains made of magic, we wouldn’t have had a chance of rescuing her from her own father. Which meant… no. I wasn’t going to think of that now.

“Do you remember how far away Alfrun’s mountain was from here?” Alma asked.

“It’s hard to say because elves can travel quickly, but it wasn’t far.”

“And you still think you’ll recognize it?”

“Yes. I’m certain.”