The Treachery of Beautiful Things

by Ruth Frances Long

  Where had Puck gone when they’d faced the Leczi?

  The weight of sunset pressed down on Jack, turning his rational thought sluggish and dull. Of a morning he would be able to figure it out, he was sure. But now…something else strained to get out with the growing dark. He struggled against it, trying to grasp the idea that was gathering momentum at the back of his mind. Puck had gone somewhere. Puck’s attitude had changed. Why? Not because she’d saved the Leczi’s child, surely. So where had Puck gone? And why?

  The natural energies of the forest froze and contracted. Jack straightened, his bones aching as if the frost had gnawed on them. A wave of absolute cold burst through the trees, followed by the heat of a tropical night. He bent, his hands supporting himself on his knees, and tried to turn, but a force far stronger than him closed a mighty grip around him, holding him still.

  “Well, what have we here?”

  The voice resonated through his chest, as if it echoed off stone in deep places. A figure stepped up to the edge of the tree line. Jack’s body reacted in spite of itself, as it always did, as he was bound to do. He dropped to his knees and bowed his head.

  “My lord.” The words fell from his mouth, brought forth, whether Jack willed them or not.

  Oberon towered over him, dark eyes glistening in his flawless face. Vines and fruit tangled in his black curls, and the antlers that formed his crown looked incongruous and yet as much a part of him as his strong arms or fleet legs. Some said he’d been a god once, in the mortal world, or as good as. Jack didn’t know anything about that. All he knew, deep in the most sacred part of his soul, was that the king was to be obeyed. And even deeper, right down in the most secret place of all, a place he could never think of revealing, Jack hated him for it.

  Oberon’s full attention turned on Jenny, his eyes burning as he watched her lie down, watched her eyes close and her breath settle into the rhythm of sleep.

  “Whatever have you found, Jack?” he asked, his voice rumbling like the earth itself.

  “She’s on a quest,” Jack replied. “In search of her brother taken by the queen.”

  Oberon snorted at the mention of Titania. It was well known that they hated each other now. Arguments over servants, over boundaries, over anything at all…The queen was powerful, but she feared the king. And he in turn loathed her independence.

  “But that’s not all, I believe,” the king replied. “Puck tells an interesting tale, you know? Of a great heart, of a battle with the Redcaps, of her rescue by a Kobold, no less, the rescue of a girl of pure spirit and heart. Of that same girl, risking her life for a fae child. The offspring of Leczi, who every other being here would have left to die. What do you make of that, Jack?”

  The wintry cold inside Jack’s chest spread into his limbs like frost across the forest floor. Puck had told. Puck had told everything. Worst of all, Jack wasn’t even surprised. He’d been reckless. Now he bit down on his anger and tried to choose his words with care, though the compulsion to obey blurred his conscious mind.

  “I’m charged with guarding the Edge, my lord, and with protecting those who quest in the Realm.”

  The trembling in his limbs warned him that the sun had almost set. His body ached, but Oberon’s very presence held him as he was, on his knees. And would continue to do so until the king had extracted whatever he wanted. And then he would do whatever he willed. And not for the first time.

  Elders preserve me, Jack thought, this will hurt. He’ll make sure of it.

  “Tell me, Jack,” Oberon went on relentlessly. “Who do you serve?”

  “You, my lord.” Best to get it over with quickly. Best to get it done. “I serve only you.”

  Trailing brambles of agony began to stretch out through his limbs, tearing their way through the skin.

  “Not…entirely true, that answer. Who else?”

  “You, my lord. I serve only you.” Panic touched him now, setting his blood rushing. Did Oberon know about Titania’s offer? Did he know about the casket? He must, if he gave it to her. Or had she taken it? Could she do that? Jack hadn’t told Puck any of it. What else had the king heard? What could he know?

  Oberon chuckled and the pain sharpened still further, thorns puncturing him from the inside.

  “Perhaps I misspoke myself,” said the king. He reached down one huge hand to Jack’s shoulder. It was the first actual physical contact, and it crushed him into the soil. “Who else would you serve?”

