"Heather's enjoying this far too much," Vivienne mutters, watching as Heather takes another photo of the goblin twins, Alder and Elder.
It's market day in the Red Branch village, and the central platform is vibrating beneath our feet with all the activity. Forest faeries from all over the valley and the mountains beyond have gathered to buy and sell and trade gossip. Dogwood and Philomel run and shriek with the other kids, Philomel's white hair trailing like a pearl banner as she conjures magical lights for the other children to chase.
Taryn, meanwhile, stands by the goblin Knot, dispensing healing magic and hand drawn embroidery patterns with equal aplomb. Looking at her, I'm struck yet again by how much happier and more comfortable she seems with the wild fey than she ever was at Court. It's going to make it even harder to convince her to come home.
"Far too much," Vivi repeats, glaring at the happily strolling Heather among the forest faeries. "I need to get her home, soon as possible."
"The people we need to get home," I return in an undertone, "are Taryn and her kids."
"You mean back to Court?" Vivienne gives an unladylike snort. "Jude, she is never going to go back of her own free will. She's made that crystal clear. And who can blame her?"
I don't have any answer to this. I look back at Taryn, now graciously receiving a loaf of nut-bread from a smiling and bowing tree-woman she has just healed. If I'm being honest, I can see why my sister has no desire to return to Court. Why would she? Back at the High Court, she was Madoc's scandalous bastard ward, a weak and lowly mortal, bullied and tormented and told every single day how second-rate and disappointing and generally contemptible she was. Here in the valley, she's the Lady Healer, the Unicorn-Blessed, the mother of two beautiful and powerful children. No one knows about her past, no one's rubbing her human frailty in her face, no one's tormenting her. The local faeries treat her with respect, even reverence. Some of them are even her friends—indeed, I think Birch would like to be something more than friends. Why would she give all that up to go back to the High Court, to live with a stepfather she hates and fears, where she was utterly miserable?
But I can't help thinking that there's something more to it even than that. I run my thumb over my restored finger joint, watching Taryn as she heals another faerie. She seems so much happier and more confident now, but there have been cracks in her serenity, sudden and horrific glimpses into an abyss of pain and fear behind her outward calm. What secret is she hiding? I glance at Philomel as she goes charging past again. Who was my niece's father? It certainly wasn't any of the wild fey here. It must have been someone at Court, but who? Taryn is outright lying to her kids and the forest fey with that story about the aristocratic husband, but why?
And—most hauntingly of all—what caused the unicorn to manifest to Taryn, to take her away, to gift her with healing magic?
"Well, they can't stay here," I say firmly. "It's far too dangerous."
"What's too dangerous?" Cardan appears at my side, munching a baked apple.
"Greedy pig," I say automatically. "And Taryn and her kids staying here is too dangerous. If the forest doesn't get them, some predatory Court will."
"I don't know." Cardan finishes off his apple in a few neat bites. "They're not doing too badly so far, are they? I'm in no hurry to go home myself, frankly."
"Well, of course you're not," I roll my eyes. I've loved being with Taryn and her kids over the last ten days, but my absence from Court is starting to wear on me. It bothers me, not knowing what's going on, with the succession and the politics swirling around it. I think longingly of all the interest and excitement of Court: the events, the glamour, the pageantry, the proximity to power, the intrigues, the thrilling sensation of being right at the heart of everything, of every action, every word, being significant. How can Taryn bear being away from it all, in this dull-as-ditchwater forest?
But my twin has never shared my tastes, I admit to myself. Taryn always hated intrigues and politics, and clearly the uneventfulness of the forest suits her to the ground. I sigh.
"That's it." Vivienne straightens decisively. "I'm taking Heather back to the house."
"I'll come too," Cardan says, licking his fingers. "That's enough of being stared at for one day."
"I suppose I'll go too," I say, getting myself together as Vivienne collects Heather. Heather swings by Taryn to tell her our plans. Taryn nods, but doesn't join us, instead waving us goodbye. I frown over this, rubbing my finger again. It's petty, but I don't like this reminder that Taryn has her own life here, her own obligations, and she's not going to neglect them, even for us.
It's a lovely day and a pleasant walk back to the Tree, but my discontent must show on my face, as Cardan traipses alongside me. "What's gotten your knickers in a twist, Jude?"
"Where did you get that phrase from?" I ask, startled.
"A mortal novel, of course, where else? So. What's the matter, that you look so twisted-knickered?"
