17. The Curse

The woodsy ward didn't help the temperature in Lilydale as much as the Agassiz wall had, but it was still milder than without it, especially with the kiss of springtime. There was an impression of excitement about the new tree ward, if the general conversation and wary investigation was any indicator.

Hands gray and dusty, Micah had a smear of soot across his nose as he finished planting the seed for the hawthorn tree in the eye of the fire pit. Unlike the other twelve trees which grew from preexisting saplings, Micah wanted this thirteenth tree to exist in its embryonic form until he needed it.

He stood up when it was hidden beneath the soot and blackened soil, accepting the scrap of terrycloth that Nox held out for him and scrubbing clean his hands. Nox blinked their goat eyes up at him and tapped their wide nose; understanding, Micah folded the cloth to a clean side and swiped it over his whole face, feeling it lift a sheen of sweat he didn't know was there.

Micah turned to face his assembled team seated on the amphitheater stairs. Liath occupied the rapt attention of Chamomile and Andrew as she showed them an intricate braid on Fionna's hair; the girl sat with eyes closed and a lazy smile on her face between Liath's knees as the older woman worked.

Ingrid prowled a few steps away from him, hair in a severe braid, draped in a black shawl and wearing a slender black choker. When their eyes met, she gave him a fortifying smile. Micah mustered a wobbly grin in return before he resumed his preparation of the fire pit. He adjusted his grip on his birchwood staff as he gazed down at the ring, checking in with the roots which crawled beneath the limestone bedrock of Lilydale to see what they were willing to do.

"I'm going to need a lot of help tonight," he whispered.

"You talking to me, or the trees?" Andrew's gravelly purr slipped into Micah's ear at the same time as the arms around his waist.

With a chill racing up the nape of his neck, Micah squirmed against Andrew's chest. "Uh…both?"

"Liar." Andrew stooped to press his lips to the hollow behind Micah's ear.

Shaking off Liath and Chamomile, Fionna pulled on her wolfskin and hurried over to the couple. She rooted around by their legs as the soil began to churn. Sleepily, roots and branches laden with worms and centipedes prodded forth, gasping as they stretched toward the heavens. Andrew's skin tingled at the sight of the roots doing Micah's bidding, reaching up to cup the fire pit like a richly scented rib cage.

"What if I got everyone here and it takes them like, three days to find her?" Micah glanced up at Andrew.

Andrew scoffed, nuzzling into Micah's jaw. "I could find her sooner than that. Just breathe, darling." He spread his hand over Micah's belly. "I can feel that you're not."

Before Micah could draw in the sort of full restorative breath Andrew requested, an anxious buzzing cut through the quiet. The yellow-haired pixie Thorn, wearing a halter dress with an open back, winked back out of the shadows and flitted down on iridescent wings. Fionna flinched before her tail started to wag as she shuffled over to nudge Thorn's hand. He absently scratched the wolf's cheek, but his cat-slit pupils remained enlarged with obvious irritation.

"What's wrong?" Micah tripped over the question. "Can't you find Cirrus?"

"We found her," Thorn said carefully. "But we can't get inside. Her room is warded and smells of iron."

Frustrated, Micah stamped his staff. Fingers dug into the meat of his shoulder as if he was caught in the talons of a hawk; Micah looked up as a feral grin broke through Andrew's features. White teeth glinted in the torchlight. Andrew's voice was a rumble of distant thunder. "Now that—" Thorn turned his face up to balk. "—I can help with."

The chilling edge to Andrew's words made a shiver race up Micah's spine. He grimaced. Perhaps part of him wanted to urge Andrew to swallow his thirst for blood. But the feeling that won out spoke for him. "Hey, just…don't kill her, all right?"

Unsheathing his black seax and crossing it over his chest, Andrew swept back his knee in a bow. "You have my word, milord."

Micah's cheeks blazed with color. A crinkle appeared beneath Andrew's eye before he winked. He reached for Thorn, who clasped their hands and flicked his iridescent wings. With Andrew in tow, Thorn got back into the shadows in a blink. Thorn was like a hummingbird as they raced through darkness over streetlights and interstate exits. When they emerged, it was onto the slope of a steep gabled roof outside a small window. Andrew tripped to one knee on the shingles. As if surprised Andrew couldn't fly, Thorn gasped and clutched his hand while Andrew caught his balance and braced himself in a deep lunge.

