“I doubt he would have the least interest in anything like that,” I tell her, flinching away from her fingers.

  This time she lets me go, grabbing one of my braids instead. She hauls me to my feet, using it like a leash.

  I reach into my pockets and find the knife that Oak lent me to strip the log and pull it from its sheath.

  The hag’s eyes flare with anger at the sight of me with a weapon pointed at her. “The prince is your enemy.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I shout, slashing through the braid she’s holding me by. Then I take off through the woods again.

  And again, she gives chase.

  “Halt,” she calls to me, but I don’t even slow. We crash through the brush. I have lost track, but I think I am headed in the direction of the lean-to. I hope I am headed toward the mortal town.

  “Halt,” she calls. “Hear me out, and when I am done, you may choose to stay or go.”

  Twice before she has nearly had me. I slow my step and turn, knife still gripped in my palm. “And no harm will come to me or my companions by your hand?”

  She gives a wicked smile. “Not this day.”

  I nod but still make sure to leave plenty of space between us.

  “You’d be well served to listen, child,” she says. “Before it’s too late.”

  “I’m listening,” I say.

  The hag’s smile grows. “I’ll wager your prince never told you the bargain Lady Nore offered. That she would trade Madoc to the prince in exchange for the very thing he is bringing north. A foolish girl. You.”

  I shake my head. That can’t be true.

  No, Lady Nore must have asked for Mellith’s heart. That was why he went to the Thistlewitch to find it. What use would Lady Nore have for me, who could command her? But then I recall Oak’s words in the abandoned human house: You’re her greatest vulnerability. No matter her other plans, she has good reason to want to eliminate you.

  If Lady Nore wants me, she wants me dead.

  And hadn’t I wondered if it was me she asked for, when I was in the prisons with Hyacinthe? Suspected and then dismissed the idea. I hadn’t wanted to believe it.

  But the more I think on it, the more that I realize Oak never said that Lady Nore had asked for Mellith’s heart. Only that he hoped to use her need for it against her. That he planned to trick her.

  If it were me that Lady Nore wanted, I can see why he would have hidden so much of his plan. Why he was willing to risk his own neck to keep me out of Queen Annet’s hands. Maybe even why he’d gone looking for Mellith’s heart, if he thought that was something he could give to Lady Nore instead.

  He must have wavered between wanting to save his father and knowing that turning me over to Lady Nore was monstrous.

  At Undry Market, we can decide Wren’s fate. That was what he said. And now I know what decision he will come to.

  “Do not forget your place.” She pokes me in the side. “You’re not his servant. You’re a queen.”

  “No longer,” I remind her.

  “Always,” she says.

  But my thoughts are on Oak, on the power I have over Lady Nore, and on how my death might be worth Madoc’s life.

  “I don’t understand—why did she send those creatures against us if Oak was doing as she asked?”

  Bogdana grins. “The message was sent to the High Queen, not to Oak. By the time the prince began his quest, Lady Nore had become frustrated, waiting. You need to wake up to the danger you’re in.”

  “You mean from someone other than you?” I ask.

  “I am going to tell you a story,” Bogdana says, ignoring my words. “Would that I could say more, but certain constraints on me prevent it.”

  I blink at her, but I find it hard to concentrate on what she’s saying, when her accusations toward Oak hang heavily in the air.

  “It’s a fairy tale of sorts,” the storm hag begins. “Once upon a time, there was a queen who desperately wanted a child. She was the third bride of a king who’d murdered the two before her when they failed to conceive, so she knew her fate if she could not give him an heir. His need for a child was different than that of most monarchs in fairy tales—he planned for his issue to be his means of betraying the High Court—but his desire was as acute as any stemming from family feeling. And so the queen consulted alchemists, diviners, and witches. Being magical herself, she wove spells and brought she and her husband together on propitious nights, on a bed spread with herbs. And yet no child quickened in the queen’s womb.”

  No one had ever spoken to me of my birth before, nor of the danger Lady Nore had been in from Lord Jarel. I had heard none of this, and my skin prickles all over with the premonition that whatever comes next, I won’t like it.

  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?”

  “I told her that last I saw, you were in the company of a prince, and that he had taken you prisoner. She wanted to help, of course. But mortals will make a muddle of most anything, don’t you find?”

  “What did you do?” My voice is almost all breath.

  “Gave her some advice, is all,” says Bogdana, stepping into the shadows of the trees. “And now I am giving you some. Get away from that Greenbriar boy before it’s too late. And when I see you again, you’d best do what I ask. Or I can snuff out that spark I put inside you. And snuff out your little unfamily, too, while you watch.”

  I am shaking all over. “Don’t you dare touch—”

  At that moment, Tiernan steps through the branches. “Traitor!” he shouts at me. “I caught you.”

  Tiernan looks across the clearing at me, his sword drawn. I take a step back, unsure if I ought to race off into the night.

  Bogdana has disappeared into the woods, leaving behind only the distant hiss of rain.

  I shake my head vehemently, holding up my hands in warding. “You’re wrong. Bogdana surprised me. I ran from her again, but she said she wanted to talk.…”

  He peers into the forest, as if expecting to find the storm hag still lurking there. “It seems obvious you were conspiring with her.”

  My mind is reeling, thinking of how puzzled Tiernan was when Oak suggested we part ways. Thinking of how clever it was to let me believe I was on this quest of my own free will.

  I recall Tiernan tethering me in the motel. Barely speaking with me. Now I can guess the reason. He’d always considered me a sacrifice, something to look away from, something to which one ought not become attached. I shake my head. What defense can I give, when telling the truth would expose their deception?

