“Aster! You’ve only just got here!”

  “And I have to leave!” I said, starting for the door. “He’s in danger! I- I don’t know why- or how- but he is!”

  Familiar burly arms scooped me back into the parlor, clasping me against a barrel of a chest. “Aster, what’s going on?”

  Adventurous I may be, but I still wasn’t stronger than my father. I forced myself to take a settling breath, and then ducked out of his hold and turned to face him. My own gray eyes stared back at me.

  “He warned me if I spoke to any faye, it would bring about the doom of both me and him,” I said. “I- I don’t know the details. But I know this.”

  His eyes gained an earnestness. “And did you speak to the faye? We found you on the porch, half-frozen, just an hour ago.”

  An hour? I had barely been in the house minutes! Where was Cervis now? Panic sped my heart.

  “I spoke to a faye,” I said, and explained what I had seen. Father’s eyes darkened.

  “This is grave indeed. We’ll ride immediately to seek your Stag.”

  I turned to my sisters. “I’m sorry- I love you all- but I’ve made a grave mistake, and it won’t just harm me. I have to make this right.”

  Rendra, always pragmatic, was the one to place a hand on my shoulder, meet my eyes, and say, “Go. We support you. If you ever have need of our help, you know where to find us.”

  My heart swelled at the words; no amount of time could create a rift between my sisters and I. We would always be bound together in our hearts.

  But that was for another time.

  Father and I stepped out into the cold night. A small part of me wanted to be upset that I would lose time with my sisters, but more pressing matters quashed any familial sentiment. I could come back for them, and they would be here. But Cervis- Cervis I could not abandon, not when it was I who had crafted his doom.

  Father tacked his gray mare as I reflected on how utterly stupid I had been. I didn’t know what I had done by talking to the faye, or what information she had gathered. She had asked if he cared for me. Of course he did- don’t most people learn to care for each other, at least a little, after living in close quarters for months?

  My mind returned to the night he had guided my hand to his face so I could imagine his features. The realization she might not have meant the most simple definition of caring hit like a kick from a mule. Did Cervis…?

  But it wasn’t the time. The mare was tacked and ready, and Father guided her out of the stall and then turned to me.

  “Do you have any way to find him? I don’t want you straying through the forest on a night like this.”

  “We didn’t exactly discuss contingency plans,” I said. “He simply said to follow the moon.”

  Father nodded, and then swept me into his arms, crushing me against him. “I’ve missed you, dear one. Has this adventure treated you well?”

  “It has,” I said softly, and surprised myself by meaning it.

  The Palewood offered no shortage of gruesome, monstrous beings, and everything there seemed determined to kill me. But I had experienced a period of separation from the life I had known; I spent my days with an ethereal white stag, a talking fox, and a star. I read books about things I had never imagined. I roamed a garden that buzzed with never-ending spring and homed fluttering owl-creatures. I met a godfather I had never known about. And- strangely, the best part was the intellectual, constantly exasperated, and sarcastic Stag I spent my days with.

  “It has,” I repeated, and stepped back. I faced my father. “That’s why I have to save it.”

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  A crinkled smile lined his face. “Go, child- save the world.”

  And I would.

  I climbed aboard the mare and flicked the reins. She started off into the crunching snow as I searched the clouded skies for the moon. There- just to the northwest. I set the mare in that direction, and she started off at a canter along the trail.

  I shivered in the wintry atmosphere and soon had blue lips and numb hands, despite my precautions against the cold. Eyes followed me through the forest- when I turned in their direction, vibrant eyes would blink out of sight, shades of yellow and green and red. What I had done to draw the attention of the faye, I didn’t know, but I kept myself focused on the moon and headed for it. Howling winds sent flurries of snow in spirals all around. It wasn’t any concern to me, however, and we marched on.

  The edge of the wood had come into view when a graceful figure twirled into view from behind a frosted hawthorn. A faye.

