Mom looked down, as if ashamed. “No more than all his people did, Before.” Smoke drifted through the room. “Glamour, they called it. All faerie folk have it, though none of our human children with magic seem to. The faerie folk used it on us without thought, as easily as breathing, more easily than the magics they had to be taught. I’d not understood how akin to glamour your own magic was until I stood outside my own home, powerless to take a single step to help the child burning within.” Mom swallowed. “Glamour’s in some of the old books from Before. I should have known better. But once I caught my first glimpse of Faerie, I couldn’t let it go. I wanted magic so badly. I’m lucky Kaylen found me. Some of the others weren’t as gentle with their human captives.”
“Captives?” My voice was too small to bridge the space between Mom and me. In my vision, Karin had called Mom a captive, too.
Mom’s laugh was bitter. “All of us who found our way through to Faerie became captives. My father tore the city apart looking for me, but he had no idea how far I’d gone, not until later, and then—” Mom’s shoulders slumped. I wanted to put my arms around her, to say she didn’t have to tell me any of this.
But I wanted answers too badly. I said nothing. When Mom spoke again, her voice was strained. “I once watched a faerie lord command a human girl to throw herself into a river—and she did it, her eyes on him all the while, laughing right up until the rushing water clogged her throat.”
“Caleb wouldn’t—”
“No.” Mom shut her eyes, seeing things I couldn’t. “He watched, though, and made no move to stop it. So I had to watch with him. I think I laughed as well. Glamour is like that. It convinces you everything of theirs is so damned beautiful. There was a boy, the Lady herself turned him into a stag and hunted him like a wild thing. I remember the sound of the horns, the flash of his red flank through the green trees, the way the setting sun outlined his antlers—” Mom’s voice tightened around her words. “That was unusual. The Lady can change bodies as well as minds. It’s in the nature of her magic. At least with your magic, my mind—my thoughts—remained my own.”
Wind blew ash across the room. No one should die like that, with someone else moving their thoughts and limbs. I looked back toward the dresser and Father’s knife. I touched the blade. It was sharper than mine.
“At least I was the last,” Mom said. “Kaylen lifted his glamour from me in the end, and he gave his word he’d never use it again, on me or anyone else. If grief resulted from that decision in the end, that, at least, wasn’t his fault.”
“So you forgave him?” Mom hadn’t looked anywhere near to forgiving him in my vision.
“I’ve had time.” Mom moved to my side and set Caleb’s leaf back inside the drawer. “And I forgave him sooner than he forgave himself. I understand that now. But I would sooner die than have someone else control my thoughts and my actions once more. So I need your word. You must never use your magic on me again.”
It was too cold with the windows open. “So long as you’re not in any danger, you have my word.”
“That’s not enough. I know you mean well, Liza, but you truly don’t understand.”
The fire could have killed her. Did she expect me to just let her die next time? The stone’s purple light was dimming. I took it in my hands. “If you don’t trust me with my magic, how can you trust any promises I make?”
“It’s a funny thing about the faerie folk.” Mom shut the drawer. “They cannot say things they do not mean, and once they give their word, they cannot easily break it.”
“But I’m human.” I knew well enough that humans could lie.
Mom laughed uneasily. “I’ve noticed that once the children in this town come into their magic, they develop an odd unwillingness to lie. This has presented challenges in keeping their magic hidden.”
No magic controlled my words. I opened my mouth, meaning to tell Mom I wouldn’t use my magic to save her life, just to prove I could make false promises as well as anyone.
No words came out. I tried again. My chest tightened, and my breathing went shallow. I couldn’t seem to get enough air.
I stopped attempting to speak. Air rushed into my lungs. I gasped, stumbled, and caught myself. I couldn’t do it. I really couldn’t. I’d always hated to say things that weren’t true, but I’d thought it a choice. My choice.
“So you can see,” Mom said quietly, “why your refusal to give your word makes me uneasy. I’ll meet you at Kate’s.” She turned and left the room.
In my hands the light went out, leaving me in the dark.
Chapter 5
My hand clenched the dead stone. How could I refuse Mom, after all she’d been through?
How could she ask such things of me, after all I had?
I felt my way down the dark hall to my room. I pulled the coverings off my bedroom windows and took two nightgowns from my dresser, one for me and one for Mom. They smelled faintly of smoke, but there was no helping that. I added clean sweaters, pants, underwear, and socks to the pile. I went back downstairs, pulled on my hat and scarf and gloves, and headed to Kate’s.
The path through town was silent now, with just a few faint stars piercing the clouds. Lantern light spilled out around the shutters of the houses and made their tacked nylon glow.
“Sorry about your house, Liza.”
I dropped the clothes and spun around, only to find Kyle’s brother, Johnny, standing right behind me. He laughed. At fourteen he had a wiry build that made him look taller than he was, along with the wispy beginnings of something no one but him called a mustache on his upper lip.
I hadn’t heard him coming. I never did. “Don’t do that,” I said darkly.
Johnny shrugged. His magic was stalking, meaning he was the only human I knew who walked as silently as faerie folk did.
“Don’t go spooking the caller, Johnny.” Hope’s steps crunched toward us through the snow. “That can get you in all sorts of trouble. Almost as much trouble as spooking me.”
Johnny slouched down in his fur-lined denim jacket. “I’m not afraid of a little wind.”
“You should be.” Hope helped me pick up the dropped clothes. She sniffed at a sleeve. “We’ll find better for you and your mom,” she said to me.
“I don’t mind.” As I folded the clothes, Johnny disappeared the way he’d come, without a sound.
“Everyone else will, if you walk around smelling like this.” Hope laughed, and acorns clattered around her face. “Seriously, it isn’t any trouble. I was already planning to come by later to check on the firestarter.” She walked with me halfway to Kate’s house before peeling off for her own.
Johnny appeared again at my elbow. “I really am sorry about the fire.”
I flinched but kept walking, as if I’d known he was there all along. Johnny stopped to scratch at the leg of his pants. Kyle’s ants, I thought, and wasn’t sorry. I hoped the leather kept them warm. I hoped they stayed a good long time.
As far as I could tell, Johnny didn’t follow me any farther. I glanced into Kate’s backyard as I neared her house. Light glowed from within the shed, and tools and scraps of wood and metal lay on a tarp beside it. They must have already gotten Ethan inside.
I’d head out there soon, too, but first I crossed Kate’s front porch and entered the warmth of her living room. I set the damp clothes down near the fireplace, where a pot of water boiled above the coals. Kate’s walls were covered with bright wall hangings; I glanced at the one that hid her mirror. Most mirrors had been destroyed during the War, out of fear that the faerie folk could step through them into our world, but this one was a family heirloom, so Kate had secretly kept it. No faerie folk had found their way through the silvered glass, but I had used the mirror to bring Mom home from Faerie.