"Sorry, Sir Andrew."

The other Folk flocked on the roof like a murder of crows. Some watched the two of them with vague amusement, but most had their eyes on the curtained dormer window. It belonged to a small house tucked into a crowded street on the opposite side of the river from Lilydale, somewhere off Snelling and Grand, Andrew guessed.

Andrew pulled his iron dagger from his ankle holster. As soon as he did, the Folk crowding near him edged back a bit, although he had no ill will toward any of them anymore. Wedging the blade into the window frame, he pried it open. The wood grumbled softly, but the sound was indistinct, just as easily mistaken for a creak in the pipes or a car door slamming somewhere below. He quickly stuck his boots through the crack and slipped inside, his narrow hips and slim chest posing no obstacle as he dropped softly to his feet.

Straightening, Andrew inspected the window. He reached up and used his dagger to scratch out two protective runes that were drawn into the wood. Then he used two fingers to dislodge a bundle of rowan leaves and berries from a hook on the wall. He dropped it into his palm, crumpling it as he thrust the bundle into his pocket. That seemed to be it except for a small pile of salt on the window sill. Andrew bent and blew it away. As he padded further into the room, nearly choking on the stench of cheap incense, a floorboard creaked under his weight.

Traced by the white light of a phone screen, a shape in the bed jolted at the sound. "H…Hello?" A young blonde woman rolled over and sat up, dazzled and blinded by her screen. She blinked a few times, squinting as a specter emerged in her vision.

A tall wisp of a man stepped toward her, haloed by the acid-orange light shining through the window. Behind him, Folk spilled into her room, their movements irregular, animalistic. Eyes reflected blood-red, murky green, taillight yellow. Teeth glinted sharp and silver in stretched, sneering smiles.

"Good evening, Cirrus." The man stepped into a beam of streetlight which illuminated his fox-like features and glinted in his brown eyes like primordial fire.

"A-Andrew…" After she shattered the vial of Micah's blood and left him to die, she was expecting Folk—she was ready for Folk. But none of her protections would work on him. And he'd…he'd let them all in. "You're t-trespassing." Her voice was thin beneath the cinder blocks of her terror. She started to tap the power button on her phone to dial 911, but Andrew was faster.

In one long stride he closed the distance to her bed and slapped her phone out of her clammy hand. Andrew stopped it with his boot, holding her gaze while he ground her phone beneath his heel. As the screen crunched and went dark, he gave her a wolfish smile ripe with satisfaction.

Feral as a cornered cat, Cirrus dove at his face with her fingers crooked into claws. He back-stepped, and she lost her balance and fell over the edge of her bed. Her knees and elbows smarted, wrenching a yelp out of her and leaving her stunned and disoriented. Before she gathered her senses, Andrew used his boot to roll her onto her back, pinning her down with his foot on her stomach.

Cirrus held her hands up, gasping. "Let me go. I promise, you'll never see or hear from me again." Her eyes filled with tears.

Andrew laughed, the sound like snapping fangs. Behind him, the Folk jeered and tittered. Lifting his foot off her, he dropped to a crouch. "Oh, no, little blight. We're way past that." He flipped a dagger into his hand, which flashed as he gave it an artful spin.

Cirrus screamed and squirmed, but despite this he hooked the tip of the knife under her necklaces and yanked sharply. The three chains snapped, scattering across the floorboards.

A tear dribbled off her round face as she cowered under Andrew. Coursing with savage delight, he stroked her cheek with the flat side of his dagger, relishing how her eyes went round with horror. He wanted to do more, to taunt and terrorize the woman who had wrought so much misery on Micah. He wanted to paint his face with her blood while she screamed. But it was for the same person he wanted vengeance that he stayed his hand. With a regretful sigh, Andrew stood up. Cirrus released a ragged sob of relief.

"Take her to Lord Heartwood." Andrew's order was soft and mild, like a poisonous flower.

Hungrily, the Folk descended upon Cirrus, clawing at her with outstretched hands like ghouls dragging her into the darkness. She screamed, but she was powerless against the swarm of them. As they pulled her into the shadows, she was convinced she'd never see daylight again. She was convinced this was the last night she'd even know her name.

