Bloody iron. You'd think I'd have learned by now.

I trudge through the forests of Faerie, hauling my weapons with me. Night is falling, and a wind is kicking up, soughing through the trees. There's going to be a storm before long—I need to find shelter. But I'm too furious and exasperated to be afraid.

Iron-bloody courtiers. I should have known something was up when they invited me and Cardan on a hunt. We haven't exactly been actively ostracized over the last few months—Cardan may be a pariah, but he's still a Greenbriar, and I am his companion—but while we're never blocked from attending Court functions or more informal events, no one's actually invited us to anything. I should have known this invitation was suspicious.

But it seemed like such a good opportunity to talk, to try and discern more rumors that might be helpful. And to get onto Faerie's mainland, where I could possibly talk to more faeries, outside the Court. Faeries who might know something about Taryn.

It all seemed to be going well at first. I actually had quite a nice time, stalking through the forest and talking to my fellow hunters, and Cardan of course was enjoying himself immensely, chatting up everyone like he'd never known a day of abandonment in his life. The sight infuriated me for some reason, though, and I allowed the hunt to separate us, putting distance between me and his annoying face, his endless, tiresome charm.

Perhaps that was a mistake. In fact, I know it was: it just allowed the courtiers to sudden slip away, leaving me all alone in the forests of Faerie. I heard them snickering, and then I was abruptly alone, with my bow and arrows and no way home.

I kept my head; I can be proud of that, at least. I knew I had to get to the coast, so I started following streams, keeping a wary distance from the water. But it was slow going, my clumsy human footsteps crashing through the underbrush, and now darkness has begun to fall. I'm facing the prospect of a night out alone in the forests. In a storm.

All right, forget about making it to the coast. I stop following the stream and start looking for shelter.

The wind blows harder, bending the trees back. They bow before the power of the coming storm, their tops still sunlit, vivid against the furious clouds darkening the sky. A fistful of wind blows leaves into my face, and I curse, knocking them away. Bloody iron. Everything's mocking me—including Cardan by now, laughing and jeering with his fellow aristocrats—

The thought makes me so blind with rage that at first I don't hear the voice calling my name. "Jude! Jude!" the voice shouts, floating over the wind.

I knock an arrow, just in case, and back up against a tree. "Who's there?" I shout back.

"It's me." And Cardan comes out of the trees like a piece of the storm itself. I catch my breath at the sight of him: windblown and gorgeous, his dishevelment only making him more handsome somehow…I shake my head, snapping out of it.

"Where have you been?" The wind snatches away my words in the first cold spatter of rain.

"I came back to find you," he says, reaching my side at last. "Everyone was sniggering about leaving you all alone in the woods all night, so I figured you probably needed some help," he said conversationally.

I scowl at him. "I do not need help."

At that very moment, a huge lightning bolt cracks across the sky. Seconds later comes the vast boom of thunder. The wind blows harder.

"Oh, really?" Cardan says mildly. "Because I sort of got the impression that a violent storm was on its way and we might both need to find shelter. There's no way we can get home through this storm."

"You faerie creep." But I fall into step beside him. We make our way through the thrashing woods.

Everywhere is the rustle of animals and flash of faeries hurrying to find shelter. It grows darker, lit only by increasingly frequent flashes of lightning. The forest lashes us with branches and bushes, all of them with an inordinate number of thorns. A cackle rings above us, and I look up to see the red eyes of a tree goblin, swinging through the treetops, laughing madly. He spots us, and starts to lunge, but I fire an arrow and Cardan lets loose a gout of black flame. Both missiles miss, but the goblin charges away, shrieking.

"The storm's gotten all the wild fey riled up," Cardan nearly has to shout into my ear. "Any ideas for shelter?"

"You're the faerie! You think of something!" I yell back. Another burst of rain falls over us, cold and wet.

"It's mortals who have new ideas!" he bawls back.

Another flash of lightning cracks out before I can reply, illuminating— "Come on!" I fight my way forward, Cardan right behind me.

It's a stone-built cottage, half-ruined and clearly abandoned, but with enough of the structure still standing to shelter us from the storm. I kick in the door, half-rotten wood yielding under my boot, and scan the interior warily.

Cardan ignites the spell, and his magical light illuminates the cottage. It's completely abandoned—what little furniture there is lies wrecked and ruined—and no one else seems to have taken shelter here. Cardan advances further into the dusty, spider webbed interior while I shut the door with a sigh of relief.