  “My lord? I don’t…I don’t…” Jack clenched his teeth. He couldn’t say it, not again. He’d made that mistake before and look where it had gotten him.

  “Say it, Jack. I command it.”

  “The May Queen.” He ground out the words. “When she comes. The…the Wren.”

  Oberon’s smile broadened, triumphant. “She’s beautiful this time. You choose so well, my Jack.”

  Jack drew back from him, fought not to cower, failed. “But my lord, I didn’t choose her. She isn’t the May Queen. She’s just a girl…just a lost girl.”

  “Then why are you bringing her to Titania?”

  “I’m not!” He struggled again, his muscles straining, the thorns inside beginning to rip their way through even the king’s constraints. It would be bad this time, the pain nothing to now. When the king allowed it, Jack knew his body would tear itself apart. But first he had to stop this, had to explain that Jenny wasn’t a May Queen. She was just a girl. A stupid, thoughtless, stubborn, lost girl, with a heart too great for her own safety.

  Liar, whispered the wind in the trees.

  Liar, the shifting leaves replied.

  “You don’t understand, do you, Jack?” Oberon’s voice ground him down once more. “Or you don’t remember, perhaps. To say you choose them isn’t strictly true. You just identify them. They are chosen by the Realm. Even in spite of yourself. Once upon a time, humans called it Hunting the Wren, when they sought her out and bound her, and carried her home. And if the spirits were willing she became the May Queen, the fairest of them all, so they brought her to the forest and gave her over. She came to us, to me. She must come willingly. That is the way of things, the oldest magic of all, the magic of earth and stone and blood. But the forest doesn’t choose. It just knows. And so do you.”

  Jenny Wren. Elders help him, he’d called her Jenny Wren. And more than once. And Puck had heard him, and Puck had seen. And Puck had run off to their master with the news. The news of the coming of a Wren and a May Queen that Jack had found.

  Puck had told him everything. And Jack had made sure he could, because he hadn’t thought. He’d used words that had power without a care for the consequences.

  “No, please,” Jack groaned, and the pain burrowed through him, forcing him to yield through sheer force of determination, breaking him like roots breaking stones.

  “So why bring her to Titania when you should bring her to me?”

  He blurted out the answer. “That’s where she wants to go.”

  “Is it?” The king laughed again. “Well then, by all means do it. Obey the May Queen…” He caught Jack’s wide-eyed look of panic. “Oh yes, Jack, she is the May Queen. I tested her, had my lady’s dragon kill the cursed Leczi father, and left the child to die. Who but the May Queen would hear its cry and respond? Who else would care so about a loathsome forest child like that? She is the May Queen. So let her face Titania. With all the queen’s creatures spying and closing the net on the girl, it’s only a matter of time anyway. The dragon was just the first. But just remember, my Jack in arms, in the end, willing or no, you’ll bring her to me. You’ll make her come willingly.”

  Jack’s eyes ached. His neck strained. Everything in him wanted to refuse, but branch, root, and thorn wouldn’t let him, all the magic woven around him over millennia wouldn’t let him, all the magic that rose like sap inside him wouldn’t let him. And if he couldn’t say it, he couldn’t do it. He’d have to obey.

  What did she matter to him? She was just a girl. Just a stubborn, foolish girl. Gr
eat heart or not, she was nothing to him. Nothing but this pain. The king would have no reason to torture him if it weren’t for Jenny.

  No. That wasn’t true either. The king would always find a reason to torture him. Because he was a Jack. And Oberon was the king.

  “My lord,” he whispered. “I’m yours. You know that.”

  “Of course I do, Jack.” Oberon frowned at him as if he was a conundrum to be solved. “Whatever might have made you think otherwise? Go now, and remember, when the time comes: She is mine, guardian, not yours, or anyone else’s. Not Titania’s. Not Mab’s. My May Queen. Allow nothing and no one to harm her, or I will watch your heartwood burn.”

  His heart? But…

  If Oberon still had it— Was it all a trick, a lie, an empty promise? Jack had never seen inside the box. All he had was Titania’s word. Which, he knew as well as anyone, was worth nothing.

  He was a fool.