The Folk spilled back into Lilydale. Leif and Thorn held Cirrus under her armpits, with Cosmos on her feet, and the goblin triplets bracing her in the middle to be sure she couldn't twist or wouldn't fall before they were ready. Cirrus gasped and panted, sobbing quietly, her face bright red. They dumped her into the fire pit and she landed on her stomach in a dirty soot cloud.

Spitting out a mouthful of ash, she wiped her lips, smearing darkness across her cheeks. For as much as she'd flaunted her knowledge that Lilydale existed as a hideout for wicked and greedy Folk, Cirrus had never been within its walls. The air tasted like hazelnut, heavy and warm in an unnatural way. As she steadied herself and tried not to vomit, roots wormed from the ground, rising up, turning to sharp sticks and a tangle of brambles which created a barbed wire fence around her. Not too tall to jump if she were desperate, but discouraging, toothy.

Framed by the crumbling arch of a massive brick kiln, a man descended shallow limestone stairs toward her. Antlers rose above his brow, crystals winking and flashing in the shaky torchlight that dappled Lilydale. A feline skull was framed by two violet blossoms, neon yellow in the middle. Nightshade.

"M-Micah?" Her mouth dropped open. "You're—alive?"

"Disappointed?" Micah's lips formed a sardonic smile around the word. He'd never looked so…Fae. Barefooted, in an animal skull crown, with a tattoo visible below the slope of his shirt, holding a long branch of birch with a jagged, luminescent tip, he was formidable in every sense of the word. The Folk that had brought her here flowed behind him to form a crescent of shadowy bodies, shining eyes, and wicked smiles. Over his shoulder, the Ruby Daughter materialized, made of shadows and moonbeams and narrowed crimson eyes.

"Y-you kidnapped me." Cirrus's mouth was too wet with nausea and tears, and it made her words sound pathetic. She sucked in a trembling breath and lifted her chin like there was any way she could pull off haughtiness dressed in pajamas and coated in tears and snot. "I thought you were benevolent."

"You changed the game, busting up my sister's wall. You threatened my people then."

Cirrus snorted. "Your people? Dude, you're a half-breed." Bolstered by the way Micah failed to hide his flinch, she sat up on her knees, wiping her arm across her face. "You don't belong here any more than I do."

An arrow whistled through the darkness. Shrieking, Cirrus's head whipped to the side, a comet tail of blood arcing after her from a slash across her cheek.

Chamomile had moved in a flash to Micah's side; the string of her bow still vibrated. "Watch it, you stupid little girl. That's Lord Heartwood you're speaking to. You will address him with respect."

A hysterical chortle fell from Cirrus's mouth. "Are you for real? This…this place is such a joke!"

"Cirrus." Micah crouched before her, his amethyst gaze grave. "Cooperating with me will be for your own benefit."

"Fuck you, Micah!" Despite the vitriol of her snarl, fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. "Fuck your stupid elitist fake nice bullshit. I wish I'd killed you!"

Hostility rose like hackles among the gathering; Andrew's seax crossed slightly over Lord Heartwood. Fiona growled, the sound so low that it rumbled the silt beneath Cirrus. The Folk bared serrated, silver teeth and hisses caught on the wind, swirling with the firelight until it felt like Cirrus was in a vacuum with the unsettling sounds.

Micah sighed through his nostrils, brow pinched with pity. "When I met you, you just wanted to live in a fairytale. You were so whimsical and passionate. I refuse to believe this was all some long con designed to get close to me so you could fuck me up."

Cirrus snorted. There was a strangled hiccup caught in the derisive sound. "Like I'm gonna tell you anything!"

Amused, Micah's lips twitched. He tilted his head so the undying nightshade blossoms fixed to the bobcat skull in his crown fluttered in the low light. "You misunderstand. I'm not asking for your sob story because I care. But it will help determine your fate tonight."

The girl jerked back as if he'd struck her. "You—You wouldn't kill me…"

Micah tipped his chin down, causing the firelight to flash through his eyes like chips of molten jewels. "Have you no imagination?"

Cirrus shuddered. "What?"

"Death is nowhere near the worst thing we can do to you." He smiled. No trace of humanity warmed his features. The streak of his lips were more like blood.

An animal terror gripped Cirrus down to the marrow in her bones. Her power was slipping through her fingers. She wanted—needed to keep it. Her power was all she had left. All that made her important.

