This was deeper in the woods than she’d ventured since she was a child, and back then she’d done it with the knowledge she was crossing into dangerous lands. The trees here were old, their trunks massive, and the tangle of their branches overhead was thick enough to blot out the stars. The first rash of fallen leaves crackled beneath Hazel’s feet, like a carpet of brittle paper.

Jack looked over at her. “There was something else you said—about them using you.”

“You remember that, huh?” she asked.

“Hard to forget,” he said.

“I’ve been—I’ve been losing time. I’m not sure how much.” She’d never said anything like that out loud before.

He studied her for a long moment. “That’s… not good.”

She snorted and kept walking. He didn’t say anything more. She was glad for his silence. She’d been afraid he’d push her for answers; in his place, she might have. But apparently, he was going to let her decide what she wanted to tell him and when.

They came to the swell of a hill, ringed in thornbushes that grew in a gnarled circle, creating a thick tangle chasing steps that rose to the top of the hill, where the foundation of an old building rested among tall grass. The steps were cracked and worn, with moss oozing from the gaps and flowing up to an archway. There was a sound in the air, faint music and laughter, flickering in and out, as though blown in by the wind.

Suddenly Hazel knew where they were, although she’d only ever heard of the place before.

This was the meetinghouse one of the town founders had tried to build before he discovered this was a hill sacred to the Folk. According to the story, whatever was built during the day was dismantled at night; whatever land was cleared became overgrown before dawn. Shovels snapped and accidents left men with cracked bones and bruised bodies, until, finally, the town center of Fairfold was moved miles to the south, where the first meetinghouse was constructed without incident.

Faerie hills are hollow inside, she’d once heard Mrs. Schröder say. Hollow like faerie promises. All air and misdirection.

Hazel shuddered at the memory.

Jack walked toward the looping vines of thorn. Scarlet roses grew there with a velvety nap on their petals, heavy and thick as fur. Stems slithered, curling up to make a path, slowly, so that if you didn’t watch closely, if you looked away and looked back again, it might seem as if there had always been a way through. He tossed her a grin, raising his eyebrows.

“Did you make that happen?” Hazel asked in a whisper, without really knowing why she was whispering. “Will the path stay open for me?”

“I’m not sure. Just stay close,” he said as a sharp tangle spiraled behind him.

And so they climbed, with her hand on his back, keeping close enough that the briars let her pass, up the steep incline.

Jack skipped up steps and then, at the arch, tapped his foot three times against the ledge and spoke: “Lords and ladies who walk unseen, lords and ladies all in green, three times I stamp upon the earth, let me in, green hill that gave me birth.”

A chill went through Hazel at the words. It was a scrap of a poem, almost like the sort of thing they would have made up while playing in the woods as kids, but it sounded far older and of uncertain origin. “Just like that?” she asked.

“Just like that.” He grinned, wide and wild, almost as if he was daring her. “Your turn.” Then, stepping through the arch, he let himself fall backward.

Hazel didn’t even have time to cry out. She ran forward, to see if he was okay, but he was gone. Disappeared. She saw the rest of the hill, the rest of the foundation of the old building, saw the silvery carpet of long grass. Not sure what else to do, she leaped through the arch, hoping it would take her, too.

Hazel landed in the grass, losing her footing and falling to her knees painfully, brambles tearing at her jeans and the velvet top. She hadn’t fallen through into another world. She was exactly where she’d been before, and she was alone.

A breeze made the thorns shiver, bringing with it tinkling laughter.

“Jack,” she shouted. “Jack!”

Her voice was swallowed up in the night.

Just like that, he’d said. But the thorns hadn’t parted for her, and the poem was unlikely to work. The words weren’t right. The green hill wasn’t where she’d been born. She wasn’t one of the Folk. She didn’t have any magic.

Was this some kind of test? Pushing to her feet, Hazel climbed the stairs again. She wasn’t very good at rhymes, but maybe if she altered the poem a little, maybe then the hill would open for her? It was a terrifying sort of magic. Stomping three times on the ledge, she took a deep breath and spoke:

“Lords and ladies who walk unseen, lords and ladies all in green, three times I stamp upon the earth.…” Hazel hesitated and then gave the only reason she could think of why the Folk might grant her entry to their revel. “Let me in for the sake of mirth.”

Squinching her eyes closed, she stepped through the archway. She fell, just as before, but this time she fell into the grass, the earth beneath her opening up. She struggled, the rich, mineral smell of dirt all around her, her nails scraping at the tiny rocks, at the weeds, digging in, trying for purchase. She took one last breath, one last shuddering gasp, and then there was only darkness closing over her.

A scream came unbidden to her lips. Her stomach lurched. She spiraled in the air once, the world below her a blurry streak of mad sights and sounds. Then she was caught, suspended in a net of roots, pale and long and hairy. Below her was the revel, lit by tiny moving lights and leaping fires. There were dancing circles and banquet tables; there were faeries covered in furs, in armor, in great swirling gowns. A few looked up, pointed, and laughed, but most didn’t notice her hanging above them like a living chandelier. And then she saw, resting on huge tiles of gray stone, a throne that seemed to be shaped from the rock itself. It was covered in pelts, and a man in armor was seated upon it. A page whispered in his ear, and he turned to look Hazel’s way. He didn’t so much as smile.

She’d come to the Alderking’s court on a full-moon night. She couldn’t possibly have done anything more foolhardy if she tried.

Hazel pushed with her feet, trying to get her bearing on the roots and, maybe, to begin to climb. But as she did, the roots let go. Hazel fell again, this time hitting the ground hard. After a moment of nerving herself to do more than blink up at the domed ceiling, she pushed herself to her knees. A hand on her arm steadied her.

“Thanks,” Hazel said automatically, opening her eyes.

Then she realized her mistake. Never thank them.

A monstrous creature stood in front of her, its black eyes wide, a look of disgust on its face. Pale fur grew from the top of its ridged nose and the tips of its cheekbones to a crest above its head, fur that dusted over its shoulders and midriff. It was clad in an asymmetrical leather piece stretching across its waist. It let her go as though it had been touching something foul and strode off, leaving her stunned and blinking after it.

“Sorry,” she called, not sure if that made what she’d done better or worse.

The revel was like nothing she had imagined, not even her dreams of where the horned boy had come from. It wasn’t the way stories told in town had made it seem. Music rang through the air with an aching sweetness. She was left breathless and reeling.