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Immediately we sprang into action, scanning the dark clearings, the shadowy pathways, for any sign of Rodney or Shasta. Had the Pixies taken them? No – we reasoned – there was no way any pixie could have crossed the magical threshold that we had created together with our spell. The only way the perimeter could have been broken was if Shasta and Rodney had left on their own accord...
“Run!” Logan shouted at me, and together we dashed, hand in hand, through the leafy night, following the sounds – growing faster and faster now – of footsteps crunching leaves ahead of us. We ran and the wind whipped our faces and our hair; I could feel Logan's hand grow more powerful, furrier, as he began to transition into the Wolf form.
“Get on my back,” he roared, his voice changing from human scream to lupine howl, and I assented, gripping his flowing hair between my fingers and feeling the power of his muscles ripple beneath my legs.
As a wolf, Logan was faster than any fairy, and soon we were able to gain on them, seeing their figures ever more clearly in the distance. They were running away! Shasta and Rodney, hands locked together, almost out of breath now, running away from us....
“Stop!” I called out to them, my voice by now exhausted from the run. “Stop!”
We caught up with them near a ravine, where a precipitous drop seemed a less palatable option for the two of them than stopping to face us directly. They stopped short, their feet dragging briefly in the earth, and then turned to face us.
Suddenly, we felt a blinding green flash envelop us, strike us, knock us back! Rodney and Shasta had used their magic on us! I felt something wet trickle down my cheek and knew that it must be blood; anger boiled up in me! Had we not just helped Shasta escape from the Pixie Court! And now she was trying to run away again!
“Stop!” I cried again, tasting blood in my mouth. I focused my anger inwardly – I need to stop them, to bind them, just to hold them still a little longer....
A blue flash counteracted their green one, and both Rodney and Shasta stumbled back.
“Don't take me home!” cried Shasta, her voice hot with rage. “I'm in love, Bree! Don't try to stop me!”
She sent another blast of magical anger our way.
“Try to stop you from destroying innocent lives and running away, you mean?”
“Rodney and I will be separated if you make us go home!” she yelled back. “Well, I won't do it! I refuse to do it!”
I struck her once more with my magic, and now I could see a spot of blood gathering at the side of her lips.
I slid off Logan's back and began heading towards them; behind me, I could hear a rush of sound as Logan started transforming from beast back into man.
“You can't make me go back there!” shouted Shasta, with all the inchoate brattiness of a teenage girl. “You can't make me.”
“Like hell I can't,” I muttered to myself, trying to cast a binding spell. But Shasta was almost as strong as I was – perhaps even stronger – and she continued to resist the nebulous smoky chains that were beginning to materialize around her and Rodney's legs and arms, brought into being by my magic...
“I don't want to go home!”
“Stop!” cried a booming, powerful voice. It was Logan, striding towards the two of them, letting their attack-magic bounce off him, ignoring the pain that every blast must surely have inflicted upon him. “Stop it right now!”
“Please,” moaned Shasta. “Just go away and let us be. Beyond the Crystal River.”
“And sacrifice Breena's mother?” Logan roared, and I could still hear the Wolf in his voice.
“And sacrifice Breena? And what about all the innocent fairy lives that will be taken if the war drags on? Are they worth your emotions?”
“I don't care,” said Shasta stubbornly, but her voice was shaking. “I just want to be with Rodney.”
Rodney looked at the ground, ashamed. He knew what Logan was saying was true.
“You can't just run away from your problems, Princess,” he said. “I know we'd all like to sometimes. But there are more important things than love. Like bravery – and honor. Like doing right by your friends. Like doing right by your country. By the people who trust you to lead them. You could be a Queen one day, Shasta; act like it!”
“Spoken like a true fairy,” Rodney muttered. Werewolves were not looked upon with much respect in Feyland; this was a great compliment indeed.
Rodney gently laid down his sword at our feet. Shasta bit her lip, staring us down a moment longer, before she too nodded and lay down her weapon.
“And perhaps the Winter Queen will show you some mercy yet,” said Logan. “She is a mother, after all. Beneath the Queen there is a mother, too.”
“If only,” said Shasta softly. “My mother doesn't care if I'm happy or not – as long as I make her proud.”
“Your country is at war,” said Logan, with uncompromising harshness in his voice – he almost sounded like Kian, I thought. “Your happiness is less important than the lives of your people.”
“And peace would bring us both!” Shasta cried.
