“Janara’s already met me, so I can’t play Olwen,” I said with a shrug before looking around at the rest of the people assembled. “And everyone else here is a man.”

  “Hey,” Ophelia said, glaring at me.

  I frowned at her. “I doubt you… smell like the fae.”

  Ophelia cocked her head to the side as though she couldn’t argue my logic.

  “Or we ambush them at their base,” Roy suddenly spouted.

  Fox faced him and shook his head. “Which would be difficult, because that base will be damn near impossible to track. That’s delicate magic, and not my specialty. I’m more of a brute force sort of man.”

  “Delicate magic?” I asked.

  Fox faced me. “Wren is a top-notch sorceress. She’s a touch theatrical and immature for someone her age, but she’s incredible at stealth magic. From what you’ve told me, I would wager she’s probably hidden the children in a faerie ring.”

  “What’s a faerie ring?” I asked.

  “A faerie ring is an enchanted circle,” Wanda responded.

  Fox nodded. “Enchanted with powerful magic to keep those inside… inside. The only consolation is, time ceases to have much meaning inside a faerie ring. It will only be a few minutes for the people trapped inside, though weeks can pass on the outside.”

  My heart squeezed painfully. Poor Finn had to be terrified.

  “What does a faerie ring look like?” I demanded.

  “Just a bunch of mushrooms popping up through the snow, but once you step over the line, you’re trapped in the circle until Wren lets you out,” Fox answered.

  “And faerie rings are almost impossible to spot on a regular Winter’s night, let alone in this snow,” Ophelia added.

  Fox glanced over at me and frowned. “Why are you smiling?”

  “Because,” I said, and I felt the grin stretching my lips even more. For the first time since Principal Schultz had called and reported Finn missing, I felt the stirrings of hope in my chest. “Uncle Tobias inherited a talent through his gypsy blood. He’s got an uncanny talent for finding mushrooms.”

  ***

  “Left!” Uncle Tobias called above the roar of the ATV buggy’s engine.

  “Got it,” Roy acknowledged with a singularly masculine grunt and spun the wheel to the left. We shot off a steep rock ledge and landed with a jarring thump in a pile of snow-covered leaves. They splattered the windshield with mud and sleet, and I clutched at my armrests, biting back a whimper of fear. We’d done this a half dozen times over the last ten minutes, and Roy never slowed, even as the windshield wipers batted impatiently at the undergrowth the wheels had kicked into our sightline.

  At my gasp, Wanda looked over at me.

  “Calm down, gypsy, we’re not going to crash.”

  “Easy for you to say!” I hissed. “You drive like a maniac on a good day!”

  Wanda sighed and leaned more heavily against the door. She looked even crankier than usual. I wondered what peeved her more, that she’d been volunteered to play bait in our little rescue scheme or that she’d been altered so drastically to play the role.

  After Fox was through working his magic, Wanda looked nothing like herself. With few exceptions, witches had black hair, and Wanda’s had trailed to her waist in a curtain of satin-smooth darkness. Like most things about my witchy neighbor, her hair was beautiful. Now, the sheet of hair was braided and shone sterling silver. When it caught the light, it shimmered subtly, like someone had ground diamonds into a fine powder and dusted her hair with the precious dust.

  Her face was delicate and bore some resemblance to Janara’s, though Wanda’s features were less angular. Instead of the eerie, almost colorless irises, Wanda’s eyes were a bleak winter sky blue. Still piercing enough to make me squirm, but not eerie enough to make me want to run in the other direction. She wasn’t the stick figure Janara had been, but she was definitely no buxom beauty like usual.

  I think that, above all else, upset her most. Witches seemed to value their curvy appearances. It had stunned me to learn Wanda was ashamed to have lost weight in the months she’d been away from her coven.

  I wanted to tell her everything was going to be alright, but I held back. Mainly because it wasn’t something I could promise. We were about to face down a wicked faerie queen, her prophet and advisor, and a sorceress who was rumored to be as childish as she was powerful. The deck was stacked against us. Even with a faerie prince and a plethora of magical creatures waiting in the wings, I wasn’t confident this was a fight we could win.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m just...”

