Jack whirled toward his brother, clearly frustrated. “You don’t get to make my decisions for me.”
“How about I go? Maybe they’re mad I got stolen back from them? Did anyone ever think of that?” Carter looked around the room defiantly, as though daring them to tell him he wasn’t a prize. “Maybe they’d like to have me and not him at all.”
“That’s very noble,” Ms. Kirtling said. “But I don’t think—”
“Jack, listen to me.” His mother crossed the room toward him. “You don’t want anyone to get hurt when you could prevent it, even if that means putting yourself in danger. You’re a good boy, a boy who puts himself before other people, and so you have, volunteering where these cowards thought they’d have to force you or trick you.” She looked around the room, daring anyone to contradict her. “They believe your father and I will insist you not go at first, but in the end, we’d put the welfare of the town before your welfare. They think that when push comes to shove, we’d give you up. And I bet your other family thinks so, too.”
Around the room there were whispered comments.
Jack looked stunned. His face had gone blank in what might have been surprise but was also certainly fear of what she might say next.
His mother looked over at her husband. He was standing against one wall, arms folded across his chest. “Your mom and I had a long talk about this last night,” he said. “As far as we’re concerned, the whole town can burn; what we care about is you.”
At that, Jack laughed in clear surprise and maybe delight and maybe even a little embarrassment. It was an odd reaction, however, and Hazel could see that register on the faces of the townspeople. Faeries laughed at funerals and wept at weddings; they didn’t have human feelings for human things.
“This is turning into a real show,” Ms. Holt said, pursing coral-lipsticked lips and putting a hand to her eyes. Her fingers came away wet. She let out a soft sob and looked around in confusion.
Then the sheriff began to weep. Around the room it spread. Tears sprang to eyes. Hazel’s mother gave a broken wail and began to pull at her hair.
Hazel looked toward Jack. His lips were pressed into a thin line. He shook his head, as though what was happening could be denied. Sorrow was here. Hazel heard her in her head. It was like being caught in the current of a river. Like a diver who had lost any sense of direction, thrashing around, not sure which way is up…
Hazel blinked. Jack was finishing tying a knot in her hair. He whispered against her neck, “You will not weep until I give you leave.”
He’d enchanted her against Sorrow’s spell. She realized her cheeks were wet. She had no idea how long she’d been lost to it, but around the room people wept and wailed still.
The front door slammed open and Ben ran into the room.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Ben’s voice had the effect of a glass crashing to the floor and shattering. Everyone stared. “The monster at the heart in the forest. She’s coming.”
Standing behind him was Severin. For a moment Hazel saw him as everyone in the room must. Tall and inhumanly beautiful, horns rising from his brown curls, moss-green eyes watching them. It didn’t matter that he was wearing ordinary clothes; he wasn’t ordinary. He was their vision of what faeries ought to be; he was the dream that brought them to Fairfold, that caused them to want to stay, despite all the dangers.
And in that moment, Hazel knew what they must feel, the mingled hope and terror. She felt it, too. He was her prince. She was supposed to save him and he was supposed to save her right back.
“Find cover,” Severin said, walking to the wall where the two sabers rested and pulling them from their sheaths in one smooth move that set the metal ringing. For a moment he held a sword in each hand, moving them as if to test their balance. Then, looking across the room, he grinned at Hazel and tossed her a blade.
She caught it before she knew that she could. It felt right in her hand, like an extension of her arm, like a missing limb restored to her. The weight of the saber was decent; it was obviously an actual sword and not some pot-metal reproduction. She wondered if it was expensive, because she was pretty sure she was going to ruin it on that monster’s hide.
Her blood began to race, thrilling through her veins.
“Normal blades can’t cut her,” Hazel said, moving toward the horned boy.
“We just need to drive her back,” he said, heading for the door. “Tire her out. She doesn’t really want to hurt anyone.”
Jack snorted. “Yeah, right.”
Outside, wind shook the trees like rattles.
Across the room, a weeping Carter stood in front of their mother. Jack was stooped over his father, whispering in his ear, fingers fumbling in his gray hair.
Hazel braced herself. All her doubts rose at once. Her night self might have been trained by the Alderking, but her day self didn’t know how to fight any better than she had at twelve. And she didn’t have a magical sword anymore. She was going to make a hash of this.
She took a deep breath, closing her eyes.
You’re a knight, she told herself. You’re a knight. A real knight.
When she opened her eyes, the monster was in the doorway. All around her, those not already weeping began to scream. Some ran for another room or the stairs, some blockaded themselves behind furniture, and a few more stood, as though turned to statues by their terror.
