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“Now who said anything about riddles?”

“You’re saying this mediocre performance is the extent of your skills?”

“Puuuleeeease,” he drawls. “If I roll my eyes any further back, I’ll see my own asscheeks. Is this piss-poor display the bestyoucan do to goad me? What a subpar human, you are.”

My bowstring quakes. The arrow soars.

Puck’s outline steps aside as the weapon streaks by, then he turns and regards me with relish. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

He rushes my way. I catapult from the stump, roll between his limbs, lunge upright, and break into a run. My nemesis guffaws, his mirth loud and unabashed.

The crossfire travels through The Solitary Forest. Tree to tree. Alcove to alcove. Shot for shot. The satyr’s dexterity versus my precision. Nevertheless, because his power is legendary, I’m starting to wonder if he’s holding back.

Is this real combat or entertainment? What’s the difference for him?

We pass from one artery of foliage to another. The constellations shift beyond the canopy, the half-light blooming from dark teal to periwinkle. This happens until the trees with their feathery leaves vanish, swallowed by a new environment.

I stumble in place. Twig trees spread around me, their trunks spun from thin switches, which form branches sprouting wildflower buds instead of leaves. Around them grows a vast sculpture garden, the same twigs netting into the likenesses of animals. An elk, its antlers splaying outward. A row of opossums hanging upside down from the boughs, their tails hooked around the limb. A porcupine ten times its mortal size, its quills spearing the air.

They’re scattered throughout, along with twig sculptures of Faeries. A small female faun with goat limbs, a basket linked over her arm. A tall, regal Fae brandishing a longbow. A statuesque dryad peeking from behind a tree.

It seems our skirmish has inched past another borderline. Young wildflowers bloom from the sculptures, petals raining down at the slightest breeze. The garden feels like hallowed ground.

My boots carry me toward the oasis. But I halt as a bolt’s tip prods between my shoulder blades.

“One inch, luv,” Puck assures me. “One measly inch, and you’ll see how much better I can do.”

I wheel around. Puck looms before me, with my weapon fixed and the bolt pointed at my chest.

Appropriately, I respond in kind. Thereupon, his gaze flickers to the yew longbow poised at his own torso.

The satyr smirks, impressed. “My, my, my.”

“Want yours?” I ask, gripping his weapon. “Give me mine.”

“Oh, goody. Are we finally making a deal?”

“For the last time: No, we are not.”

“Spoilsport. Though this—” he bobs the bolt’s tip, indicating the longbow, “—explains the hissy fit a certain marten-tailed youth threw, not one hour after I sent him on his merry way. He wasn’t too thrilled about reporting the mishap to me. Are you sure you’d rather not bargain with me?”

Best to ignore that. Otherwise, the meddler won’t give up.

Eventide wanes, sleepy blue pouring into the garden. The atmosphere smells of a thousand florals—a sympathetic aroma, though I can’t say why.

I jerk my chin toward the array of twig trees and sculptures. “What are they?”

“What makes you think I’ll answer that?” Puck replies.

I reshape my question. “Where are we?”

His face scrunches into a frown. “We’re in The Fauna Timbers, a patch of land dedicated to the fallen. We didn’t have the capacity to weave sculptures of every deceased soul; so instead, each bloom growing from the offshoots represents a life lost. Happy now?”

The fauna are as immortal as the rest of their kin, apart from being slain in battle. Over the ages, some legendary animals and figures have been said to perish thusly, but not in mass quantities. Bearing that in mind, only one historical event could be responsible for this profusion of wildflower buds.

How many times have I tried and failed to purge The Trapping from my mind? Although my sisters and I were children when the rebellion occurred, I keep wishing I’d had the power to stop that fateful night from happening. Because if I had, perhaps that would have erased everything I’d done prior to that—everything I did to the animals of my own world, everything I did to earn the tattoo inked into my lower back.

Daybreak’s coming. Scarves of white cruise across the sky, the last vestiges of twilight diminishing.