The wolf. The wolf. Cirrus locked eyes with the wolf at the Druid woman's heels. She reached into her desperation and her fear and demanded aid from the shifter wolf. She reached into the dark pit of her heart and gave the wolf no other option.

Fionna cringed away from the pulsing brown gaze of the girl in the fire pit. She whimpered and resisted, but the puppet strings yanked taut. Her golden eyes flickered and lost their luster, replaced by rings of darkness that glinted blood-red. Ingrid felt the shift happen, but not quickly enough. Fionna's body became a puppet, and her vision tunneled till all she could see was the pale delicate flesh of a man's wrist. Her little girl's heart cried out in horror as her powerful wolf jaws wrenched open of their own accord.

Fionna's maw snapped shut on Andrew's left wrist, tearing a scream from his throat. The pain stabbed bone-deep as the sharp wolf fangs sank through his skin and tore into tendon. She fought and fought the darkness choking her, but all she managed to do was to weaken the vise of her jaw, just a little.

Andrew started to pull back but stopped, trying instead to get his fingers deep in her molars as he cried, "Fi! Stad! Scaoil sé! Fionna! Don't give in…gah!"

But the tunnel of her vision narrowed and her muscles told her thrash! So she clamped down harder and shook her head. Andrew lost his footing and fell to his knees in front of her. Blood ran from the punctures in his wrist and splattered the firelit air as she shook his arm as if to kill her prey. The little girl inside her wailed and reached for him, but the sinister blood rings remained around her eyes.

Arms grabbed her barrel chest and hands yanked on her scruff and fists beat her skull. Fionna desperately hoped they could overpower her, but all she could see was the agony on Andrew's features, the tears staining his cheeks as he struggled with her jaws. His fingers dug into her cheek, but as she shook his arm, his grip slackened.

Liath threw an arm toward the fire pit. "Micah—" The urgency in Liath's tone snapped Micah's attention to her. Both of them could see the crimson rings around Cirrus's eyes.

With his staff gripped in both hands, Micah leapt toward the fire pit and swung toward Cirrus's head. Like a crack of thunder, wood met skull. Cirrus shrieked. Her eyes widened and then rolled back beneath her slackening lids as her body went limp.

Gold flooded back into Fionna's eyes. Howling, she released Andrew and leapt back, tail between her legs. Andrew dropped into the muddy snow, groaning, blank with shock. Liath grabbed Fionna by her scruff and pulled her away, the girl releasing her wolfskin and scrabbling to climb into Liath's arms. Fionna wailed, piercing, loud enough that the residents in the houses above along Highway 13 paused what they were doing, frowning, shivering.

Wordlessly, Micah used the end of his staff and scratched the Ogham mark for huath, hawthorn, by the unconscious girl's hip. He allowed the hawthorn seed underneath her to do what it needed to do before he dropped the root fence. She'd need no fence to restrain her as Lord Heartwood's intentions joined with the hawthorn. Gnarled arms like twisted sentient prison guards came down as the hawthorn grew rapidly, six feet tall in a matter of seconds.

As his heart climbed back into his throat, Micah tripped on his way to Andrew's side, his fiancé's complexion drained and shining with a layer of sweat. Deep, oozing punctures bored down to white wrist bone in half a dozen places. Andrew reached out with his uninjured hand and clung to Micah's arm, lips pressed into a thin line and tears standing in his eyes.

Chamomile entered the periphery of Micah's vision, and without looking up, he held out his hand for her herbs. He pinned his staff under his knee. Swallowing his nausea, Micah withdrew a handful of basil leaves which he and Chamomile wrapped around Andrew's wrist like bandages. Murmured pleas for healing and relief left Micah's lips as he suppressed the shuddering of his fingers. Chamomile held Andrew's hand and elbow delicately in her fingers while Micah wrapped Andrew's forearm in actual bandaging and taped it down.

She glanced at Micah. "He'll need human medical attention. This is good for now, but you need to take him in."

"You guys keep stuff under control for a couple hours." Micah looked between Ingrid and Chamomile. "I'll take him now, and then—"

"Not now." Andrew shook his head sharply, his words coming out in a breathless whisper. "We need to end this." He released a ragged sigh, the leaves wrapping his arm slowly tamping down the throbbing intensity of pain.

