On pure instinct, Summer opened a gate directly in front of her. She had to get out of here before the call of the winter queen sapped her strength entirely. She fell forwards into the gate, her eyes fluttering closed, and tumbled into her dorm in the human world. She missed crashing into the corner of her bed by no more than an inch.

Nathan burst in a second later. Out of the side of her eyes, Summer could see his mouth moving, but not hear the words. Nathan helped her up onto her bed and sat next to her at the foot.

Slowly the world came back to Summer and she realized that Nathan had been muttering to himself the whole while. Their eyes met.

“Where is she?” Nathan asked.

Summer opened her mouth, but no sound came out at first. She tried again. “We still have yet to locate Myra. Illa,” she managed. “A lead put us in the heart of winter.”

Nathan frowned. “She is looking for Myra in the heart of winter?”

“No,” Summer said. “The winter queen. She is calling.”

Nathan's eyes went slack and dropped to the floor.

“You can't feel it here. Not in the mortal world.”

Looking back up, Nathan said. “That's why you're injured.”

“I'm not injured, but yes.” Summer's speech gradually quickened as her strength returned to her.

“So, Illa....”

“Yeah.”

“I can get her back for you.” Nathan offered. “You can't go yourself.”

Get her back? He wasn't going to get her back. Nathan was too unpredictable, too dangerous. Wasn't he? Summer combed back over her memories, but all that she could recall of Nathan's part in the events had been told to her from others. Neither of them had actually seen what had happened. For all that the fae are known to trick and beguile, none of them had been uncertain of Nathan's actions.

“He was there.” a fae boy Summer used to know had said. “I saw him give them up.”

Summer's face turned into a grimace. How anyone could do that, she didn't know. She tried to force the thoughts of the halfling and human children's deaths from her mind. She hadn't been there, but she didn't need their last moments to know what had happened. Cruelties that shouldn't even be visited on by those in hell. But then that was the full fae for you. Their atrocities had become too much for her. Even the Seelie weren't kind. Not that they ever really were.

Looking back towards her once home, Summer nodded. A small castle stood on an otherwise empty field. Always ostentatious, she thought. She saw fae moving around in the small courtyard. Not disposing of remnants, though. The fires would have been too hot for that.

So many years of her life had been in that building. She had learned from the few fae who had deigned to be teachers. The few who had put aside scheming and backstabbing, who didn't feel the need to climb the food chain. They had taught her how to track, both by magical means and mundane. They had taught her self defense, physical and mental. She thought the people there had been her family.

“That's why we have to leave. We can't be a part of this anymore.”

“But you're full, you're not a halfling. How are you going to do it?”

“Simply. By walking.”

The small group - mixed blood human and fae among them - around Summer steadied themselves. All eyes turned towards the castle and glazed over with pain, regret, and determination. At least a few of them had attained a measure of heart. Those still left in the castle were, as they thought, pure of heart. The ones who still sorely remembered the great wars between fae and humans. Each one of them still felt the need to make any human they saw pay for their long dead ancestor's crimes. Ancestors dead for so long that their progenitors discounted any stories of fae as myths told to explain the workings of the world. Incorrect now, of course. Human science had seen to that.

Summer wished she could explain to the elders how much time had passed for the human race. How many things had changed, but the elders were too enamored with their own cleverness, their own prowess and cunning to listen to one as young as she.

“Are you sure it was him?” Summer asked.

They had to move quickly. The small group was hidden underneath a collective veil, but should one of the elders attempt to pierce it, it would fail instantly. Already, Summer held her concentration on a pinpoint, ready to open one of the last gates between Faery and the mortal world. Almost all of them had already closed. It wouldn't be long until the rest did as well and humanity’s sympathizers found themselves trapped with those who would kill them as well.

“Dead cer- yes, I am.”

“I saw him, too.” Another added.

Looking to each person around her, Summer saw only determined faces, a few of them nodding their certainty that they had also seen Thaniel with the elders massacring the humans unfortunate enough to have found their paths crossing that of the bloodthirsty fae.

With one last glance cast back towards the castle, Summer slashed open a hastily made opening in the gate. The small group hurried through it, their last member just barely making it before the gate closed again.

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She only just now remembered his true name. Each fae who crossed over the mortal world had taken a new name, not only to blend in with the human cultures they found, but to also distinguish themselves from the people they used to be. And those they used to find company with.

Could it be that the people with Summer that day had been mistaken? Or lying? She had simply taken their word for it. Afterwards they had hunted down Nathan, fires from the short lived but deadly battle with the elders still scorching their veins. Until they realized what they were doing.

For a time the group had stayed together, using their glamour to masquerade as human adults. Slowly each member went their own way. Summer had met Illa then, they had grown closer, and the two girls had been asked by Ibrihim to watch over his daughter. He had one of the few gates still open. Fifty years in the human world hadn't meant much to the gates quickly closing by fae time.

But that didn't change anything. Especially now. If Illa was under the queen's influence again, there was no possibility of breaking it. Summer was amazed that Illa had broken out the first time. If the winter queen hadn't been preoccupied with punishing a known traitor, Illa would never have made it half that far.

"Summer, you can't go. I have to go get her. You saw what happened."

"I did," Summer said as she tried to rise. "But I don't-"

"Now is why I should. You can't survive in the cold queen's presence, especially not with her siren call."

