The faeys would want to know she was going to become queen.

The long grass brushed dew against the skirt she had hitched up while she climbed, and roots caught at her feet. She never liked to come out while it was still fully night, for fear of meeting the troll, but if she waited for sunrise the faeys would be gone. She hurried in the opposite direction from the cliff, darting between trees whose shapes became clearer and clearer as the sky lightened above her.

But she was in time. As she came over the last rise, she could see their lights still burning with a cold green glow. Many of the faeys had already gone into the hill, but others lingered in the dell. She paused above them, pushing back the hair she had not taken time to braid, and whistled three times.

They ran around in panic for a few seconds as they always did, as though they never could remember they had taught her that whistle themselves. But then they spotted her and poured up the hillside to meet her.

They came up to her knees. They leaped and frolicked like puppies, crying, “Karin! Karin!” in shrill voices, snatching at her skirts and all trying to get closer to her than the others.

Even miserable she had to laugh. “Yes, yes, I’m coming to visit you! I have news you’ll like to hear. Yes, I’ll tell you when we’re all inside.”

For ten years, the faeys had been the only ones with whom she could be not a princess, not a hostage, not even a woman, but only herself, Karin.

They poured back down the slope into the dell and gathered up the lights. She went on her knees to crawl into the hillside behind them. The stone swung shut, closing them in.

In all the years she had been coming here, she had never liked this disorienting moment when natural light was abruptly gone, leaving them all illuminated only by the faint green light that put weird shadows across their features. She took a deep breath and shut her eyes, then carefully opened them again.