I raked a hand back through my hair and heaved out a frustrated breath. “We can’t just keep bumbling around like this. Any ideas?”

  Silence.

  I turned, my hands prickling with ice. “Maverick?”

  But there was nothing but fog in every direction. I couldn’t see Maverick, or the trees, or the guy that we’d just taken down. I’d taken barely three steps away from him, but with that blank whiteness pressing in from every side, I might as well have been on the far side of the moon. I took three fast steps back in the direction I’d come from, or at least I thought it was the direction I’d come from. The fog pressed in, close and smothering. I couldn’t see past the end of my own outstretched arm.

  My heart was lodged up in my throat, and my pulse was choking me. “Maverick!”

  There was no response, except the far-off sound of someone crying.

  Panic was a second pulse in my chest, sending shards of ice digging into my hands and feet. Where was he? He’d been right here, right beside me. I’d only taken a couple of steps away from him! There was no way logical way I could have lost him!

  The fog drifted closer, following every movement of my body. It was strangely metallic on my tongue when I inhaled a shaking breath.

  Where the hell was Maverick? Where was I, for that matter? I couldn’t see a damned thing. There was nothing but that choking wall of white rising up to the sky and almost blotting out the canopy.

  Okay, don’t freak out, I told myself. I tried to get my breathing under control, holding each inhale for a count of four before letting it out again. Running off like an idiot wasn’t going to do anything but get me more lost than I already was. The fog was disorienting, it would be too easy to fall or hurt myself.

  It was while I was holding my breath, trying to think past the cottony strangeness of the air, that I heard it.

  A giggle.

  The back of my neck prickled, the hair standing on end. Someone was out there, watching me. They were hidden, but I knew they were watching the chaos and loving every second of it. I was totally exposed out here, just about blind in the mist, and the blank white pressing in all around me made my skin feel hyper aware.

  What was it that Chloe had said? That the Will-o’-the-Wisp liked to get people lost, to lead them into danger. This must have had them rolling in the aisles then, the whole town lost in their waking nightmares, stumbling around completely unaware of what was going on around them. People were going to get hurt. People already were hurt. People that I’d sworn to protect and serve.

  An icy rage settled into my gut then, snaking throughout my veins. I’d have to make whoever was behind this regret it. First, though, I needed to take away their hiding spot. And that was no easy feat, because the fog was keeping me trapped, and keeping me away from Maverick. Not to mention hiding all kinds of tripping spots, or dangerous falls. So, how could I get rid of it?

  Think, Taliyah.

  What was fog? When cool air touched warm ground, it created vapor. But what if the ground were cool, too?

  I reached deep and touched that icy ball of fury inside me—fury over the fact that these assholes had come to my town and hurt my people. The anger burned there, and I coaxed it into a blizzard inside my chest. Wind howled through my lungs, the biting cold of the darkest months. Snow drifted from my hair, gently kissing the ground at my feet, while frost crept over my hands and up my arms like delicate lace gloves.

  When the cold was so deep it burned me to keep it inside, I dropped down and slapped my hands against the ground, and set the winter free. Frost burst from my body, spreading across the leaf-strewn ground of the forest. It raced up the tree trunks, over fallen logs, and coated each fern frond and sapling’s leaves in white. The grass and leaves crackled, and the branches overhead ticked together, ringing like windchimes in the twilight air beneath the canopy.

  The fog didn’t vanish all at once, but it faded, growing thinner and thinner still, more like a gauzy haze over everything instead of a veil.

  Less than ten feet from me, three silhouettes became suddenly obvious. They were just standing there, watching me, like people at the zoo watching a particularly interesting exhibit. As the fog faded in the chilly air, I could see more of them. Two women and a man, dressed far too lightly for the season, each with a pair of translucent wings emerging from their shoulders, looking just like Bea’s when she wasn’t trying to hide what she was.

  The Will-o’-the-Wisps.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The more I looked at the three pixies or the Will-o’-the-Wisps or the faeries or whatever they were called, the less they actually reminded me of Bea.

