"I am not interested."

Japheth hadn't turned towards Nathan. For that matter, Nathan had barely moved.

"You could hear us?"

The woodsman turned, a humorless smile hiding under several days of stubble. "No, but at least once a week some young fool approaches asking that I take him into the forest. Forgive me, but you look to be the sort."

Nathan grinned back. "Perhaps. I overheard that little fight of yours, thought I'd ask a few questions. I don't suppose you would mind if I sat with you? Asked them? "

"Not at all. But the answer is still no."

Nathan took in the woodsman as he sat down. There was something off about him. Japheth's clothes had an odd air of neglect, almost as if he wore them only because it was expected. His skin, weather-beaten and rugged as his clothes, was closer in shade to forest loam than to that of the other men in the room. His eyes were a touch too big, his fingers too long, his ears a shape that wasn’t quite right. The man's features were all slightly off, as though someone had taken artistic license with the minute features of his body.

Japheth wasn't human, not entirely. Nathan was sure of it.

The woodsman took a mouthful of bread and chewed as he sat under Nathan's scrutiny, considering him in turn. "Why do you want to go into the forest?"

Is this what it's like to talk to me? I see why it's annoying. Nathan steepled his fingers and tried to look pensive. "Why do you think that's what I want?"

The woodsman shrugged. "I have a deal with the local innkeepers. They sell the wood for me and in return I do not pay for the things l need. If you wanted blood pine you would be talking to them. Hence, the forest."

"You, sir, are irritatingly perceptive."

"Why do you want to go into the forest?" Japheth repeated.

"Not into the forest, through it. We need to get to Gallowgate before someone else does. Do you know the way?"

"Several, but that is not your concern. Go over the mountains," the woodsman turned back to his meal, dismissing Nathan. "You will live longer."

"With a baby and a blind woman?"

Japheth scoffed around a mouthful of cheese. "Especially with them. Only a fool goes into the Weymaerii, and only a great fool takes a child with him. To take an infant of the green folk… madness."

"And why is that?"

The woodsman narrowed his eyes. "Don’t you know?"

"Let's just say I'm not a local," Nathan shrugged. "I've been in the woods before. It was spooky enough, I'll grant you, but−"

"You have been in the forest?"

"He stumbled in, and I had to get him out." Maggie slid into a chair, the baby fast asleep in her arms. "Fool was dead lucky."

Japheth considered Maggie. "You went in and got him? You? A blind woman?"

"I had help."

The silence stretched uncomfortably as the woodsman stared. "Let me make this clear. I have gone into the woods every day for sixty years, like my father before me, and like my grandfather before him. They both died there So will I, someday."

He smiled, looking oddly comforted by the prospect. "My father forbade me to go near the woods until my sixteenth birthday, and like all children I disobeyed him. I followed him, watched him tread the secret paths into the forest and return unscathed each evening. One day I took them myself, hoping to surprise him. It was then that I heard music and followed it into a harper's grove."

Nathan leaned forward. "A what?"

"A harper is a breed of giant spider," Maggie supplied. "About the size of a cat if you ignore the legs. They weave nests in trees and hang snares from the branches, sitting inside and plucking the strings. It sounds just like−"

"A harp, yes," Japheth finished. "I was lucky enough to run into an elder spider whose thread was not so fine, else I would have likely cut my own throat trying to escape. As it was, the old monster strung me from the branches and kept me for later. Only chance saw me survive long enough for my father to find me and take me home, and the cost was dear to him."

"What did he pay?"

Nathan turned to Maggie, puzzled by the question and noting that she held the baby tighter as she said it. The woodsman nodded approvingly. "You know something of the forest, then."

"What?" Nathan demanded "How does that make any sense? He saved you from a giant spider: if anything, wouldn't that mean the guy had serious stones?"

"Nathan..." Maggie reached out and took his hand. "It's not that simple. The forest has laws. Japheth was in the forest alone and rightfully caught; he belonged to the spider. Children are... valued... by the powers that live in the Weymaerii. Even a beast's rights are still rights, sacred ones."