  “On edge, because your kid’s been kidnapped by psychotic faeries?” she finished for me, waving away my apology with a snort. “Believe me, I get it. I’m not saying you shouldn’t worry about that. I’m saying you shouldn’t worry about Roy’s driving.”

  Roy nodded. “I know every inch of these woods, Poppy. I could do this blindfolded.”

  “A quarter mile to the right,” Uncle Tobias directed, his nose in the air.

  He tilted his head up at a right angle, nostrils flared wide, scenting the earthy fungus in the air. No one understood how his gift worked or how magic manifested in men of our line, when it usually didn’t manifest in men at all, but thank God he had the gift he did.

  He was sitting up front, next to Roy, head leaned toward a cracked window while Wanda and I sat in the back. Well... ‘sat’ was probably the wrong word. I was at attention, hands rigid claws around the armrest, peering out the windows, trying to spy any trace of the magical ring that held my son and the other faerie-napped children.

  As to Uncle Tobias, he’d been eerily understanding when Wanda, Marty, Henner, Ophelia, Lorcan, Roy and I had turned up at the house, demanding he sign a contract in blood before we could explain anything about Finn’s disappearance. I think he’d suspected a practical joke until Lorcan and Roy gave practical demonstrations of their inhuman natures.

  Then Uncle Tobias had become a believer. And he’d signed Ophelia’s contract.

  The rest of the rescue team, minus Ophelia, were following behind us in three more buggies. I had no idea where Fox would be hiding during all of this, and frankly, I didn’t care, so long as he came through on his end of the bargain.

  I was so absorbed in my thoughts, it took me a few seconds to realize Uncle Tobias had gone silent. He’d half turned in his seat, so he could look at me, his pale eyes as serious as I’d ever seen them. The lines on his face were pronounced, and for the first time he looked like a very old, very tired man. He nodded at me, as if to say we’d arrived.

  “Cut the engine,” he said as he turned back to Roy. “You’ll need to travel on foot or the faeries will hear you coming.” He faced me again. “Got your bags, Poppy?”

  I picked up the hiking backpack from the floor of the buggy. I also reached down and grabbed the Roundup Pump Sprayer. The liquid inside the bottle rippled and shimmered, and the faintest hint of elderflower eased into the interior of the vehicle.

  Wanda eyed it suspiciously. “What’s that supposed to do?”

  My expression wasn’t friendly enough to be a smile. It was more a fierce baring of teeth. Wanda’s lips ticked up, and for a brief moment, I thought she might actually approve of me.

  “Just wait and see.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Wanda’s enchanted wool sweater and overcoat were the only things that were keeping me upright as the wind screamed through the trees. It was blowing with enough force to shake needles loose from the pines, sending them flying like tiny green shrapnel. Even with the coat buttoned up to my collar, radiating enough heat to make me sweat, my face was frozen, and every breath was painful. Anywhere skin was exposed felt raw, and it was a struggle to drag my boots through the calf-deep snow. Even more snow flew at our faces in thick globules, and I had to raise my arm to shield my eyes against the onslaught.

  Wanda strode ahead of me, long-legged and confident, looking regal and every inch a faerie noble. I didn’t understand how she hadn’t transformed into a witch-cicle by now. While I was bundled from head to foot, she wore a long-sleeved silver sheath dress and a pair of short-heeled boots to match.

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” I asked through chattering teeth as we approached a break in the trees. There was a faint glow up ahead, and magic tingled along my skin. We had to be getting close.

  “Oh, I’m ready. Faerie queen or not, this Janara bitch doesn’t violate the sanctity of a Hollow and get away with it.”

  I smiled at her and was starting to believe there really was a good person in Wanda. She just had to be okay with letting that good person out. She was a good choice to play the long-lost Princess of Winter. Apparently Winter faeries were supposed to be cold, distant, and a little snobbish. Wanda fit the bill perfectly. The ruse wouldn’t hold up for long, but Fox said we’d only need a few minutes. In and out. Just long enough to break the circle, free the children, and he’d do the rest.

  And at the thought of freeing the children and holding my son again, I couldn’t keep the smile off my lips.

