It’s not long before we bore of our snowball fight. I don’t often long for the company of our sniveling village neighbors, but even I can admit one-on-one combat is not nearly as thrilling as a full-on snowball skirmish.

We’re about to head back to the cottage when Zora reminds me Mother will put us to work if we return early.

There’s no need to take such drastic measures, but Zora and I will freeze our bottoms off if we don’t find something to do. We eventually give up, going as far as to climb the hill and stare down at the cottage, where surely a host of unpleasant chores awaits us.

Yes, trench warfare would have been much more fun than feeding the alpacas.

That’s when the idea strikes me.

I hold my hand out, stopping Zora before she inevitably tucks herself up into a ball and rolls down the hill. “How do you feel about building a contraption?”

Zora rolls her big blue eyes. “Ooh, how I love contraptions.”

I shove her, though lightly. I’m still painfully aware of the perfectly spherical welt on her forehead that has only just begun to fade.

“Fine,” she says, “I guess anything’s better than chores.”

It’s noon and our fingers are numb before we finish it—we had to take our gloves off to knot the ropes properly—but I have to say, I’m pleased with our work.

“It’s not the prettiest thing, is it?” Zora says, scrunching up her forehead as she examines our invention.

I cross my arms. “Doesn’t have to be, as long as it works. Which it will.”

Zora’s right. It doesn’t look like much. In fact, it looks like exactly what it is—a long piece of unused plank we borrowed from our parents’ barn stacked perpendicular atop a trough that my father keeps meaning to patch the holes in. We left the longer end of the plank to the right of the trough, so it rests in the snow, the shorter side sticking up into the air. Atop the section of the plank that rests in the snow sits an old kneading bowl tied to the plank with a worn rope.

I have to admit the knots look shabby, but Zora rushes through everything she does. So unless I wanted to build this on my own—which I had considered more than once—I was going to have to be okay with a less-than-pristine presentation.

That being said, I would be the one to undertake the forming of the snowballs. Not Zora.

As Zora watches, arms crossed and pretending like she’s offended I won’t let her help—even though we both know she prefers doing as little work as possible—I carefully arrange a dozen perfectly contoured snowballs within the bowl.

I dust the leftover snow from my numb fingers and grin at my sister. “You ready to see if it works?”

Looking back, Zora and I probably should have checked for strangers on the road before we launched the catapult.

But as soon as I give her the go-ahead, Zora, nimble as ever, hops atop the raised plank, slamming her feet into the wood, and sends the snowballs careening through the air.

We watch them, mouths ajar with wide-eyed wonder as they soar.

Our wonder soon sours to horror as my pristine snowballs pummel a couple passing through the Serpentine in a silver-plated carriage.

From the looks of the intricate designs crafted into the doors of the carriage, the lush blue-fox coats the passengers wear, and the armored fae guard whose feet slam into the ground as he jumps from the carriage, causing the earth to shudder with his impact, these are not the everyday traders we’re used to.

“Blithering bumblebees,” Zora says in the same tone my father uses when he curses and thinks we’re not listening. “Run!”

We do—up the hill—making to reach the safety of the barn.

Most of the time, Zora stays ahead of me, but I’m much faster when I put my mind to it. I’m at the crest of the hill within a few labored breaths, but someone gasps, and my ears twitch, zoning in on the snapping of a branch and the sound of a body thudding against the snow.

I whip around to find Zora struggling with a stray root that’s caught around her ankle. Just beyond her, the guard is sprinting up the hill after us, his strides long and sure and not at all reflective of the amount of armor he wears.

In a whir, I’m at my sister’s side. We both struggle at the root, but Zora’s desperate fingers keep getting in my way as I try to untangle the root’s hold on her ankle.

“Let me do it,” I hiss, but to no avail. Zora is panicking and tears run down her sun-kissed cheeks as she tries to fight back sobs.

The welt on her forehead has just about healed.

It only takes a glance at those tear-soaked blue eyes, eyes that mirror mine, to send me charging down the hill toward the guard.

“Nox, no!” Zora cries, but it’s too late. Even if I wanted to turn around, my momentum is going to carry me straight into the guard’s arms.

Arms that can’t grab Zora if they’re too busy grabbing me.

The guard’s eyes widen as I launch myself at him. Strong hands dig into my back, tossing me over the male’s shoulders. I kick at him, but he secures my legs easily enough, and I’m pretty sure he can’t even feel the fists I’m pounding against his heavily armored back.

For a moment he pauses, and I worry he’ll go after Zora too. What if I misjudged him, and he actually can carry both of us at once? But then he huffs and turns back toward the carriage. As we spin around, I crane my neck searching for Zora on the hill, hoping I’ll get one last goodbye to my sister, but there’s nothing on the face of the hill except for Zora-sized footprints and a single gnarled root.

“What’s your name, child?”

The female’s voice is soft, lilting. Almost motherly. Not at all like that of her guard’s, who, in the stretch of snowy field between the hill and the Serpentine, has managed to teach me what I’m fairly certain are five new curse words my father has yet to use around me.

I don’t bother answering, not as much out of defiance, but because the guard has me pressed against his shoulder so tightly his shoulder plates are digging into my chest, and I can’t really breathe.

“Oh, for Fates’ sake, put the child down,” another male says.

The guard hesitates, but he does as he’s told, setting me upon the ground before him, though he keeps his fingers digging into my arms.

I suck in a gulp of air—air that stings my throat and my lungs. But I’m grateful for it nonetheless.

“Now,” the female says, peering down at me with icy blue eyes. “Take a moment to catch your breath, then I’d love to hear your name.”

I swallow, but when I fidget, the guard only sinks his fingers into my arms more tightly. The female must not notice, because she doesn’t look like the type of person to tolerate hurting a kid. Her cheeks are white as fresh-fallen snow and not at all rosy, but there’s a softness to her expression despite her icy eyes.

She looks older than most fae I’m used to seeing. Not as old as the elderly humans I sometimes meet when Father takes me along to trade with him. Her hair isn’t gray and her face isn’t eaten up with wrinkles, but they’re starting to creep into the corners of her eyes, her colorless lips.

“I’m Nox,” I say once I catch my breath. My heart is still thumping against my chest, but more from sprinting up the hill, not as much from dread anymore.

Though remnants of my snowball still coat the woman’s shoulders, there’s no irritation in her expression, nor in that of the male who sits beside her.

“Nox.” The female smiles, and I find that I like the way my name sounds in her soothing voice. It sings with approval. “And how old are you?”

My lips prepare to say “thirteen,” but then I remember the last time I lied. The pain that had struck my chest when my throat closed up. That happens to fae children when they reach a certain age. Because of an age-old curse, we’re punished if we lie. When we’re adults, the curse can turn deadly, though Father says it becomes less potent with each generation, whatever that means.

“Eleven,” I say, though the truth is much less satisfying to say.

I miss being able to lie. To make things up.

“Eleven?” The female’s barely visible eyebrows lift, gazing beyond the guard and me toward where the catapult sits abandoned. “Eleven years old, and already operating such a menacing weapon?”