So. . . that state of half-sleep evolved into one of total sleep. I couldn’t help it. Queen Varella had me dead to rights when she asked how I felt. I felt content. But more than that, I felt secure for the first time in over a decade.

My father was dead, and I knew there wasn’t an abuser that would come charging through the bedroom door. Not here. Because this was her home. The queen’s home. And she wouldn’t dare let anything happen to her new pet. I’d probably never be used to that degrading term, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t come with perks, security being one of them. So, yeah, I went back to sleep.

This all came six days after I killed my abuser and two since I’d fled Sheriff John Watley, who was probably still combing that forest, telling himself some self-righteous lie about bringing an escaped murderer to justice.

But he couldn’t find me here. I may not have known where here was, but I took solace in the fact that he didn’t either.

The pillows I squeezed between my arms and legs were stuffed with goose feathers and smelled of the pine incense that’d been wafting through my room since I arrived. And this quilt I’d cocooned myself in had all the softness of silk while providing the warmth of a bath towel pulled right out of the dryer on a Maine winter’s day.

Do the math. Comfort plus warmth plus security equals a sleepy wolf girl.

I didn’t get much sleep in my father’s house. Had to be somewhat awake to prepare myself for one of his fits of rage. No lock on my door. Hell, no door half the time.

This door had locks, but I didn’t bother engaging them. I heard the sound of footsteps outside, boots, and some kind of metal armor that clanked as the fae soldiers swapped shifts. Safe. I was safe. I was content. I was at peace. Sometimes I’d stir to roll over on my back or move to my side. And each time I was consistently aware of a smile on my face, so I hid it in the pillow in case the queen had stealthily entered my quarters to poke fun at me.

Was it embarrassing to hear the Raven Queen talk about me as though she’d just returned from the animal shelter with a new puppy? Yes. Was I incapable of putting aside my pride to enjoy the perks of being that puppy? No.

Maybe I slept for another 12 hours. Perhaps I slept for a full 24. Either way, my body was clearly more exhausted than I’d registered before passing out. My inner wolf made me a bit stronger and faster than the average vanilla human. Accelerated mending of wounded flesh and bone was a bonus and made sense given how much transformation my body underwent 12 nights a year. That same body had to be flexible and fast when it came to breaking itself down and putting the pieces back together again.

Without these things, I don’t know if I would have survived living with Dad full time after Mom died. But I was here now. Sound asleep without a worry in the world. I don’t think I could have put a monetary value on peaceful sleep given how deprived of it I was on the regular.

Once in an orange moon, I was allowed to spend the night at a friend’s house, typically on a Friday. And since they knew my home life was shit, they usually let me sleep through the next morning and afternoon without bothering me.

There’s something more beneficial to sleep where you know going into it that no alarm or parent is going to suddenly interrupt. Gradually waking up on your own merit is the most restful outcome imaginable. And that’s what happened to the queen’s new pet, me.

As my eyes opened on day three of my introduction to the Raven Court, I yawned, and stretched, resulting in my knees and back popping several times, and I climbed out from under that blessed cocoon of blissful bed.

Looking around the room, I saw the beginnings of morning light softly climbing into the window as though it didn’t want to be what woke me up. Were I back home in Allagash, I’d assume it was around 6:30 or 7 a.m.

A black bird landed on my windowsill and stared at me through the glass, sleek feathers dipped lightly in morning dew taking on a blue tint. I was certain this was a crow. Was it Queen Varella in disguise? Could she transform into a corvid and just fly around willy-nilly? I guess that didn’t seem impossible for a faerie queen who wandered between worlds and ensnared dumb werewolves in bargains of questionable benefit.

So I walked over to the window. The crow didn’t make any move to fly away.

Feeling stupid, I leaned down and whispered through the glass.

“Your grace. . . is that you? Are you spying on me?” I asked, my voice getting a little louder. The bird just tilted its head to the side and kept staring at me with one eye.

“Because let me tell you how foolish a mistake that would be, the spying thing. I’m a wolf. I can smell other creatures up to a mile away. I can hear them from up to 10 miles away. My senses make me one of the most dangerous and brilliant predators in the animal hierarchy. So you’d best keep that in mind before spying on me next time, my queen. Your pet. . . is a genius of nature.”

I was oozing bravado. Well-rested Sierra was a whole different beast than on-the-run Sierra. I was a force to be reckoned with.

A woman suddenly spoke from behind me, causing me to yip, jump several feet, bump my face into the reinforced window, and then fall flat on my back in a matter of two seconds. It was pretty damn far from the typical reaction of one of the most brilliant predators in the animal hierarchy.

“That’s not the queen, you know,” the voice had said, though my brain took a few seconds to process this after bumping into the hardwood floor.

A small winged piskie no more than five inches tall hovered above me with tiny gossamer wings moving at a speed I could only describe as “hummingbird.”

Her purple hair was tied back in a braid, and she had a few blemishes on her right cheek. The outfit she wore screamed librarian, as did the little clipboard and even smaller pencil she carried, taking notes on what I imagined to be appropriately-small sheets of paper.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

When she finished writing something, the piskie’s pink eyes looked me over before a sneer escaped her lips.

“Well, she’s got the intelligence of a new dog brought home from the pound,” the piskie said, writing once more in her notes.

For such a small being, her voice carried just as far as any regular-sized human.

“I don’t suppose your parents ever taught you not to insult a beast that could eat you in half a bite, did they?” I asked, starting to get up.

