The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

Bogdana points a clawed finger at me. Behind her in the sky, I see a strike of lightning. “In time, they sought out a wise old hag. And she told them that she could give them the child that they’d wanted, but that they would have to do exactly what she said. They promised her any reward, and she only smiled, for her memory was long.”

“What did you—” I start, but she holds up her finger in warning, and I close my mouth on the question.

“The wise old hag told them to gather up snow and form it into the shape of a daughter.

“They did this. The girl they made was delicate in form, with eyes of stone, and lips of frozen rose petals, and the sharply pointed ears of their people. When they finished sculpting her, they smiled at each other, captivated by her beauty.

“The hag smiled, too, for other reasons.”

This seems like a bad jest. I am not made of snow. I am not some being who was sculpted just as Lord Jarel and Lady Nore wished. I never captivated them with my beauty.

And yet, Bogdana is telling me this story for a reason. Sluagh. Is that what I am? A soul given a body, one of the half-dead Folk that wail outside houses or promise doom in mirrors.

“Now we must give her life, the hag told them. For this, she needs a drop of blood, for she is to be your child. Second, she needs my magic.

“The first was easy to supply. The king and queen pricked their fingers and let their blood stain the snow.

“The second was easy for them as well because I gave it willingly. When my breath blew across the girl, the spark of life lit within her, and they could see her eyelashes twitch, her tresses shiver. The child began to move. Her little limbs were slender and nearly as pale a blue as the reflection of the sky on the snow she’d been made from. Her hair, a deeper blue, like the flowers that grew nearby. Her eyes, that of the lichen that clung to rocks. Her lips, the red of that fresh-spilled blood.

“You will be our daughter, the king and queen told her. And you will give us Elfhame.

“But when the girl opened her mouth and spoke for the first time, they were afraid of the thing that they had made.”

I shake my head. “That can’t be true. That can’t be how I was born.”

I don’t want to be a creature, shaped by their hands and quickened with their blood. Something made like a doll, from snow and sticks. An assemblage of parts, stranger even than the sluagh.

“Why tell me this now?” I ask her, trying to keep my voice even. “Why tell me this at all?”

“Because I need you,” says Bogdana. “Lady Nore is not the only one who can seize power. There is myself as well. Myself, to whom you owe your life far more than you owe it to her. Forsake the others. Come with me, and we can take everything for ourselves.”

I think of the Thistlewitch and the tale she told of Mab and Mellith’s heart. Could Bogdana have been the hag who slaughtered her own daughter? Perhaps it is only that I heard the story days before, but Lady Nore must have been told about the bones from someone who remembered what had happened, who knew their true value.

And if Bogdana was that hag, then her belief that I owe her my life puts me in greater danger than ever. She murdered her own child, and even though it was by accident, I can only imagine what she’d be willing to do to something like me.

My ability to command Lady Nore is more curse than blessing. Anyone who wants Mab’s bones will find me the easiest means to get them.

“You spoke of constraints,” I say. “What are they?”

The storm hag gives me a fierce look. “For one, I may not harm that Greenbriar boy, nor any of the line.”

I shiver. That would explain why she fled at the sight of him. Why she sent lightning only at Tiernan. And it would be the sort of curse that Mab might have put on the hag who’d intended the murder of her daughter.

I must keep my wild thoughts in check. “Is this story of my origins what you came to tell me that night on my unfamily’s lawn?”

She gives me a crooked, frightening smile. “I came to warn you that Prince Oak was coming so that you could avoid him.”

“Not about Lady Nore’s stick creatures?” I demand.

Bogdana snorts. “Those, I thought you could handle on your own. Perhaps they’d wake you up to what you could be.”

More likely, they would have shot me through with arrows, or the stick spiders would have ripped me apart. “You’ve told me your story. I listened. Now I am going to go. That was our agreement.”

“Are you certain?” Her eyes are hard, and she asks the question with such weight in her voice that I am certain there will be consequences for my answer.

I nod, feeling as though that is safer than speaking. Then I begin to turn away.

“You know, the girl saw me.”

I freeze. “What girl?”

Her smile is sly. “The mortal one whose house you creep around.”

“Bex?” I was so sure she was asleep in bed. She must have been terrified to see a monster on her lawn.

“When the prince started waving his little toothpick sword, I doubled back. I thought I’d seen her face in the window. But she was outside.”

I can barely breathe.

“She didn’t scream. She’s a brave girl.” The storm hag seems to enjoy drawing out this moment. “Said she was looking for you.”

“For me?”