They were coming.
The old woman stood slowly, giving her tired limbs the time they needed to unfold and brace against a world that would beat them back down. Behind her the wolf’s-head cave leered, but she ignored it and watched the valley, the woods stretching across the mountain slopes below her. Someone came, and quickly too. Even as Starflower had fled the Land a hundred years ago. Even as the Wolf Lord had pursued her, every loping stride taking in miles. So they approached using secret Paths unknown to mortals, following a guide nearly forgotten by those of the Near World.
She spoke aloud, crying, “Is that you?”
“Granna?”
From the forest below, where the tree line gave way to the barren rock of the higher slopes, a small form appeared. The old woman, though tears of disappointment stained her face, smiled a toothless smile.
“My little child!”
She hoped the girl would run to her, would seek her embrace as she once had. But no. Mouse was a woman now or close enough. She climbed the stony Path, followed by two companions Granna could not see well. She could make out only the sad mortality of one and the shining but equally sad immortality of the other.
“Faerie,” Granna muttered. She disliked seeing one of their kind returned to her world, yet her heart fluttered . . . not the flutter of weakness she had lived with for years. Rather, the flutter of an imprisoned bird that has just seen that the cage door is ajar.
“Well, child,” she said as Mouse drew near. “You’ve returned.”
“Granna,” said Mouse and hesitated. She wanted to fling her arms around the woman who had been more than a mother to her since her own mother had left. But she dared not. She was a disgrace. She was a traitor. “I hoped I’d find you here.”
“Yup,” said the old woman, folding her bone-thin arms and shrugging. “Still here. Not dead, not moved. The old billy died, though. Got a young one from the village, and he gets a bit high and mighty more often than I like.”
Alistair and Eanrin drew up behind Mouse, and now that they were near Granna could better see their faces. She liked the looks of the redheaded lad despite his freckles. His hands were a bit too soft for a man’s, but his face told her that he wouldn’t mind hard work. And when he bowed to her, she thought she might like him enough to kiss him.
“Greetings, good mother,” he said, and his words were foreign but pretty in her ear.
“Lights Above us, what have you brought home, girl?” Granna said, raising the grizzle of her remaining eyebrows. “Please don’t tell me you’ve gone and married this pasty white thing. And if you haven’t, you’d better explain why not!”
“Oh no, Granna,” Mouse hastily broke in. “It’s nothing like that.” She stood licking her lips, wondering how under heaven she was supposed to explain.
But Eanrin stepped forward then, took Granna’s hand, and kissed it gallantly. Unable to ignore him and his immortality anymore, Granna turned at last to him. She found his gaze far clearer and deeper than she had seen in a long time. A gaze older than her own, though simultaneously younger. How like he was to the old Faerie lord she had once served! Yet unlike. There was kindness in this face, however grudging.
And he, looking on her, found it suddenly difficult to breathe. He knew her face, though it was harshly scored by Time.
“I’m here to rescue Starflower,” he said.
“Good,” said she. “Bring her to see me when you’ve done. I’ve been promised, you know.”
“We must enter the Netherworld first,” said he. “There are prophecies afoot. She’s at the heart of it.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Granna. “She always had a way of getting to the heart of things.”
“Mouse tells us you know another entrance to the Netherworld. An entrance of which the priestesses are unaware.”
“I might.”
“His kinsman is lost in the Dark,” Eanrin said, indicating Alistair with a wave of his hand. “He must find him before it’s too late. Can you tell us where the gate is?”
Granna looked into those ancient golden eyes and saw love shining there. A strange, young love for the age of that face. A love that was only beginning to understand what love meant. Very different from Starflower. Starflower had been born loving.
She turned to Alistair and gave him an up-and-down appraisal. “Does he know what he’s doing?”
“No,” said Eanrin.
“Probably as well. Why does he want to find this kinsman of his? Is it for his own sake?”
“Hardly,” said Eanrin. “If he succeeds, his kinsman will take from him everything he has ever thought he wanted.”
“Which can be the best thing for a man upon occasion. Wouldn’t you agree, Faerie?”