“Why should I care if he wishes to idle time away in Fairfold? If he wants to play at being a human child, what is it to me? He can eat mortal food and sleep in a mortal bed and kiss a mortal girl, but he will never be human. He will always be playing.” She was directing her speech to Hazel, but the words were clearly for Jack’s benefit. Hazel wondered how many times they’d had this conversation.

He grinned. “You’ve got to grow where you’re planted.” It was a human saying if Hazel had ever heard one, but it had an odd resonance right then.

His elf mother’s attention didn’t waver. Her eyes stayed on Hazel. “So have you come to pull him down off his white horse like in a ballad? Have you come to save him from us?” the woman asked, long fingers gesturing out at the vast knotwork of roots across the domed ceiling. “Or is he here to save you?”

“Stop,” Jack said, putting an arm in front of Hazel. “Enough, okay? Stop talking to her that way. It’s enough and more than enough.”

“Just remember, blood summons blood,” she said.

One of the tall knights in shining silver armor—one with shoulder plates crafted to look like screaming faces picked out in shaped gold—approached them with a shallow bow and turned his gaze toward Hazel. “The Alderking would greet her.”

Jack’s elf mother nodded and cut a look at Jack. “He honors you,” she said, but her tone belied the words.

Hazel had heard stories of the Alderking, of course. Each solstice, townsfolk left special offerings out for him. When the weather was bad, they said he must be angry. When the seasons didn’t turn fast enough, they said he must still be asleep. She’d never quite imagined him as real. His power seemed great, and he seemed too distant for her to imagine him as anything but a legend.

“Lead on,” Hazel told the knight.

Jack made to come with her, but his mother grabbed his arm, twig fingers digging into his skin. Although she tried to hide it, there was genuine terror in her voice when she spoke. “Not you. You remain with me.”

He turned to her, head held high, and even in his human clothes managed to convey some of the haughtiness of his lineage. “Marcan here isn’t exactly known for his fair dealing with humans.” His gaze went to the knight. “Are you?”

“No one requested your presence, changeling.” The knight smirked. “Besides, Hazel doesn’t mind coming with me. We’ve crossed swords before.”

Hazel wasn’t sure what he meant. Maybe he’d had something to do with one of the creatures she’d fought when she was a child? Whatever it was, Jack looked ready to object. His hand slid into the back pocket of his jeans as if he was reaching for a weapon.

“It’s okay,” Hazel said. “Jack, it’s fine.”

Jack’s elf mother leaned her long body toward him, to press a kiss to Jack’s forehead. Hazel had never thought of her as longing for her lost son, never wondered if there was another side to the story of how Jack came to live with the Gordons, but she couldn’t help wondering then.

“Mortals will disappoint you,” she told him, almost a whisper against his skin.

Jaw set, fury in his eyes, Jack stepped back and allowed Marcan to lead Hazel across the earthen floor of the underhill.

The Alderking was seated on the great stone throne she’d glimpsed when she’d hung above the revel. Horns like those of a stag rose from a circlet at his brow, and he wore a shining coat of mail shaped from small bronze scales, each one tapering to a point, all of them overlapping like how she might have imagined the scales of a dragon to be. He had green eyes so clear and bright that they made you think of poisonous drinks or maybe mouthwash. On every finger of his hands, he wore a different, intricately shaped ring.

Across his lap was a golden sword with an ornate cross guard. For a moment she thought it was her own missing blade and took a half step toward it before realizing that her sword had a plainer hilt. All his knights wore similar swords—forged from bright metal, they gleamed like polished sunlight in their obsidian scabbards.

Resting at the Alderking’s feet was that pale and naked creature she had bargained with so long ago, the pale catlike one with crimson-tipped skin. It regarded her lazily, through half-lidded eyes. Then it waved a long-fingered hand, all claws.

Her careful questions about memories and monsters flew from her head. She went down on one knee. As she did, she saw something shimmer among the intricate tiles of the floor, like a dropped coin catching the light.

“Sir Hazel,” said the Alderking, leaning forward and peering down at her with those startling eyes. As handsome as any fairy-tale prince, he was beautiful and awful, all at once, despite the cruel twist of his mouth. “I do not remember commanding you to come here.”

Hazel looked up at him, baffled. “No, I—”

“In fact, I have explicitly told you never to come to a full-moon revel. And last night, though you were most grievously needed to hunt with us, you ignored my summons. Have you forgotten our bargain so quickly? Defy me to your peril, Hazel Evans. Have I not given you the deepest, dearest wish of your heart, an unasked-for boon? Have I not made you one of my company? Know that I could take it from you just as easily. There are far more unpleasant ways to serve me.”

“I—” Hazel opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.

Suddenly the Alderking began to laugh. “Ah,” he said, looking not unlike the faerie woman upon realizing she’d mistaken Hazel for her mother. “You’re not my Hazel, are you? Not my knight. You’re the Hazel Evans who lives by day.”

CHAPTER 14

Hazel thought that maybe she should stand, but she felt rooted in place. The party seemed to fade to a buzzing in her ears.

Sir Hazel, the Alderking had called her.

Jack’s elf mother had asked Hazel an odd thing, too. So have you come to pull him down off his white horse like in a ballad? Have you come to save him from us? Or is he here to save you? She knew the ballad where someone got pulled down off a white horse. It was Tam Lin, where a human knight was forced into the service of a queen of Faerie and saved by a brave mortal girl, Janet. Tam Lin was a human knight.

Hazel thought of the message in the walnut. Seven years to pay your debts. Much too late for regrets. And there was the odd thing the knight had said to her when he’d brought her over, that they’d crossed swords before.

Words deserted her.

“How…” she forced out anyway.

“You do not remember the bargain you made?” The Alderking leaned toward her, the horns on his circlet tipping forward.

“I promised you seven years of my life. There’s no way I could forget that.” Hazel took a deep breath. She was getting her nerve back. Pushing herself to her feet, heart pounding, she steeled herself for a battle of wits. Here, in some fashion, were the answers she needed. She just had to ask the right questions in the right way. “But—you’re saying I’ve been paying my debt to you? I don’t remember—I don’t remember doing so.”

He smiled patiently. “Am I not generous to take those memories from you? Every night, from the moment you fall into slumber until your head touches your pillow again near dawn, you’re mine. You are my knight to command, and your own daylight life is unaffected. You always had potential—and I have guided that potential. I have made you into one of my number.”