Hazel held her ground. When she’d seen Sorrow in the glass, she’d imagined her as hideous, something foul and twisted, but her appearance was that of a living tree, one covered in moss and dried, decaying vine. She had branches instead of bone, and roots spreading from her feet like the train of a dress. From her head rose a wild thicket of tiny branches, sticking up along one side, matted with thick clumps of dirt and leaves. Black eyes peered out of knotholes in the wood. Sticky reddish sap wetted her face, running from the knotholes of her eyes, mimicking the paths of tears. She was as beautiful as she was terrifying.
She towered over them, at least a foot higher than anyone in the room.
“Sorrel,” Severin said, taking a hesitant half step toward her. Even he seemed awed, as though whatever she was when he’d been shut away from the world had grown more terrible as he slept. “Sister, please.”
She didn’t even seem to see him. A voice, thick with tears, spoke from throats around the room, a chorus of her grief. “I loved him and he’s dead and gone and bones. I loved him and they took him away from me. Where is he? Where is he? Dead and gone and bones. Dead and gone and bones. Where is he?”
More people fell prey to the weeping. Sobs racked bodies.
Sorrow took a step toward her brother, knocking a side table to the ground. When she spoke, she sounded more like the wind blowing through trees than any human voice. “I loved him and I loved him and he’s dead and gone and bones. I loved him and they took him away from me. Where is he? Where is he? Dead and gone and bones. Dead and gone and bones. My father took him. My brother killed him. Where is he? Dead and gone and bones. Dead and gone and bones.”
“You would not wish this,” Severin said. “You would not do this. Sister, please. Please. Do not make me try to stop you.”
Deeper into the room Sorrow went, Hazel and Severin moving to either side of her. People shrieked. Ms. Kirtling, in a panic, ran across the room, right into the monster’s path. A long arm with willow-twig fingers reached out and brushed Ms. Kirtling aside as one might brush a spiderweb away. But that small gesture sent Ms. Kirtling hurtling into the wall. Plaster cracked, and with a moan, she slid to the floor.
In the new-formed crack, moss and mold began to spill into the room, like water into the hull of a leaking boat.
On the other side of the room, a woman began to cough up dirt.
Without any idea of what else to do, Hazel slammed her saber into the monster’s side.
All her life, she’d heard about the monster in the heart of the forest. She’d imagined that if only the monster was slain, then faeries would go back to being only tricksy and magical. She’d imagined it enough times that even though she knew better, some part of her believed that when her blade hit the monster’s flank, it would cut deeply.
It left no mark at all, but it did make Sorrow turn toward her, long fingers reaching. Hazel ducked, feeling the brush of dry leaves and smelling fresh-turned earth. She wasn’t quite fast enough to keep Sorrow from catching a clump of her hair. A few strands ripped out and drifted through the air like sparks. The monster used the rest of it like a rope, to hurl Hazel, toppling her into a sofa, saber flying from Hazel’s hand to clang against the floor.
Bruised, she pushed herself up. Her head hurt and her bones felt jangly, as if they no longer fit together. She made herself cross to where her saber was, made herself lift it and turn toward the monster.
Severin had leaped onto her back, holding on to the branches and vines, but she shook him off, then thundered toward where he fell. He rolled and rose to his feet, moving with a swiftness and sureness she had never seen equaled. His blade whirled through the air. He was a magnificent swordsman. And still his blade glanced off her. And still she knocked him back.
It was just then that Jack’s dad came running down the stairs, a hunting rifle gripped in his hands. He set the butt against his shoulder pocket and gazed down the sight, aiming for Sorrow.
“Please, no,” Severin called from the floor, but Hazel wasn’t sure Mr. Gordon even heard him. He pulled the trigger.
The gun was loud in the room, like thunder, rocking Hazel back onto her heels. But the bullets struck the monster’s bark and slid off as though they were mere pebbles hurled by a child. Sorrow went for Mr. Gordon.
Carter intercepted, swinging a candlestick at her, but the creature wrapped its long fingers around him, pulling him to her. Hazel raced toward them, slamming her saber into Sorrow’s back. The monster didn’t even seem to notice.
“Hey!” Jack yelled, and then something spattered the monster. The stinging smell of alcohol filled the air. He’d thrown brandy at her, brandy from his parents’ now-open liquor cabinet.
“I’ll set you on fire,” he said, holding up a book of matches in trembling fingers. “Get away from them. Get out of here.”
The monster seemed to regard him for a long moment, letting Carter slump to the ground. He was unconscious, a green stain spreading across his lips.
It had happened so fast.
Hazel heard her mother scream from the other side of the room. She glanced to one side and saw that Ben was dragging her behind the old upright piano.
Jack struck a match.