  I’m coming, Finn, I promised him. Mommy is coming for you.

  Wanda glanced sideways at me. “I think the real question is, are you ready?”

  We stepped up to the edge of the clearing, and I clipped the Roundup to the backpack, eyes narrowing on the shimmering light in the clearing. I could make out three figures and just beyond them, what looked like a gauzy curtain. My eyes narrowed to slits. Finn was somewhere behind that haze.

  I looked back at Wanda. My hands clenched and unclenched at my sides and I let my mind spiral for a few seconds, letting myself go into vivid detail about all the gruesome things I’d do if I had the sort of power Wanda possessed. I didn’t think of myself as a violent person, but Janara had crossed a line. She’d kidnapped my child and she’d put him in danger. “Put it this way. If I get my hands on Janara...” I took a deep breath. “There is no force more powerful than a mother’s love for her child and if someone gets in the way of that… God help them.”

  “Goddess help them,” Wanda corrected me with a little, sly smile.

  “Goddess help them,” I repeated, returning the smile.

  Wanda nodded, satisfied with my answer. “Good. Let’s go get these sons of witches.”

  And with that, she sashayed into the clearing. I followed after her in ungainly lunges, feeling like Igor, weighed down by the backpack and slowed by the snow. Just as well, I supposed. Janara needed to think I was just a mere mortal, and Wanda some mystic faerie princess.

  The conifers around the clearing were arranged in a perfect circle and they bent inward, as if bowing to the trio at the center. All three turned to face us as we emerged from the treeline. They’d changed from the last time I’d seen them, the glamours they’d used to hide their faerie forms now gone. They were all a foot taller: Janara and Rime were just shy of seven feet, while Wren was easily my height.

  Wren no longer looked like a little girl either. While her features were still doll-like and delicate, they were twisted with cruelty and shone with a brilliant inner light. She had a rosebud mouth, with petal pink lips. Her hair and lashes were still white-blonde and flecked with shining snow. I realized the snow in her hair was a permanent feature—something that never melted. She’d tied her hair back in a loose braid and was leaning lightly on a white oak staff, lips quirked into a fiendish little smile when she spied us. A pair of light blue gossamer wings folded primly across her back, almost hidden from view.

  “Your Grace, look who’s decided to join us,” she called to Janara.

  I winced.

  When she’d worn her glamour, Wren’s voice sounded like a high bird’s chirp. Without it, it sounded like the sharp crack of ice during a spring thaw, startling and unpleasant.

  Janara and Rime had their backs to us, but at Wren’s words, they pivoted, blue, frost-laden wings flaring, and I received another shock. Both were incredibly beautiful, but that wasn’t the only reason my heart started racing.

  I met Janara’s cold, inhuman eyes and sweat ran in an icy line down my spine. When she’d looked human, her eyes had been a colorless gray, like a frost-coated window pane. Without magic in the way, I could see they were clear, reflective silver. Mirror-like chips of metal without a pupil. I wanted to stare at them, into them, but knew at the same time I couldn’t. Those eyes were evil. She wasn’t just a snow queen.

  She was the Snow Queen.

  Now I understood why even her sorceress had been terrified of her and why the true heir, Olwen, had to be hidden by a magic spell. Janara had a prophet for an advisor, a sorceress to do her bidding, and an evil magic mirror for eyes.

  She beamed at the pair of us and spread her arms wide, as though she might embrace Wanda, though she didn’t move forward.

  “Ah, my darling Olwen, it has been so long.” Wanda didn’t say anything so Janara continued, as she inspected Wanda from top to bottom. “Your curse seems to be unravelling, at last. Come give your Aunt Janara a hug.”

  Wanda planted her feet and gave Janara a mocking smile. “So I can trip into your sorceress’ ring of toadstools for your amusement?” She laughed, and although her voice wasn’t her own, I could still hear Wanda in its depths. “I don’t think so.”

  “As if I would treat you so callously,” Janara responded.

  Wanda’s smile dropped. “Free the children, Janara.”

  The genial smile slid off Janara’s face like sleet from glass, and her lips twisted instead into a scowl. “You little chit! You think you’re in any position to make demands of me? After everything I have already been through, trying to find you!”

