The blood that rushed to Idris’s head, combined with the previous exhaustion of the raising, knocked him out cold. He came to once, wriggled his good leg, cursed it for not being removeable and cursed his awful luck, and fell unconscious again.

The next time he woke, he was able to organise his thoughts better. His face felt thick and stuffy and his head pounded, both from the orientation and the dehydration; his ankle throbbed and both hips hurt. His shoulders were actually touching the ground, but his neck was bent at an awkward angle. If he were a stronger specimen, he was sure he could lift himself enough to cut the line that held him, but reading magical textbooks did not lend itself to abdominal strength, so the best he could do was blink heavily.

The trees were not dark sentinels, anymore, which meant the sun was up. Idris coughed, groped for his aria bells, but he could not hear them and he knew he should be able to. Instead, the forest was filled with the quiet morning chorus of birds finding their fill and scurrying rabbits.

And then, peculiarly, actual singing. It was a pleasant, if rugged tone, as if the singer had never heard an instrument other than a voice before.

Oh, the trees do give

And the land does sing!

What a joy

Are the flowers of spring...

Idris tilted his head, trying to see where the singer was. His throat still felt raw, as if he had been yelling for hours, so he was not sure he could call out effectively enough to get their attention.

King and Queen

And all their kin,

They dance in joy

‘Round the flowers of spring...

Through the trunks, Idris saw a brown-faced young man in a floppy grass hat, satchel on his hip, kneeling down to pluck a fat mushroom from a tree stump.

“Help,” Idris whispered, his voice a quiet squeak.

And the man looked up.

“Oh,” he said, and whistled through his gap tooth. “A right pickle you’ve got yourself into, ‘ey, friend?”

To illustrate what he wanted, Idris wriggled his good leg again, wobbling his whole suspended body.

“Oh aye, that’s a nasty trap. Bandit trap, most like. Though, we haven’t had many bandits through for a moon or three.” The man straightened up, tilted his head to examine the line. “You been there all night?”

He approached, patted his satchel, gazed up at Idris’s bound leg, then circled him once.

“Well,” he said, “nobody’s robbed you. Either that or you didn’t have nothing worth robbing. Here, you want a hand?”

Idris attempted to nod, but couldn’t manage it.

The man looked around, said, “Ah-ha,” and found the tree the contraption was rigged to. With deft hands, he untied the knot and, slowly, Idris felt his body sink to the cool, dewy grass. Eventually, he was flat on his back, head spinning.

“Now, you prolly want to empty your stomach before you get up,” said the young man. “Being upside-ways can make you pretty peaky, eh? Good job I was out here a-shrooming. Elsewise, don’t know who’d’ve let you down.”

Idris rolled onto his left shoulder, took careful breaths. Pins and needles plagued every joint and extremity, even in his phantom foot, and he thought perhaps the young woodsman was wrong about the nausea until he tried to push himself up. His head was lifted for only a second when he felt the bile come, and he turned quickly so he did not vomit all down his shirt. The young man twisted his lips.

“I did warn you.”

Once Idris had expelled yesterday’s meals and he felt less like he was running a fever, he climbed to his knees. The young man sat on a stump to watch him, head tilted like a curious dog.

“Don’t get many out this way,” he said. “You lost?”

Idris blinked, nodded. He cast his eyes across the ground for his aria bells and, to his dismay, saw them crushed; he must have clenched his fist so hard on them that he broke them. Sure enough, his hand was coated in sticky scarlet.

“Here,” said the man, “why don’t we head to my hut? I can give you a good meal and some water, clean your wounds. Sure is bad luck that you stepped in a trap. Then we can see about getting you back to your home. Lemme help you up, friend, you took quite the tumble.”

Idris allowed the man to grip him under the shoulders and hoist him to his feet, and found quickly that his good ankle was likely sprained from the continued weight hanging from it; the young man grinned good-naturedly when Idris slipped against his shoulder.

“Steady, now. Lean on me, that’s it. ‘Ey, well, now we’re friends for life, I bet, hmm? My name’s Willard. What’s yours?”

“Uh...” Idris was not so scrambled that he had forgotten basic protocol. “Yanis.”

“Yanis. Well, it’s a right pleasure to meet you.”

They hobbled through the quiet woods. Here and there, Idris saw things he knew to be signs of the fae – tied up flower bundles pressed to branches, and glittering insects spiralling out of undergrowth. The fae were not malicious, but they were opportunists, and Idris was quietly glad that Willard had found him before the fae took their chances, even if wandering further into the forest meant it was less and less likely that Lila might pick up his trail.

Lila. The barracks. Kurellan. And that sickly green glow. What was that?

After a short while, Willard helped Idris over a stile fence and smiled.

“There, now. We’re here.”