  Bea was all blonde curls and big blue eyes. She was bubbly and sweet, and she’d done her best to help me just because I’d needed it, even though doing so had put her in a really tight spot politically. The point was, Bea was all spring breeze and warm sun, her wings casting little rainbow dazzles across the floor when she moved.

  These people were sharper edged. They had a predatory cast to them, their wings more like that of wasps than dragonflies. Their smiles weren’t friendly either, they were more like the glitter of a knife’s edge in a dark alley, promising something nasty.

  One of them, a woman with hair that reminded me more of cobwebs than dandelion fluff, tilted her head to the side and pouted at me like a toddler who’d been told she couldn’t have another cookie.

  “You’ve spoiled our fun. That wasn’t very nice of you.”

  My jaw was clenched so tightly, I almost had to spit the words out. “Enough. I want you out of this town, now. This isn’t going any further.”

  The man, with his dark green hair and his face of sharp angles, smirked at me. “But what if we want it to go further?”

  The other woman, a brunette, laughed, and it echoed like the tinkling of sinister little bells. She stepped forward, the toes of her bare feet pointed like a dancer’s. “We have a job to do. And that means we can’t leave with the job only halfway done.”

  A headache bloomed to life behind my eyes again. I was so tired, my body hurt. I didn’t have the patience for this. I wanted to rest. I wanted Maverick back with me. I wanted my town to be safe. But I swallowed it all back, and, instead, fed it to the ice in my belly.

  “What job is that?”

  They smiled at me almost in unison, their teeth looking very white and razor sharp.

  “Why, you, Olwen,” purred the woman who was standing in the middle, this one with the blonde, cobwebbed hair.

  “You see,” the man continued, prowling a little closer. “Queen Janara didn’t want to keep attacking the Hollow directly. It was causing her political problems with the other courts.”

  “So, she put out a bounty on your head,” the brunette woman interrupted. “A bounty with a very generous reward.”

  “The only stipulation was that your head be delivered to her before the first day of Winter,” the man said, and the sound of his tinny voice grated in my ears.

  The blonde woman paced away then, a few steps to the left to mirror Green Hair on the right. They were trying to flank me, to trap me between them so I wouldn’t have many options. I took a step back, keeping them all in my line of sight.

  “Let’s not make this difficult,” Green Hair said with a little pout that was probably supposed to be endearing, but just made me want to hit him.

  “Face it, Olwen,” the brunette continued. “The only reason you’ve survived this long is because you hid, like a little mouse.”

  “And surrounded yourself with others in a Hollow’s protection,” the blonde added.

  My head was filled with a howling storm, the winds whipping snow through my body as I fed all my anger, all my fears, everything I had left in me, to my power and built it higher.

  Blondie took a few dainty steps forward, single stepping into her own tracks like a wolf. “But all your little friends are gone now, Princess. You’ve left the limits of your Hollow’s protection. Now, it’s just the three of us.” She gestured to the other two Will-o’-the-Wisps, her smile a vicious slash in her face. “And you’re all alone.”

  She got the first half of another giggle out before a blood bolt came scorching out from between the trees and slammed into her chest like a giant’s hammer. Blondie went sailing backwards to crash into a tree, before she dropped back to the ground in a crumpled pile on the ground and lay still.

  I didn’t know who was more shocked, the other two Will-o’-the-Wisps, or me. Probably them, because I already knew what I was going to see before I turned my head, my heart beating fast as a smile stretched over my face.

  Maverick stalked out from between the trees, his top lip peeled back off his teeth in a snarl more vicious than any of the Fae could ever manage. Overhead, thunder boomed, and I knew if I could look up, storm clouds would be churning above us, blotting out the sun.

  “She’s not alone,” he said, with all the finality of a coffin lid slamming closed.

