Janni Simner - Faerie Winter

The wolf and his human shadow both bowed their heads, as if that truth were a heavy burden. There was a flash of silver light, and then a human boy stood before me, bare skin streaked with mud, pale hair wet and dripping, human fingers still wrapped around my stone ones. He stumbled forward, falling to his knees. I knelt and gathered him into my arms. His skin was so cold. I rubbed my good hand over his back, trying to warm him. He was here. He was Matthew. I hadn’t lost him. The world was not winding down after all.

Caleb whispered something I couldn’t quite hear. “Well done,” Karin said softly.

“The things I did,” Matthew said. “I could have killed Tara. I could have killed you. ”

“But you didn’t.” I’d nearly lost him instead—but that hadn’t happened, either.

“I brought Johnny back to her. He wouldn’t have died if not for me.”

“You didn’t kill him. She did.” In the end he’d been a weapon in the Lady’s hands, just like I had.

“He’s still dead.” So harsh, Matthew’s voice. “Nothing can make that right.”

I stroked Matthew’s hair, which was as wet and muddy as his fur had been. His hands and feet bled. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you safe.”

“Nothing’s safe.” Matthew shook in my arms. Someone—Hope—handed me a blanket; I wrapped it around him. Half the town seemed to be watching us.

“You saved me,” I told Matthew, “and Karin and Ethan, too.” That had to count for something. “You brought Caleb and Allie back in time.”

Matthew nodded as if that knowledge, too, were difficult to bear. His shaking eased. “Liza.” He took my strange stone hand and cradled it in both his human ones, as if it were terribly precious. I was suddenly aware of how close we were, of his bare skin under the thin blanket. I looked at him. He looked at me. I realized we were both trembling again, and I had an urge to laugh that made no sense at all.

I didn’t know which of us moved first, but all at once our lips were pressed together, and my hand was back in his hair, and we were holding each other close as we knelt in the mud. He tasted of earth and wolf and boy and Matthew , and I didn’t want to ever let him go.

The rain fell harder. Under her breath Hope muttered, “About time.”

“Help?” Kyle whispered.

“No,” Allie said. “I don’t think you can help with this.”

I ignored them all. Matthew and I held each other so closely, so fiercely, as if all this world depended on it, and Faerie as well.

We didn’t stop until the soil beneath us stirred. We scrambled to our feet then, remembering that we were in a forest, with all the dangers forests held. A bright purple flower unfurled in the brown mud. Matthew and I stepped back as the crocus hissed with the acid it held.

“It’s spring,” Matthew said, but not as if he believed it.

I looked at the bright trees, at the small spitting flower at our feet, at Matthew’s muddy hands holding both of mine. For now I would have to believe for us both.

“I know it is,” I said.

Many thanks to: C. S. Adler, Dawn Dixon, Larry Hammer, Jill Knowles, Patricia McCord, and Jennifer J. Stewart for reading the manuscript, often on short notice. Everyone at Kindling Words West 2009 and 2010 for their positive energy and regular reminders that I knew how to tell this story. Petra Brun for loaning me her daughter Elín’s name. Rick Holderman for answering my hawk questions. My editor, Jim Thomas, without whom this would be a far weaker book. Chelsea Eberly, Ellice M. Lee, Meg O’Brien, and everyone at Random House who saw the story out into the world. My agent, Nancy Gallt, without whom Liza’s journey might never have begun, and her assistant, Marietta Zacker. And especially, my thanks to all the readers who asked to see more of Liza and her world and who encouraged me to return there.

Janni Lee Simner lives in the Arizona desert, where she has traded winters with snowfalls and gray trees for winters with rainfalls and green trees. Faerie Winter is the sequel to her first young adult novel, Bones of Faerie . Janni is also the author of the young adult fantasy Thief Eyes , as well as four books for younger readers and more than thirty short stories, including one in the urban fantasy anthology Welcome to Bordertown .

To learn more about Janni, visit her website at simner.com