CHAPTER 15
Ben stood in the doorway of Hazel’s room, looking in disbelief at the note on his sister’s bed, a ripped piece of notebook paper with scrawls in ballpoint pen:
Don’t get mad at Jack. I made him take me. I just want you to know I’m okay and I’m not alone.
He punched the wall with his bad hand, wincing at the impact, frowning at the flakes of paint that chipped off onto his fingers. Ben was furious—at her, at himself, at the world.
He didn’t understand why Hazel wasn’t boasting to him about freeing their prince, why she’d let Ben tromp through the wet woods, making a fool of himself, instead of telling him what she’d done.
Maybe she was trying to protect his feelings. Which made him unbearably pathetic.
Hazel was bigger than life; she always had been. Always trying to protect people—protect the town, protect their parents from having to confront that they’d let a lot of stuff slide, protect him from having to face his own cowardice after he’d quit hunting. While something was attacking the school and everyone else was panicking, she’d been inside, helping Molly. He remembered how she’d come through those doors with that familiar swagger, the one that said she didn’t need magic, didn’t need any faerie blessing.
Ben told stories. Hazel became those stories.
She was brave. And she was an idiot, too, running off like this.
“Ben?” his mom called from downstairs. “Is everything okay? Did you hurt yourself?”
“I’m fine,” he called back. “Everything’s fine.”
“Well, come down here. And bring your sister.”
Mom was in the kitchen, wearing one of Dad’s big, paint-covered shirts, pulling old stuff out of the fridge to throw away. She looked up when he came in, a plastic container of moldy yogurt in one hand. “Your father called. He wants us to come up and stay with him in Queens for a couple of days.”
“What? When?”
She chucked the yogurt into the bin. “As soon as you and your sister are ready. I really don’t like this town sometimes. The stuff that’s been going on gives me the creeps. Where is Hazel?”
Ben sighed. “I’ll find her.”
“Pack light. Both of you.”
For a moment Ben wanted to ask her if having the creeps meant she was scared. He wanted to know how she managed to pretend bad stuff wasn’t really that bad, managed to pretend it so hard that sometimes Ben thought he was crazy for remembering.
He went outside. Not really knowing what to do, he sat on the steps for the better part of an hour, picking foxtails and knotting their stems until the weeds snapped, staring up at the moon in the still-bright sky. It was his obligation as a sibling to cover for Hazel, but there was no way Mom wasn’t going to find out she was gone. Finally, he banged back through the screen door.
“Hazel’s not here,” he said.
Mom turned toward him. “What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean?” he said. “She’s gone. She’s not here. She left hours ago, probably trying to figure out what’s actually going on in town.”
Mom looked at him as though he wasn’t making any sense. “But that’s dangerous.”
Ben snorted and started up the stairs toward his room. “Yeah, I know.”
He tried Jack’s cell phone, but it went straight to voice mail. Hazel’s was in the next room. Ben flopped down onto his bed, exhaustion overwhelming him. He’d been up all night the night before. He had no idea what to do. Lying there, pondering, it was easy for his eyes to drift closed. And then he was asleep, on top of his bed, clothes still on.
When he woke, it was because of a cool breeze coming through the open window. He blinked stupidly at the darkness outside. He had no idea how long he’d been sleeping, but he knew the gnawing at the pit of his stomach was instinct kicking in. Something was nearby. Adrenaline and dread and the kind of excitement that turns skin to ice flooded his veins.
When he’d gone to sleep, the window had been shut.
He remembered feeling that way in the old days, when he and Hazel were out in the woods, the hairs on the back of his neck rising to alert him that even if he couldn’t see a monster, in all likelihood, a monster could see him.
Then he heard a voice near his ear. “Benjamin Evans.”
Struggling to sit up, Ben saw the boy standing by the bed, illuminated by the full moon. A boy wearing his clothes. For a moment Ben just blinked. The hood of the sweatshirt shadowed the boy’s face, but he knew the garment. He’d left it in the woods, folded up on a worn wooden table for an elf prince to find.