  The two faeries looked stunned, glancing from their fallen comrade, to each other again. Then Green Hair made a gesture, and the fog did its best to roll back in. The frost on the ground kept the fog from being the smothering wall of vapor it had been before, but it was still like trying to see something through a haze of smoke. I heard the angry clatter of wasp wings, and I launched a blast of Winter cold into the air just in time to freeze the brunette’s wings and send her dropping to the ground like a rock. She landed hard and buckled forward to drop to her hands and knees, hissing at me like something feral. The man made a gesture, and… an enormous bear lurched forward, away from the two remaining Fae. The thing was huge, the biggest bear I’d ever seen, with moss hanging from its shaggy coat. It bellowed a challenge as it barreled towards Maverick like a runaway train.

  The warning shout stuck in my throat as I brought my hands up, ready to freeze the monster in place before it could launch itself at Maverick. Snowflakes swirled around my fingers, but it was then that I realized something was wrong. I choked back on the spell, even though my head was screaming at me to do something, to stop the beast, to protect Maverick. I took a breath and listened to my brain.

  The bear wasn’t leaving any tracks in the snow.

  That meant it wasn’t real. But merely a hallucination. Or an illusion. It was getting hard to tell which was which, honestly. But if I sent a wave of deadly cold hurtling towards something that wasn’t there, then my ice would hit Maverick, who was standing just on the other side.

  A sick feeling coiled through me. They’d tried to trick me into hurting Maverick.

  I spun back around in time to catch the brunette coming at me with a nasty little dagger ready to strike, and I launched the spell at her instead. Her eyes went wide, and she dove to the side, trying to avoid the blast of deepest Winter, but it caught her trailing leg, and she went crashing down with a scream as her skin turned a terrible blueish-white, frost settling across the limb and not melting away.

  There was a little hum in the air, almost like that of an insect, and instinct had me throwing myself back from the downed Fae just enough that the freaking crossbow bolt shot past me and landed in a nearby tree trunk with an audible thunk.

  Green Hair had taken to the air, darting in and out between the trees as he leveled another arrow at me. The shot went wide when he had to dodge Maverick, who was launching another blood bolt, the dark magic scorching straight through an aspen tree and sending it crashing to the ground.

  Suddenly Blondie rushed at me from the side, her wings humming angrily, and I dove backwards to avoid the wicked looking knife in her hand, only to realize a heartbeat later that it was another illusion. The real Blondie was still collapsed against the tree Maverick had swatted her into.

  I threw myself forward into a flat dive, and the crossbow bolt that had lured me into their path skimmed over my back, close enough that I felt the sting of the wind through my coat. I dug my fingers into the frozen dirt, shoving myself to my feet, ready to move if I had to.

  Overhead, the sky rumbled. Streaks of crimson power ran over Maverick’s arms like tame lightning as he wound back with another hex. Green Hair dove up into the canopy above, where it was harder to see him in the fading light.

  My breath was sawing in my throat. My white hair tumbled out of the knot I usually tied it back into, snaking over my shoulders, and I shoved it back with an impatient hand. At least the brunette was still mostly out of commission, her leg unnaturally stiff, and her wings dragging in the dirt as she tried to haul herself towards the place where Blondie was sprawled on the ground.

  Two and a half of our opponents were out of commission, and Maverick and I were still going strong. I liked those odds. We just needed to pin down the flying jerk, and we could wrap this up and undo whatever the hell it was they’d done to Haven Hollow.

  The leaves overhead rustled as Green Hair moved, and I quickly called up a wall of ice, just wide enough to give me cover from the crossbow.

  “Mav, do you see him?”

  Maverick was glaring up at the dark canopy and slowly nodded, his mouth twisting. A spell burned around his fingers, ready to unleash.

  It was at that exact moment that the same guy we’d knocked out earlier came bumbling right into the middle of the fight. At least he hadn’t tried to replace the tree branch he’d been holding. Furthermore, he was definitely more in the camp of ‘passive sleep zombie’ than actively trying to brain me, which was good, because I’d already dealt with more of that than I deserved.

  Another rustle overhead, and I caught sight of gleaming, malevolent little eyes as Green Hair grinned at me. And aimed his crossbow at the civilian.

