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her in the brig.”

    Cedric did not know what a brig was. “She cannot be separated from me.”

    “Fine. You go, too.” The Human gestured to another man. “Take him, too.”

    “And when we arrive at our destination?” The green Faery climbed to her feet, still seething.
    “Will they be returned to our custody?”

    “Once you are off my ship, I don.t care what you plan on doing with them. So long as I get my money.” He nodded to Cedric and Cerridwen. “Get them out of here. And the rest of you, clear off.”

    Cedric locked eyes with the green Faery. Hatred and malice blazed in her eyes.

    If they were friendless before, he realized, things had become far worse for them.

    Five

    C louds covered the sun, made the world a gray-white that was neither night nor day, but a perpetual in-between time that pricked the edges of consciousness as though in warning. Mist shrouded the floor of the clearing, as if the forest had come to life and exhaled too-warm breath into the chill air.

    Blinking as she strained to see through the sinuous vapor, Cerridwen rose from the grass, felt the cool, wet air envelope her as though she.d dived into a pool.

    A dark shape materialized in the mist, growing more distinct as it moved toward her. It was a female, a Human female, or so Cerridwen thought until she saw its face, flanked by two identical ones on either side of its head. The thing that was not a woman, but three in one body. It wore a long cloak of black feathers that rustled in a breeze Cerridwen could not feel. Beneath the blanket of feathers, metal armor glinted. Tall, armored boots rose past the woman.s knees. In her hand, she carried a spear tall enough to touch the ground at her feet and rise above her head, the gleaming silver of it stained with rust-colored rivulets of dried blood. Under her arm, she carried a helmet of silver, shaped like the head of a raven and so finely detailed that it must have come from the Court of the Gnomes. A strip of feathers rose from the crown of the helmet and spilled down its back in a mimic of the hair on the woman.s head, which was shaved but for a knot of ebony in the center that fell in a gleaming tail behind her.

    It spoke with all of its mouths at once. “Do you enjoy killing?”

    An aura of menace surrounded the thrice-faced woman, but it did not touch Cerridwen, and she spoke without fear. “I do not enjoy it. But it was necessary.”

    The head nodded, all six eyes closing in slow appreciation. “This is a lesson many warriors take time to learn.”

    “I am no warrior.” It embarrassed her to be called such, after seeing the bravery displayed by the Guild members in the fight at the Elven quarter.

    “You are a warrior.” The answer brooked no quarrel. “You have blood on your hands, three times, blood on your hands.”

    More than three times. This woman with three faces did not know that she stood before the Faery who had destroyed her own kind, killed her own mother and father through her foolishness. She did not need a blade to kill.

    The three mouths continued to speak in unison. “The blood of your enemies. The dark one. The traitor. The deceiver.”

    The Elf, and Flidais, and Bauchan. “They all had to die.”

    “I will grant you a boon.” The woman dropped her spear and used a finger to trace the symbol of three spirals, connected in a triangle, the same as Cerridwen had seen in her dreams, in the air. Mist conformed to the shape, twisted into something more tangible. It turned to fire and steel, cooled to a stone and dropped into the woman.s open palm. She held it out, as if offering it, but when Cerridwen reached for it, she turned with sudden violence and threw it into the trees. It was lost in the mist and the darkness on the forest floor.

    “Why did you do that?” Cerridwen cried, feeling entitled to the thing that had not been hers a moment before, had not even existed.

    The woman shrugged, three bland expressions on her faces. “You will