Chapter 27

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Beware the Stag Man who hunts in the forest deep.

His arrows never miss a maiden's heart to keep.

The Stag Man, the boogeyman of my childhood, was nothing like Grandmother had made him out to be. Surely no one as ruthless and malicious as that fable character could be confused with this glorious creature standing before me. She had to be wrong. She'd been wrong about so many other things, or at least partially incorrect, so why not with him?

And yet, the ornate bow he carried in hand looked as well used as it did well cared for, and the quiver slung low on his hips was well stocked with long arrows as thick around as my finger. Encircling his throat was a necklace of golden wire strands and many rough-cut gemstones, each one shining like it had a tiny star trapped inside. His jewel-like eyes held the same compassion for a lover as they would a deer he was about to claim for supper. There was something both alluring and savage about him at the same time.

"It's dangerous," Mom had told me once when I was sixteen, "to anthropomorphize the fae. They might look like us, apart from their height and pointed ears and general etherealness, but they are not human. They are not supes, either. And to confuse them as such would be a deadly mistake. Theirs is the magic of deception and illusion, designed to lull and distract, then strike."

He was striking. As a lynx, but just as a lynx was not a housecat, this Stag Man, though he had banished the sluagh, was not necessarily my friend. But oh how a traitorous part of me wished he would be.

It physically hurt when he took his focus off of me to glance down at the mewling magic hunter in the nearby leaves. When jealousy speared through me, the rational part of me, which seemed to be diminishing, realized, Thistle thorns, am I so desperate for his attention already?

"You're bleeding, child of Man," the fae told the magic hunter. There was no sympathy in his voice; he was merely stating a fact. Crouching down, he passed a hand over the ragged stump and sealed the wound. It healed a moment later with only a gently puckered scar hinting to the trauma he'd just endured. "There you are."

"Thank you, my lord." The magic hunter scrambled to his knees and bowed.

"If spilling blood in the forest is so abhorrent," I said, somewhat petulantly, for I wanted to be the center of the Stag Man's attention, "you should know he attacked us ." Through the brain fog, my rational self was screaming that the magic hunter wore a tattoo on his neck identical to the rack of antlers protruding from the Stag Man's head, but it was easily ignored.

The Stag Man straightened, a raised copper eyebrow disappearing into his mop of curls. "Did he now? Then he must be punished."

The fae lurched down, seized hold of the magic hunter's neck, and lifted him bodily into the air. "Should I suffocate him? Or end it quickly by snapping his neck?"

Half of me was thrilled that he valued my opinion in this matter. The other half was horrified. That latter part won out and I cried, "By the Green Mother, leave him be!"

The fae regarded me curiously. "As you wish." He tossed the magic hunter across the clearing with the same effort it took to drop a sachet of tea into a cup of steaming water.

"Meadow, get away from him," Grandmother rasped. It hardly held any of her usual authoritative tone. There was nothing but desperation and fatigue in her words. The summoning, the healing magic, and the failed shield against the sluagh had drained her. What could she—or the rest of my family—do for me now?

My family .

There were more than Hawthornes in my family now.

The Crafting Circle ladies were clustered among the witches, seeking safety in numbers, but Sawyer—

Wystan the hobgoblin was pressing a hand over his left eye socket, trembling from shock or rage or both, all of his weight pressing down on the spiked club that pinned my tabby tomcat's tail to the frozen ground. Sawyer must've sacrificed a moment to retrieve the stomped pixie, for the little creature—somehow miraculously still alive—was held in the tomcat's mouth. Unable to flee without the risk of losing his tail or the pixie, Sawyer had tucked himself up tight to endure whatever came next.

Grief cut through the haze dulling my senses like a stinging slap. "Little cat," I cried, tears springing to my eyes.

But it wasn't his pitiful moans that punctuated the night air.

I twisted around, the tear in my heart from Sawyer's pain ripping fully apart. "A-Arthur?"

The grizzly bear had shredded the black mallaithe to kindling. Black bits of woody flesh oozed blue sap into the ground in a circle of carnage with him in the epicenter of it all. A truly resounding and decisive victory, marred only by the tiniest of cuts on the bear's cheek.

The hulking beast had slumped to the ground, his great chest heaving like a bellows, as the venom of the mutated mallaithe took root and spread. To see such a powerful and indestructible animal felled by something so small and insignificant… My Arthur—

Enraged, I struck with my battle magic and the power of the hearth ember. I was alert now, no golden feel-good haze befuddling my thoughts. Angry, fiery briars slapped Wystan away from his club, yanked that club from the ground, and swung that club right into his fanny. Sawyer yowled in pain upon his abrupt release but collected himself quickly, streaking away from the howling hobgoblin with the pixie cradled in his mouth. He tossed his head, flinging Dart into the air, and the little creature buzzed weakly on crumpled wings, retreating towards the farmhouse.

