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“I-I’m sorry,” I blubber, resting my hand on Sylvan’s jaw. “I’m s-so sorry.”

In the blooming light from the branch candles, she does something none of us anticipate. She nuzzles my palm, as if in forgiveness. The contact fills me with tenderness, with humility, with grief.

The gesture incites a collective disquiet among the crowd. I sense the Faeries’ astonishment that one of their own would target their fauna, even out desperation. And that an animal of their land would show me affection, would want me near during these final moments. Particularly this beauty, whom Puck had said tolerates none but him, who lets no other rider mount her.

This, they hadn’t foreseen. Neither had I.

That a Fae creature would form such a bond with a human. That a mortal would have such a kinship with their living fauna.

Living fauna…

I startle, my hand pausing atop Sylvan’s coat. A thought creeps through my mind, kindling a spark.

If the term hunt is relative, what if I’d interpreted it wrong? All this time, what if the forest hadn’t designated this task simply to plague me? Instead of using my fears against me, what if the purpose had been different? What if the objective was never for me to relive who I used to be—but rather, to remind me of who I’ve become?

A rescuer. A rehabilitator.

“You can’t hunt an animal that’s right in front of you,” I whisper, my brain toiling, working.

In my peripheral vision, a myriad of faces ticks my way, including Lark and Cerulean. Puck raises his head, his eyes raw on mine. The sight throttles me—and reinforces me.

I’m wiser than this. I can fix this.

“You can’t hunt an animal that’s right in front of you,” I repeat with vehemence, and Puck straightens, listening, waiting. “But neither can you hunt an animal if…if…” I jerk my head toward him, “…if you rescue it instead.”

The rules had stated I needed to take action on the animal’s life. But they had never said in what manner.

The answer courses through me, simmering in my blood. When I was a child, trade poachers had targeted a mother guarding her cubs. Back then, I’d been unable to save that creature.

But I’m older now. And I can save this deer.

I whirl toward my sister. “Lark.”

“On it,” she says, unspooling her whip and handing it to me.

Lark understands my intentions. We’re used to this process, because we’ve done it before with dozens of animals.

“Keep her calm,” I tell Puck.

Awareness and a hopeful glimmer dawn across his face. He bends over the doe and whispers in his language.

Blood dribbles from the crater in Sylvan’s flesh. I assess the arrow and gauge its depth, its placement. The tip hasn’t punctured any crucial organs or arteries.

I clamp on to the weapon’s stem and pull, extracting it fully. The doe grunts, a seizure rolling across her body.

Lark mentions that Cerulean has the ability to purge wounds of infections. He did it for her atop The Wild Peak. But with regret, Cerulean testifies what I already know. He can’t take direct action on the animal’s life.

That’s my job. As the player, I have to be the one administering Sylvan’s care. Still, it’s within the game’s bounds to ask for help in other ways.

“All right.” Mentally, I rifle through an anthology’s worth of Fables while pressing my thumbs to my temples. “In…inThe Fox and the Fae,the fox sanitizes its wound with…with something called a violet willow. I need a violet willow!”

Cypress evanesces and returns with a purple, eight-bladed leaf. “Place this onto the cleft.”

I do as he bids, settling the plant against the gash. But after unraveling an errant thread from my skirt, dismay catches up with me. Sealing the injury requires a needle or anything similar that will penetrate Sylvan’s flesh.

Puck catches on. He removes a leaf charm from one of his earrings and detaches the clasp.

“Give me that.” Moth snatches the makeshift needle and pinches the loop just so. This narrows the gap, refining it from a crude fabrication to a workable tool. She hands it over to me. “My parents were tailors.”