"Andrew, no, I can't—"

"Don't argue with me." Andrew gripped Micah's chin and pressed their lips together. He moved back and said with a ghoulish smile, "I've got a crazy amount of adrenaline right now. As long as I stay conscious, I'm good to go." Folding his wrapped arm against his chest, Andrew shifted to sit more comfortably even though the moss underneath him was bloodstained. He looked up at the faoladh, who was hyperventilating as Liath wiped Andrew's blood off her face with a rag from Ingrid. Fionna howled, the sound ripped from a deep well of misery and shame. Ingrid whispered to her, holding the girl's hands in her graceful fingers. Soon the blood on her cheeks was gone, but it was quickly replaced by tears and snot.

Andrew crawled over to her, butting his forehead into Fionna's temple so the girl was forced to respond to him. She nuzzled into his neck, the tang of his blood stronger when she came near to his arm. Fionna resisted the urge to lick at the wound, instead allowing him to hold her tightly as their racing heartbeats synchronized, as they curled into each other, comforting despite the horror that was inflicted upon them.

Micah took one step back from them, then another, and it seemed like he was stepping away from his body as much as from them. A buzzing filled his ears and made his muscles vibrate as he slowly lost feeling in his hands.

Then Ingrid's cool touch fell around his shoulders. She gently smoothed his hair beneath his bone circlet. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to. Her maternal caress did enough, brought him back to his unfinished task, and he allowed her to turn him back to face the fire pit.

While Micah had fixed up Andrew's wrist, the hawthorn had finished growing. Roots twined across Cirrus's prone body like a macabre quilt, dimpling into her flesh, tucking her in as if for an eternal slumber. Micah shot Syabira a dirty look where she squatted beside the fire pit.

Syabira glared back at him with her liquid doe eyes. "This is my last plea to allow her to be buried beneath it forever."

Micah sighed, pressing his hand flat against his sternum, glancing up at Ingrid. The faerie's expression was impassive as she twirled a burgundy curl around her index finger. He returned his gaze to the frustrated gnome. Some of his warning was directed at the hawthorn tree, whose energy was feral, carrying visions of death and destruction.

"Cirrus is just a girl. She's stupid, and guilty, but she's just a girl. She isn't my mother." Though this would be easier if she were. If he could simply leave her to become detritus, to allow her flesh and bones to feed the soil beneath Lilydale and grow a glorious bed of chrysanthemums atop the memory of her.

"Look at your knight and his pup," Syabira said through her teeth. "Is the girl who did that to them not wicked?"

"He told you his decision." Ingrid's narrowed eyes snapped down to the gnome.

Chastised, Syabira set her jaw and gazed in silence at her for a moment before deferring. The hawthorn was reluctant as it loosened the net over the girl, undoing the thickest knots and slithering into the soil. As the roots burrowed down, the hawthorn formed into a grown, creaking, swaying tree with a claustrophobic cage of sharp branches and knotted trunk formed overtop of the unconscious girl. Snarls of hairlike roots imposed on her space, brushing her skin with each rise and fall of her chest. Heavy red berries drooped among dark green leaves.

Micah formed a mound of roots for himself where he took a seat beside her cage and laid his staff across his knees. The scraggly bars separated as he reached through them, so when he wound back his arm, the force he brought down to slap Cirrus across the face was loud enough to stop all conversation among the Folk behind him. Cirrus spasmed, moaned, and shook her head, blinking hard. A blue bruise smeared across her forehead from Micah's staff, and her cheek and jaw turned pink from his slap.

"All right, now that you've had your fun." Micah steepled his fingers, elbows on his knees as he leaned forward. "Let's talk."

"Fuck you!" Cirrus wept, clutching her face. She tried to sit up, but she didn't have enough room in her cage. She was forced to remain on her hands and knees, roots snagging in her hair. "What is this? Why am I in a tree?"

"Oh, the hawthorn?" Micah gazed up at it. "Hawthorns have a wicked reputation, said to contain bad luck. But it depends on your perspective. As it stands, it's a container, for you. The wicked one."

Cirrus's eyes widened. "Am I gonna rot in here forever?"

"Oh." Micah's lips curved. "You've heard? I do have a track record of doing that, don't I? Well, the idea has been thrown around. But I'm more curious about your origin story. Every villain has one. Go on. Tell me."