  “She warned me about continuing north,” I say. “And she thought I should help her instead of Oak. But I never agreed to it.”

  He frowns, perhaps realizing all the things he would be unable to deny. Together we walk back to the camp. I pick up new wood as I go.

  And as awful as it is to think about Oak handing me over, everything in me shies away from the story of my making. Am I no more than the sticks I carry and a little magic? Am I like a ragwort steed, something with only the appearance of life?

  I feel sick and scared.

  When we arrive back at the camp, Tiernan sets about moving the fire out from beneath the lean-to so it doesn’t set the whole thing ablaze once the sticks dry out. To keep my hands busy, I weave branches together and knot them with more pieces of my dress to create a mat for our dwelling. Everything is still wet, droplets falling from trees with every gust of wind, causing the fire to smoke and sputter. I try not to think about anything but what I am doing.

  Eventually, the heat dries things out enough for Tiernan to stretch out on my dampish mat, kick off his soaked and muddy boots, and warm his wet feet by the fire. “What did she offer you for your help?”

  I reach out my hand to the fire. Since I was formed of snow, I wonder if I will melt. I hold my fingers close enough to burn, but all that happens when I snatch them back is that the tips are reddened and they sting.

  “Stop that,” Tiernan says.

  I look over at him. “Bogdana’s offer was to not murder me and my family.”

  “That had to be tempting,” he says.

  “I’d prefer greater politeness than I’ve gotten from anyone who wants to use me for my power,” I tell him, knowing that what he wants to use me for is very different.

  I think Tiernan hears a secret in my voice. But he cannot possibly guess what I have to hide. He cannot know what I am, nor why the storm hag believes I owe her. And if he wonders whether she told me that I am meant to be Madoc’s ransom, he will try to convince himself otherwise. If he didn’t like looking into my face knowing I was a sacrifice, how much worse would it be to look at me if I knew as well?

  I am under no illusions that Bogdana would make for an easy ally, either. Too easily I can picture Bex confronting the storm hag, standing on her lawn in the moonlight. She must have felt dizzy with terror, the way I did when I first saw one of the Folk.

  And yet Bex would not have been nearly afraid enough. I think about the phone in my pocket, now wishing that I could steal away and charge it, call her, warn her.

  I stand and reach for Tiernan’s cloak. He gives me a sharp look.

  “You should hang it to dry,” I say.

  He undoes the clasp and lets me take it. I walk a short way to drape it over a branch, my fingers skirting over the cloth, looking for the strands of my hair he took. Such fine things, so easy to hide. Easy to lose, too, I hope, but I do not find them.

  Oak’s whistling alerts us to his return. His hair is dry, and he’s wearing fresh clothes—jeans that are a little too short in the ankle, along with a cable-knit sweater the color of clotted cream. Over one shoulder he has the straps of a hiker’s backpack. Perching on the other is the owl-faced hob.

  The creature eyes me with evident dislike and makes a low, whistling animal noise, then flies off to a high branch.

  Oak dumps the pack beside the fire. “The town would be lovely during the day, I think, although it lacked something by night. There was a vegetarian place called the Church of Seitan and a farm stand that sold peaches by the bushel. Both closed. A nearby bus station, where various entertainments could be gotten in trade. Sadly, nothing I was in the market for.”

  I glance up at the moon, visible since the storm cleared off. We began flying on the ragwort horses at dusk, so it must be well past midnight now.

  Oak unpacks, taking out and unfolding two tarps. On them, he places an assortment of groceries and a pile of mortal clothes. Nothing has tags, and one of the tarps has a small tear in it. He’s brought back a half-eaten rotisserie chicken in a plastic container. Peaches, despite his saying the stand was closed. Bread, nuts, and figs packed in a crumpled plastic bag from a hardware store. A gallon of fresh water, too, which he offers first to Tiernan. The knight takes a grateful swig from what ought to have been a milk jug, according to the sticker on the side.

  “Where did you get all this?” I ask, because it obviously wasn’t from the shelves of any store. My voice comes out with more edge than I intended.

  Oak gives me a mischievous smile. “I met the family at the farm stand, and they were enormously generous to a stranger caught in a storm on a windy night. Let me take a shower. Even blow-dry my hair.”

  “You vain devil,” Tiernan says with a snort.

  “That’s me,” Oak affirmed. He slides the strap of his own bag over his head and sets it down not too far from the fire. But not with the communal offerings from the backpack, either. That bag is where he must keep the bridle. “I persuaded the family to let me have a few things from their garage and refrigerator. Nothing they’ll miss.”

  A shiver goes through me at the thought of him glamouring that family, or making them love him. I imagine a mother and father and child in the kitchen of their home, caught in a dream. A chubby toddler crying in a high chair while they brought the prince food and clothes, the baby’s cries seeming to come from farther and farther away.

  “Did you hurt them?” I ask.

  He looks at me, surprised. “Of course not.”

  But then, he might have a very limited idea of what hurting them meant. I shake my head to clear it of my own imaginings. I have no reason to think he did anything to them, just because he is planning to do something to me.

  Oak reaches into the pile and pushes a black sweater, leggings, and new socks toward me. “Hopefully they’ll fit well enough for travel.”

  Oak must see the suspicion I feel writ in my features.

  “When we return from the north,” he promises, hand to his heart in an exaggerated way that lets me know he considers this a silly vow rather than a solemn one, “they will wake to find their shoes filled with fine, fat rubies. They can use them to buy new leggings and another roast chicken.”