Holly Black - The Darkest Part of the Forest

At that, Severin’s eyes opened. He blinked rapidly, clearly disoriented, as though he’d half-forgotten where he was. “No. I ought not. I fear never waking.”

Ben considered that. “Have you even slept since the curse was broken? Because that was more than two days ago. Forty-eight hours?”

Severin nodded vaguely.

“And you’re not planning to ever sleep again ?” Ben asked, raising his eyebrows in a slightly exaggerated manner.

A corner of Severin’s mouth lifted. “You think I’m too tired to detect sarcasm?”

“That’s not sarcasm,” Ben said, grinning. “At least not sarcasm exactly .”

With a groan, Severin levered himself up and spread out on Ben’s vintage Star Trek coverlet, the one he’d told Hazel was ironic but secretly he just really loved. “Haven’t I slept enough?” he asked, but the words became garbled at the end, his body stretching and relaxing into sleep. He looked as beautiful as he’d ever been, messy waves of dark hair curling around his horns, brows curving up, berry-pink mouth slightly parted. Now that he was no longer enchanted, he slept restlessly, his eyes moving beneath lids and his body turning on top of Ben’s bed. Maybe he was dreaming for the first time since he’d been sealed in the coffin.

And so Ben sat like a lone and lonely sentinel until the sky was light outside and he heard a creak on the stair. He went to the door and cracked it open. His sister was in the hallway, Jack behind her. Hazel looked as if she’d come from a party, in a green velvet top she hadn’t been wearing that morning. Her jeans were muddy and her shirt was ripped along one seam. Her hair was tousled and tangled with twigs. Ben watched as they went into Hazel’s room.

“Are you sure you’re not going to get in trouble, having me here?” Jack whispered. He sat on the edge of her bed.

Hazel shook her head and went to close the door. “Mom won’t care. She likes you.”

Where had they been? Ben stared at the closing door, wondering what exactly he was seeing. He’d figured that wherever Hazel had made Jack take her that night had something to do with how she’d been able to free Severin and whatever else she’d been lying about lately. But seeing them together, looking like they were about to sleep in the same bed, worried him for entirely different reasons.

He loved his sister, but she sure broke a lot of hearts. He’d rather Jack’s not be one of them.

The hallway went dark again. A few moments later his sister left her room. Ben thought she was going to cross to the bathroom. Maybe he could catch her before she got there and find out what was going on. But she stopped, leaned against the wall, and started to sob.

Horrible, silent cries that made her bend double, curling around her stomach, as though it hurt to weep like that. Lowering herself to the floor, she crouched down, almost soundless. Tears ran over her cheeks and dripped off her chin as she rocked back and forth.

Hazel never cried. She was forged from iron; she never broke. No one was tougher than his sister.

The worst part was how quietly she wept, as if she’d taught herself how, as if she was so used to doing it that it had just become the way she cried. When Ben was little, he remembered how much he’d envied Hazel, free from expectations or obligation. If she wanted to teach herself how to swordfight with YouTube videos and books checked out of the library, their parents didn’t tell her she should practice scales instead. She wasn’t the target of Mom and Dad’s lectures on how talent wasn’t meant to be wasted, how gifts came with obligations, how art was important.

She’d been so brave and so sure about things. He’d thought the brave and sure were happy, too.

After a few moments Hazel lifted her shirt to rub the velvet against her eyes. Then she got up with a last, shuddering sigh and went back to her bedroom.

Ben padded over and turned the knob. Jack was unlacing his boots while Hazel brushed the leaves out of her hair, her eyes red and a little puffy. They both froze.

“It’s just me,” Ben said.

“We weren’t—I mean, not really—” Jack started, making gestures toward the bed that Ben thought meant “I am not trying to dishonor your sister, although it is possible that I am hoping to have sex with her,” at the same time Hazel began apologizing for ditching Ben.

He held up his hand to stop them from talking. “I need one of you—ideally Hazel—to explain what’s actually been going on, and I need that to happen right now, starting with where you were last night.”

“We went to the faerie revel,” she said, sitting down heavily on her bed. She looked exhausted, the skin under her eyes dark as a bruise. Ben hadn’t expected her to give in so easily after so much evasion. “It didn’t exactly go the way I’d hoped, but I found out some things. The Alderking offered to trade the town’s safety for the capture of his son. There’s only one problem, which is that he’s crazy. Okay, two problems, the second being that his idea of a safe town is bullshit.”

Ben just stared at her. He’d seen the Folk, but only a few, and those had been scary enough. He couldn’t imagine willingly walking into a gathering of them. Especially if he were Hazel, who’d killed at least three. Her daring always surprised him, but right then he was floored. “The Alderking wants you to bring him Severin ?”

Hazel gave him a sharp look. “How did you know Severin was his son? He didn’t tell us that the other night.”

Ben shrugged. “I guessed. Well, who else could it be?”

Hazel shook her head. “You’re a god-awful liar. You’re still in yesterday’s clothes. Obviously, I’m not the only one with secrets. So where were you last night?”

Ben let out a sigh and walked all the way into the room, closing the door behind him. “Nowhere. Here. Severin came here. He wanted my help.”

Jack’s eyebrows shot up, and Hazel went completely rigid, as though she thought she ought to do something, but had no idea what. Ben couldn’t help but be a little bit pleased that he could occasionally be shocking, too.

“Is he—what did the horned boy say?” his sister asked.

Jack sat down on the chair in front of her vanity, looking deeply uncomfortable, as if he was afraid he was going to be asked to choose sides in an argument that hadn’t happened yet.

“For one thing, he wants his magical sword back,” said Ben.

“I hope you didn’t promise it to him,” Hazel said. “I don’t have it. And before you ask, I don’t know who does have it or where it’s being kept—I was looking for clues at the revel.”

“So what else did you learn?”

Hazel rubbed her hand over her face and glanced toward Jack. The look he gave her was expressive. “Not much,” she said, finally. “Could you get in touch with Severin again? Could you get him to meet us?”

“I don’t know. You’re not thinking of actually trying to hunt him down for the Alderking, are you? You’re not going to hurt him.”

“I’m willing to do whatever I have to,” Hazel said, standing. A muscle in her jaw jumped, as if she’d been clenching her teeth.

There was a moment when Ben thought about not telling her, when he imagined himself going across the hall and not saying a single thing. But he thought about people being brought out on stretchers from the school and he thought about what Severin had said about his own sister. “Will you tell me everything , all the stuff you’ve been hiding from me?”

Hazel glanced at Jack and he looked back at her, his eyebrows rising. She must have told him some of it, for them to share a look like that.

“I will,” Hazel said. “I should have before. Just, do I have to tell you right now? Because I’m dead on my feet and there’s a lot.”