The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

“I helped the prisoners,” I tell him. “Even if it inconvenienced you.”

For a long moment, we just stare at each other. I feel as though I’ve been running, my heart is beating so hard.

“We head straight north from here,” he says, turning away. “There’s a faerie market near the human city of Portland, in Maine. I’ve visited it before; it’s not far from the Shifting Isles. Tiernan will buy a boat, and we’ll gather other supplies to make the crossing into Lady Nore’s lands.”

Tiernan nods. “A good place to set off from. Especially if we need to lose anyone following us in the crowds.”

“Good,” says the prince. “At Undry Market, we can decide Wren’s fate.”

“But—” I start.

“It’s four days of travel up the coast to get there,” he says. “We pass through the territory of the Court of Termites, the Court of Cicadas, and half a dozen other Courts. Plenty of time for you to convince me of the mistake I am making.”

He strides off to the patch of ragwort, taking a stalk of the plant and enchanting it into a fringed skeletal beast. When he has two, he gestures for us to mount. “We can cover a lot more distance in the sky.”

“I hate these things,” Tiernan complains, throwing a leg over the back of one.

The owl-faced hob alights on the prince’s arm, and he whispers to it for a moment before it takes to wing again. Off on some secret mission.

I climb onto the ragwort steed behind Oak, putting my hands around his waist, feeling shame at being dismissed, along with anger. No matter how fast Oak’s swordplay or how loyal Tiernan or how clever they might be, there are still only two of them. The prince will realize it makes more sense to bring me along.

As we rise into the air, I find myself as unnerved by ragwort horses as Tiernan is. They seem alive now, and though they are not an illusion, they are not quite what they seem, either. They will become ragwort stalks again and fall to earth, with no more awareness of what they were than any other plucked weed. Half-living things, like the creatures Lady Nore enchanted.

I try not to grip Oak too tightly as we fly. Despite the strangeness of the creature whose back I am on, my heart thrills in the air. The dark sky, dotted with stars, mirrors the lights of the human world below.

We glide through the night, a few of my braids coming loose and undone. Tiernan may distrust the ragwort steeds, but he and Oak sit astride them with immense ease. In the moonlight the prince’s features are more fey, his cheekbones sharper, his ears more pointed.

We make camp beside a stream in a wood redolent of pine resin, on a carpet of needles. Oak coaxes the taciturn Tiernan into telling stories of jousts. I am surprised to find that some of them are funny and that Tiernan himself, when all attention is on him, seems almost shy.

Parts of the water are deep enough to bathe in, and Oak does, stripping off his armor and scrubbing himself with the sand of the bank while Tiernan boils up some of the pine needles for tea.

I try not to look, but out of the corner of my eye, I see pale skin, wet hair, and a scarred chest.

When it is my turn, I wash my hot face primly and decline to remove my dress.

We fly through another day and night. At the next camp, we eat more cheese and bread and sleep under the stars of a meadow. I find duck eggs, and Tiernan fries them with wild onions. Oak talks some about the mortal world and his first year there, when he used magic in foolish ways and nearly got himself and his sister into a lot of trouble.

The third night, we camp in an abandoned building. The air has grown chill, and we make a fire of cardboard and a few planks of wood.

Oak stretches out beside it, arching his back like a preening cat. “Wren, tell us something about your life, if you will.”

Tiernan shakes his head, as though he thinks I won’t do it.

His expression decides me. I stumble over the words in the beginning, but I give them the tale of the glaistig and her victims. In part, I suppose, to be contrary. To see if they will fault me for helping mortals and cheating one of the Folk out of her due. But they listen and even laugh at the times I get the better of her. When I am done talking, I feel strangely lighter.

Across the fire, the prince watches me, reflected flames flickering in his unreadable eyes.

Forgive me, I think. Let me come with you.

The following afternoon, Tiernan dons Oak’s golden scale mail and sets off on his own, to set a false trail. We have a meeting place not far from the Undry Market, and I realize that I will have only one more night to persuade them to allow me to stay.

As we fly, I try to put together my arguments. I consider speaking them into Oak’s ear as he can hardly escape me, but the wind would snatch my words. A faint drizzle dampens our clothes and chills our skin.

As the sun begins to set, I see a darkness that is not night coming on. Clouds form in the distance, billowing upward and barreling outward, turning the sky a sickly greenish gray. Inside, I can see the flicker of lightning. They seem to reach into the stratosphere, the top of the clouds in a shape like an anvil.

And beneath it, wind whirls, tornadoes forming.

I give a cry, which is whipped away. Oak wheels the ragwort horse downward as the air around us becomes thick. We plunge into the fog of clouds, their wet, heavy mist sinking into my lungs. The steed shivers beneath us. And then, without warning, the ragwort horse dips sharply, then drops.