"What about a parent's right to protect its offspring?"

Maggie shrugged. "A parent's blood right to their children matters, yeah, but his father wasn't there at the time. His right had passed."

"How pleasant. Are there cops that enforce this law?"

"Gods. Old ones."

Before Nathan could ask what that meant the woodsman weighed in. "My father died for my foolishness. He was welcome in the wood, respected, and he could not protect me. I..." he spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I am only tolerated. I cannot and will not take you in, for your own sakes. Whatever your business is across the mountains, you would be better served to take the high passes, or even the caverns of the Reik, than to venture into the wood with a child. If you must go through the wood you would do better to give your business up."

"What risk is it to you, woodsman?" Maggie asked.

Japheth frowned. "I speak of the risk to yourselves−"

"Which is our own. If we enter the wood with you, will you yourself be in danger?"

The woodsman thumbed a worn hilt of antler at his side thoughtfully. "No. No, I suppose not. But you will be, and I cannot in good conscience allow it."

Maggie brows furrowed for a moment and then she smiled. "You are faeborn."

Japheth went still for a moment, silent and unreadable as the ghost of Christmas future. "I was raised by my father."

"Not a denial," Maggie replied. "That's something. So your mother was−"

"Not your concern. Do you have a point?"

"My point is that you are not entirely human." Maggie gestured towards Nathan and herself. "Look at us, really look at us, and tell us what you see."

It was a sign of how jaded Nathan was getting that the next few moments didn't unnerve him in the slightest. Japheth turned to him and the weight of the man's attention was suddenly tangible; the air seemed to thicken under the pressure. Nathan met the woodsman's eyes and noticed the faeborn's pupils for the first time, black bars like a deer's surrounded by pale green. Japheth's nostrils flared as though drinking in Nathan's scent and the woodsman’s ears shifted slightly, orienting on him. The woodsman's voice doled out slow, as though he was drunk and trying to sound sober.

"I smell ash. I taste iron and smoke, hear the beat of a mountain's heart. Power shines from you like light from the sun, boy, yet it is not of the forest... how..."

"How's none of your business," Nathan said hastily. "She’s smelly too, smell her."

Maggie glowered at Nathan as the woodsman turned to her. "And you... you are... you are dead. Death embraces you..." Japheth nodded slowly. "Death, yes. Death... and despair rides in your hand like a sword. You are one of the apprentices. The assassin. The Child."

Wait... Nathan blinked, his hand wandering to Maggie's. Is that a… a code name?

Shut up.

My god, it is! Your assassin code name is the Child! Maggie, that's really lame. Did you pick it yourself?

Shut up, Maggie sent back, pulling her hand away.

The woodsman blinked out of his reverie. "Small wonder you could enter the wood," he said. "Very well, you've both power. It matters not, I will not take you."

Maggie frowned "We can pay−"

"He doesn't want pay," Nathan interrupted. "If he wanted money he'd sell the blood pine himself, make a small fortune. The stuff is crazy valuable, right? Yet he looks like a bum."

Nathan raised an apologetic hand to the woodsman "No offense."

"What is a 'bum'?"

Nathan paused a moment and then shrugged. "Not important. What's important is what you want."

Japheth cocked his head, clearly puzzled. "I want for nothing−"

"Bullshit. I'm gonna be brutally honest here: you're a freak."

"Nathan!"

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Maggie put a warning hand on Nathan's shoulder but he shrugged it off. "You're the half-child of a woodsman and some fairy chick. You live in a village where nearly everyone leaves in the morning. You frighten people and you know it, so you avoid them. And you're lonely."

The woodsman's face had been hardening as Nathan spoke, but softened slightly at that. Nathan bulled on.

"You said you are tolerated in the forest. Tolerated, not welcome, not loved. And I'll bet you're the only one of your kind in this village. Your whole life knowing you're the only one, belonging to two worlds and not wanted in either, save by a precious few." Nathan leaned forward and let all the weariness, desperation and fear that had been weighing on his shoulders pour into his voice. "Believe me, I know exactly how you feel. She does too. We're all outcasts here. Family, of a sort."

