The Unready Queen, стр. 13

in the woods. Under his father’s rule, the horde had stolen the woman’s baby and left a changeling in her place. It was tradition. The changeling would return in three days’ time, and the child would lead a good life with the fairies, or so the old chief had told Nudd. It was not cruel, he insisted, it was simply the way things were done. It was what they trained for. What they had not trained for, however, was the woman. She had caught the fleeing goblin changeling before it ever reached the horde.

She forced the little creature to take her to the place in the woods where the fairies had come for her daughter. It was a quiet clearing, just west of the Oddmire. By the time they arrived, there was nothing to find but scuffed moss and a mound in the earth. Her daughter was long gone. Day after day, the woman returned to that spot, crying out for the fair folk, the animals, the trees themselves to give her baby back. The fairies never came, and the forest never answered. The townsfolk did nothing to help, either. Other humans from the village paid her no mind, except to call her mad. She ignored them, and in time she left them all behind and made her home in the woods—waiting, searching, hoping beyond hope.

And that was where Nudd had found her.

She had built a drafty hovel facing the mound—staring at the gate she could never open. Nudd had watched from the woods as she went about her day, tending to a meager garden and weaving reeds into lopsided mats. Every so often she would freeze, gazing out into the forest, and she would speak one word to the wind. “Raina?”

Nudd’s chest had grown heavy as he watched, and he soon realized that he owed the woman more than he could pay. Goblins do not abide red in their ledgers. Unpaid dues, to a goblin, are like a creeping itch. The horde had always justified child-stealing as a temporary debt. When the fairies took possession of the baby from the goblins, they took with it the guilt and the responsibility for its theft. This absolved the goblins. The fae, for their part, refused to take a child who was missed, which kept their conscience clear, as well—that was the entire purpose of the changeling, to keep the child from being missed, for at least as long as was required to complete the transaction. At the time, it had all sounded neat and tidy to Nudd.

Now that he saw the woman’s face, he did not find it neat or tidy.

One morning, the woman awoke to find her firewood chopped and stacked. Nudd had watched silently from the bushes as she turned from the woodpile to the forest, scowling.

“This is not enough,” she had declared, angrily.

The next day, her meager home had been transformed into a fine cottage. She emerged, startled, through a carved oak door that had not been there the night before, and walked around the cottage twice before she turned and glared at the forest again.

“This,” she had called into the trees, “is not enough.”

On the third day, she had found every cup, saucer, drawer, and boot in her house overflowing with coins—silver and gold and strange metals she had never seen before with inscriptions in languages she did not recognize. They could have bought her a castle. She stepped outside, and this time Nudd could have sworn she had looked straight at him as she glared into the forest.

“This is not enough.”

And so, on the fourth morning, the woman had opened her door to find Nudd himself on her front step. They had stared at each other until the goblin finally spoke.

“I canna get yer kin back,” he had told her honestly. “What would ya have in her stead? Iffin I can deliver it, it will be yours.”

She had stared down at the goblin for several long minutes. Nudd felt the pressure of her gaze, but he was the son of a chief, and so he did not bow or lower his eyes. Finally, she spoke. “A promise,” she said. “Never again. Never let another mother find one of your kind where her baby should be. Never let another child wake to find its world stolen away. Never. Not once. Promise me.”

Nudd had stood in silence for another long time before nodding. “I promise.” His father had been the chief to bring their horde to this bold new world. Nudd would be the chief who brought the world a bold new horde.

He had kept his promise. That fool Kull had almost broken it thirteen years ago when he attempted to steal the Burton boy—but it had all worked out in the end.

Now Nudd’s ears perked up, and he drew himself out of his memories back to the present. The air around the cottage was cool and smelled of lemongrass and damp earth. Bugs buzzed and leaves shuffled in the breeze above him—and there was something else. “Hm. I didn’a think ya came here anymore,” he said to the shadows.

The queen stepped into the sunlight. She was a fine witch, Nudd thought. Very like her mother, indeed. “I did not think I needed an invitation,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Gettin’ old.” Nudd shrugged. “Would ya rather I go?”

She hesitated. “No,” said the queen. “Stay.” With a deep breath, she sat beside the chief on the mossy front step.

Nudd’s eyebrows rose, but he said nothing.

“This is where she died,” she said. Her voice was hollow.

Nudd nodded. “Aye,” he said. “But it’s also where she lived.”

Birds tweeted and the shadows of a low cloud rolled across the grass. “Do you think she would be upset,” the queen asked softly, “that I’ve just let the forest have it?”

“The house? Oh, lass.” Nudd clucked.

“Don’t call me lass.”

“Raina. Aside from her baby girl, this forest is the only thing yer mother ever loved. First Witch o’ the Wood, she was. First