As the hobgoblin fled the clearing, removing himself as an immediate threat and screeching obscenities about green witches, I set my sights on the magic hunter. He was still reeling from where the Stag Man had tossed him. My fire-laced briars shot across the clearing and netted around him faster than he could blink, his skin sizzling where the magic touched him. A vicious yank on the briars had him dragged screaming across the clearing to the bear.

Snatching him by the throat in eerie mimicry of what the Stag Man had just done, I only hauled him to his feet before I thrust a finger at the suffering shifter. " Fix him ," I screamed. If he had the power to command the mutated mallaithe, he might know the antidote to their venom.

A large warm hand enclosed around my wrist, and suddenly I wasn't so furious. Gently but firmly, the Stag Man eased my hand away from the man's throat. I didn't want to let go, but something in his touch was so warm, so calming, that eventually my fingers opened a fraction. "Easy, love," the Stag Man soothed. "He's of no use if he's dead."

Strange, for the Stag Man had been so amenable to the act of snapping his neck just a moment ago. I shook my head, but the golden haze had returned.

The magic hunter dropped to the ground with a gasp and crawled away as the fae turned to the grizzly bear. The Stag Man hummed to himself, then leaned forward and plucked a splinter I hadn't noticed from the tiny wound and flicked it away.

The bear immediately shifted back into a naked man slumped against the cold ground, but the venom was still in him.

Instead of rushing to Arthur's side, I turned to the Stag Man, seizing his hand in both of mine. His jewel-like eyes blazed at the touch, but he didn't pull away. No, he looked down at me fondly, the way a benevolent lord indulged their favorite servant. It felt wonderful.

"Can you heal him?"

"Of course," he answered simply. "I am the master of beasts, the king of forests. Such things are under my command."

"Please," I begged, "heal him."

My family was too weak to do it, plus they were all unconscious. There were no more healing potions to be had, no more spells. I didn't know the ones that had saved me, hadn't learned them, hadn't been taught them, probably because my family never thought I'd ever encounter a mallaithe, much less a mutated one, since I was supposed to stay sequestered in the manor forever. And good luck convincing my grandmother to heal Arthur when she had her entire coven to protect with the dregs of her magic.

"What will you give me in return?" the Stag Man asked. Though his tone was gentle, there was a hardness there, too. Fae gave away nothing for free; there was always a price.

The anger at my ignorance and those who'd fostered it had me replying, "What do you want?"

"Meadow, no!" Grandmother protested.

We both ignored her. She held no power here. This was between me and him. It always had been.

In the back of my mind, a fearful thought niggled at me through the golden haze. Was this the choice I'd been foretold to make? Save one life… and sacrifice what in order to do it?

While I didn't shy away from his touch, I didn't lean into it when the Stag Man cupped my cheek and smoothed away the tear glistening there. Such a tender gesture was Arthur's right, not his. That seemed to offend him, the discontentment flicking across his face so quickly I wasn't even sure I'd seen it.

"I need your help," he answered simply, his voice and face once again serene and inviting. Lulling.

His voice was so nice. It sounded even deeper, richer, and nourishing when he was touching me like this. If I could make a blanket out of his voice, I'd want to curl up in it with a good book and a cup of tea and never leave. "For… what?" It was an effort to get the words out.

"To go home to Elfame—"

Elfame! The word was like a hot poker to the fanny. That's the home of the Seelie Courts, where the Wandering Mirror is! That was how I was going to get Marten home. How had I already forgotten about him?

"—but I'm too weak to open the portal."

Wait, what? "But the sluagh," I protested. "You healed that man's arm—"

He shook his head sadly. "A different kind of magic, love. But you." His hand slid sensuously down my neck to meld over my healed shoulder, the one that bore no scar. His fingers squeezed. While his touch was thrilling, it was not as enflaming as Arthur's was. "You are Violet's true daughter. You could do it."

I gestured helplessly to the mirror in the clearing. "It took nine of us to use that one. I'm just one witch."

"With unlocked potential." His gaze grew cold as he looked over my head at Grandmother. "She has been holding you back. I could teach you. Free your magic." The crystals on the twisted golden wire of his necklace shimmered at his offer.

Every alarm bell went off in my head, but I couldn't figure out why. Not with that golden haze dulling my senses, lessening my worries. Then Arthur's labored, wheezing breath changing to an irregular, ragged pattern tore through my distraction as clearly as if Grandmother had shouted " Focus " directly into my ear canal.

