Free Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner Page A

against my skin.
    The only thing I didn't share were my visions of Father. That shame belonged to—ought to have belonged to— no one but me.
    At last I fell silent. A weed curled around the toe of Karin's boot, and she absently nudged it away.
    “Are my visions true?” I asked again. I felt strange and calm, not how I expected to feel after speaking those visions aloud.
    “I don't know.”
    “Might they be true?”
    “They might.”
    And my mother might be alive. My hands clenched. “I have to find her.” I couldn't do anything else, not while there might still be a chance.
    Karin slowly unlaced her fingers and set her hands in her lap. “If your visions speak true, it sounds as if your mother is beyond the Arch.”
    How could anything exist beyond the surface of a mirror? I remembered how my hand had moved through Caleb's smaller mirror, though. “Beyond the Arch—you mean in the land of dead trees?”
    Karin's gaze drew inward, as if she saw something I couldn't. “That would be Faerie,” she said.
    A few cold raindrops slid beneath my sweater. Whywould even faerie folk live in such a place? It was living trees they'd called against us, after all. “I have to go there,” I said, even as I wondered what chance I could possibly stand against faerie folk. Yet the land had been empty in my visions. Perhaps the faerie folk didn't live there anymore, either.
    “I'll train you first,” Karin said. “You'll need all the magic you have to survive beyond the Wall—and in Faerie.”
    I shook my head as I remembered the dogs and the mulberry trees and a night Matthew and I almost hadn't survived.
So much time,
Mom had said, but I had a feeling there was hardly any time at all. Something was wrong—I knew that now as surely as I had known it in my vision. Something was wrong, and it already might be too late to set things right. “I need to go now.”
    Karin frowned and reached for the Wall, as if touching wild things helped her think better. Ivy curled like a bracelet around her wrist, and a few stray shoots wove themselves into her sleeve. “I would go with you, but I must stay here to maintain the Wall. Caleb will go, if you ask.”
    “No!” The thought of traveling with Caleb after all he'd seen, after all he'd forced me to see…“No.”
    “Wait until Matthew is healed, then.”
    I hesitated. Matthew and I had gotten this far together, and the thought of his company was more comforting than I expected. But I remembered his ragged breathing and his pale, bruised skin. I couldn't put him in danger again. I shook my head once more. “He'll be safe here.” Karin could train him if she wanted, once he was well.
    “You don't want to take this journey alone, Liza.”
    I said nothing. Drizzle started up again. The ivy drew back from Karin's skin and stretched toward the rain. Other vines and briars did the same, until the whole Wall reached for the sky.
    Karin frowned. “It is possible,” she said slowly, “that the way through the Arch was left open after the War. In that case once you reach it you need only to step through. But otherwise, if the way isn't open—then, Liza, you'll have to rely on your own magic. Your visions have power enough to let you through the Arch, just as they let your hand through Caleb's mirror. But if you fail, you could wander in visions forever. I'd rather you let me teach you.”
    I drew my arms around myself. “How far away is the Arch? Do you know how to get there?”
    Wind blew a few clear strands from Karin's braid. She was silent so long I thought perhaps she'd decided not to tell me, but then she sighed, a sound like trees in the rain. “It has been many years since I made that journey, but Samuel can show you the way on his map. I'm not sure how long it will take you—a week, perhaps. You will at least wait until sunrise to go, yes?”
    “I'll leave at dawn,” I agreed.
    Karin nodded slowly. “Come, then. You need rest before you go.”
    I let her lead me back to