I hesitated, glancing around. Dean was watching me, very nearly glaring.
Looking back to Seb, I shook my head, and said, “I don’t know. But the last time I was in a place I didn’t want to be, I found that it was best to just let myself be there, and not focus on how much I wanted to be somewhere else. So for the sake of keeping myself as healthy and steady as I can, I have to think that no, we’re not going to go home. Not for a long, long time.”
Seb nodded, looking sad but understanding.
When I turned around again, Dean was gone.
• • •
Weeks tumbled into months. Dean and I fell into a routine of sorts; he did his best to avoid the fire when I was there, and only went with me on gardening trips if he absolutely had to. When we weren’t tending the gardens and collecting food, he spent his time with the older changelings, while I spent mine with the younger kids, and with Medley.
She and I had a lot in common, in a way. We had both been taken when we were very young, and neither of us had been given the chance to grow up the way we would have if we’d been left where we were. We both enjoyed playing swordfight with sticks, and hide-and-seek when it seemed safe enough to do so—which it didn’t very often, but the younger kids needed play or they got restless and irritable, and that would have put us in even more danger than a quick game through the trees.
If not for the fact that we slept on the ground and ate nothing but vegetables we’d picked ourselves, we might have been able to pretend this was a glorious adult-free vacation. And if not for the hunting horns that sometimes split the air and sent us scattering for cover, we might have been able to forget the monster whose den we were creeping around. Blind Michael didn’t seem to remember that we existed, and certainly hadn’t been sending anyone after us. I was grateful for that.
Whatever force had dropped us all here, it hadn’t come again. There had been no additional waves of out-of-place children. I was grateful for that. While the group we had was perfectly fine, it was already straining the edges of what we could support.
But the best thing about spending time with Medley was the thing neither of us talked about, because there was no point in talking about it: she wasn’t looking for a way out, and if one presented itself, she wouldn’t be able to take it. This was where she belonged now, as much a part of the skerry as the twisted trees around us. Here, she was alone and frequently afraid, but no one looked at her like she was a monster, no one reacted to her with horror or confusion. Her own parents wouldn’t recognize her if she went home like this, and she knew it. Choosing to stay in a place she understood was reasonable, and very much what I would have done in her position.
Maybe it was what I was already doing. Dean spent his free time trying to come up with elaborate plans for escape, while I spent mine figuring out new ways of serving zucchini to a group of increasingly less-picky changelings. I had given up. He hadn’t.
And that was why it wasn’t a surprise, not really, the day I woke to find Dean and the older children missing, the fire burnt down low, and horns splitting the night. I knew at once what had happened. I didn’t want to know it, but I did. Sitting up, I stared at the open spaces where they should have been.
Medley sat up as well, heaving a great, weary sigh.
“I suppose it was time to move the fire,” she said.
“What?”
“They’ve been caught,” she said, and waved a hand in a wrap-it-up gesture, finger spiraling in the air. “That’s what that horn means, when it sounds. Prey’s been taken. Blind Michael will throw them to the stables, and then he’ll question them, after they’ve had a day or two to soften up. They’ll tell him everything he wants to know. They won’t be able to stop themselves.”
I went cold. “What?”
“Dean must have come up with some fool plan, decided that if they stole a horse they’d be able to Ride out of here or something of the like, and taken them off to try some heroic escape while the rest of us were sleeping.” She shook her head. “There’s always one who has to be a hero, any time kids get loose. It’s too bad. I liked him.”
I looked around at the younger kids. Seb was watching me with open despair. This couldn’t happen. I couldn’t let this happen.
“No,” I said.
“No?” asked Medley.
“No, that isn’t how this ends.” I stood, watching her. “If the fire’s already compromised, you don’t need to worry about me being taken. Just move it. We’ll find you.”
“You can’t intend to—”
But I did. I had already turned, and was stalking into the trees, heading not for Blind Michael’s fire but for Luna’s cozy little house with its patch of perpetual daylight and garden full of roses.
When I got there, I stormed right into the yard and banged my fist on the front door, stepping back to wait. Several minutes passed before the door swung open, revealing a small, spotless room in white and rosy pink. No one was there.
“Hello?” I called, stepping inside.
“I told you I wasn’t going to help you,” said Luna, as the door slammed shut behind me. I turned, and there she was, watching me. “Whatever you want, the answer is no.”
To her, I was a stranger. To me, she was a copy of my mother, and I knew the subtleties of her expression. She was saying no, but she was saying it in the way that could sometimes be negotiated with, the way that was still willing to listen.
“We found seven gardens,” I said. “We’ve restored them all. They’re flowering now. We even cleaned out the well in one of them. We’ve been rebuilding fences, and I think the houses are starting to heal. I don’t know how that can be possible, but it is.”
“So? That was our deal.”
“I don’t think it’ll last if we stop.”
She stopped, expression going neutral. “Is that a threat?”
“No. Your father has taken half our number, most of our strongest workers among them. They were careless. It won’t happen again.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“You can release them. Open the stable doors and let them out.”
“I told you, I won’t help you anymore!”
I looked at her, fighting the urge to flinch. “Then I suppose when your siblings’ gardens wither and die again, you’ll be comfortable knowing you could have stopped it.”
She drew back, staring at me. “You’d starve yourselves rather than continue at your duties?”
“If it’s starve or know we did nothing when our people were taken, then yes, we’ll starve,” I said. “There are fruits in the forest, if you look in the right places. We’ll be fine.” I wasn’t so sure of that, but she was enough of a hothouse flower that I was willing to wager she’d never explored her father’s lands to a degree that would reveal the lie.
“If I open the stables, this has to be the last time I help you,” she said.
“It will be. They won’t be that careless a second time.”
She looked at me. I looked at her. Neither of us blinked.
Finally, she looked away.
“Father is hosting a bonfire tonight,” she said. “I’ll attend, and open the stable doors. You’ll need to be nearby, to collect your people, because my aid to them ends with a lock. Do you understand?”