Leaving Rook to exchange growls and narrow-eyed glances with the wolf-guard Fray, Fer went up to her house in the Lady Tree. During the summer, her house had just been a roof with silken cloth for walls, more a tent than a house. Now that fall had come, it was time to put the real walls up, with rugs hung on the inside for warmth.
She felt the urgency of the consequences pulling at her. She couldn’t spend the time she wanted making sure all was well in her own land; she’d have go to the nathe the next time the Way opened. She talked to a few deer-women about keeping an eye on the bark-borer beetles in the deep forest. Then she mixed up a healing tea for the badger-man’s cough and sent one of her wolf-guards to bring it to him. After that, she took a long nap because she’d been up all night—coming through the Way from Grand-Jane’s house, and then meeting with Gnar and Lich. When she woke up, she got ready. If Rook was going to look all fine and fancy for their trip to the nathe, then she had to dress up too.
Fer rummaged in the wooden trunk where she kept her clothes, pulling on her patch-jacket over her ragged T-shirt. Grand-Jane had stitched the jacket with powerful protective spells, and Fer kept cloth bags full of magical herbs in its pockets too. For her, it was stronger than any armor.
In the trunk she found her bag of herbs and medicines that she always carried with her now, along with a tiny stoppered jar of Grand-Jane’s honey; she put all of that into her jacket pocket. Then she changed into the pair of jeans with the smallest holes in the knees, and found some socks and her sneakers and put those on too. Twig came in then with her wooden comb.
“Sit on the bed, Ladyfer,” the fox-girl said. Fer obeyed. Twig lifted the snarled mass of Fer’s hair and dropped it again. “It’s so tangled,” she said with a sigh, and raised the comb.
“Twig!” Fer sat up straighter. “Can you cut it off?” Her long hair was so much trouble: combing the snarls out, relying on Twig to keep it neatly braided. “Will you, I mean?”
“Yes,” Twig said, and went to fetch a knife.
While she was gone, Fer called her bees to her. They were the Lady’s bees, whose buzzing hums only she could understand. They flowed in through her house’s doorway and buzzed around the room in a golden swarm. She’d only bring one of them with her to the nathe. The one bee settled on her patchwork sleeve. “The rest of you stay here, all right?” she asked. “I won’t be gone long.” As an answer, the bees swarmed out the door past Twig, who was coming back in.
Twig grinned and held up a knife. “Nice and sharp,” she said, and started hacking away at the clumps of Fer’s hair.
While Twig worked, Fer closed her eyes. She had a thread tying her to all the people in her land—a bond between them—and it told her if they were happy, or if they needed her, or if they were worried about something. Now that Rook was here, she could feel a thread tying her to him, too. It wasn’t the same, though, as the connection she had to her people. It was warmer, somehow. It made her want to trust him. She was glad the thread was there, whatever it was.
“Ooh, that’s a bad knot,” she heard Twig murmur. She pulled at a snarl.
“Ow,” Fer complained.
“Keep still, Ladyfer,” Twig said. “It’s your own fault.”
It’d be her own fault too, if Rook had tricked her. He was a puck, after all, and she knew what that meant, despite the thread that connected them. He played by puck rules, and his promises might not be trustworthy.
Still, she needed his help with this. She would just have to be careful.
“All done,” Twig said, and stepped back to survey her work.
Fer ran a hand over her head. Her short hair felt light, like chick-fluff. The back of her neck felt bare.
“We should come with you,” the wolf-guard, Fray, said from the doorway.
“We should,” Twig agreed.
Fer stood up, brushing the last long strands of chopped-off hair from her shoulders. “It’ll be a quick trip,” she said. “I won’t be away for too long. I need you to stay here and make sure everything’s all right while I’m gone. All right?”
Twig and Fray nodded grudging agreement and followed Fer down the ladder to the ground, where Rook was waiting.
Fray stalked past Fer and up to Rook; she grabbed the front of his coat and snarled something down at him.
Rook twisted in her grip and growled something back. Then she shoved him, and he stumbled away. “Stupid wolf,” he muttered as Fer came up.
“Can you blame her for not liking you very much?” Fer asked.
He didn’t answer, but Fer heard dark grumblings as he followed her to the Way. They waited in silence while the sun sank behind the trees. The sky darkened and the air grew chilly. Finally the first star appeared. Fer’s bee lifted from the sleeve of her jacket and circled them once.
“You’ll be on your best behavior, won’t you, Rook?” Fer asked.
Looking unusually serious, he nodded. “I will, yes.”
“Remember, you promised,” Fer said as the Way opened.
“I won’t forget.” Rook reached out, and she took his hand, and they stepped through the Way together.
Rook stayed quiet as he followed Fer from the Lake of All Ways to the nathe. Fer was taking a chance on him—he was well aware of it—so he’d try not to be too tricksy.
The nathe was the center of all the lands. It wasn’t a palace, exactly; it was like a huge, bark-covered tree stump, with moss creeping up its gray walls and roots that plunged deep into the ground. Inside, rooms and passages and a great hall called the nathewyr had been carved out of the wood.
No puck except for him had ever visited the nathe, and the last time he’d been here, they’d tried to kill him.
As he followed Fer up the gnarled steps that led to one of the nathe’s many doors, they were met by a nathe-warden, a guard with rough, brown skin and greenish hair that reminded him of willow-wands. The warden glared at him.
Rook bared his teeth in a sharp grin, and felt for his shifter-tooth in his pocket. Go ahead, willow-warden, his grin said. I’m ready for you.
“Lady Gwynnefar,” the guard said, “you are welcome to the nathe, but this puck is not.”