Nathan raised his hands helplessly. "We need your help, brother." He paused a beat and then smiled a little mischievously "And don't deny you aren't curious to see how this goes."

Japheth stared for a long moment and then burst into a long, raucous bellow of a laugh. It was full of rusty edges and crumpled notes, clearly something he hadn't done in years. "Family, you say? Well, 'brother,'" He clapped a hand to Nathan's shoulder "you speak well. Faith, I don't know whether to embrace you or beat you senseless."

"Take us through the woods and you can do both once we're done."

"That I might," the woodsman agreed. "I hear truth in your need. I will do it, if you can pay."

"I thought you didn't need money," Maggie said peevishly.

"Not me, your man was right in that. I need no pay to take you through." Japheth leaned forward. "The paths of the wood don’t care for man's notions of time or distance, and they are tread by the ancient of our world. They oft demand tribute." He glanced at the baby before moving on. "We may avoid them, we may not. My point is that you risk much more than your lives should you take this way. Know that before you commit to it." He paused, considering the remaining food on his plate. "When would you have us leave?"

"Now."

The forest loomed high over their heads as they walked, leaves and clouds thick overhead. It was midafternoon, but already so dark that Japheth had to pull a lantern from his pack to guide them through the arboreal twilight.

How do you do that?

Nathan smiled. It was quite something, walking through the woods holding hands with a pretty girl. Romantic even, if they could ditch their company, their route, and the whole point of the walk. Do what?

Get people to change their minds like that, do what you want. How do you do it?

Don't act so surprised, Maggie, you do it all the time.

Yeah, but I cheat. You are a normal guy who recently discovered he can impersonate a microwave oven. How do you do it?

The microwave oven asks nicely, 'Child.'

Maggie rolled her eyes and turned to the woodsman. "How much further to the oak?"

"Not far," Japheth replied. "A few minutes more."

"What is the deal with oak trees? Nathan asked. I kept coming back to one when I went into the forest. Scared the crap out of me."

"Walk widdershins thrice round the gate

and wander then into the wood

walk until it's far too late

then turn ye back after ye should.

Bid farewell to sky and heath

bring ye iron, salt and book,

or e'ermore ye'll walk beneath

the singing leaves and branches crook'd."

Nathan stared as Maggie finished singing in a bright, wavering alto. She blushed and smiled shyly. "It's an old song. Everyone knows it."

"A shame," Japheth rumbled. "A dangerous thing to know, that song. Better it were forgotten."

"Why?" Nathan asked.

"It's the ritual that gets you into the Weymaerii," Maggie explained. "'Widdershins' is an old word for counterclockwise. Three times counterclockwise around an oak tree and then walk until you've gone too far to turn back."

"It's that easy?"

"Not at all. The forest keeps its own borders." Japheth replied over his shoulder. "It frights those souls who would trespass, tricks them. And should they make their way in, it guides them toward danger."

Nathan frowned. "You say that like it's more than just a forest."

Maggie laughed softly and gave him a maddeningly enigmatic smile. "It is."

She turned away just as the forked around a familiar oak, a great scar down its front.

Nathan froze. "Isn't that−"

"It is not." Japheth cut him off. "Whatever you think it is, it is not. Did I not just say the forest frights those would trespass? That it tricks and beguiles strangers? Pay it no mind and from here on be silent." He circled the tree. After the third pass he rested his hand on the trunk, murmuring with the reverence of a priest at the altar. When he was finished he turned to them. "This is your last chance to go back. I still urge that you take it."

Nathan simply smiled back, and he didn't need to look at Maggie to know she was doing the same.

Japheth chuckled. "Brave children. May whatever grace watches over you take heed on this journey."

