Ben’s mortified blush deepened. Hazel wanted to call to him, to say that Severin had tried the same thing on her, to tell him the same thing had worked on her, but she didn’t want to be a distraction. Ben and Severin had begun to circle each other warily.

“I’m not going away without Hazel,” Ben said, bringing his chin up. “You can’t embarrass me into leaving my own sister.”

He was going to get himself killed. He was no longer quick-fingered, no longer carrying a set of pipes hanging around his throat on a dirty string. He couldn’t play, and he’d never fought with a blade. She had to do something—she had to save Ben.

Hazel hefted the biggest stick she could find. The weight was oddly comforting in her hand, and the stance she went into was as automatic and easy as drawing breath. As soon as the fighting started, she was going to rush Severin and hopefully catch him off guard. It might not be honorable, but it had been a long time since she played at knighthood.

“Don’t be foolish,” Severin told her brother. “I was trained to a sword when I was a child. I watched my mother butchered in front of me. I have cut and I have killed and I have bled. You can’t possibly win against me.” He glanced at Hazel. “Your sister at least seems to know what she’s about. Her stance is good. Yours is abysmal.”

So much for catching him by surprise. She was just going to have to hope for dumb luck.

“If you’re going to kill me, then do it,” Ben told him. “Because if you want to take her, that’s what you’re going to have to do.”

For a frozen moment Severin brought up his blade. Their gazes caught, snagged silk on a thorn.

Hazel held her breath.

With a snort, the elf knight sheathed his knife. He shook his head, looking at Ben oddly. Then he made an elaborately formal bow, his hand nearly sweeping the ground.

“Go, then, go, Hazel and Benjamin Evans,” Severin said. “I release my claim on you tonight. But our business is not done; our affairs are far from settled. I will come for you again; and when I do, you will be eager to do as I wish.” With that, he turned from them and walked deeper into the woods.

Hazel looked at Ben. He was breathing fast, as though from a physical fight. The ax slipped from his fingers onto the forest floor, and he regarded her with wild, wide eyes. “What just happened? Seriously, Hazel. That was insane.”

She shook her head, equally baffled. “I think you impressed him with the sheer force of your stupidity. How did you find me?”

A corner of his mouth curled up. “When you weren’t on Grouse Road, I tracked the GPS in your phone. You were close enough to the casket that I thought you might be headed there.”

“What is that quote?” Hazel said, walking to him, too glad he’d come to object to the danger he’d put himself in. “The Lord protects fools, drunks, and dumb-ass ax wielders?”

He touched her shoulder gently, running his fingers against the fabric of her pajamas and sucking in his breath, as if he was imagining how much all her scrapes had hurt. She realized she was covered in dirt from her fall—dirt and blood. “Are you really okay?”

Hazel nodded. “I crashed my bike when I saw him and Amanda. I’m okay, but I don’t think she is.”

“I called the sheriff’s department, so they must have sent someone over by now. Are you going to tell me what you were doing on Grouse Road?” Ben asked.

Following you, she wanted to say, but the words stuck in her throat. If she told him that, he’d ask her about the earring and then ask all the questions that inevitably followed.

She got into his car instead, resting her head against the dashboard. “I’m really tired. Can we just go home?”

Ben nodded once and walked over, squatting down beside her, inside the open door, visibly swallowing his questions. His blue eyes were black in the moonlight. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

She nodded. “Thanks to you.”

He grinned and pushed himself upright. One hand moved to smooth down her hair. “Our prince really was something, huh?”

Hazel nodded, thinking of Severin’s mouth against hers. “Severin,” she said. “Our prince’s name is Severin.”

Once, Ben had told Hazel a tale about a great wizard who took his heart and hid it in the knothole of a tree so that when his enemies stabbed him where his heart was supposed to be, he wouldn’t die. Ever since Hazel was small, she’d hid her heart in stories about the horned boy. Whenever someone hurt her, she comforted herself with tales of him being fascinating, a little bit awful, and desperately in love with her.

Those stories had kept her heart safe. But now, when she thought about Severin, when she remembered his moss-green eyes and the horrible, shivery thrill of his words, she didn’t feel safe at all. She hated him for waking up and being real and stealing her dreams of him away.

He wasn’t their prince anymore.

CHAPTER 10

On the car ride home from the woods, Ben had a barely contained nervous energy that caused his hand to tap against the steering wheel and to fiddle with the radio. They’d passed Grouse Road and saw the flashing lights of the sheriff’s car and an ambulance, shining in the dark with reassuring steadiness. Someone had come to fix things, to fix Amanda, who Severin had claimed was still alive.

“We have to stop,” Hazel asked. “What if she’s—”

“Are you really going to tell them what happened?” Ben asked, eyebrows raised, turning the wheel to take a different route home.

In her mind’s eye, Hazel saw Severin circling her brother, a hungry expression on his face, a shining blade in his hand. And then a shudder went through Hazel when she thought of the awful sprawl of Amanda’s pale limbs in the patchy grass. Amanda had not seemed alive. No, Hazel wasn’t sure she knew what to explain to the police, even in a place like Fairfold.

“Go ahead and stop,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell them, but I have to tell them something. My bike’s there.”

She had no idea if they’d believe her or not. But when Ben showed up with the ax in his hand, she was reminded of all the reasons he had stopped hunting years ago. He’d understood how dangerous it was and how vulnerable they were back then, even if she hadn’t.

She didn’t ever want to put him in that position again. Just because he’d gone looking for the prince didn’t mean he wanted to get dragged back into danger.

Looking at her like she’d gone crazy, Ben pulled up several feet behind the ambulance. Hazel got out. Paramedics were bent over Amanda’s body.

An officer looked over at her. He was a young guy. She wondered if he’d grown up in Fairfold. If not, she was about to really freak him out. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said. “You better get back in your car.”

“I saw Amanda earlier tonight,” said Hazel. “With the horned boy. You’ve got to look for him—”

He walked closer, blocking her view of the stretcher and the paramedics. “Ma’am, get back in your car.”

Hazel got back in Ben’s car, slamming the door behind her. Her brother shook his head at her as the officer shone his flashlight inside. “Please roll down your window. Who’s in there with you?”