In the clearing was a quaint little house, marked out with a neat wood-post fence. The dawn light slanted in mythical gold on the thatched, mossy roof, crawling with floral vines; pigs snuffled in the yard. A small herb garden sat marked off just outside, and vegetables sprouted in carefully made boxes beside them. It reminded Idris vividly of the healer farms in Marbury, except more rugged and somehow more magical. This place had a different, earthy feel to it, like it had grown out of the ground, inhabitant and all.

“Now hurry along there, Will Junior,” said Willard, shooing the pig with his foot. “Watch your step, Yanis. There.”

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Willard nudged open the wooden door and warned Idris to duck his head, and they made their way inside the hut. Herbs hung drying from the ceiling in dense, rich bundles that smelled exactly the same as Willard did; in the fireplace, a pot was warming that promised mushroom soup. Idris gazed longingly at it as they passed.

“You like soup? Lemme get you a big, steaming helping, all right? I just baked a fresh loaf, too. Here, you settle down right here.”

He set Idris down on a low cot bed, heaped with blankets, and gathered up a bowl and plate to feed his guest. Idris watched him in mild wonder. Clearly, Willard lived out here alone, quite self-sufficient, despite the fae. The whole house was set up more like storage than anything, except the bed Idris sat on and the table where Willard prepared their morning meal. There was, much to Idris’s surprise, a cauldron of some description, thick tomes slotted beside it, and a variety of dusty jars and bottles.

Willard presented Idris with creamy mushroom soup, crusty bread and a flagon of something that smelled herbal.

“It’s a little broth that will soothe your aching skull,” Willard said. “Quench your thirst, some, too.”

Idris ate without the usual care he employed in the palace. He stuffed so much of the bread into his mouth at once that he almost choked, and Willard watched him eat with friendly amusement, his own bowl on his lap.

“Get it down you, that’s it.” He took off his floppy hat, placed it at his feet. “Better?”

“Mmm.” Idris swallowed his mouthful, wiped his lips and nodded. “Thank you.”

Willard gestured to Idris’s clothes. “You don’t look like you were ready for a hike in the woods. ‘Cepting your nice boots, of course.”

Idris glanced once at his boots, mild panic flooding through him. His trousers were loose enough around the thighs to hide his prosthetic garter, but the footwear was far fancier than the rest of his clothing and if anyone was looking for the court necromancer, it might be telling.

“No.” He thought for a moment. “I…”

“’S’all right,” said Willard, with a comforting smile. “I ain’t about to take them from you. What would I do with boots like that?” He lifted his own feet, wrapped only in suede straps, and wriggled his toes. “Need to feel the earth under my feet.”

Against his better judgement, Idris smiled. Willard encouraged him to take seconds if he wanted to, and then sipped some of his own soup and smacked his lips.

“Oh, but your leg was hurting,” he said. “If you pull those good boots off, I’ll see what I can do for you.”

Pull the boots off. Not possible.

“That’s not necessary,” Idris said, attempting poorly to hide his well-trained enunciation. “Really.”

“Nonsense. Won’t take but two shakes.”

Willard abandoned his meal and started rummaging in boxes and chests. Idris glanced once more at the room, the ladles and strainers and measuring weights, and he vaguely recalled them from pictures he had seen in books long ago.

“Are you…” He felt silly for asking, but he went ahead anyway. “Are you fae?”

Willard laughed, a joyous, crackling shout of a thing, and slapped his thigh, beaming at Idris.

“Ah, not for want of trying, Yanis. But I thank you for the complement. It’s the hair, right?” And he shook his thick bush of blond, wavy tresses, the gap in his front teeth endearing in his smile. “No, I’m a hedge witch. The fae just let me stay here. We have what you call ‘an accord.’ Here we are.”

“Hedge witch?”

“Well, sure. My mam was a hedge witch, and her mam, and hers. Taught me all I know.” Willard lifted a jar, shook it, opened it and sniffed the contents. “Mmm, here. And…” He snatched some herbs from above his head and plucked a pestle and mortar from the shelving. “Boys can be witches too, y’know,” he said, giving Idris a mischievous grin.

“I… yes. Of course.” Idris felt his cheeks warming. “I haven’t ever met a witch, before.”

“Not many people do.” Willard mashed the herbs down, sluiced in some amber liquid. “We don’t tend to go a-visiting.”

Idris did not put much stock in witchcraft. Aria magic was different – it was an art, a science born of study and examination. Putting some herbs in a pot and claiming it could cure all ills smacked of charlatan behaviour; if growing up in a community of healers had taught him anything, it was that very little could be cured with plants and technique alone. Haylan was an aria healer who used both methods and for a time, Idris had watched his uncle and learned as much as he could about the greenery in the gardens and their medicinal properties, and yet once his life was dependent on one of those methods working, it was the healer aria that did the job, and even then it had not done enough.

“How’d you end up in the woods, eh?” said Willard, tasting his mash and grimacing. “Urgh. You like honey?”

“I do. I…” Idris remembered the green glow, Lila’s panicked breaths, the oppressive silhouette. “I was separated from my party.”

“On the Queen’s side of the line?”

“Sorry?”