"No!" She spat and hissed like a cat, her breathing getting frantic, like it did before she forced Fionna to bend to her will.

Impatient, Micah grabbed Cirrus's chin so their eyes met. "You made an innocent girl rip open my fiancé's wrist. I'm done asking nicely. Tell me what I need to know." A whiff of mulberries carried on his breath. Evergreen ringed his luminous nightshade eyes for a flash, and then it vanished.

Cirrus's pupils dilated, reflecting a dozen torches within their black depths as her jaw went slack and her lips rounded between his fingers. She blinked the last of her tears away with a dreamy sigh. Ingrid and Andrew exchanged a look, sharing wonder over how easily Micah had charmed Cirrus. Over his head, though he didn't notice, the whistling wind masked the creaking of the redwood as it stretched taller in the darkness.

Cirrus chewed on her cheek as if trying to fight his compulsion, biting through the thin skin with a pop of copper spreading over her tongue. She swallowed. "I heard about the bluffs in high school and used to think it all sounded so magical and mysterious," Cirrus whispered. "I was wrong. All you guys bring is chaos and fear."

"According to whom?" Micah demanded.

"My dead brother." Cirrus's voice cracked. "We were told three years ago he died by suicide. But I found out last year that he was fucked out of his mind on a slice of Fae-spelled fruit and he jumped off the High Bridge thinking it was a fucking water park. You don't care! You'll never have to care."

"You're wrong." Micah spoke as if to a child. "And it sucks that your whole revenge mission against me was built on a misconception. I'm sorry about your brother—nobody should lose somebody like that, but—"

"Oh, you think you're different because you've got a sad human dad?" Cirrus sneered.

Micah stiffened. A crease appeared between his eyebrows. "How the hell do you know about my dad?"

Cirrus rolled her eyes, propping her cheek on her fist as if the pose could give her some power despite being stuck on her belly in the bowels of a tree. "Sam talks to him all the time."

Micah wouldn't have needed to hear Andrew's hissed profanity to feel his fiancé grow tense behind him.

Andrew came to stand near Micah's hip, fire in his eyes. "How did you make him cooperate? Did he want to?"

"No, of course not." She snorted. "Little bitch was stupidly loyal to you, you crabby asshole."

"Then what?" snapped Micah.

"Easy." Despite the charm making her spill her secrets, Cirrus clearly reveled in their uncertainty, in their rapidly mounting fury. "Threatened him. Said if he didn't give me the vial of your blood, I'd feed pathetic old Julian Fae-spelled foods till he died."

Micah recoiled as if she hit him, eyes bulging. He was no longer himself, skin lit from within with glowing fury, muscles corded like a lynx that found its prey. The roots of the hawthorn stirred and constricted on her like snakes. Micah lunged and seized her throat, her delicate skin so tempting to crush under his palm, under his curled fingers. Turning red and then violet, Cirrus choked, but his grip on her tightened, holding her fast.

"You are a worm!" His voice was the cracking of a falling tree. His features were contorted, teeth bared, spittle flying from his lips. A deep and rumbling creaking almost distracted him—almost. "You are nothing. You flounder for meaning and lash out like a mangy dog, and it has changed nothing about how small you are!" A blood vessel burst in her eye with a rush of red flooding her sclera.

Holding his breath, Andrew slipped his hand along the corded, twitching muscles of Micah's flexed forearm. Micah flinched, swinging back his free hand as if to strike Andrew away before he sniffed Andrew's almond and tea scent and caught himself.

"You will regret killing her." Andrew's tone was matter-of-fact, a barely audible whisper that tickled Micah's stubble. "You don't want her death on your heart."

Micah gave the girl a vicious shove with a growl and released her to fall heavily onto her belly. She wheezed and sobbed, the charm on her effectively broken but the fight gone from her too as her complexion turned from deep red to pink and back to clammy white. Red scribbles marked her face where more blood vessels burst.

