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I considered this while Mother finished her pipe. I knew she was waiting for me to make a decision. But there was no real choice for me.

“I will stay,” I said at last. “I cannot leave. I would not survive an uprooting, not in the city with Rose, not in a northern forest with you. I will be the new woodland guardian. I have my margool. I have Jenny, and the goats, and the hens. That must be enough. And, Mother,” I added, waiting for her to meet my eyes, “I am glad you kept me. I don’t wish for any childhood other than the happy one I had with you and Rose. ”

Mother exhaled softly.

“Then I will teach you the ways of a guardian. Open that book. At the beginning. Everything you need to know is in those pages. Study. Study diligently. There is much to learn, and not much time. Tomorrow you will come with me, and I will show you what to do.”

If I had thought Mother kept me busy in the days following the departure of Rose and Beran, it was nothing compared to the busyness of the weeks that followed.

She woke me before dawn to begin long days of tramping the border of Faerie, followed by evenings of study from the book.

There was an urgency to these weeks. I suspected she should have left for the north already and was delaying her departure to instil in me years of knowledge condensed into a few short months.

She was patient, but relentless in driving me on.

If I had not been a willing noviciate, I would have crumbled under such rigour.

But I walked mile after mile, learning to distinguish between the signs and markings of woodland birds and creatures, and those of Faerie that had crossed over.

I learned to follow the tracks of fae, looking for evidence of enchantments or curses laid down like traps.

And when I did find a spell, I learned how to detach it, like pulling apart the threads of a spider’s web, tossing it back over the border and cleansing the tree, bush, or ground of any stray strands of untoward magic.

I did this by speaking to it, ordering it to come into line with the law of the Faerie queen, who did not permit untoward magic outside the border, in accordance with the agreement between the kingdoms.

I had always been sensitive to glamours, but my sight sharpened as I developed it. I could now spot a glamour cast over anything, even the most innocuous-looking beetle could be a pesky little sprite looking to cause mischief.

Wherever we went, Mother announced to all that I was the new guardian of the border, bearing a rose crown as my sign of authority.

The margool was no longer a useless, oatcake-stealing pet.

She was invaluable to me in her absorption of untoward magic, particularly when I encountered an overwhelming amount, such as an illicit faerie ring, created for nights of revelry outside the Faerie calendar.

She would absorb all the tangled webs of magic enmeshed in the dancing, allowing me to disentangle it without the creeping compulsion to dance and dance until my legs collapsed, as poor Rose had nearly done under the sorcery of Amara.

I thought I caught a glimpse of Amara once, beyond a crop of saplings over the border.

She looked like an old crone, bent and shuffling along, foraging for wild mushrooms. She saw me, and we stared across the boundary.

When her gaze fell on the margool, she grimaced.

When she saw my rose crown, she winced and shuffled away.

I also saw the roamer with his swaying cart and stubby horse, encamping in different spots. Doubtless, he had loaded up on pilfered goods, ready to sell to gullible mortals. He would leave for town before the season turned.

But while my world grew larger with my new labours and studies, my heart still mourned.

The last thing I thought of as I lay in my lonely bed was of Rose and Beran—what they were doing, how they were faring.

I told myself they were where they belonged, and I was where I belonged. But it did not comfort me much.

Mother did not rouse me before dawn as usual; instead I woke to see the sunshine creeping across the walls, and I knew by the colour of the light that the last day of summer had passed away in the night. Today was the beginning of autumn.

I scrambled out of bed and hastened down the ladder. Mother was ladling out porridge, but I saw her cloak and bag by the front door, and the bag was packed.

“Just in time,” said Mother, placing a bowl of porridge on the step to the garden. The margool pounced on it before it had time to cool.

“Where are you going?” I demanded.

She glanced at me as she moved to the table, but did not meet my eyes. “Are you going to breakfast in your shift?”

“You’re leaving. Aren’t you?”

She sat down. “Lily,” she said quietly, and I could hear the persuasive magic in her words. “Don’t make this more difficult.” She nodded at my bowl. “Come and eat with me. Please.”

I sat down, but a lump rose in my throat, and I could not swallow anything .

“I am sorry,” said Mother, still in that quiet way. “I will come back and see you.”

“When?”

“When the snow melts from the forest and I can travel.”

“Spring?”

“Late spring. I hope.”

Seven or eight months seemed an aeon.

“Go to Rose if you find it too lonely,” Mother reminded me. “Ride Jenny into town and hire a courier to take a letter to her. She will not delay in sending a carriage for you.”

This mention of Rose only tightened the lump in my throat, especially as it was painfully entwined with thoughts of Beran.

Why am I so easy to leave?

“Why aren’t you taking Jenny? You have a long journey. Too far to walk.”

“A carriage is coming for me.”

“A carriage?”

“Something like a carriage. More of a sleigh.”

“A sleigh? In autumn?”

“Not a usual sleigh. The guardian of the north has high magic at her disposal.”

There was a strange sound outside. I glanced toward the window. It was a golden day, with only the slightest breeze, so why did it sound as though a great gale was roaring through the trees in the distance?

Mother was listening too. “Here it is!” She got up hastily. “One cannot keep a great godmother, or her carriage, waiting.”

I hurried after her. The sound of the wind grew tempestuous, as though a giant were trampling through the woods, shaking the trees. The margool shot past us through the open door, eager to see what was happening.

“Have a care! Have a care!” squawked the jackdaw before diving for cover. Our bees hastened away to their hive in the meadow.

“What is it?” I marvelled, watching as the treetops shook and clouds of woodland birds fled with noisy calls to their nests.

Mother was too busy fastening her cloak to answer. At the top step, she turned and clasped my face in her large hands.

“Never go out without your rose crown,” she urged. “I have left some small magic around the cottage and garden to aid you.”

She kissed me firmly on the forehead, and I felt the magic of her blessing imprint upon me. Then she hurried down the steps and along the path to the gate, her cloak billowing behind her.

I could not follow, for the wind was too strong. It pinned me in place as though to bar my approach.

As the gale descended, I saw the form of a sleigh pulled by a pair of winged creatures—half horse, but with the heads and wings of large birds of prey.

Even from where I stood, I could feel the strong magic flowing like invisible waves.

I shivered and crossed my arms over myself, for the air had grown sharply cold.

Something soft brushed my cheek, and I looked up to see a feather-light fall of snow.

Mother stepped into the sleigh as the creatures stamped their hooves. She had barely settled, pulling a thick fur covering over herself, before the creatures shook out their powerful wings and began to rise. Snowflakes swirled as the wind lifted with them, shaking the branches of the trees.

She was gone. Leaves showered down onto the woodland floor, and the snowflakes, glinting in the early autumn sunshine, melted away.

“Gone, gone,” squawked the jackdaw, hopping out from its shelter and shaking snow from his black feathers. Where the sleigh had been, a flush of snowdrops remained.

She was gone.

I gave my porridge to the margool and cried.