Like Arbore, trees were everywhere, but most were types I’d never seen. All they did was keep bringing back Marzeya’s cruelly cryptic words. You’re barking up the wrong tree.
We soon entered what Agnë said was called the Pumpkin Path, and if it was that spooky with the sun still on the horizon, I wasn’t looking forward to trudging through it in the dead of night.
We were deep within it when Robin suddenly broke the silence. “What did you see?”
I drew in a shaky breath at the thought of Ariane, and how she’d seemed resigned to her terrible fate. “I saw someone I know in one of the Underworld rivers. Then I almost saw Him.”
He didn’t need to ask who I meant, his eyes widening as he looked up at me. “So he really exists?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just I’ve heard the Horned God is nothing more than some pastoral deity that people eventually confused for Death.”
“From the way I felt at his approach, it was definitely Him. And he almost caught me.” A tired huff escaped me. “But how did people imagine a pastoral deity as a half-man, half-beast skeleton? It would be the worst thing to get gardening advice from.”
He looked so relieved at my quip. “I figured the skeletal part was an exaggeration, and it just had horns like satyrs. But regardless of what Death looks like, he won’t catch you, not anytime soon.”
His forced optimism only intensified my hopelessness. I could no longer feel him in any way, my sense of smell was missing, along with my ability to perceive temperature and wind. These were all signs I was losing connection with my body. I didn’t know how long until I became a true ghost, or something much worse.
As if sensing my turmoil, concern gleamed in his brilliant eyes. I couldn’t stand the way he looked at me. The way they all did, with dread and pity. I needed to change the subject before I burst into tears.
“So, why the green theme?” I gestured at his clothes.
He grabbed the end of his cloak, fanning it out dramatically. “When you operate around woods and fields as green as our country’s, you must blend in, so no one sees you when you attack, and loses sight of you when you retreat.”
“Pure strategy, then. And here I thought you were no strategist, and that’s just your favorite color.”
“A color can hardly be called strategy, but it is my favorite. At least, it was.” His gaze locked with mine, and I stupidly hoped he’d say turquoise was his favorite color now. Instead, he asked, “What’s yours?”
Feeling ridiculously let down and embarrassed, I changed the topic again. “Where is Alan?”
“He said he had to run ahead to scope out the border between this court and the next. To avoid any unpleasant run-ins with ‘the residents.’”
Robin didn’t sound entirely convinced. And with the way Alan-or-Keenan had brushed off our encounter with the ghouls, I dreaded to glimpse what he considered unpleasant. Especially now the landscape bordering our path was fast shifting into a nighttime forest, and it was as chilling as I’d feared it would be.
“I believe he isn’t who he claims to be,” I said.
He only shrugged. “Is anyone here who they claimed to be? And then, fairies never reveal their true identities to humans unless they must. My mother didn’t tell my father who she really was until the day she left us. He only told me on his deathbed, and it was then the glamor she’d placed on me to make me appear fully human began to fade.”
It was the first time he’d mentioned her, the source of his pointed ears, superhuman agility, and mischievous streak. It hadn’t occurred to me that she wasn’t in his life anymore. Then again, fairies didn’t seem like the sort that valued the monotony of domestic life.
Any other time, I would have needled him for information, but I didn’t feel like discussing family, and how they wronged us. We weren’t chatting jovially as he spun me around a ballroom, we were crossing a treacherous terrain, somber and stressed, and expecting the worst yet to come.
I was still the one who broke the next stretch of silence. “I don’t understand why it failed. Why everything I attempt fails. I always do whatever is expected of me, and it’s never enough—not for my instructors or courtiers, my family or supposed betrothed, or even this curse.” My lower lip trembled, the only warmth I felt