"Well," Cardan says at last, "this is rather exciting." He throws up his hand, and his light flies up to hover near the ceiling. "I wonder if there's any food?" He heads over to the vine growing in the corner while I take off my sodden cloak and start hunting around for my flint and steel.

Cardan returns with fruit, fresh and sweet from the magical vine, just as I've started a fire in the fireplace with broken-up furniture. His eyes meet mine, and all at once, after months of surprisingly harmonious cohabitation, I know that we're going to fight. And it's going to be a bad fight.

He stiffens with the same knowledge as he places the fruit on the half-wrecked table. Then, with an elaborate sigh that utterly infuriates me, he turns to face me. "All right, Jude," he says. "Out with it."

"Why did you come back?" I demand, voice cracking sharp. "Why didn't you just ride off with all your smug little friends and laugh at me?"

"First of all, they're not my friends," he snaps. "I don't consider people who left me to starve after my brother kicked me out as friends. Second of all, a storm was coming. You could have died, Jude." Tree branches knock hard on the outside of the house, wind whistling around the roof.

I laugh, hard and contemptuous. "Don't pretend like you care what happens to me, Cardan Greenbriar," I sneer. "You don't give a damn about me, and you never did. All those years, you bullied me and Taryn for daring to impinge on your precious little Gentry school. 'Oh, it's those stupid mortals again!'" I imitate his cold, sneering tone. "'Why do they keep coming to our school? Why aren't they in the cesspit where they belong?' Or how about 'Take a bite of that dirt, dirt-girl!'" I advance on Cardan, dagger gleaming in my hand, and have the satisfaction of seeing him back away, eyes lit with fear. "Why?" I demand, voice raw and harsh. "Why did you torment us like that? Just because we were mortal bastards and you were an oh-so-special faerie prince and you could fucking get away with it?"

"Well, yes, partly," he sneers, regaining some of his arrogance.

He ducks as my dagger whizzes, whirling through the space his head occupied half a second ago. No matter: I've got another one. I draw it and lunge at him. He dodges, and then we're running in circles around the table, me slashing at him, him trying frantically to keep out of range.

"You fucking faerie!" I scream, too angry to care about the consequences, voice rivaling the storm for fury. "You fucking piece of shit faerie! I don't know why I saved you, you worthless ass!"

With a snarl, he whirls around, and I scream in frustration as I come to an abrupt halt, my whole body caught in an invisible web. I struggle, kicking and screaming, but only tangle myself further. "A coward, too!" I yell, and spit at his feet.

"You sound like Balekin." He's panting hard, more from emotion than exertion, eyes blazing. "He used to call me a coward all the time. Just as you used to call Taryn a coward too, and a weakling. How long has it been now, Jude, since you saw your twin sister? Eight months? Nine? What were your last words to her, pray tell?"

I scream wordlessly, even as the tears come. He's right: my final words to her were that she was a coward and a weakling. I stare at him wildly. I didn't know it was possible to hate someone this much.

"You want to know why I bullied you in school, Jude Duarte?" He's panting harder than ever, face livid with emotion. "You want to know the real reason?" He leans in, the scent of pine and fir coming off him. "I was jealous of you. I was jealous of you and your sisters."

For a moment, I'm too stunned to think. I hang in his web-spell, just gaping. Then—"What?" I yell. "What the hell? What—jealous? How could you have been jealous of us?"

"You don't see it, do you?" He shakes his head, giving an odd half-laugh. "You look at me and you think I have it all, don't you?" He shrugs out of his jacket, tossing it onto the table, and his hands go to his shirt buttons. "Take a look, Jude Duarte."

I hang in his spell, watching helplessly, as he unbuttons his shirt and strips it off, pulling it out of his pants and tossing it aside. Then he turns around, and I see his back.

I don't cry out, but my eyes widen. I can see his back clearly in the firelight and the magic light, bare of any covering. It's a mesh of scars. Long, thin scars, scoring his back, ranks of them. Whip scars, from multiple beatings.