"I can only promise that I'll try," I blurted. " If you save him first."

"Is that your official bargain?"

"Meadow," Grandmother began again.

"Silence, witch," the Stag Man thundered. Grandmother croaked, clawing at her silent throat, and the Crafting Circle ladies did the same, spelled to the same silence. The fierce sharpness of his expression smoothed as he looked down at me, smiling gently. "My love?"

The more he called me that, the more I wanted to believe it was true. Yet… he wasn't Arthur. The chain that connected us thrummed in warning, and I blinked rapidly. Was there a glamour or compulsion spell being woven here?

Clarity partially returned like the sun breaking through the clouds on a stormy day, and I realized the stimulus was coming from my ankle. From where Sawyer pressed his little body against mine. From that bond we had forged by ourselves for ourselves.

"Meadow," Arthur groaned. His voice was so faint I barely heard it over the thundering of my pulse, but my heart sang to hear my name on his lips. The chain tightened, calling me away from the golden haze.

I fled the searing gaze of the fae to drop down beside him, snuffing out my battle magic and cradling his head in my hands. The contact we shared did two things: it blasted asunder whatever illusion or seduction magic was going on here and told me with no uncertain terms from the searing, feverish heat of his skin that Arthur Greenwood was dying. I forced my healing green magic into him, but the venom was nothing I'd ever seen. It was not of this realm. I could blast him, perhaps, like I had done the dead elm tree, but that'd been just a fluke. I'd need to concentrate to do that again, and I couldn't even get my hands to stop trembling.

Not even the hearth ember could help me now. I hooked the censer on to the strap of my foraging bag then swept the sweat-darkened strands of Arthur's hair away from his pale face.

Panic injected a tremor into my voice. "Arthur—"

"Don't," he begged. He was so far gone he couldn't even open his eyes. "Not… worth it."

"You are to me."

He shook his head, soft tears leaking through his closed eyes.

"Maybe you should listen to him," Sawyer offered in a small voice. "Is this the one he's been protecting you from all this time? He's projecting an aura that's—"

"And you are, cat?" the Stag Man demanded abruptly, the languid melody of his voice replaced by a harsh snap.

The tabby tomcat said nothing, instead bushing out his fur.

"Arthur," I whispered again, stroking the thick hair of his cropped beard. "I can't let you die. I haven't told you—" A sob caught in my throat, choking off my words.

The strength he'd been clinging to abruptly left him, my gentle giant collapsing into my lap.

With the same speed of the Rabbit Step Spell, I eased Arthur's head down to the ground, shot up to my feet, and thrust out my hand to the Stag Man.

"What is your name?" I demanded of the fae.

His jewel-like eyes glittered. The fae was obviously miffed at something, whether it was Sawyer's doubt or my brashness. "Ossian."

I didn't have the time to determine if he was lying to me like I had to Arcadis. According to legend, the fae couldn't lie, but I wasn't going to take any chances. Not when I felt the golden haze creeping back into my consciousness.

"I, Meadow, will do my best to open the portal to Elfame with my magic, only if the fae I've been introduced to as Ossian saves Arthur Greenwood's life right now, agrees to teach me how to unlock my magic in order to accomplish my end of this bargain, and doesn't hurt my family or friends. Oh! And the portal must be opened at least three days before the winter solstice," I added hastily. I hoped that would be enough time to get into Elfame, find the Wandering Mirror, and get it to Arcadis to ransom my brother.

The corner of Ossian's mouth quirked up, his irritation forgotten. "This isn't your first fae bargain, is it?"

I thrust my outstretched hand even closer to him, fighting against the golden haze of his influence. "Do you accept?"

"High fae lords of the Seelie Courts don't shake hands to seal their bargains," he told me, nevertheless taking my hand. He pulled me in close, wrapping his other arm around me so I couldn't get away. My free hand found his chest and braced against him, keeping a distance, however small, between us. "They kiss."

"Mm-mmm!" came Flora's muffled protest, the garden gnome waving her hands and shaking her brown curls furiously.

I wasn't sure what her hullabaloo was all about. So close to Ossian, it was impossible not to smell his faint musk, to bask in the golden aura emanating from his bare skin, to be swallowed up in his jewel-like gaze. "Like… on the cheek?" I managed to get out.

He cocked an eyebrow. "What kind of bargain would that seal?"

Not a very strong one, I supposed. But… I'd only ever kissed Arthur. Only ever wanted to kiss Arthur.

"Meadow," Sawyer cried from where he crouched by the lumberjack shifter's head.

"His heartbeat fades with your indecision," Ossian told me.

Surging up on tiptoe, I shut my eyes and crushed my lips against the Stag Man's mouth.