  There could be no doubting her beauty. A shimmering amber glow surrounded the faye’s lithe feminine form, and her lily green eyes could charm a snake. A smile toyed at heart-shaped carnation lips, and lifted round cheeks. Silver hair floated to her waist, contrasting to the burgundy and bronze garb that adorned the faye. But it wasn’t her beauty that worried me- it was the long black staff, topped with a red orb, that she held in her hand.

  “You’ll not find your precious prince,” she said. “We made sure he would forget about you.”

  I had already spoken to a faye tonight- I wouldn’t speak to another. I kept the horse halted and avoided meeting her eyes.

  “You’re wondering at our intentions, aren’t you, pet?” the faye woman asked, tilting her head to the side. “You do know your prince is betrothed, right? To a princess. That is why he could never love you. A basic human girl from the forest- as if any prince would demean himself to that.”

  She almost succeeded at provoking me into speech. Almost.

  “We’ve helped him on his way to his one true love. You have no hope of reaching him now.”

  I met her eyes evenly, with a quiet power to my expression that could have stopped an army. The faye gasped, subtly, and then took a step back.

  “You- you’re- you can’t be-”

  For a moment, the faintest trace of clover and pine sap entered the winter-sharp breeze, and I felt my mother with me. I nudged my heel against the gray mare’s side and she took a step closer to the faye.

  The faye stumbled back in the snow, nearly tripping over the tail of her skirt. “Everly’s daughter? The heroine?”

  And it mattered then, somehow, that I confirm this. “You tell your people there is a touch of destiny about me- and no prize offered to you is worth my fury. Now, are you going to move out of my path, or shall I call for my godfather?” I turned my face to the wind. “He already stretches long arms into this forest- would you like to meet him?”

  It became quickly apparent she knew of whom I spoke. I remembered Oto telling me of Inu, the North Wind, and his furious and powerful nature. The faye woman stepped back and bowed low.

  “I apologize,” she said, “And beg your forgiveness. The faye will no longer stand in your way. Go, daughter of Everly- seek any fortune you desire. I will communicate to my brethren that they are not to stop you.”

  I nodded. “See to it that you do.”

  The mare took off once more through the snow at my command.

  A blistering wind chapped my lips and dried my eyes as the night weathered on. Cervis never appeared. My journey had only just truly begun.

  Dawn came, and faded, and dusk settled in again. Needs human and equine stalled the journey. I chose direction by instinct, driving ever onward, as I best remembered the path to and from the Palewood. I never ceased, and I never spoke, and I never dreamed. For a fortnight, I traveled alone- just a mare and I.

  At last, a tundra familiar and foreign came into view beyond a spindly wood. The gray mare plodded ever on, and then we reached its edge- the end of the Land of Free Men.

  I dismounted the mare, following some instinct that she belonged inside this land’s bounds, and then crossed the threshold from tundra to desert.

  Silver moonlight shone on the cream-colored sand. A curving trail wound through the desert, composed entirely of black tracks- hoof-prints, foot-prints, paw-prints, and so on. I added my own boot-tracks to these, and left shadowy indents in the sand. The inconveniences of hunger and weariness cast themselves away as I entered the Desert of Dreams; this was a realm of magic, a land between lands, and no necessity existed here.

  Though the moon hung ever on in the color-splashed sky, it seemed I traveled for days, walking and walking and walking. No end to the dreamless night appeared. Step. Step. Step. Hours stretched endlessly, and much of it consisted of boundless horizons, moonlit sand stretching on and on in either direction. Nothing existed but sand and starlight.

  One thought- a single word- drove my step long after nothing else existed. The context and entity faded from existence within hours of entering the desert, as all ideas became surreal fragments of memory, and nothing mattered but this one thing. After all else had faded into nothing, and this being was reduced to nothing more than an indefinable word, I still carried on. After reason abandoned my aching bones and life seemed but a dizzying shadow, this one thought persevered:

  Cervis.

  And then the Palewood presented itself at last.