Free Tithe by Holly Black Page A

damp earth beside her. “Would you see what I see, Kaye? Sit beside me.”
    Kaye looked for a dry patch and crossed the stream with an easy leap.
    A tiny being wearing a moleskin coatslithered onto the Thistlewitch’s lap and poked its head inquisitively into the bowl.
    “Once, there were two courts, the bright and the dark, the Seelie and the Unseelie, the folk of the air and the folk of the earth. They fought like a serpent devouring its own tail, but we kept from their affairs, kept to our hidden groves and underground streams, and they forgot us. Now they have made truce and remembered that rulers must have subjects. There is such a habit of service among us.” The Thistlewitch stroked the gleaming fur of the little faerie’s coat absently as she spoke. “They have brought back the Tithe, the sacrifice of a beautiful and talented mortal. In the Seelie Court they may steal away a poet to join their company, but the Unseelie Court requires blood. In exchange, those who dwell in Unseelie lands must bind themselves into service. Their service is hard, Kaye, and their amusements are cruel. And now you have drawn their notice.”
    “Because of Roiben?”
    “Oh do speak his name again,” Spike hissed. “Shall we invite the whole Unseelie Court to afternoon tea while we’re being daft?”
    “Hush,” the Thistlewitch soothed. Spike stomped his foot and looked away.
    “You mustn’t even use their speaking names aloud,” the Thistlewitch told Kaye. “The Unseelie Court is terrible, terrible and dangerousAnd of the Unseelie Court, no knight is as feared as … the one you spoke with. When the truce was made, each of the Queens exchanged their best knights—he was the offering from the Seelie Court. The Queen sends him on the worst of her errands.”
    “He is so unpredictable that even his Queen cannot trust him. He’s as likely to be kind as to kill you,” Spike put in. “He killed Gristle.”
    “I know,” Kaye said. “He told me.”
    Spike looked at the Thistlewitch in surprise. “That’s exactly what I mean! What perverse ovation of friendship is that?”
    “How … how did he do it?” Kaye asked, half of her dreading the answer, but needing to know nonetheless. “How did Gristle die?”
    Lutie flitted to hover in front of her, tiny face mournful. “He was with me. We went to the knowe—the faerie hill. There was cowslip wine, and Gristle wanted me to help him filch a bottle. He was going to trade it for a pair of pretty boots from one of his hob friends.
    “It was easy to find the way inside. There’s a patch of grass that’s all brown and that’s the door. We got the bottle, easy-peasy, and were on our way out when we saw the cakes.”
    “Cakes?” Kaye was baffled.
    “Beautiful white honey cakes, heaped on a plate for the taking. Eat ’em and you get wiser, you know.”
    “I don’t think it works that way,” Kaye said.
    “Of course it does,” Lutie-loo scolded. “How else would it work?”
    Continuing, the tiny faerie gripped onto a thin twig and hung from a low bush as she spoke. “He swallowed five before they caught him.”
    Kaye didn’t point out that if these cakes were supposed to make him wiser, it should have occurred to him to stop after one. It didn’t make his death any less horrifying.
    “They probably would have let him go, but
she
needed a fox for her hunt. Since he stole the cakes, she said he was the perfect fox. Oh, Kaye it was awful. They had these dogs and horses, and they just rode him down. Roiben was the one that got him.”
    “What is it with you fools and saying his name?” Spike growled.
    Kaye shook her head. Roiben had killed Gristle for fun? Because he stole some food? And she’d helped the bastard. It made her skin crawl to think of the easy way she’d spoken with Roiben, the ways she had thought of him. She wondered what exactly could be done with a name, what sort of revenge she could really have.
    The Thistlewitch held out the little egg. “Come,