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There must be another way. Therehasto be another way.

But what am I missing? What haven’t I considered yet?

I can’t do this. Or rather, I can…but I won’t. Iwon’t.

Not again. Never again.

Behind Lark, one of the male dryads notices my sister. The Fae halts, momentarily disengaging his longbow. His attention transfers from Lark to me, then he sees Puck stationed at my rear, and then he gauges my crossbow’s trajectory.

The doe stands frozen, caught in my aim.

Understanding dawns across the dryad’s countenance. In a manner of seconds, the male recognizes what I’m about to do. Like all the Folk, he knows what my task is. The bereavement in his expression gives way to panic, which segues to desperation.

And it happens. The dryad raises his longbow. An arrow fires, slicing through the maelstrom of bodies.

Sylvan doesn’t see it coming. She groans, her limbs buckling. The weapon pierces her fur, spearing into the paunch where crimson sprays on impact.

The sound she makes penetrates my breast. When she crashes to the ground, so does my archery. The crossbow clatters to the boulder, then skids off the edge and thunks into the grass, still loaded with its bolt.

The battle ceases, everyone jolting to a standstill. The combatants process the magnificent deer sprawled on her side. Blood leaks from her wound, where the dryad’s arrow lodges.

As he gazes upon the fallen animal, the male’s face mirrors determination—right before he collapses to the ground, his weapon slumping beside him. Prone on the grass, he tenses, bloats with air, then caves in and goes still. Red spritzes from his back, pierced by a saw-edged dagger.

At the fringes of the clearing, Foxglove rises from her throwing stance, her eyes fixed on the dryad. The nymph must have returned from wherever the owl had dumped her and seen what the Fae intended. She’d sought to prevent it by hurling the blade.

Too late.

Heads swivel from the nymph to the dryad, then to the deer. Gasps and shrieks fill The Gang of Elks, the calamity of noise dicing through the wild.

Tinder gapes. Foxglove teeters in place.

A myriad of emotions sears across Cypress’s features, each of them clashing.

From their respective corners, Lark, Cerulean, and Moth pause, arrested by the scene.

A sob hefts from my mouth. I press a fist to my lips and stumble backward into Puck.

He unleashes a strangled noise that tears through me. We break from the paralysis and leap off the boulder, hurling ourselves toward Sylvan. Our knees slam into the grass. The doe gargles for breath, her stomach pumping, disjointed exhalations puffing from her snout. Shamrocks droop over her antlers, and the russet hue of her coat dulls, its luster waning.

Puck’s hand quavers as he touches her neck, stroking the fur with his thumb.“Eck er jérna,”he says.“Eck er jérna.”

When she nudges his fingers with her nose, all semblance of restraint snaps. Puck draws in a suffocated breath and lets it out, a choked cry grating from his lungs. His head bows and lands on hers, sobs racking his shoulders.

The deer casts me a glance, her eyes crawling to meet my gaze. Heat scorches my face, and my eyes water, beads leaking down my cheeks. Rivulets cascade to my jaw and drip on my sweater.

Footfalls approach. Lark kneels and embraces me from behind, tucking her chin on my shoulder. Her presence brings more tears to the surface. I weep silently while Puck weeps openly, his body rocking over the doe, the animal he considers a sister.

Puck, whose only wish is to have a family.

Faeries and fauna gather around us, some lamenting and sniffling, others hissing and braying. Cypress lowers himself and closes his eyes, muttering words in Faeish, chanting what sounds like a hymn.

Cerulean and Moth prostrate themselves, watching the deer with mournful gazes. Although I haven’t imparted the game or its rules to them yet, they must guess. Based on their expressions, and the expressions around them, they guess the essentials correctly, if not the complexities of the game.

The hunt, which I’ve lost because I hadn’t pulled the trigger.

I’d refused to let the bolt fly, striving instead to think of an alternative. In that interim, the dryad had endeavored to stop me from winning. And he’d succeeded.

Despair eclipses my terror. While I may not have struck Sylvan down with my own weapon, if I hadn’t targeted her in the first place, the dryad wouldn’t have noticed.