Free Hero is a Four Letter Word by J.M. Frey

quiet, then still. He is limp with exhaustion, cradling his head, moaning and shivering in the damp of the grass and the chill of the night.
    As he’s been weeping, atoning for his sins, Jennet has been thinking. She is the daughter of Margaret, who stole Tam Lin once. It can be done again.
    So when the candle is nothing more than a puddle of wax and a tenuous flame, she reaches out and pulls Liam’s head onto her lap. She threads her fingers through his golden hair, dries the tears from his freckled cheeks, and asks: “How do you summon a Fae Queen?”
    “Jennet, no!” he says, jerking upright.
    “Tell me, or I’ll find a way to do it myself, and I’m certain I’ll do something wrong. So. Tam Lin of legend, tell me how to summon a Fae Queen.”
    “You need merely ask,” a deep and melodious voice says, from somewhere just outside of the circle. It is accompanied by an uncomfortably chill breeze and the scent of nightshade. Her voice is devoid of all accent, flat and unnatural, and all warmth as well.
    Liam buries his head in Jennet’s lap and moans in fear.
    “Ah, my Tam-a-Line,” the Queen croons.
    “ My Tam-a-Line,” Jennet corrects, straining to meet the Queen’s gaze against the dark of the night, but her skin is obsidian and her eyes are white fire, and though Jennet raises her chin in defiance, she cannot meet the Queen square.
    “I have heard that from one like you before. I shall assume that my wee man means to attempt to escape me in the arms of a mortal woman again.”
    “No,” Jennet says. “This time it’s I who defies you. And, I think, this means I’m the one to bargain with you.”
    The Queen laughs, and Liam scrambles into Jennet’s embrace, holding her tight, pressing the bridge of his nose under her ear and whimpering, “No, don’t do it, don’t, don’t, my sweeting, say nothing.”
    Jennet pets the back of his head, cleaves to him, clings, and whispers back, “This princess has chosen her husband. Now let her lay the path for rescue. Hush.” She looks up at the Queen. “I understand your preoccupation with him, your majesty,” Jennet says aloud, infusing her voice with as much coolness as she is able. “He’s so beautiful when he weeps. His skin pinks so prettily.” Liam whimpers and Jennet forces an indulgent laugh at the sounds. “He is a kitten. I will trade you for him.”
    “What can you have that I would want?” the Fae Queen asks.
    “My children,” Jennet offers, voice low and as emotionless as she can make it. She bites the inside of her cheek hard, to keep it from quivering. To maintain her bluff. “And my children’s children.”
    “If they are of Carterhaugh blood, they are already mine,” the Queen sneers.
    “Ah, but only on the tithing. I offer you this: all the children of my womb. As soon as they are born, they are yours. Changelings for your court.”
    The white fire in the Queen’s face burns brighter. “You would give me this? All your children?”
    “I offer you all the children born of my womb as soon as they are free of it,” Jennet agrees. “In return for Tam Lin’s mortality. I want him human again, and free of your geis. He will begin to age again, slowly, naturally, and you will have no claim to him, nor any resident or visitor to Carterhaugh, for your tithing again.”
    “Done!” the Fae Queen cries. “Take your husband, human woman, and I will see you nine months for the first of my prizes!”
    The breeze flutters again, the snuffling puddle of candle goes out, and slowly, all around them, the birds and the insects of the night resume their careful, cautious humming.
    Liam looks up from his lap and stares at Jennet in awe.
    “You …” he begins, but Jennet kisses him quiet.
    “Not in the circle,” she says, and they help each other stand, legs numb from the dew and the cold. As the sun rises, bloody and cold, they pick their way back to Carterhaugh manor. They share a bubble bath and when he combs the long strands of his