For that was the truth. Beyond our talk of sacrifice and duty, beyond our talk of love, the truth was that peace between our two kingdoms would do more for both our happiness and that of the citizens of the Fairy Kingdoms than any battle or act of heroism could do.
“Then let us bring peace,” said Logan, at last smiling. He offered her his hand; at last she took it. “Let us bring peace between the Kingdoms – stay in Feyland and work towards these noble ends, rather than running away and leaving our country torn in war.”
“I have behaved dishonorably, Wolf,” said Rodney. “For this I am sorry. I have behaved in a manner unfitting a knight of the Fairy Court.” He was careful not to specify which Fairy Court. He turned to Shasta. “My lady,” he said, kneeling to kiss her hand. “You are a fool to love one so selfish and dishonorable as I.”
“And you, my knight,” she said, her diction of these chivalric formulae pitch-perfect, “are unwise to love one so selfish and dishonorable as I.” She turned back towards me. “We have not behaved fittingly. We have behaved like children.” Now calmed down, she was careful to speak in the rich melodies and precise diction of a princess, rather than the babbling incoherencies of a teenaged girl. “I apologize; we lay ourselves at your feet and at your mercy.”
“Well, there's no need for that,” I said, a bit taken aback. “Just promise you won't do it again.”
“We swear a sacred oath,” said Shasta. “We will not run away again. We swear by the ancient laws and the old codes.”
“So we swear,” echoed Rodney. They both nodded, as if to confirm it to the heavens.
“Right,” said Logan. “It's nearly dawn, now. Should we head back? Maybe have some breakfast? Sweep all of this under the rug.”
It was difficult to stay angry with Shasta and Rodney. They had only done, in the end, what Kian and I had so longed to do. (Kian! But I couldn't think of that now.)
We returned to our campsite, and once more Shasta and I repeated the magical incantation that secured our borders against invasion. We lit a fire and Rodney brought out some fruits and meats from his pouch, which we attempted to roast over the open flame, speared by twigs and branches.
Shasta nuzzled up to me. “Who is he?” she asked. “Your Wolf? Have you forgotten my brother so quickly?”
It was a question I knew I had to answer sooner or later. “Your brother,” I said, “I care for very deeply. But I cannot allow myself to think of him. You are not the Crown Princess – your love is perhaps possible. I cannot think of it.” It was mostly true – I had neglected to mention my conflicted feelings towards Logan, how unsure I was of myself – if I saw them both before me now, both in love with me, both wanting me, I still had no idea which of them I would choose.
“The Wolf and I have known each other for ten years – ten human years. And I value his counsel highly.” I sounded like a princess, I thought. Just like her.
“Is that all you value?” whispered Shasta to me. I felt my face flush once more with shame. Was I doing the right thing? I didn't know. All I knew is that I wanted to feel Logan's arms around me once more, that familiar musk at his neck, the softness of his lips.
Logan came over to me and took my hand, enveloping it in his; absent-mindedly, I stroked his hand, his wrist, ruffled his hair. He placed his arms around me in a great bear hug, pressing me deep into his chest. He was warm; he was safe. I closed my eyes and felt the glimmering flame from the campfire prickle comfortably against my skin. I wanted to stay like this – far from pixies, far from fairies, far from war – with a boy I loved, and who I knew to love me.
“I shall cook,” said Rodney, with a slight bow. “A feast to express my apologies for troubling the two of you. Logan – would you help me?”
“Gladly,” said Logan. “I love to cook.” He smiled sadly and I knew he was looking at me, thinking of me, thinking of the last time we cooked together. It was my birthday, and he had come over to surprise me, and we had together made tortilla chips and all manner of dishes and filled the house with flour powder as we laughingly chased each other up and downstairs, carefree. It was my sixteenth birthday, and hours later Delano had arrived, and then Kian had come, and then all else after that seemed so strange to me that it did not seem to belong to the same world at all, but rather to a whole other existence, a whole other girl.
He had nearly kissed me then. As he looked at me, his great brown eyes crinkling ever so slightly at the corners, I knew he was remembering that prelude to our kiss – the way he had leaned so close to me...the way I had leaned back...