Cardan turns around to face me, eyes pits of black fire in his grim face. "My brother did this," he says, voice low and flat. "Dear old Balekin. He beat me, over and over, because I wasn't good at swordplay, because I talked back, because I wouldn't kill at his behest, because he just didn't like me. He told me it was because he loved me. He convinced himself that was why. And that made it even worse." He takes a deep breath. "And then I'd go to school, still aching, and there you'd be: the bastard mortal daughter of General Madoc's errant wife. And you'd be the star pupil. Noggle drooling all over you, beating everyone in swordplay, answering every question right. Then you'd be out playing with your sisters, all of you laughing and happy, none of you trying to kill or hurt each other. Your sisters love you, Jude!" He laughs, wild and angry. "So does Madoc. Do you know how he talks about you to other people, when you can't hear? 'You mark my words, my daughter is going to do great things! Just watch, Jude is going to make us all proud.' My father couldn't even be bothered to feed me when I was homeless! Eldred doesn't care whether I live or die, and neither do my brothers, and neither does my mother either, for that matter. While you…" He tosses a hand at me helplessly, and his spell abruptly evaporates, releasing me . "You cannot know," he finishes quietly. "There has never been a moment in your life when you have not been loved, Jude Duarte."

I fall to my feet, dagger still drawn, but not threatening him with it. I stare at him, astonished at this view of my family, of my life. At this glimpse of Cardan's life.

I had no idea. I never, ever imagined anything like this.

Slowly, I hold up my left hand. I show him my missing fingertip. "See this?" I say, low and hard. "One of Madoc's guards bit my finger off when I was only nine years old, because he hated mortals so much. He threatened to eat me completely if I told anyone, so I didn't. And he was typical, Cardan. All my life here has been like that. Always afraid, always on my guard, always aware that everyone around me thinks I'm lesser, that I'm prey. Knowing that I'm inferior, that I'm just a mortal, weaker than the weakest faerie. That I have to work twice as hard as anyone else, to get half the reward. Living with the man who murdered my parents in front of me! Do you have any idea how it feels to love your parents' murderer? And now I've lost both my sisters. One of them could be dead. Taryn might have killed herself, Cardan, and I didn't save her."

"Yes, Jude." He runs his hands through his hair, muscles moving smoothly under his torso, and the sight makes something clench, not entirely unpleasantly. "I've started to see that, since I actually started living with you." He throws himself to the floor in front of the fire.

It seems we're not going to actually kill each other after all, so I sit down beside him. The fire's heat washes over us, and the storm's noise sounds almost peaceful outside the cottage.

I look at Cardan's scars, livid in the firelight. It takes a lot of damage to scar a faerie that badly. Balekin's beatings must have been truly savage. I wince at the thought, and I wince again, imagining those hands that beat Cardan touching my sister. How could I have ever thought that Taryn should have been honored at Balekin's attentions? That she should have yielded?

"You want to know why Balekin finally threw me out, Jude?" Cardan says suddenly. "Why he finally exiled me from his house? It was because I confronted him about Taryn. I saw him that night, Jude. I saw him leading Taryn off from the ball, and I saw him coming back without her. And then he was acting so strange about her…So obsessive, even for him. I asked him outright why he was so fixed on your sister. I asked him what happened that night.

"So he hit me. Several times, actually. Then he said, 'If you can't keep from my business, then you have no place in my house.' Then he literally threw me out the door and shut it in my face."

I come alert. "You think Balekin had something to do with Taryn's disappearance?"

He laughs bitterly, ironically. "Why, yes, I do think he had something to do with it. But I don't think he killed her, Jude. If he had, he wouldn't be trying to help Madoc find her. I think he tried to hurt her, but she got away somehow."

"And we can't confront him about it," I realize. "Not a mortal girl and an outcast prince. Not if we have no proof." I bury my face in my hands, exhaustion and despair washing over me. "And it's been months…"

"Nine months."

Something in Cardan's voice makes me look up. He's staring into the distance, a strange expression on his face. "Nine months," he repeats, voice a mere whisper.

"Cardan?"

He blinks out of his fugue, shaking his head and refocusing. "Sorry," he says. "Odd moment there. I thought I had something, but then it slipped away. No, I agree, we can't confront Balekin, or accuse him before Eldred. The King's never listened to me before, so why would he do so now?"

I give him a hard look. "Maybe you were jealous of us and all," I say harshly, "but don't pretend like you care for Taryn too much, Cardan. You'd never put your neck on the line for her."

"Excuse me," he glowers, "but I already have. I confronted Balekin about Taryn, remember? And gotten myself kicked out of the house for my trouble. Maybe Taryn and I were never exactly best friends, but I do feel a modicum of responsibility." His face relaxes into its old mask of humor. "Besides," he says easily, "you're my patron. Aren't I supposed to be helping you out whenever I can?"