"I curse you," Micah snarled, the root cage parting with a groan to allow Cirrus to depart, though he stayed where he was and blocked her way. He swiped his thumb through the illuminated tip of his birchwood staff and came away with a fingerful of glittering moisture that he painted across Cirrus's forehead. The girl was too startled and addled to move away; the mark faded into her skin but for a dark green line like a permanent marker would have left. "I curse the memories you have of Lilydale so they fade to a dream and you can't meddle in our affairs ever again. I curse you to sit in the misery you have wrought like perpetually wet socks. I curse your feet to turn you away from this place and keep you pointed toward the boring mediocre life you deserve." He grabbed her by the collar of her dirty shirt and dragged her forth from beneath the hawthorn tree, putting her on her feet. The evergreen rings returned to Micah's eyes as he leaned close enough that his nose brushed the girl's. "Now you will walk home and may your feet be frostbitten and sore by the time you get back into your miserable little bed. Goodbye forever, Cirrus."

He gave her a shove toward the Brickyard Trail, easily two miles north from Lilydale on a treacherous path made worse by the winter and the dark. But if she slipped and fell, that would be her own damn fault. Micah's gaze landed on the moth-winged male, Reave. "I want her watched around the clock. If there's seeing devices we can set up, fine, but for now, follow her home and report back when someone's swapped you out to relieve you." The pixie nodded his understanding as his brown and white moth wings flapped between his shoulder blades and carried him into the stars in pursuit of Cirrus, who shrank swiftly into the distance until she was swallowed up in the dark.

The fluorescent hospital lights ached against the backs of Andrew's eye sockets. The sterile smell made his sinuses hurt, and the constant phones ringing, pagers dinging, and doors slamming made him yearn for the quiet wildlife in Lilydale. He sat in a scantily padded waiting room chair while Micah bounced his leg in the neighboring seat, his thumbnail grinding between his teeth till he snapped it off. He rolled the nail between his fingertips before moving in on his index finger.

"Micah," Andrew hissed.

Micah jumped. His distant gaze sharpened. "Hm?" He looked down as Andrew tugged his hand away from his mouth before he groaned. "Sorry." Andrew nodded, forcing Micah to hold his hand while the questionnaire clipboard balanced precariously under their knuckles on his knee. Underneath Andrew's makeshift sling, Micah had topped the dressing of leaves and cloth with the birchwood staff, which had honestly dampened the throbbing down to a faint sting. And it kept changing, too. The pain. Waves of soothing warmth coursed inside his veins and his torn ligaments. But Micah wouldn't hear of it, wouldn't allow Andrew to follow the violent urge to curl up in bed and sleep until Ostara.

"Andrew?" A small nurse in pink scrubs stood back as an automatic door hissed open, her pink and purple braids pulled neatly over one shoulder. Micah jumped up and helped Andrew to his feet, murmuring false pleasantries as he dragged Andrew along after the sleepy, polite nurse. She dropped them off in a cold exam room with a curtain instead of a fourth wall, took his blood pressure and temperature—too low, and too high, respectively—and then left them to wait for the next provider. Micah had another fingernail between his teeth as he paced in tight circles next to the exam table where Andrew kicked his feet and scrolled through news articles on his phone.

"Why are you acting so nonchalant?" Micah finally demanded. He planted his hands on his hips, head cocked. He looked so different now than when he was interrogating Cirrus, as a powerful Fae lord harnessing the land to his bidding. Now he was a mother hen, worrying incessantly, guilt plain on his pinched features.

Andrew looked up slowly. He pushed his hair off his brow, tucking it behind his ear. "I told you that it doesn't hurt that bad."

"That's shock, babe. Your vitals say so." Micah waved a hand that sent his flannel flapping near his elbow.

Andrew stifled a laugh. "Whatever you say, love."

"Don't—" Micah growled and turned away, arms crossed. "Maybe Syabira was right, and I should've…"

Andrew leaned forward to catch Micah's wrist and tugged him over to the table. "Let me lay on your chest." Tense as he was, Micah was forced to oblige. He held Andrew delicately as if he might break, chin on the crown of his red hair. Cheek to chest, Andrew listened contentedly as Micah's frantic heartbeat gradually slowed.

Then someone spoke from the curtain and peeked inside, and a young Somali doctor in a hijab stepped into their space and pulled the curtain shut behind herself.

"I hear you have a potential broken wrist," said the doctor as Micah stepped out of her way. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Andrew's face went blank. "Um—"

"We rescued a wolf dog," Micah said without hesitation. "She came from a bad situation. We're still working on rehabilitation. She bit him."

"We don't blame her," Andrew added hurriedly. "We'll get her there."

