The little hobgoblin did her best to follow orders no matter how her heart hurt. Haida cleaned the shivering, scared thing that used to be her lady, paying no attention to the way it flinched or gibbered or cried—just as she had been instructed. She also ignored the way the magic swirled around it, volatile and miserable and . . . deadly.
Haida covered the open wounds in salves that she had made herself this morning from plants she had gathered Outside. Neither she nor her lady trusted anything in their home: it was unstable, reflecting the madness of its lord. In an older time, this would not have been dangerous: Underhill was vast and had been robust, healing itself of spiritual wounds. But Underhill was losing its connection to the mundane world and becoming capricious. For those who dwelt in the forest lord’s home in Underhill, the wise ate and drank nothing that had been in the cupboards overnight nor anything that had dwelt in the home as long as a day.
When the hobgoblin had done what she could for the wounds with her salves, she covered the shivering form with clothing and jewels strung on silver chains, then began the process of helping the creature to a stool where it could sit and eat.
“Don’t think of me as a person when I’m like that,” her lady had told her. “I know I look like myself, but it is not me. It is a beast. A dangerous beast. Be cautious and careful. You alone can help me defeat him.”
Her lady was clever, much more clever than Haida, so she followed her rules to the letter. Food.
“Eat,” the hobgoblin urged the thing that used to be her lady. Would be again. It had worked before, it had to work this time, too. “It’s only a bit of bread and honeycomb. It will do you good.”
Haida took a bite, to show the thing both that it was edible and that if it didn’t eat soon, Haida might eat all the food. Whatever logic it used, the scarred and broken thing ate as soon as Haida swallowed. As it ate, the outwardly broken parts of it, bones and sinew, knit together and smoothed out into a more pleasing form, until the beast started to look more like Haida’s lady again—outwardly at least.
Haida’s lady, Ariana, was strong with magic from both sides of her bloodline. The magic allowed her to heal from things that would have killed a hobgoblin. Her father was a forest lord, an independent but powerful fae, her mother one of the high ladies of the highest courts—and would that she were here. But it had been years since she left, and not a word of reply to any message or plea sent by the hobgoblin who had once served her faithfully and now served her daughter.
Even as Haida thought about her grievance with her lady’s mother, the building around them groaned and shifted. Disturbed by her fretting or, more likely, by the beast’s turmoil. So much power in the hands of the angry and traumatized beast that wore Ariana’s body was not a happy thing, and Haida’s anger was making their home worse. She could do something about both matters, and hopefully their place in Underhill would settle a little.
Haida focused her thoughts on her task and brought another tray of food to the table, food stolen this morning from three different villages to keep humans from taking too much notice. The food served the dual purpose of distracting the beast from whatever had the floor uneasy under her feet and further strengthening her lady.
The beast ate everything Haida could provide, then looked up at her with eyes that were solid black. In all other aspects, the beast looked like her lady now, though bruised and battered, but the eyes were always deep, fathomless, black.
“There is one more necessary thing,” it told her in a voice made hoarse by screaming and slow from terror and exhaustion. That it spoke meant that her lady was near.
“Yes,” Haida agreed, and prepared to pull a fog over the beast’s recent memories.
Like most of the lesser fae, Haida had a few things she did very well. But hers was a wilder magic, not easily directed in small spells or bindings. Fogging the beast’s memory was difficult for her, and if it fought her, she would not be able to do it at all. But she didn’t need to keep the memories at bay for long, just for long enough.
Haida touched the beast’s forehead, and the beast grabbed Haida’s hand and growled. “Sawyl. Samuel. Samuel Whitewolf,” the beast said.
Haida waited. The beast’s magic was thick, and it flowed by the hobgoblin like a winter wind, biting and uncomfortable.
“Samuel,” the beast murmured more gently, sounding too much like her lady. It released Haida and rubbed at its eyes as it whispered, “They come, the wolves. Death comes with them. Remember.”
The beast had powers that her lady did not, powers more akin to Haida’s own, though much more powerful. The hobgoblin had no doubt that the words meant something. It would probably be bad because nothing good could come out of the ugliness that was the beast—so her lady had told Haida, and so Haida believed.
When the beast did not seem inclined to say anything more, the hobgoblin touched the creature gently and continued with the task the talk of wolves had interrupted. When she had the proper shape of the magic within her, she settled her magic on the beast. She petted its forehead, and said, “Forget. Let the mists hide the worst and leave only the best.”
Her magic snuck in and clothed the beast’s memories in kindness, a thing possible only because the beast allowed it. The change was immediate—the terrible beast faded.
Instead of the horrible wounded thing, her lady blinked at Haida, the blackness shrinking down until it was pupil only and her eyes were wide and jewel green. Open wounds were absorbed by deep brown skin, scars hidden by glamour until she looked no different than she ever had.
“Hobgoblin?” she said, sounding a little confused but not distressed.
Her lady looked around the kitchen, Haida’s domain. It was neat and tidy as always, if not so grand as the rest of the house. The hobgoblin felt the moss-covered walls of the kitchen, which had pulled back in distress at the beast’s presence, ease back into place—but the stillness had a waiting feeling rather than that of a home at peace, and she worried.
“Yes, my lady,” said the hobgoblin sadly, because the confusion in her lady’s face was being replaced by worse things as the magic Haida had worked was dispelled, and memory resettled properly. Her lady only needed to forget for that breath of time, so that she would have courage to take back her power and body from the beast.
Her father the forest lord was dual-natured. He had the form of the sidhe, and another of a forest fae. Ariana’s beast was born of that heritage, but had her father not brutalized her with pain and the terror of the hounds he commanded, it would never have materialized. The beast, a creature of the forest, unlike Ariana, could not disobey a direct order from the forest lord—what had started out as a punishment had borne useful fruit for Ariana’s father.
Haida’s lady sucked in a breath and looked at her hands, moving the fingers gently, then clenching them into fists.
“I don’t remember everything the beast did this time,” she said, her voice tight. “Did it do what he wanted us to do?”
Haida shook her head. “I don’t know, Mistress. Your magic is beyond me. You will have to look at what it created yourself.”
The little hobgoblin, green-gray and covered with wiry hair from head to feet, was closer to the Heart of Magic than the Tylwyth Teg, the greater fae like Ariana. Haida was like a shepherd who cared for the flocks and Ariana a weaver who worked tapestries with their yarn. One was not inherently more skilled or powerful than the other but differently able. Other fae did not see it as Ariana did, including Haida. To them, lesser fae were weak, but for her father, their home shivered and groaned, while only Haida could bring it comfort. If it had not been for Haida, Ariana knew she would have long ago been lost to the beast.
Ariana shed the last of the hobgoblin’s veil of shadows, ready to face the results of her father’s bidding and the beast’s obedience. The first few times she’d been able to remember what she’d done after her father reduced her to that other aspect. But eventually, her memories had not been so clear. This time, like the time before, she could remember nothing after she’d broken under the wave of terror that was the banehounds’ magic.