Willard waved in the direction of the border wall. “Y’know. Queen Cressida. You strike me as cityfolk if I ever saw one.”

“Oh. Yes.”

“They say she’s pretty, that Queen,” he said, trying his mash again and finding it pleasing, this time. “And smart.”

Idris thought of Cressida, the letter she should have received.

“I have heard the same.”

“You need help with those boots?”

“Oh, no, Willard, it… it’s all right,” said Idris quickly, reaching down to his left and starting to pull. “I have it. Truthfully, it is only my left leg which is tender…”

But the pulling made him cringe with the pain, and Willard settled on a low stool and gripped the foot of the boot with one hand, shoving the mortar into Idris’s lap.

“Chew on that. Count to ten,” he said.

Idris scooped up some of the paste on two fingers and placed it obediently in his mouth. The taste was actually enjoyable, a tingling mixture of weak mead and night mint, and he chewed it gratefully, counting on his fingers. He only got to ‘four’ before Willard yanked on the boot. The pain was immediate and Idris’s eyes watered. Triumphant, Willard blew some hair out of his eyes and held the shoe aloft.

“There. Not as swollen as we thought, eh?” He busied himself with lowering Idris’s sock and examining the ankle. “Ah, yeah, that’s knotty, that is. ‘S warm. See where the line cut in, here? Lucky you had thick boots. Elsewise you might’ve broke your ankle.” He nodded at the bowl. “Keep chewing. Eat it all. It’ll cut the swelling.”

Willard applied a cold slice of bacon to Idris’s ankle and got up to prepare a medicinal bandage, while Idris ate the paste and contemplated his predicament. Somewhere, Lila was looking for him. The sun was up and he had not returned, so she was likely combing the trees for any sign of him. Hopefully, she found Kurellan and the old man was safe. The thralls would have provided some protection as long as she gave them orders, but...

But his memories kept swirling to the green glow and the thick shadow on the edge of his vision, on the awful pull it had on his gut. The aria had been so strong on the battlefield that it would have been easy to lose control of it; perhaps that is what he did as he raised the dead soldiers, and the green glow was a manifestation of his failure.

Numb, he glanced at the mess of his right hand, bloody and thick with broken bell glass. What use was a necromancer who could not use his hand?

“King and Circle,” said Willard, whistling through his teeth again; before Idris could protest, the hedge witch grabbed his wrist and looked at the damage. “What did you do?”

“I... I do not know.”

“That glass?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Right, well...” Willard pulled the bacon off and replaced it with a well-tied wet bandage, supporting Idris’s ankle. “Here, let’s go outside, into the light. I’ll be able to pull the glass easier in the sunshine, eh?”

“You don’t have to do any of this, Willard,” said Idris, frowning, but Willard sighed and grinned and held out his arms in an exaggerated shrug.

“Nothing else to do, is there?” He winked. “What, you think I’d leave you dangling all day? Now that wouldn’t be kindly. And I do like being kindly.”

“Don’t you usually have to pay hedge witches? I have nothing.”

“This time, I’ll let you off. Come on. Mind the piggies. Will Junior, move, you lump of lard.”

Idris waited until Willard was outside before he attempted to rise, and was appalled at the state of himself. His left, real ankle did feel better but was still tender; his right leg was stiff and the cup of the prosthetic, despite the velvet, was biting and chafing. Both of his hips groaned as he moved and his neck and shoulders were sore, too. That, and he was still exhausted and dizzy. Whatever he was going to do next, there was no way he could do it on his own.

The two men sat in the glade, outside of the pig pen, in the dappled light coming from the canopy. Willard was curious about Idris’s plight, so Idris told him that he had been on his way to visit his brother in the Queen’s court and been separated from his group when the weird green glow happened, and he had run into the trees to hide. During this time, Willard applied wet leaves to Idris’s cut palm until the glass was partially drawn out, and then he wiggled his fingers and said, “Ey, this’ll hurt, friend,” and plucked a piece out.

“Ah,” Idris said, holding back his curse of ‘black bells’ in case it was telling.

“I did warn you.”

“But you saw it,” said Idris, trying not to look at Willard’s poorly-veiled glee at glass extraction. “The glow?”

“Oh, aye. In the trees. Figured it was fae but had no way of knowing. You don’t think it was fae?”

“I do not, no. Ouch.”

“Think that’s the last big ‘un. Just these baby bits, now. I have tweezers, somewhere.”

“I should get back to the border. If my friends are looking for me, they will expect me there.”

“I can walk you up there,” suggested Willard, standing and dusting his scruffy breeches off. “See you off safe. But we’ll have to go soon, elsewise we’ll be crossing fae lines in the dark, and we aren’t exactly best friends. It’s more like they tolerate me.”

“That... that would be appreciated, actually. Thank you.”

“We’ll get this glass out, first. I’ll get me tweezers.”

Idris watched Willard wander back to the hut, fondly nudging the pigs out of the way, and he wondered if they were going to be too late.