Fer shrugged. “He stays, or I leave,” she said, and swept past the warden. Rook ducked past the guard too, to catch up with her. As they stepped into a polished hallway, she glanced aside at him. “It’s amazing how many people don’t like you, Rook,” she said.
“Well, I don’t like them either,” he grumbled. And he hadn’t actually bitten the nathe-warden. He was on his best behavior, after all.
She kept walking. They were passing through a long hallway lit by glowing crystals when a short, gray-skinned stick-person with a tuft of green hair on its head popped out of another hallway. When it spoke, its voice was surprisingly deep and rough, like bark. “Lady!”
Fer stopped; Rook stepped up beside her. “What is it?” she asked.
The stick-person bobbed a bow. “My master. Arenthiel. He wishes to see you. Come!” It pointed toward the other passageway.
“We-ell, I don’t know,” Fer said slowly. A lock of her short-cut hair curled over her forehead and she brushed it away. “I came here to see the High Ones.”
“See them, too,” the stick-person said. “See Arenthiel now. To talk.”
Fer frowned, but Rook could see that she was about to agree. “Wait,” he interrupted. “Arenthiel is your enemy, Fer.” And the enemy of the pucks. “It could be a trap.”
“Rook, we’re in the nathe,” Fer answered. “It’s not a trap. Arenthiel was broken after he lost the contest and failed to steal my lands from me. You were asleep when it happened, but if you’d seen it, you’d know that he’s not any threat to me.”
“Oh sure he’s not,” he muttered.
“Just talk!” put in the stick-person.
“I’m going to see him,” Fer said. “Do you want to come with me?”
Rook nodded. “They’ll toss me out if I don’t.” Or worse.
They followed the stick-person through hallways that were strangely empty, as if all the people who lived there were hiding away in their rooms like frightened rabbits in their burrows. Waiting for something to happen. They went up some winding stairs to an ornately carved and polished doorway, where the stick-person bowed them inside. The room was circular, carved from the dark wood and polished, with gleaming crystals set in niches in the walls. On a couch made of plump green pillows sat a shriveled, ancient creature with a face like an apple with a bite taken out of it and then left to rot.
“Hello, Arenthiel,” Fer said.
Rook blinked and looked again. It really was him. Arenthiel. Fer’s old enemy, the one who’d tried to steal the Summerlands from her, but failed. Instead of killing him, she’d sent him home to the nathe.
Arenthiel’s withered face cracked into a toothless smile. “Hello, Lady,” he said, and reached out with a wrinkled claw of a hand.
Fer took half a step toward him, then stopped. Not so quick to trust, Rook was glad to see.
The old creature’s face fell, and then he trembled into a cough that made his whole body shake.
Fer crossed the room and knelt by his side. “That sounds awful,” she said. “Have you been sick for a while?”
Arenthiel’s only answer was another pitiful cough.
But Rook was sure he caught a glimpse of mischief in Arenthiel’s eye. “Fer . . .” he started to warn.
“Shh,” she interrupted. Then she spoke to the stick-person. “I’ll need some hot water in a cup,” she ordered.
The stick-person bowed and left the room, returning in just a moment with a mug full of steaming water. Fer took it, busying herself with a bag of herbs and a jar of honey she pulled from her patch-jacket pocket. Then she handed Arenthiel the tea she’d made, helping him curl his withered hands around the mug.
Rook stood staring down at Arenthiel. Old Scrawny, the pucks had named him. Arenthiel, who hated pucks and had wanted to hunt his brothers down and kill every last one of them.
The old creature took a sip of his tea and then grinned up at him. “You’re still alive, are you, young Robin?” Arenthiel asked in a high-pitched, creaky voice.
Rook didn’t bother answering such a stupid question. “Fer, you shouldn’t be helping him,” he said.
She put away the last of the herbs and got to her feet. “He seems pretty harmless to me.” She looked from him to Arenthiel and back again. “Do what you came to help me with, Rook. Look at him with your puck-vision and tell me what you see.”
Before when he’d looked into Arenthiel Rook had seen through the shell of beauty he wore to hide his rotten core. It hadn’t been a glamorie that he’d worn that had made him beautiful; it’d been because he was kin to the High Ones, or so he claimed. Now, on the outside, Aren was a wrinkled husk; Rook expected to see rot on the inside, but it wasn’t there. Old Scrawny was withered all the way through, but with no taint of evil.
“Well?” Fer prompted.
“He looks all right.” Rook shook his head. “But he’s probably up to something. He’s a troublemaker.”
“Takes one to know one,” Arenthiel put in with a cackle.
Grrrr. Rook took a threatening step closer.
“Rook.” Fer shook her head, then turned to Arenthiel. “Your servant said you wanted to talk. The tea has valerian in it and it’ll make you sleepy, so you’d better make it fast.”
The ancient creature was already blinking. “Wait,” he muttered, and reached out with his withered stick of a hand. “Lady. Wait.”
Fer crouched beside him again; Rook edged closer to listen.
“Must tell you,” Arenthiel said in his cracked voice. “I am here in the nathe, at the center of all things, but I cannot leave these rooms. Cannot do anything. The High Ones’ power is waning; they keep to their rooms too. Those who broke their oaths. The Forsworn.” He paused to give a dry cough. “Their power grows. You must be careful. Be careful, Lady. They are here in the nathe.”
“They’re here?” Fer gasped.
“Be careful of them,” Arenthiel muttered, his eyes dropping closed. “Be careful of you.”
“Don’t worry,” Fer said, and took the mug from his hands, setting it on the floor. Getting to her feet, she gently eased Arenthiel back against the pillows. The old creature sighed, and slept.