"Stop it," I snap out in sudden irritation.

"What?"

"Being so charming. Don't you ever get sick of it?"

He gives that maddening grin. "Don't you ever get sick of being sarcastic and prickly?"

For a moment I'm tempted to snap back at him, or give him a facetious answer: a taste of his own medicine. Then I collapse, exhaustion falling over me like chainmail. Great Trees, what's the point?

"Of course I do," I say, not looking at him. "But it's better than the alternative."

"Which is?"

I turn to look him in the eye. "People seeing me. Truly seeing me."

Understanding flickers through his eyes. "Yes," he says at last, softly. "I can understand that." He gives a quick, unhappy smile. "So I think you know why I never stop being charming and facetious, Jude."

"Yes," I say. "I know." And I do.

We sit by the fire a moment more, the storm raging outside the cottage. I feel the heat of Cardan's body, the even rhythm of his breath. He still hasn't put his shirt back on. I find myself sneaking another peak. Damn, but he has a great body. Not muscled and conditioned like the guards and knights, but lean and slender and strong, his tail curled around his legs. The scars only make him more interesting somehow.

"We should put more wood on the fire," he says eventually.

"Yes," I agree. "We should." Neither of us makes a move.

My eyes stray to the scars again. I wonder what they feel like.

"Go ahead," he says.

"What?"

"Touch them. I know you want to."

I hesitate, but he's right: I do want to. Slowly, I reach out and trace my fingers along one of the longer scars. It's rough under my fingertips, the skin around it smooth. I trail down along its length, from his shoulder to the small of his back, and he lets out a rattling hiss, the tuft on his tail twitching.

"Want me to stop?" I ask, not removing my hand.

I sense him struggling before saying, "No." Then: "Do it again."

I trace my fingers down his back again, choosing a different scar to follow. He has so many. I feel a flash of rage at Balekin, for hurting Cardan so badly. What possible excuse could there be for inflicting such damage on his own brother? Nothing, except pure sadism, pure meanness.

"He didn't use an iron-tipped whip, did he?" I ask, still tracing the scar.

"No," he says quietly. "Balekin is just very, very good at hurting people."

My stomach tightens at this, at the thought of Balekin stalking Taryn. Hurting her. And me, doing nothing to stop him. Nothing to help her.

I withdraw my hand, ignoring the pang of cold disappointment. "We shouldn't be doing this."

He turns to face me, and I find myself staring into his black, black eyes. My breath catches. "Why not?" he asks softly. "What's 'this?'" He moves closer, and I draw back before I can stop myself. "Show me what 'this' is, Jude. Show me what you want."

"I don't want anything." It comes out too soft, shaking slightly.

"Liar." He comes closer, and I shift back again. "Why are you backing up? I'm not going to hurt you."

"You're a faerie," I say, still too soft. "All faeries hurt mortals. It's what you do. And you hate me, remember?"

He hesitates. "I was jealous of you, Jude. It's not the same thing." He comes closer still. "Come on. Touch my scars again."

"You want me to feel up your scars?" I snort, hoping it hides my rising fear, my rising excitement. "You really are sick, Cardan, even for a faerie."

"Then you must be sick too, because I know you want to." He's so close now that his warm breath fans my cheek, my ear, as he whispers, "You want to touch them all, don't you? You want to know what each one feels like. So go ahead. Trace each one, Jude Duarte."

I look him in the eye again. "You want me to touch you, Cardan?"

He sucks in a shaking breath. "Yes."

"Very well." And I swing myself around so I'm sitting in his lap, facing him, faces mere inches away. I reach around him to touch his scars again, his skin fever-hot. "I'll touch you," I whisper, and start tracing each scar, slowly.

He shudders, frame going stiff in my arms. His eyes roll up, mouth going slack. I grin in triumph, trailing my fingers down his back, so slowly.

"Jude," he gasps. His breaths come quick, jerking against me. "Jude, look at me."

I do. I meet his gaze, and for the first time ever, there is no fear between us, no hatred, no bitterness, no resentment. There's just him and me.

Cardan leans in, and he kisses me. We kiss for a long, long moment, there before our dying fire, the storm howling around outside.

Then Cardan reaches for the fastening on my doublet, and I reach down to unlace his pants, and there is no more talking.