  Oberon’s voice grew gentle; he gazed down at Jack with a fascinated expression. “Does anyone want the old days back? The constant conflict, the endless cycle of violence and pain. No. That’s past. A thousand years gone.” His voice grew almost wistful. “No amount of wishing is going to bring it back.”

  He paused, a king indeed, staring down on a pitiful subject, a slave. His eyes narrowed to slits, endless darkness, cold as winter. “But just so as you remember, my Jack…”

  Wind rushed through the trees, tearing through the leaves, beating against Jack’s twisted form, and with it, like tiny white blossoms, came the shreds of cloth he’d tied to the tree. All his wishes. Torn away. They whirled around him and drifted into the distance, far out of his reach.

  Jack’s gaze followed them. All his wishes. Stolen and gone.

  The magic released with a snap and the agony of night seized Jack. His muscles stiffened, ratcheting in a twist of anguish, ripping apart and re-forming anew. The scream that rent the air set the birds to flight, and he barely recognized the voice as his own. The thorns ripped through him, the pain of broken bough and torn meat.

  In seconds he knew no more.

  chapter twelve

  An echoing shout jarred Jenny awake, like a night bird calling, a scream ragged with pain that faded even as she struggled to consciousness. She sat up, breathing hard, wondering in the silence if she had imagined it.

  Puck was awake too, his eyes very wide in the dark, his fur bristling.

  Something crashed through the forest to the left.

  Jenny scrambled up. “What is it?” she whispered, but Puck put his fingers to his mouth and darted up onto his feet. He crept to the edge of the trees, where the forest crowded in on them.

  “The wards have failed,” Puck snapped, darting backward, trying to run and turn at the same time. “Something’s gone wrong. Run, Jenny.”

  With a shriek like the splintering of ancient timber, a greenman burst from the trees, a piece of the forest given form, hurtling at them with the force of a hurricane. It lashed out at Puck and the trees echoed it, roaring with rage, twisting and writhing. Vines tangled around the hobgoblin’s arms but he wriggled free, dancing from foot to foot across the clearing, deftly side-skipping the roots that burst from the ground to trip him. It was the nightmare of Jenny’s last moments with Tom come alive again. She scrambled backward in terror, throwing herself out of the way. But Puck could move in ways Tom never could. Elusive, tricky, a creature of instinct, Puck leaped aside.

  “Run, Jenny!” he yelled again. “What are you doing? Oberon’s sent him after us and more could be on the way. Run!”

  The ground bucked beneath him and he fell with a crash, the air knocked out of him, his eyes wide. Roots broke free of the earth, weaving around his legs, his waist. The greenman bore down on him, and Jenny froze, staring at it, at the winding vines tightening around Puck until he gasped, the shifting leaves, the harsh lines of bark and roots that covered its body.

  It had taken Tom.

  It had taken Tom, and now it had Puck.

  Jenny’s hands closed on a stone and she flung it at the creature’s head, but her aim was off and it flew aside. Scrabbling around, she tried find something, anything else she could use as a weapon. She flung another stone as hard as she could and this time it bounced off the back of its head. She almost whooped with victory, but the creature didn’t even flinch. It didn’t even appear to notice. Her fingers closed around a branch, dead and abandoned on the edge of the forest.

  The creature turned, Puck clutched in its arms. Its berry-bright gaze stole the breath from her lungs. And then she was running straight at it. Her voice broke as she yelled. She lashed out and the creature roared at her, the thorns in place of its teeth parting to reveal darkness. Jenny heaved the branch and struck, hitting the creature’s raised arm with a terrible crack. It staggered back. She struck it again and again. Abruptly the greenman released Puck, dropping him like a pile of firewood. Jenny braced herself, the branch grasped tightly in her hand. And in that instant, everything slowed. She noticed her ragged fingernails digging into the bark, her knuckles bleeding and white with tension underneath. She felt the knotty heft of the branch in her hand. She saw the intricate web of twigs and branches that twined up from the beast’s chest to its sinewy neck, where something, some bud or berry, glinted yellow. But instead of turning on her, the greenman retreated, backing away as quickly as it had appeared. Swallowed up by the forest.