It was a quiet walk, the silence broken only by the sounds of the forest and the whisper of their feet on the trail. Soon trees of the kind that had first jolted Nathan from his disbelief loomed high on the horizon, boughs of red-black leaves dancing in the wind. They turned their backs to them and found themselves in the dark of the Weymaerii. Monolithic trunks towered outside the little circle of Japheth's lamp and Nathan smiled faintly. If he had to guess, most of the trees were probably older than human history.

They are, Maggie thought. Some say they are older than the fae themselves.

Why don't we ask Japheth?

He said to keep quiet. Besides, he'd have had to ask the fae, and as a rule you don't ask the fae questions.

Nathan frowned. And what exactly are the fae?

Maggie shook her head. Pray you don't find out.

Japheth turned to them and spoke in a whisper that seemed almost thunderous in the quiet. "We must beg passage from a guide. With such help we should have little to fear, provided we keep to ourselves. Follow. Keep silent and wary." He stole a glance at the baby in Maggie's arms. "And for the love of all things holy, keep the child quiet."

Maggie rested a finger on the baby's cheek and whispered softly to her, the infant's eyes suddenly sliding into what was unmistakably a heavy sleep. "We're being followed, Japheth."

The woodsman grinned. "I know."

What the shit?! Nathan thought furiously, his hand tightening around Maggie's in a pang of nervousness. Another revenant? I didn't see anything. How did you...

Don't pinch. It's elves again.

Where are they?

I don't know exactly, l just felt something in the trees.

I thought you could 'see...' I dunno, souls?

I can see humans. Elves aren't... they’re other. Others sort of fade into the background unless they’re really feeling something. Nathan shivered as a tangle of emotions bled from her fingers for a moment, grief and self-loathing wound around dark, despairing duty, the thoughts both from Maggie and something far greater.

She continued as though she hadn't noticed. You might say they’re outside my jurisdiction. Doesn't matter, really, they'll probably recognize him. She gestured at Japheth. With luck, they'll want to talk before they shoot us.

With luck. Nathan rolled his eyes and followed after the woodsman, suddenly too peeved to worry about their stalkers.

They saw traces of the hunters occasionally, a flash of leaf-stained skin just outside the light of the lantern or a glitter of black eyes from the trees. After about an hour of this of this Maggie tapped a finger against the back of his hand.

Don't react, but they're right behind us.

Say what no− something caught Nathan's leg, pitching him face first into the path. Wiping the dirt from his mouth, he started to push himself up but froze. There was the barest whisper of contact against his cheek as an inhumanely sharp knife was pressed to his eye. There was a hollow clang and the lantern went out, plunging them all into twilight.

Japheth's voice was a study in reason and friendliness. "A good joke. Let us up, friends, that we might know you."

The voice that answered was made of clicks and rasps, something from the mouth of an insect. Nathan shuddered, wincing as even that slight movement cut his skin against whatever it was at his cheek. "We know of you. The half-child who harvests dead trees. We do not care to know you. We do not care to know these." There was a pause with a cold, gloating quality to it.

"Perhaps none should know them again."

"If you know me, you know that I have right. Let us up, that you may know them before they bring you grief."

A chorus of scraping laughter sounded. "What grief could two man-children bring us?"

"The girl is one of death's cubs, the boy something unknown." Nathan could practically hear Japheth shrug. "I’d be polite."

There was a mad scrabbling noise behind Nathan, a quiet snuffling at Nathan's throat, and the knife point vanished. Nathan rolled over and got to his feet as slowly as possible, taking in the elves.

There were seven or eight of them at least, the tallest barely reaching his elbow. They moved constantly, dancing in and out of the deep shadows as though they couldn’t bear to keep still, so Nathan had trouble making out exactly how many there were. Two had apparently been holding Maggie, though Nathan only guessed this because they were staring at her with looks of utmost terror on their faces. Despite their fear of Maggie and the differences in their size Nathan couldn't help being intimidated by the small thicket of arrows pointed at his face, the bone tips encrusted with what was likely some kind of poison.

Nathan was suddenly very nervous about the cut on his cheek.