“Hi,” Ben squeaked, barely getting the word out. He knew he had to do better than that. He had to say something that showed he wasn’t afraid, although he was. “Decided to kill me after all?”
Severin pushed back the hood. Sable hair curled around his cheeks, and Ben saw the very points of his horns beneath his ears. His expression was impossible to read.
He was crushingly, heart-stoppingly beautiful. And he belonged to Hazel. It was Hazel who’d freed the prince, so he was fated to love her. Hazel, whom he’d kissed. Probably his first kiss in a century. Hazel might not love him back right away, but she’d come around in the end. That was how fairy tales worked.
Ben was a sap. Ben would have loved him instantly.
“I have come to tell you a story,” said Severin, and his voice was soft. “You’ve told me so many. My turn for a tale.”
“Why?” Ben asked, still not really able to process the fact that Severin was there, in his bedroom. “What do you want?”
Even without the lights on, he was aware of the silly posters on his wall, the jeans on his floor where he’d kicked them off and never bothered to pick them up. His hamper was full of dirty clothes, and beside his dresser, tacked to a corkboard, was a tattered photograph of the horned boy, asleep. Everything about his room was embarrassing.
“What do I want? Many things. But for now, only to talk,” Severin said. “I find your voice to be… steadying. Let us discuss sisters.”
“Sisters,” Ben echoed. “You want me to tell you about Hazel?”
“You misunderstand me,” said Severin. “I wish for you only to listen.”
Ben remembered what Severin had said just before he’d kissed Hazel. The words felt as though they were burned on his skin. I know every one of your secrets. I know all your dreams.
If he knew Hazel’s secrets, then certainly he knew Ben’s even better. It was Ben who’d gone out to the coffin nearly every day, Ben who’d talked to the boy in the coffin like he was talking out loud to himself. He’d confessed to Severin that he’d drank too much cheap André champagne last New Year’s Eve and vomited in the bushes outside Namiya’s party; he’d admitted to Severin exactly how dangerously good it felt the very first time a boy had touched him; he’d explained who at school hated each other and who pretended to hate each other but really didn’t. Maybe Hazel was right not to tell Ben anything important.
Severin took a breath and started to speak. “It is mostly solitary fey who dwell in deep forests like those that surround Fairfold, and solitary fey are not well liked by the trooping gentry from faerie courts. They are too wild, too ugly, their violence too unrefined.”
“Solitary fey?” Ben asked, trying to keep up.
“Tricksy phookas. Green ladies who will strip a man’s flesh from his bones if he steps into the wrong bog,” Severin said. “Hollow-backed women who inspire artists to heights of creativity and depths of despair. Trow men, with long, hairy tails and large appetites. Prankish goblins; homely hobs; pixies with their iridescent, stained-glass wings; and all the rest. Those of us who make our homes in the wild or at a mortal hearth. Those who do not live at courts, who do not play at kings and queens and pages. Those who are not gentry like my father.”
“Oh.” The word mortal struck Ben powerfully. It was such an odd, old-fashioned word. Mortal things were things that died.
Severin brought his fingers to Ben’s cheek, cool against hot skin. The faint smell of dirt and greenery came to him as Severin’s fingers lifted a piece of hair and tucked it behind Ben’s ear.
Ben’s whole body seemed to seize up at the touch.
Severin went on, hand moving away, leaving Ben to wonder what the touch had meant, if it had meant anything at all. Severin’s eyes seemed brighter than ever, shining with intensity. “Sorrel, my sister, was born to a court lady before our father’s exile. Father stole her away with him when he fled, along with seven magical blades—including the one I seek—and the smith who forged them, a creature named Grimsen, who could craft anything from metal. Father came to Fairfold with his retinue and called himself the Alderking, for the alder tree is known as the king of the woods. But Alderking has a more sinister meaning, too. Perhaps you’ve heard this before: Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt fa?t er mich an! Erlk?nig hat mir ein Leids getan!”
Ben shook his head. It sounded like German.