not take kindly to intrusions on their territory. While few of them remain, they can still prove dangerous when the mood strikes them.”
Elisabeth’s breath caught. She had read stories about the moss folk, and had always hoped to see one, but Master Hargrove had assured her that the spirits of the forest were all long dead—if they had ever existed to begin with.
“Don’t let Silas frighten you,” Nathaniel put in. “As long as we take care not to disturb the land when we make camp, and stay out of the trees, they won’t bother us.”
He paused, looking down. Then he knelt and placed a hand on the ground. She saw his lips move in the dark, and felt a snap of magic in the air. The spell that followed wasn’t anything like what she expected. Emerald light unfolded around him into the shape of two tents, which swelled with bedrolls and unrolled lengths of fine green silk down their sides. Nathaniel stood to examine his handiwork. Afterward, he gestured toward the farthest tent. “That one’s yours.”
She stiffened in surprise. “You’re giving me my own tent?”
He looked around, eyebrows raised. A lock of silver-streaked hair had fallen over his forehead. “Why, would you prefer to share one? I wouldn’t have expected it of you, Scrivener, but I suppose some species do bite each other as a prelude to courtship.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “That’s not what I meant.”
After a moment of studying her, his grin faded. “Yes, I’m giving you your own tent. Just remember what I told you about running. Silas will keep watch tonight, and I assure you, he’s a great deal harder to get past than a locked door.”
Why give her a tent if he only meant to kill her? This had to be a trick. She remained awake long after she crawled inside, alert and listening. She didn’t take off her boots. Hours passed, but a fire continued to crackle, and the murmured tones of Nathaniel and Silas’s conversation carried through the canvas walls. Though she couldn’t make out any words, the ebb and flow of their exchange reminded her more of two old friends than a master and servant. Occasionally Nathaniel would say something, and very softly, Silas would laugh.
Finally, the conversation ceased. She waited for an hour or so longer—long enough for the fire’s embers to fade to a dull red glow against the canvas. Then, unable to stand the tension any longer, she crawled out of her bedroll and poked her head through the tent’s flap. The air smelled of pine and wood smoke, and crickets sang a silvery chorus in the night. Silas was nowhere to be seen. Bent at the waist, she took a step outside. And stopped.
“Out for an evening stroll, Scrivener?”
Nathaniel was still awake. He sat on a fallen log near the edge of the forest, his chin resting on his clasped hands, facing the trees. The embers smoldering behind him cast his face into shadow. He didn’t turn, but she knew he would cast a spell the instant she tried to flee.
She had a choice. She could run from her fate, or she could face it head on. After a moment of stillness, she picked her way through the wildflowers, feeling strangely as though she were trapped in a dream.
“Do you not sleep?” she asked as she drew near.
“Very little,” he replied. “But that’s particular to me, not sorcerers in general.” As he spoke, he didn’t look away from the trees. She followed his gaze, and froze.
A shape moved within the ferns and pale thin birches, picked out by moonlight. A spirit of the wood. It was stooped over, collecting objects from the ground. A curtain of mossy hair hung from its head, and a pair of antlers crowned its brow. Its skin was chalk-white and cracked, like birch bark, and its long, crooked arms hung to its knees, ending in knotted, twiglike claws. A chill shivered up and down Elisabeth’s arms. Slowly, she stepped forward and sank down on the opposite end of the log.
Nathaniel spared her a glance. “You aren’t afraid of it,” he observed, almost a question.
She shook her head, unable to tear her gaze from the forest. “I’ve always wanted to see the moss folk. I knew they were real, even though everyone told me differently.”
The fire at Nathaniel’s back etched the lines of his jaw and cheekbones, but didn’t reach the hollows of his eyes. “Most people grow out of fairy stories,” he said. “Why