The door swung open a moment later to reveal a barren, desolate house. No movement stirred within.

  A chilling winter breeze swept around me. I glanced around the clearing- Cervis had vanished, as had the light from the house. Cobwebs stretched across the porch and the door frame; caution drove my step as I eased into the front room of the house. Sudden gusts of wind careened against the broken, dried wood of the house and slammed the door shut behind me. Grayed boards creaked underfoot.

  The set-up was quite similar to our old house- a wide parlor opened left of the door, while a staircase hugged the wall separating the parlor from the dining room. But all this remained quite empty.

  “Hello?” I called into the chilling silence. My skin prickled. Had Cervis taken me to the wrong place? A sense of foreboding crept along my spine- had he meant to?

  His conditions returned to mind- not to speak to any of my mother’s people. Did that actually include my family? If this all was an elaborate rouse, what was the gain?

  Something shifted overhead, and a howl broke through the windswept night that screamed outside. The walls intercepted the wind, but the parlor steadily chilled in the drafts that broke through the seams. I turned to the stairs and started slowly up them. Investigating the origin of the noise upstairs seemed an easier task than returning to the wintry landscape to seek out Cervis- and suddenly, I didn’t trust him anyway.

  At the upstairs landing, only the thinnest beams of light spilled through holes in the roof to illuminate the dusty, rotten floorboards. A gaping darkness offered the only indication of a large hole in the floor. I edged along the wall, feeling along with my toes before taking any steps.

  Caution halted my movement as I neared the room that- in my old house- would have been shared by me and two of my sisters. It occurred to me the rouse might not have been set by Cervis, but that he may have been ensnared by enchantment just as I had been. From the edge of the clearing, no indication presented itself that the well-lit house homed such darkness.

  But what choice had I except to go on?

  I pushed open the door, deciding not to speak to anyone until I knew their identity-

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  But inside, I found Calya.

  My sister leapt from the floor in shock, exclaiming, “Aster! Oh, Aster, it was dreadful!”

  She threw herself at me, and I caught her in open arms, gasping and saying, “Calya, what happened?”

  She trembled from head to toe and fright creased her brows and widened her blue eyes. She wrung her hands together, glancing at the shadows. “Th-th-they all left when she came, bu-but I was asleep-! I- they forgot about me.”

  “What!? Who came? Calya, calm down, breathe. Talk to me.”

  “But Aster, why are you here?” Calya shrank back. “Are you her?”

  “Who, Calya? Am I who?”

  She shrank back again, hugging herself, and leaned on the wall. “I was so frightened when I heard someone came in- I thought she had returned- I…”

  She trailed off, shaking staccato breaths shuttering out of her. I leaned forward and placed a hand on her arm. “Calya, it’s me. It’s Aster. The Stag said I could come back for Midwinter. But what’s happened?”

  Calya looked up. “The Stag? So you didn’t run away?”

  “Of course not! I made a deal with him.”

  “But- I thought you were his prisoner!”

  “Oh, no, it’s not like that anymore,” I assured her. “He’s actually… Well, he’s not sweet. But he’s not evil.”

  Calya maintained her wide-eyed stare. “And he just let you come back?”

  “For the night, he said I could.”

  Calya’s wide-eyed stare receded, replaced by a hardness foreign to her soft features. She looked… Very unlike Calya. “I see. He cares for you, then? For what you want?”

  Suspicion narrowed my eyes. “Calya… Why are you asking so many questions?”

  A small, tinkling laugh emerged from her rosy lips, and she seemed to shine even in the darkness. “Oh, dear. You humans are so easily manipulated.”

  A chill entirely unrelated to the weather swept through me from head to toe, and then suddenly someone grabbed my arm.

  “Aster!”

  As if being pulled from black water, pressure left my head I hadn’t noticed, and the darkness melted away.

  I sat on the floor of the parlor, in Rendra’s arms. My sisters and father crowded around me. A fire hissed and cracked nearby.

  Fear overcame any comfort or relief they may have offered.

  “Aster?” came Calya’s soft, gentle voice.

  I scrambled to my feet.

  “I have to find Cervis- now.”