"Taryn, of course," I say with a sigh. "I hate the idea of just leaving her here, but Vivi's right: she's never going to leave of her own free will."
"Well, if she won't, she won't," says Cardan in that maddeningly reasonable tone. "You can't make her go."
"So I'm just supposed to leave my sister again, all alone in this valley?" I hiss.
"She's not alone. She has far more allies here than she ever did at Court. And, frankly, I don't blame her for not wanting to go back. She got hurt badly there, that's obvious."
I bite my lip, thinking of the horrible story Taryn told, of Madoc forcing her to murder that guard. "What do you think happened to her?"
He doesn't reply immediately, staring off into the golden leaf-scape for a long, thoughtful minute. "She still won't say who Philomel's father was," he says at last, in a low murmur, too low for Vivienne or Heather to hear. "And that, to me, is a very bad sign."
"A sign of what, though?" I demand in frustration.
He just shakes his head, avoiding my gaze.
We arrive back at the Tree, climbing in one by one through the knothole. I suppress the usual distaste I feel at Taryn's home. It might be a Great Tree of Faerie, but it's still a one-room cottage with a beaten earth floor, with no table or chairs, and only one bed. And not one servant to help Taryn out. How can she bear living in such a place, with two children, too?
I climb through the knothole, into the Tree's shadowy interior. I'm the last down the ladder. As I climb down, the embroidery on the front of my doublet suddenly snags on a splinter, right beside the sealed compartment where Taryn keeps her anti-faerie poisons out of reach of the children. I struggle, but it is really stuck.
"Jude?" Vivienne calls up from the floor. "You okay?"
"Fine," I call down. "Just let me—" I yank free, and the sudden release sends me jerking back a little. I reach out my left hand to steady myself, and my palm lands on the wood of the compartment lid.
Immediately and silently, the lid slides back, the wood shrinking away like an opening eye. Blinking, I find myself peering into a large space, crowded with paper cans of salt, plastic bags full of herbs, and a few wooden boxes. And something else. A large piece of black fabric, folded away behind everything else.
Before I can stop myself, before I can think better of it, I reach in and draw it out. It's neatly hemmed, colorfully embroidered. And what it depicts…
"Jude?" Cardan calls up. "What's that you've got there?"
I can't take my eyes off what I hold in my frozen hands. Taryn was always so gifted with the needle, I think dazedly. Her embroidery was always superb. It only makes this tapestry, and the story it tells, even more horrific.
"Jude!" Cardan sounds slightly panicked now. "What's the matter?"
Slowly, I drape the tapestry over my shoulder. Slowly, one rung at a time, I descend the ladder. The others crowd around me, curious and worried. I unfurl the tapestry, and, silently, we all study it.
A series of embroidered panels runs across the fabric. They depict a girl in a blue dress and a man with black hair and thorns growing out of his flesh. Taryn. And Prince Balekin. Balekin dragging Taryn away, glowing in the blue dress she wore to the New Year's ball, the night she disappeared. Balekin, pulling Taryn back as she tries to struggle, tries to scream. A magic spell, symbolized by wavering green lines, casting silence on her.
And then, worst of all, Balekin has his way with Taryn, the brutal act depicted in the finest stitchery imaginable.
Tell no one, says his second spell. Then he's gone, and the unicorn appears, to touch Taryn with her horn. And in the last panel, Taryn is mounted up, riding away.
Beside me, in another universe, Heather lets out an inarticulate noise, pressing her hand to her mouth, eyes huge. On my other side, Cardan has gone very, very still. Vivienne is trembling, her mouth opening and closing, her eyes glued to the horrible tapestry.
Through my mind run the night-hag's words, from so long ago: From the darkness that screamed, and from the earth that cried out that night...Tell him it is not the hand that kills that he must fear, but the hand that heals. Tell him to fear the whorled horn, and the scorpion's tail. Tell him that his own blood shall betray him, and the lost princess shall revile him. Tell him that the silent one lives still.
"No." Vivienne's face is stark white, her eyes like holes. "No, no, no."
Then we hear footsteps overhead. The shuffle as someone climbs in through the knothole. Then she comes climbing the ladder, swinging herself easily down. Taryn. Dressed in her forest clothes, without the kids. Climbing down, and then freezing, face going white, as she sees what I have in my hands.
The moment I see her expression, I know that it's all true.
All of it, and more.