Bones of Faerie03 - Faerie After by Janni Lee Simner Page B

happened, magic was way stronger than today.”
    Allie’s words echoed a little in the stone room. “Shifters could choose any shape. Speakers understood plants and animals and fire and wind all together. And summoners …” Allie looked up at me. The purple light gave the circles under her eyes a bruised look. “Summoners weren’t limited to calling the shadows in other living things. They could control their own shadows as well, sending them wandering outside their bodies even while they were alive.
    “But Karin says not everything was better in thosedays, because while faerie magic was stronger, their bodies were weaker. Faeries didn’t live much longer than humans, and all sorts of things could kill them too soon.” Allie shuddered. “They were so sick, Liza. The people Nys made me heal. All he had to do was ask. Of course I would have healed them.” Allie stared at her hands. “It was hard not to keep trying to fight his glamour, inside at least, but fighting didn’t work. It only made it worse.”
    “The story,” I said gently.
    “The story.” Allie worked the tangles from her hair as she spoke. “The story begins with a summoner—Rhianne was her name—who could control her own shadow. And it begins with a speaker, but I don’t remember his name. The speaker and the summoner were deeply in love. Of course they were, because that’s how these stories go. Together they walked the forests of Faerie, the summoner calling the things of that world to them, the speaker listening to their voices and telling her what they said. But they were too easily distracted by each other’s words and presence.” A small grin tugged at Allie’s face, the first I’d seen since she returned. “That means kissing. You know that, right, Liza?”
    “Yes, Allie.” I kept my voice as grave as I could manage. “I do know that.” I suspected it was far more than kissing Karin meant.
    “You
would
,” Allie said. “You and Matthew both.”
    I gave Allie a level look. Her cheeks flushed. We both laughed, but my laughter stopped as I thought of Matthew and Caleb, running through wind and rain to reach us. I would have told Allie about that vision, but what if Nys was listening again?
    “So one day while Rhianne and the speaker were
distracted
”—Allie gave me a meaningful look—“a hunting cat saw them. Hunting cats were much bigger than they are now, and this cat’s claws swiftly found the speaker’s heart. I hate this part. Because while Rhianne used her summoning to send the wild creature away, she wasn’t fast enough. The speaker’s heart and breath stopped, so fast neither the summoner nor any of Faerie’s healers could bring him back, because even then magic wasn’t always enough, no matter how strong it was.”
    Allie tugged a particularly stubborn tangle. “Rhianne’s grief at losing her speaker ran so deep. The summoner stopped talking, nearly stopped eating. Months and months later she had a daughter, and once her daughter was born, she decided she was done with life and love and with
everything
, which is the saddest thing I ever heard. Rhianne left her daughter and her people and her body behind, and she sent her shadow wandering, which was stupid, because that meant she was all alone with her grief. Rhianne wandered far and wide, through allof Faerie, while her people waited and watched over her body and hoped maybe one day she’d come back.”
    The tangle wouldn’t give. Allie let it go. “Eventually Rhianne’s body grew old and died, because faerie folk died younger then, like I said. Her flesh melted into the soil, and the tree, well, the tree ate her, like trees did, even Before. It was only after that that Rhianne’s shadow returned, her grief used up at last. She searched for her body with her magic but found only the tree. And—this is the strangest part. Rhianne sent her shadow into the only shelter she could find for it, the tree’s bark and branches and leaves. The tree