I knew he was wondering the same thing that I had wondered many times. If he had been a second sooner, if Delano had been a second later. If his lips had touched mine – if I had opened my lips to his and let him kiss me with all the passion that had been building up inside him for ten years – then would I have been so taken with Kian, the boy I danced the Fairy Waltz with while a toddler in Feyland? Would I have been so ready to fall for him? I was sixteen – I had never been kissed – I had dreamed of romance so often and yet I had never been kissed, never known any more about love than what I had read in fairy-tales and fantasy novels. All these feelings were overwhelming to me – the way I could be so passionate about Kian one minute and then so in love with Logan the next – the way my emotions could tumble over themselves like snowballs in an avalanche, beyond my control, beyond my power.
When I was fifteen I remembered thinking that I was so grown up, so above the petty confidences and insecurities growing like moss in the locker room of Gregory High School. Ever since I had turned sixteen, I had started feeling younger than ever – or at least that the world was so much bigger, so full of feeling and passion and contradiction that I could barely make myself out, let alone the identity of my beloved.
Hormones, my mother would have said.
“Logan,” I whispered.
“What is it, Bree?” He had by now finished preparing the roast, and had ceded the job of cooking it properly to Rodney, who was working extra hard to make up for his unchivalrous acts earlier.
“I don't want you to be in danger again,” I said. “I want you to go home with my mother to Gregory – and stay out of trouble.”
“I don't mind trouble,” said Logan. “I mind being away from you.”
“Please...” I said. And I knew what I had to say; I looked up. “I don't want to feel responsible for you. And...” This part was harder to say. “I don't want to feel like...this is all moving so fast...”
I thought I loved him, but I didn't want to force myself to be sure just yet. And if Logan risked his life for me again, I didn't want this to bind me to him romantically. I couldn't ask him to take risks for me out of love, when my own feelings were so nebulous, so confused. I didn't want to lie to him.
“You don't have to rescue me,” I concluded miserably, trying to find a way to give voice to my feelings. “I care for you – as a friend – so much – and as more...I think....but this is happening so fast. And I don't want you to feel obligated – I don't want to feel...”
“Obligated?” said Logan, cutting me off with just a hint of bitterness. He sighed deeply. “Bree – I'm not that kind of guy. If I do risk my life for you – it's because I care about you, because I believe in you. Not because I want anything in return. Even if you didn't feel anything for me – as hard as that would be for me, I'd still be here beside you, risking my life for you, fighting for you.”
He cupped his face with my hand.
“I do feel things for you,” I said. “But I don't want to start something in a situation like this...not fully...not yet...”
“I understand,” said Logan.
“And I can't let you get tortured because of me again!”
“I'd do it all over again,” said Logan. “And not because you kissed me afterward – although it was so – so – worth it. But because I love you. You don't even know how much. And I would go to the ends of the Earth for you, Bree.”
His words warmed me; his words scared me. I was overcome by the beauty of his love; at the same time, I was wary of it. How could I feel the same way about him – or about Kian – or about anyone else, for that matter – when I was still trying to figure out how to get to the Winter Court without being waylaid by pixies or kelpies or any other creature out of Causabon's Mythology.
“Thank you, Logan,” I said. I pressed his hand to mine and realized that it was wet with tears – both mine and his. He knew me so well – it touched me so deeply that my soul felt as if it were being torn open, rent apart by this storm of feelings. “It means a lot to me.”
Logan squeezed my hand. “I am so grateful for the chance to get to know you,” he said. “You were the one thing that made the Land Beyond the Crystal River bearable to me. When I had to go back and forth...I always looked forward to seeing you.”
He kissed my forehead.
“Let's keep things...let's take them slow for now,” I said, breathing deeply. “I don't want to rush anything.”
“I won't rush you,” said Logan, and his voice contained so much love, so much passion, so much pain, that the tears came faster from me, now. He knew me so well, I thought; he knew me better than I knew myself. He was loving; he was giving me space and time to figure out what I was feeling, what was going on.
We caught sight of Shasta and Rodney in the moonlight. They were sitting by the campfire, kissing passionately as if there were no cares for each other but each other; they were in love, they were happy. Everything was so easy for them, I thought. Yes – there were the differences and difficulties borne out of their opposing factions, but that was circumstance. Summer or Winter, they knew how they felt; they knew what they wanted. Everything was so straightforward for them. But for us it was complicated; for us it was harder. My feelings were a tangle of complications.
How could I bring Logan into this? How could I bring myself into this?
I curled up after our meal and waited for day to come properly, to allow us to set off on our way. I waited for my mother, my family, my life to begin anew. I waited for deliverance; the hours seemed endless.