  Silence fell like snow, muffling the air, leaving Jenny facing the trees with her stick in hands, her breath coming hard and ragged.

  Puck didn’t move. He groaned when Jenny bent over him, muttered something and rolled onto his side with a whimper.

  “Are you hurt?” Jenny whispered. “Puck.”

  “No, I’m…I’ll be fine. Jenny…you—”

  “I had to do it, Puck. I…Jack.” Jenny straightened, adrenaline spiking through her. Jack was out there somewhere.

  Puck sat up, a protest on his lips, but Jenny was already running.

  The moon hung full and bright in the sky, framed by branches and leaves. Too full, too bright. A moon not for the real world.

  Only this was real. All too real.

  Everything lurched from side to side as she ran, the branch that had saved her at the ready, her heart thundering against the base of her throat.

  An icy breeze blasted through the trees, cutting across the slick of sweat on her skin. She remembered the scream that had woken her. Had it been real? Had it been him? Was she already too late?

  The moon seemed to have risen higher. It filled the sky over her, drenching the forest in silver. She slowed her pace, cautious now, trying to hear the crashing trail she’d expected from the fleeing creature. All was silent.

  She’d chased it off.

  The thought brought her up short. How on earth had she chased it off? Why had it run from her?

  Reason told her to go back, to retrace her steps and return to Puck. But she couldn’t just leave Jack out there in the darkness. And which way was back anyway?

  Jenny crept forward, pulling her hair into a messy knot as her eyes swept over the trees. Through the branches, little points of light flitted ahead of her like Christmas tree lights. She watched, almost enchanted by their dance as they darted in close and then fluttered away through the branches. Will-o’-the-wisps, like stars all around, so beautiful and delicate they reminded her instantly of the Foletti, and the prettiness died a little. If she followed any one of them she would leave the path.

  Wander in the Realm at your own peril.

  That was what Jack had said. She reached out despite herself to cup one of the lights, but it flew through her fingers. That moment, when he’d pulled her away from the dragon, when they’d hidden…He’d been about to kiss her. Hadn’t he? She felt a burn in her face and looked around, as if the forest could read her thoughts. She pushed the memory down deep, locked it out of sight, raised her weapon again, and continued along the path.

  “Where are you, Jack?” she whispered.

&n
bsp; The forest shivered, leaves rustling in a world that was otherwise, in an instant, completely silent.

  Jenny’s heart lurched up inside her and she turned around, a full circle. No one appeared. The forest fell still, the will-o’-the-wisps gone.

  They’re only trees.

  Jenny swallowed hard, her eyes squinting through the darkness. “I—I’m looking for Jack. Jack of the Forest—”

  Laughter interrupted her, sweet gentle laughter, the kind she could trust…

  But could she? Could she trust anything?

  Jack’s not here. Not anymore.

  Jenny took a step back and a stick cracked beneath her heel, so loud she jumped.

  “Where is he?”

  The forest didn’t reply, but the leaves of the tree before her shivered again. A silver birch, slender and elegant. She thought of the birch-boy. Was he here, or something like him? The Dames Vertes…Jack had called them gentle and kind. All she could see was a tree. But there was something watching her. There was something answering her.

  She was talking to a tree. Just talking to a tree. Totally normal. People probably did it every day here. They’re only trees. She fought an insane urge to laugh.

  The undergrowth curled back, folding in on itself for her, revealing a narrow path. The leaves and stalks bent back out of her way and swayed, beckoning her inside. Well, at least the forest was answering back. That was good, wasn’t it? Or maybe not. Maybe that was bad.

  She turned around in a circle, and sighed. Might as well listen to the forest then.

  Jenny crouched and headed down the path, aware that bushes and leaves were closing after her, sealing off her retreat. They brushed against her, a gentle touch, tickling but cautious. Another game, perhaps. They loved their games here. Jenny crept forward, slowing as she approached the silent heart of the forest.

  And it was silent. Deep and endless, lit by the moon as it slid lower in the sky, filling the spaces overhead. Trees pressed closer, bushes and thorns crowding the edges of the path, like dark hands pushing her onward.