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Once tucked inside the camp, I keel over onto the grass. My head bows between my knees as I heave for oxygen and fend off the roiling nausea.

However repellent, Puck’s arguments about his kin are accurate. His people have never cared a wit for humans. Why would they start after The Trapping? Why would they fret over mortals who suffer during the games? Why would the Folk bother to change their methods?

Their survival is the priority. Preserving their existence is the goal. I abhor their tactics, but I’m cognizant of the roots.

As ruler of the woodland, Puck has a duty to follow through with this game. Keeping the Solitary wild alive is his responsibility. To do that, he has to vanquish me.

Yet the taste of him persists, its residue coating my lips. Yes, he’d realized the truth about our past. Yes, he wants to protect me. But no, he shouldn’t have kissed me.

The Book of Fables rests on the grass. I snatch the tome and hurl it across the space. It flies and smacks into a mound of dirt, flopping open like a gaping mouth. Flecks speckle the parchment of a random page.

My remorse is immediate. I crawl over to the book and wipe my palm over the interior, wiping away the granules and streaking one of the words in the process. I retrieve my spectacles, and the letters solidify:Immortal.

And then. I stare.

I stare harder, closer. The stain lends a tilted quality to the word, which slants toward another noun several sentences down:wild.

“Immortal wild,”I mutter.

Another detail hits me—the penmanship of these two words. They’ve been written in a curvier style, diverting from the main one like a pair of snaggleteeth. The method is subtle, barely perceptible, but it’s there. In fact, the results remind me of footprints.

My eyes broaden. I scan the Fable, then flip to the next one, and the next, and the next, until I land on a fresh word with the same rebellious calligraphy. Five pages later, I find another.

“Immortal wild. Immortal land,”I read.

The intermittent words link together like a chain, an unbreakable thing. It’s the approximation of a hidden text. My digit runs across the leaflet, then seizes in place. “It’s a trail,” I whisper.

The scribe had stashed an uncharted passage throughout the book, accessible only by hunting for it. I pour over the tome. Each word I find, I pencil into my notebook. Hours later, I peer at the lines through my lenses. It’s a secret Fable with a secret message, but this one isn’t just for humans. It’s for Faeries, too.

It’s meant for both of us.

I reread the contents, mouthing the words to myself. At the tale’s end, my head whips up, a grin sliding across my face. There’s still a chance to win this hunt.

It looks like I’ll be making a bargain, after all.

23

Eventide arrives. The last vestiges of daylight slip away, glossing my campsite in starlight—a cavorting kaleidoscope of white, gold, and teal. Dangling in the firmament is a chalky ring with a black pupil peeking through its center.

So that’s what the Middle Moon looks like. I stand beneath it, the vision reminding me of a target marker, with its obsidian bullseye.

Middle Moon is the annual cycle marking the historical, ancestral birth of the Fae fauna. In The Wicked Pines, Puck had imparted the abridged details, how every environment in the Solitary wild celebrates in a different way.

Since I refuse to speak further with him, I locate Cypress and probe the centaur for additional information. From night to morning, the landscapes belong to the animals. Only they may roam their environments. This means whatever game the latest human is playing—if they haven’t perished by then—comes to a temporary halt.

Until the sun rises, Faeries must remain idle, short of attending the revels.

In The Solitary Mountain, the Folk host a masquerade. Because they’re a lofty bunch, that event is forbidden to mortal players, though I doubt that’s a point of contention. What human would want to frolic with their captors?

Unless that human is my reckless sister. Before we’d parted ways, I had warned Lark to behave herself, but I wouldn’t put it past her to sneak into the masquerade and spy.

As for what happens in The Solitary Deep, I miss out on the specifics. I don’t get the opportunity to wheedle them out of Cypress because it’s time to leave. It’s time to depart from The Heart of Willows and step into the lion’s den: The Middle Moon Feast.

Unlike in the mountain, the Faeries have solicited my presence. They want me trapped amidst their revelry and shaking in my boots. They want me as the centerpiece. This feast will be the site of my “reckoning,” where I’ll win or lose. Since they’re used to it, they anticipate a gruesome end for me and a triumphant one for them.

The hunt has ended, the mysterious animal unidentified and unaccounted for. But I’m not done playing.

An entourage of centaurs guides me from their territory, a procession of equines parading in a straight line with their prisoner in tow. It’s a spectacle of vivid coats, intricately braided tails, woven leather belts, horned helmets, and laurel circlets.