"Jude," Cardan says much later, the gray morning light beaming in through the cottage's broken window, "your stomach is growling."

"Mmm." Eyes still closed, I arrange myself more comfortably against him, face pressed into his bare shoulder. His skin smells wonderful.

"Funny how mortals' stomachs do that."

I open my eyes and reach up to swat at his hair. "It's your fault. You didn't let me up to get anything to eat all night."

"I was enjoying myself too much. And so were you." He draws me up, and we share another leisurely kiss, while outside the last of the storm tosses fitfully through the trees.

He breaks it off, falling back. He stares up at the ceiling with a strange, faraway look. "There's been a child born," he says, voice as distant as his gaze. "A child was born last night."

I frown down at him. In his black eyes, stars spark and gleam, a ripple of magic. "What child? What child, Cardan?"

He shakes his head, the light of farsighted magic fading away. "I don't know," he says. "It's gone." He gives me his old, easy grin. "Relax, Jude, I don't think we're quite at that point yet."

I snort. "Right, Cardan." Privately, I hope we never do reach that point. Motherhood has never held any particular attraction for me.

Although…if Cardan and I did have a child…

"Do you want a child?" I ask him.

"No," he says promptly, relaxing back on the floor. "I don't think I'd make much of a father. But I don't think we need to worry," he adds complacently. "All we Greenbriar princes are as infertile as rocks."

I know these are dangerous waters, but still I press. "You really don't want one? Not even for the throne?"

"Oh, Great Trees, not you too!" He groans, turning his head aside.

"What?"

He sighs and faces me. His hair is tousled, his throat still adorned with the marks I left on it last night. He has never looked more scrumptious, or more earnest. "Everyone assumes I want the crown," he says. "I don't. I never did. Kingship is a curse. Just look what it's doing to Eldred. It's sucking the life right out of him."

"Hush." I look around fearfully at the empty, ruined cottage. "Don't speak of that."

"All right, fine, but I stand by what I said. No throne for me."

I feel a surge of strange disappointment, and shake it off. What was I hoping for, that Cardan would gain the throne and recognize me as an official consort? Give me a Court position? I laugh silently at my own foolish ambitions. Get a grip.

I scoot off him. "I'm going to eat something."

"Great. Bring me something too."

"Get it yourself," I retort, wrapping myself in his shirt and standing up. The floor is cold and gritty under my bare feet, and I'm sore in some uncomfortable places. I make my way to the table, rather more slowly than I like, to pick up a piece of fruit.

At that very moment, the door flies open.

Cardan curses and half-sits up, but is tangled in our clothes. I take up automatic defensive fighting stance, ready to throw my fruit, as the tall, dark shape looms in the doorway and stares in at us.

"Nice shirt, Jude," they say at last, in a familiar voice. It's Saxifrage, Madoc's Mirror knight.

I make the mistake of looking down, and my face flames. Cardan's shirt has swung open, revealing my body in all its naked glory. I hastily start to button it shut while Saxifrage lets out a long, melodious laugh.

"Looks like you owe me money, Commander!" she shouts over her shoulder to someone outside. "It didn't even take them a year!"

"What…?" And now Commander Foxfire appears at Saxifrage's shoulder. He takes in the scene and lets out a long chuckle. "Oh, Jude," he says with a creeping grin. "You couldn't have held out just a little longer?"

"Bloody iron," Cardan groans. "I take it a lot of money will be changing hands today at Court?"

"A veritable fortune, Your Highness," Foxfire says, chuckling. "Now put your clothes on, both you, before you go greet the General outside."

"Madoc's here?" I ask. Of course he is, I think: it's the icing on the humiliation cake.

"Naturally. We've been out looking for you ever since the storm died down." Foxfire smirks at me and Cardan again. "Though it looks like you weren't in any danger after all."

"True; we weathered the storm just fine." Saxifrage and Foxfire both bark out laughs at this. "Now, if you don't mind closing the door…"

Still chuckling, they close the door. Cardan and I face each other in the dimness.

"Well, that's it," I say. "The news will be all over Court now."

"Did you really expect anything else, Jude?" Cardan grins at me as he starts putting his clothes back on. "And honestly, won't it be nice to have the gossip focus on something that's actually pleasurable for us, rather than what a miserable pair of misfits we are? Give me my shirt back."

I have to grin as I strip his shirt off and hand it over. He has a point there, I suppose.