One elf stepped forward, a harness of pale, unpleasantly familiar leather stretched taunt over his hairless body. "You speak true enough, half-child. The girl stinks of death." He raised a thin knife of bone and licked a drop of blood from the tip. "The boy tastes of fire and cold iron, of salamander... and something else." The elf bared his teeth. "The wizards return at last."

Japheth stepped forward, smiling and keeping his hands well clear of the hilt at his side. "They are friends to us all. They have been through our forest before, and now simply seek to pass through again."

"But you are not one of us, half-child. Do not say 'us' or 'our.'" The elf drew himself up and Nathan hurriedly stifled a suicidal urge to laugh. With his chest puffed out like that, the elf bore an uncanny similarity to an old high school teacher of his, a supremely arrogant man who carried his dignity as though afraid of dropping it. "Death is no stranger beneath the trees, and children..." He smiled, the expression not human in the least. "Children are always welcome. But a wizard's hunger is endless; a gnawing, empty thing that consumes all it sees. You would do well to leave him to us, for the outside's sake as well as the forest's."

"I'm no wizard," Nathan said quietly.

Japheth turned with a note of panic in his eyes, but Nathan ignored him and looked the elf in the face. "I'm an artificer, and I swear I am on a journey to leave this world behind."

The elf snorted. "The oath of a wizard is nothing to an elf.”

"I'm not a wizard. I am an artificer." Nathan pulled the collar of his shirt down and showed the scar left by the revenant. "I was saved from death by a salamander of your forest. It offered me its blood and I refused."

"You refused its blessing?" The elf might have looked incredulous if it was human. "Yet I taste the fires in you..."

"It came again in a dream. I drank then."

The elves chattered amongst themselves for a moment, and another stepped forward. "If this prey is claimed already, we dare not harm−"

The first elf reversed its grip on its knife and backhanded the second with the handle. "I am Nain of this hunt, Essend. I decide their fate."

Japheth stepped forward again and indicated the handle at his side. "I have a reitha, Nain."

A hush spread over the elves, and Nathan heard Maggie gasp. The Nain nodded permissively, clearly too shocked to do much else, and Japheth slowly drew a long, curved dagger of bone, the weapon etched with runes and sigils that shimmered faintly in the dark.

"I have right," Japheth repeated.

The elves vanished in moments, the stirring leaves overhead the only sign they had ever been there. Japheth stared after them and then turned to Nathan.

"A wizard? A salamander?! Why did you not tell me?"

"The first wasn't your business, the second..." Nathan shrugged sheepishly. "Well, I didn't know it was so important."

Japheth looked stunned. "I have never heard of such a thing."

"What, the blood-drinking thing? The elves didn't seem surprised."

"No, receiving the gift from a dream. It is unheard of for a human to receive it, and I have never heard tell of receiving it through a dream." He shook his head. "It is passing strange."

"Passing strange? What's a reitha?" Nathan asked.

"I can answer that," Maggie replied in a hushed tone. She stepped forward, nodding to Japheth with more reverence than Nathan had seen her show even to Gran.

Reitha usually came in matched pairs, ritual weapons of several races that lived in the wood. Twin anathame representing the fangs of a predator, they were given only the most skilled of hunters, carved from the teeth of their greatest kill by the elders and blessed by the fae themselves. They were incredibly rare and immensely valuable in the outside world, sharp enough to cut a man's breath from the air and even stronger than Morseran steel.

Nathan frowned. "But... she just said they came in pairs. Where's the second?"

Japheth put the weapon away with a sad smile. "It was my grandfather's. He passed them to my father before he died. Father gave one of them to me after my little misadventure in the woods. He never told me how grandfather earned them." He shook his head. "Come, we have wasted enough time. Night will fall soon, and before it does we must have a guide."

I thought you knew several ways to Gallowgate, sir?" Maggie asked.

The woodsman laughed heartily, quickly muffling it behind a calloused hand. "No need to call me sir, girl. I do know several, but they aren't the safest available." He relit the lantern and grinned back at them. “Hence, a guide. We shall be meeting her shortly."