The doctor nodded as she pulled around a metal tray to rest Andrew's elbow on it. "What's all this? Is this bark? And leaves?"

"Naturopathic treatments." When the doctor moved to pull gloves from a cardboard box fixed to the wall, Micah nudged the birchwood bracelet so it climbed up to sit on Andrew's bicep instead of his wrist. "We dressed it about four hours ago."

Once she had on a pair of thin blue gloves, she carefully unwrapped the leaves and used a salt-smelling pad to dab at the caked on blood, working in silence for a while and going through several pads to clear it all away. When it was cleaned, she sat back, blinking long curly eyelashes. "I…don't see any open wounds." She carefully pressed on Andrew's delicate wrist bones, checking for the fracture that Andrew and Micah both knew had been there earlier. "I don't feel a break. We can do imaging, but…"

Andrew stared at his wrist with his mouth hanging open. Experimentally, he flexed his fingers into a fist. The oozing puncture wounds from earlier had closed up into dark brown scabs that could have been two or three days old.

"Oh." A giddy spark lit in Micah's chest. He quickly met Andrew's eyes, the trace of evergreen so fleeting in Micah's aubergine gaze that Andrew almost missed it. "Hey, what a relief it's not more serious. You know, I think we're going to go. Hey, you did great work. Come on, Andrew. Let's get home."

Andrew smelled the mulberries overpower the sterile scent of the hospital and saw the quizzical arch of the doctor's brow, but she didn't fight them as they hustled from the room and wove through orderlies and patients and wheelchairs until they made it out the front doors.

"I told you!" Andrew giggled as Micah dragged him past the drop off zone, hanging a left until they got to the street parking spot where Micah's hybrid was parked. "You—we—this wild and magical night healed me itself."

"I don't understand." Micah combed through his hair with his fingers. "What does the birchwood do for you? It should really be a conduit to help access magic more easily. If we gave it to, say, my dad, it would just be a walking stick. So you must have something of your own that it communicates with."

Andrew shrugged as Micah put him in the passenger seat and buckled him in. Truthfully, he was limp with relief as he stared at the minor wound on his wrist. No cast for his wedding day, no lasting damage to Andrew's sword hand. He nestled into Micah's plush leather seat. "I'm so excited to be in bed."

Untwisting from checking his blind spots, Micah slipped onto the road to follow West Seventh back to his brownstone, streetlights flashing against his windshield, staining them gold between slanting slashes of navy blue. He glanced at Andrew and sucked his teeth. "I'm not going to stop bringing this up until we have some explanation."

"Why?" Andrew's gaze was shot with mahogany when he lazily met Micah's eyes. "I don't need answers. I just know it's there." Micah scrutinized the hue of Andrew's eyes, feeling a sense of unfamiliarity. It was like the soil-brown of Andrew's eyes had spun on the color wheel of his irises, what had once for so long been honey was now more like wine.

Micah hummed, returning his attention to the road until he came to his parking spot behind the row of brownstones on Saint Claire. He kept a protective hand on Andrew's back as they entered the dark house, Cinnamon coming to greet them with a tremble in his feathery tail. He was excited to tell Micah about their additional visitor, how she smelled like shortbread cookies and wore warm flannels and wool socks that Cinnamon wanted to sleep on. Micah smiled and bent to scratch his head as they moved with extra caution through Julian's level of the brownstone. For years it had only been Micah's father sleeping on that level, but now Liath slept in the room on the end next to Fionna's room. Fionna had her door open, so Andrew peeled off from Micah's grip to go check on the slumbering girl. Her little bed was buried beneath a mountain of stuffed toys, fluffy blankets, and cartoon pillows. Snoring softly, she hardly stirred when Andrew brushed his fingers over her forehead, her stray hairs tickling the pads of his fingertips. Micah threaded their hands together and kissed Andrew's jaw before they slowly backed out of the girl's room.

Liath's low murmuring voice drifted beneath the crack of her door as she talked to someone on the phone. Andrew listened for a moment, just to hear her talk, his eyes suddenly stinging.

"What's wrong?" Micah whispered.

"My mum and your father are sleeping under the same roof." Andrew glanced between the parallel doors as Cinnamon wound between his legs. "Isn't that wild?"

Micah chewed his lip, leaning into Andrew's side as Andrew draped his arm around his shoulders. "I kinda like it."