  “Trying to find me so you can kill me,” Wanda responded.

  Janara laughed then. “Sometimes the individual must be sacrificed for the good of the whole. It’s not personal, dear.”

  “You are not to the good of any whole,” Wanda responded, her confident smile never wavering. “I’ll say it again. Release the children, and I’ll come close enough to give you a fair shot at me. No weapons. Just me and you, mano a mano, may the best fae win.”

  Wanda had definitely been the right person for the job. If I’d been in her position, I’d have been trying to bargain with the queen for Finn’s freedom. I might have been strong in the face of a stampeding wendigo, but I’d do just about anything to get Finn out of the line of fire. And Janara would have seen that. Yes, Wanda was the better choice.

  “Time is of the essence, your grace,” Rime said to Janara, who nodded at him.

  He’d been silent since we’d arrived, so it had been easy to ignore him. With the exception of growing more beautiful, he was much the same as he had been. Still hollow-cheeked, sleepy-eyed, and staring into the middle-distance. His blue wings twitched once in annoyance, as if the drama around him was just static that distracted him from what existed beyond our mortal perception.

  Janara snapped her fingers in Wren’s direction. Wren flinched at the sound, but shuffled to her queen’s side. She moved closer and tucked herself under Janara’s arm like a depressed toy poodle.

  Wren then dropped the spell and revealed the ring of red and white dotted toadstools jutting through the snowdrifts. The toadstools were maybe a foot tall and they created a circle that was ten feet or so in diameter. It looked like a snow globe from the outside, with glittering flakes floating in lazy spirals inside a dome, where they landed on soft, snowy hillocks. Blue and green frost flowers poked up from between the mushrooms, and every so often the half-wolf boy or Finn would pluck one and offer them to one of the centaur girls. It looked serene, but when I locked eyes with Finn, I could see fear in their depths. Though there was a smile plastered on his face, his eyes told a different story.

  Life inside the dome wasn’t fun. It was terrifying.

  “Check her for weapons,” Janara ordered Rime, who heaved a theatrical sigh and stepped forward.

  “Let’s get this over with,” he said.

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Wanda quipped, stepping toward the irritable prophet. He reached for her waist, the most likely place for a gun, keeping an eye on her left hand, which was apparently the hand of power and what marked her to rule—if she truly were Olwen, that is.

  But Wanda wasn’t Olwen, which was why Rime didn’t see the hex from Wanda’s right hand until it was too late. In a move almost too quick to track, she dug bloody crescents into her right palm and wrapped a hand around the faerie’s neck. Ozone burned through the air, and Rime’s body bucked, his eyes going wide with shock as he realized he’d been duped.

  But too little, too late.

  The trap had been sprung.

  I lunged forward, reaching to unclip the Roundup Pump Sprayer from the backpack, and waded through the snow drifts toward the circle. I aimed the nozzle at the toadstools and unleashed a torrent of Faerie Ring Oil on the toadstools.

  Wren’s magic burst apart, the remainder of the illusion popping like turquoise fireworks, and the sparks were quickly whipped away by the wind. The frost flowers wilted on the spot, and I was left staring at four startled, shivering kids. They looked at me, the shock clearing from their eyes.

  “Mom?” Finn said, sounding as if he were much younger.

  I took three shaking steps towards him and threw my arms around him. I almost expected my arms to pass straight through him, but he was warm and solid, wrapping his own arms around me, squeezing tight. It was hard to tell over the wind, but I thought I heard him sob.

  “It’s okay now, everything is okay, sweetie,” I said and then remembering the other children were equally scared, I gathered them into my arms and the five of us hobbled away from the circle.

  I couldn’t forget there was still a murderous faerie queen to deal with, and Wanda’s cover was blown. Taking a hasty step back, I wiped my nose and eyes. I pointed a shaky hand towards the trees behind us and faced my son.

  “Marty and Uncle Tobias are waiting in a vehicle just beyond those trees. Take the children to them, Finn.”

  “But, Mom,” he started.

  I shook my head. “Wait for us to come to you, okay? You need to keep the other kids safe.”