Summer swallowed hard. "Be that as it may, it doesn't increase your chances of helping her force a withdrawal. And I don't trust you to not mess it up anyway."

Nathan ignored Summer's last comment. "And you collapsing? How will that help?" Nathan paced to the other side of the room and turned away from Summer. When he turned back, his eyes were clear and hard.

Summer could barely stand, even with the time that had passed. The Winter Queen's siren call, the magic that sung in every winter fae's blood to serve her, had weakened her too much. It would take at least a day for her to fully recover. An unspoken rule kept the winter queen and summer king from outright killing a fae from the opposite court. Unless, of course, they went to war. Summer forced the thoughts from her mind.

As much as she knew Nathan would have little luck helping Illa, Myra needed at least one of them. She was alone somewhere in Faery with Amoria doing who knew what to her. Summer hated admitting it, but she needed Nathan. Kicking herself inwardly, Summer turned up the fire in her thoughts. She would burn out the Winter Queen's influence and track down Myra. She could do this.

Setting her mouth and bracing herself, Summer stood. "You're right." Though she didn't expect him to succeed. "I'll retrieve Myra."

"How? Tracking her directly didn't work and neither did your lead."

"I have a hunch," was all Summer said.

Nathan just stared. He must have been thinking of how enormous Faery was, how Myra could have ended anywhere. But thinking that way got one nowhere. Summer had let herself be blinded by her fear, by the past.

While Illa was a capable woman, she didn't have the schooling that Summer did. As much as it frightened her to do, Summer had to remember the teachers who had taught her those old lessons, ones that would now enable to find Myra. The same teachers who had tried to take Summer's life when they realized that she was sympathetic to humanity.

Squashing the fear, Summer shook her head. She mentally walked back to her training days. The derogatory remarks regarding humans were stepped over as Summer searched her mind for the courses she hadn't let herself think about in so long. When she opened her eyes again, Summer saw Nathan with all the ferocity she had back then. As a traitor to those he had promised loyalty, as a killer of innocent mortals. Red tinged her vision for an instant. Then her mind readjusted with the two personas back inside itself. Her human side and her fae.

Even though Summer wasn't the smallest bit human, she felt that her time in the mortal world, as short as it was, had given her a new set of experiences to base herself on. A side of herself that wasn't always looking for a way to move up the hierarchy. It was that side that had led her to the mortal world in the first place. The side that held compassion, understanding, change.

It was time for a change. It was time for the elders to finally realize that their so long held grudges must be given up in place of peace and unity. Those they persecuted didn't even believe that the wars had been fought. That so much blood had been shed to make the worlds run red.

Summer would make this happen. She had spent too long hiding, licking her wounds and staying invisible.

She would find Myra, bring her back to safety and challenge anyone who dared call humanity an enemy.

Nathan must have seen the changing expressions on Summer's face. He backed up a step and held up his hands. “Summer, you know-” he started.

Summer stated simply. “I do know.” Her voice now held a certainty, a measure of conviction that lent her the belief that she could do anything she set her mind to. Even though blood might have been shed partially by Nathan's hands, enough time had passed. They had made him pay for his crime- if it existed -by hunting him over the countryside. “Do your best to bring Illa home safely, but do not harm her.”

“I won't.”

Summer continued as if Nathan hadn't spoken. “I will find Myra. She will come home and we will teach her everything that we should have from the beginning.”

Nathan nodded, but Summer could see his skepticism. She wrote it off. Skepticism wasn't in her dictionary now. Uncertainty wasn't an option. She wouldn't cower and hide anymore.

Summer opened a gate, more smoothly and with less effort than ever before and stepped through. This time she knew exactly where she needed to be. She had needed only to open herself up to the half she had cut off, let the two meld and follow her intuition. Myra would be here.

Summer found herself standing among redwood trees that towered into the sky blotted out by the treetops. Their trunks were bigger around than houses in the mortal world, their leaves as long as man and just as wide. Smaller plants only twice as tall as Summer, sprouted up next to the trees, their leaves as long as her arm, but slender and more numerous. They covered the plant stalks completely.

Moss grew here and there and stones uncovered by erosion dotted the landscape. Enormous vines hung down from the trees' branches, looping over themselves and poking out of still living leaves that hadn't had the decency to move.

In front of her, the woods grew more and more lush, the plants becoming varied as the great trees became smaller. Behind her, she saw more of the landscape in which she stood. After a certain distance, the picture grew indistinct, fog clouding what lay beyond.

That was where she should go.

Summer started off, taking stock of what she still had in her utility belt as she walked. She carried tools she had needed that made practicing magic easier in the human world: a crystal for gazing and concentration, a wand for focus and the glass Ibrihim had made for her with which to communicate over long distances. After crossing over, Summer had felt nature's magic too weakly to properly focus. She had searched until she found the crystal and had made the wand herself.

Now she realized that such tools had been unnecessary then, but were useful now. She could use them to help teach Myra. Summer knew that Myra had begun to use her magic by herself, but these tools would help her refine what she had found until she could use magic effortlessly. Just as Summer should have done when she came to the mortal world. Magic wasn't in less supply there but nor was it different. Summer simply didn't have confidence in herself. Not as a fae. Not after what she had seen.

She was going to change what it meant to be fae. Change it into what it should have been in the first place.