Fen.
The sky was gray the morning we packed the cottage.
Elsbeth moved through the rooms slowly, touching things as if memorizing them with her fingers—Astra's first blanket, the dented tin cup she used in her make-believe tea wars, the little wooden wolf carved with a dull blade and too much love.
I tied down the crates in the back of the wagon and glanced toward the tree line.
Astra hadn't stopped crying since we told her.
She was sitting on the stone steps with her face scrunched up, cheeks blotchy and streaked with tears, arms crossed tight over her chest like armor made of indignation and snot.
"I don' wanna go to the dumb castle," she declared as I crouched beside her. "It smells like metal and the beds are itchy. My blanket don't like it there."
I tried not to smile. She was trying so hard to be furious, but her nose crinkled every time she sniffled, and her curls were fighting gravity in every direction.
