They were shadows in shadow, barely visible. They threaded into the grass, seeking downwards into cracks in frost-hardened soil. Each was an exploring thread of power, a questing tongue. Whether as an extension of self or by some inner communication, I knew where they licked and what they tasted. I found Sam, cold and sweaty, streaked with green juices, red from weals and oozing from cuts. Beneath him was the ice-cold ground, and beneath that was a darker presence, hugging close to the warmth leaching into the soil. I drew back a tendril and then launched it, stinging the hidden presence, biting into it with cold, energy-leaching darkness of gallowfyre.
It recoiled from the touch, squirming downwards into the frozen loam, vanishing into the soil. The grass around Sam relaxed and parted. An arm came free and he tugged at the strands until he could push himself up with an elbow. He pulled grass from his hair and from across his face, then yanked at it where it tangled his legs until he was in a frenzy of wrenching and tugging, throwing shreds of grass in all directions. He rolled over on one side and then crawled away from the spot. He did not collapse back on to it, though, but knelt up, brushing the remnant shreds from the tatters of his clothes.
"Fucking grassy shit!" he spluttered.
I recalled the gallowfyre, returning the glade to its normal pallid grey, while I watched him pull every last strand away until there was not a scrap of it left. Finally he stood.
"I suppose I should thank you," he said.
"Don't put yourself out."
"Yeah. Well, thanks. I thought…" He shook his head, clearing it. "Fucking grass. I'm getting a lawn mower, a fucking big one. Better still, I'm getting me some gravel. Can't go wrong with gravel."
"You'd better leave. I'll be in touch, Sam Veldon. I want to know where my daughter is."
He stared at me for a moment, meeting my eyes. Then he looked away, and nodded.
"Go. Leave this place."
At my dismissal, he faded. I was alone in the glade.
I looked around me. The still air held no hint of presence. The frozen ground was undisturbed but for the one patch of new growth, now torn and trampled.
"It's time for me to leave." My words were thin in the cold air. "You cannot fight me. I am finished here. We're done."
There was no echo. My voice sounded flat and empty.
I walked around the glade. The thorns remained still where I passed and all was quiet. My feet on the crispcold grass made the only sound.
"If you try and hold me here, it will be worse for you." The threat sounded hollow with no one to witness it.
For the third time, I reached within me, releasing the gallowfyre and dappling the glade with shifting moonlight. The glade responded immediately. The thorns retracted, winding back down into the ground; the grass shrank until it was the barest hint of a sward. Within moments I was standing in an empty field, bordered by distant trees. Where there had been the barest minimum of presence before, now there was none.
I looked around. Everywhere was the same. The ground rose slightly so that I was on the crown of a low rise. At the edges, scraggy firs edged the forest, backed by larger trees fading into the dark beneath the evergreens.
"Hiding will not help you," I shouted. There was no reply.
I set off towards the trees. I walked smartly, showing my determination, making it clear that I would brook no dissent. After a few minutes, I stopped. The trees were no nearer. Nor were the ones behind me any further away. I broke into a jog and then into a full run. I pushed myself, racing for the trees. Eventually I staggered to a hoarse halt.
The trees remained at a distance.
I put my hands on my knees, breathing hard. It was time to stop messing about. I straightened myself and opened the core of magic within me. I released the tendrils of gallowfyre, sending them questing through the bald grass, into the cracks, exploring the crevices, searching for the taste of life, the sense of a presence. They found only dead soil. There was nothing living in it. Even the grass was dead.
"Show yourself! Come out and face me!" I shouted. My words evaporated in the thin cold air.
I resolved to wait, then. I sat down on the cold grass, feeling the chill from the ground through the thin silk of my trousers. I missed the shirt I had given Helen to wrap the baby in. I shook my head. No, poor scrap, he could have it.
In the stillness I found myself listening to the sound of my own breathing, the light draw and relax. I rubbed my hands together and heard the soft rasp of skin on skin. There was no other sound.
I shook myself. There was a wriggling, scurrying sound. I looked down. Where my hand pressed to the ground, the grass had grown around it, sending little shoots up between my fingers. As I watched, they withdrew, retreating back into the soil.
I jolted myself awake. What was I doing? I had let myself be lulled by the peace. I was tired and hungry. I had let my head fall forward and fallen asleep where I sat. I shot to my feet, suddenly realising the danger I was in.
If I fell asleep here, I would never wake up. The grass would pull me down and strangle me until I was immobile and unconscious, but not dead. No, it wouldn't want me dead. With Sam it could survive for a long time. If it kept him and hoarded him, he would feed the glade for as long as he lived, maybe for another forty years.
But me? I was fey.
If it could overcome me, it would have my full fey lifespan to feed on me. I could keep it alive for hundreds of years. I would be the meal that never ran out, the well that never ran dry.
All it had to do was wait, and it was very good at waiting.
EIGHTEEN
I made myself walk up and down. If I fell asleep I was worse than dead, but that only made the exhaustion more acute. My throat felt dry and my bones ached from the cold. I needed to get back, but where was the exit?
I thought about bringing others. Maybe if I summoned Debbie? She had a strange idea of what constituted fun – maybe she would like it here. Ultimately, though, that would be fruitless. Whoever I brought here, when they had gone, I would still be left. Unless I could think of a way to escape, I was going to be the meal on tap for as long as I lived.
I tried delving into the ground, sending fingers of gallowfyre questing deep into the soil. There was nothing. It was as if the fey had developed the glade as armour. The glade was the fey, but only in the sense that my hair or my nails were me. I could cut them off and it would neither hurt nor harm me, but they were still me. The fey was like that. Somewhere under the layers of soil and the fringe of forest was a creature, but I was damned if I could find it.
I tried tempting it, sitting on the grass looking as if I was asleep. It ignored me. I tried hurting it, pulling out little tufts of grass until I had a bare patch several feet across. As soon as my back was turned the grass grew again. I walked steadily towards the trees, testing whether there was a limit to how far I could go before I would make some progress. If there was a limit, I didn't reach it.
The cold was creeping into my bones and the exhausting day and lack of food were starting to get to me. Eventually I would fall asleep, and then I would be in real trouble. I sat back on the grass, determined to think, and not under any circumstances to fall asleep.
I tried to think of some way to summon help. I shouted for Garvin, and then Blackbird, to no effect. There was no surface in the glade that would reflect, nothing I could use as a mirror. My imagination conjured the fey that was the glade watching this from a distance, realising with smug satisfaction how increasingly desperate I was becoming.