And for the second time in about 60 seconds, I was going to be shown a lesson in humility as the piskie tucked her pencil into the top of the clipboard. Then she snapped her fingers with that newly-freed free hand.

My body may as well have been a puppet with its strings cut because I lost all feeling. All the power of a raging werewolf rendered helpless with the snap of two fingers on a creature less than half a foot tall.

So I lay there flat on my back, staring up at the creature floating a few feet above me. She moved down and landed on my chin, of all places, her tiny leather shoes on either side of my dimple.

The expression on her face told me she’d made this demonstration more times than she could count. A small grin that could only come from putting an arrogant bitch in her place crept onto the piskie’s face.

“Three things you should know, young wolf. First, my name is Barsilla Yeltov, and I’m Queen Varella’s left-hand lady.”

All I could do in response was blink.

“Second, no matter how much bigger you think you are than me, you are still just the royal pet. There aren’t enough ladders in all of the Raven Court that would allow you to climb the ranks between us.”

More blinking, a tiny gulp.

“Third, within the queen’s palace of Featherstone, I have access to more magic than you can imagine. You think I’m small now? Wait until I reduce you to the size of a flea. Threaten me again, and I just might.”

With that, the piskie flew out of sight, back on the other side of the room toward my door.

Geez, she might as well have added a fourth warning, I thought. “Also, I can kill you with my brain.”

After another agonizing five seconds, mercy came in the form of another snapping of fingers. Like I’d never lost feeling at all,

Getting up, I rubbed my head and saw Barsilla standing by the wardrobe. She snapped her fingers again, and the two doors opened with nary a squeak.

Inside, I saw multiple gowns and dresses, several patterns, fabrics, and forms. Next to them, were trousers and shoes ranging from flats to heels to boots, mostly in black, some in navy or mauve.

I walked over and started gently going through the clothing, as though it might disappear in an instant if I moved the fabrics with too much force.

“Queen Varella is expecting you for breakfast in an hour, so I’d wash up quickly in the tub because you smell like a dog that ran through the forest for weeks and then slept for two straight days,” the piskie said, writing more notes. What, was she working on a novel? Damn.

Still stunned at the wide range of clothing before me, I just pointed inside the armoire and then back to me, asking a question without words because they wouldn’t come.

Barsilla rolled her eyes.

“Yes, you’re free to select anything you want from there and accompany the queen for breakfast. It’s all yours,” she said, looking down at her papers.

A single tear escaped one of my eyes and made a break for it down my left cheek before I could wipe it.

The piskie looked up at me, and I felt my heart slow to a crawl.

“These are. . . all mine? These nice clothes?” I whispered.

Cocking her head to the left and raising an eyebrow, the queen’s left-hand lady nodded. Then, she just watched me for a second. I ran my fingers over them all, silk, cotton, chiffon, lace, there were more types of fabric in this piece of furniture than I had articles of clothing back home.

My closet at Dad’s house contained exactly two pairs of jeans (one with holes in the knees), four shirts (one with long sleeves), one old pair of scuffed sneakers, and an old winter coat one of my teachers had fished out of the lost and found for me. It was tan and made me look like a farmhand.

But my father was cheap, and he didn’t care if I was warm or cold. So I bundled up in that coat for six months of the year because Maine’s winters were longer than the cold season of most other states, particularly in the County.

“What is it?” Barsilla asked, her right eyebrow rising even higher.

I pulled a magenta sheath dress with a narrow belt out of the armoire and almost hugged the damn thing. It looked nicer than anything my friends had worn to prom (I got to see the pictures on their phones the day after). This was the kind of thing I imagined city folk wore to the symphony or visiting a museum. And it was just. . . mine? Forget turning me into a flea. This was the real magic right here.

“Can I wear this?” I asked, also snatching a pair of black flats from the bottom of the armoire.

Barsilla just shrugged and said, “Wear what you want, pet. It’s all yours. Why are you acting so weird?”

Trying not to tear up again and stain the nice dress with my pathetic little cry, I cleared my throat.

“I’ve. . . never had anything nice like this before. And to suddenly be told these are all mine. . . well, it’s just a lot for me to believe,” I said, looking down at my bare feet on the floor.

Nodding, Barsilla seemed, at last, to have claimed an understanding of why I was acting this way.

Her voice softened exactly 12 percent. She blew a stray hair out of her face and tucked away the pencil again. Flying close, the piskie placed a tiny, chilled hand on my cheek (the one without tears). She looked a little uncomfortable doing so.

“Listen. . . her grace might have mentioned you came from an abusive home,” Barsilla started. “But I think you’ll find in some ways here that Queen Varella is ready to spoil you rotten, as a human would do for a new puppy, buying boxes and boxes of toys. You will face new dangers here in the Raven Court that you aren’t used to. But none of it will come from your mistress. Understand?”

I nodded, that familiar feeling of contentedness welling up in my chest again. My shoulders relaxed a little bit.

“So lay that dress on the bed with those shoes, and go wash up. The queen likes breakfast a lot, and she won’t want to delay, even for her new pet.”

Smiling, I let the thought that someone actually wanted to eat breakfast with me run wild in my head while I bathed in the world’s most bougie bathtub. I washed with soap and shampoo that smelled of wildflowers. And I don’t mean what fragrance companies thought wildflowers smelled like, but actual goddamn wildflowers growing in some forbidden meadow where no human had ever trodden before.

That’s some bomb-ass magic, I thought.

And, about an hour later, I had my cinnamon hair in a braid courtesy of Barsilla, my makeup freshly done, lips painted pink, and off to breakfast we went. Didn’t want to keep my mistress waiting.