  The man didn’t have a chance to dodge the bolt. I doubted he even saw what was going on around him. He was just some guy caught up in faerie crap, just like the rest of the town. And the Fae were going to kill him, not because he was a threat, not because he’d done something wrong, but because they knew it would hurt me.

  And for a second, I was back in that clearing with Lady Evergreen working to free her mistress, Janara, and I was listening to Cardinal, desperate, foolish Cardinal who’d begged me to be Queen, choke out her last breath. They hadn’t needed to kill her. She’d gone over to their side, terrified of the chance of a civil war ripping Winter apart, but they’d killed her because they didn’t think she was of any further use.

  Like she hadn’t been a person. Just a means to an end.

  So, when I saw the glittering point of that crossbow swing towards another person who should have never, ever been part of our fight, I didn’t think. I just dove forward.

  I crashed into him, feeling the jolt of impact all the way through my body. A hot lick of pain sliced across the outside of my arm, followed by a wave of heat drenching my skin. We crashed into the ground, and I did my best to roll him towards the trees, where he’d be a harder target to hit.

  Every move made the nerves in my arm shriek, and a quick glance told me that the bolt must have just caught the outside of my upper arm. The sleeve of my jacket was slick with blood, red dripping down onto the frosty ground.

  Green Hair laughed, still flitting around the canopy. “Almost got you, Princess.”

  I gritted my teeth, ignoring him for the moment. The guy I’d tackled was just lying there. He wasn’t hurt, I didn’t think, just too tired to haul himself up again.

  The amount of blood soaking into my sleeve was concerning, but I didn’t have time to do anything about it. I just had to hope we could take out Green Hair and take him out quickly. And hopefully there was still someone left at the hospital who could stitch my arm up for me.

  Green Hair broke cover, darting around for a better shot at me. He lifted his crossbow to his shoulder and sighted down the bolt. “Say goodnight, Princ–”

  A blood bolt slammed into his back and sent him crashing into the ground with a cut off scream.

  I managed to stagger to my feet, blood still running down my arm to drip off my fingers and into the snow. When I glanced down at the pool of red, I realized it was actually a concerning amount of blood. As if in response, my head started swimming, no doubt from my standing up so suddenly.

  Shadows crowded the edge of my vision, and I shook my head to clear them away. When I could finally see properly again, Maverick was standing across from me, his face pale with fury, his eyes fixed on that slow, steady drip of blood. His hands might have been shaking, or it could have been a trick of the light.

  Green Hair groaned, pushing up and off the ground, and Maverick’s head snapped in his direction.

  Overhead, the storm roared. Everything else was deadly still. The world even seemed to slow, every drop of blood rolling down my arm feeling like it took a year to reach the ground. Maverick stared, watching the slow fall of scarlet.

  Something in his face changed. It went colder than the heart of Winter, and scarlet light exploded around his hand, snaking all the way up towards his shoulder.

  “How dare you?” he snarled, as he launched the first blood bolt at the man. “How dare you touch her!”

  Green Hair managed to roll out of the way of the first bolt, but not the second. His scream was cut off by the third. The injured brunette tried to weave some illusion, but Maverick snarled something under his breath, and black snaked over her hands from her fingers, moving down her arms as she shrieked and clawed at her skin.

  Maverick didn’t stop. He moved forward, as slowly and implacably as a glacier, hammering down spell after spell, while the two surviving Will-o’-the-Wisps scrambled to try and get out of his way, to shield and to protect themselves any way they could.

  There was a terribly blank look in Maverick’s eyes, and his lips were peeled back off his teeth in a horrible rictus expression. Veins fluttered in his throat, in his temple, and fear slid down my spine like a drop of ice water.

  I’d never been afraid of Maverick. I didn’t care if he was a Warlock, or a Blood Warlock, or anything else. He was a good man, one that I trusted to have my back. But standing there, my sleeve wet with blood, listening to the trees around us creaking and swaying with the storm winds tearing through the sky, I was afraid for him.