Fiona was out in the dawn-lit, dew-decked meadow, calling her cow for the morning milking, when the fairy queen stepped from the forest. She wore spring waters and budding leaves, with her hair tightly curled upon her head and dotted through with delicate, pale flowers. She strode across the meadow towards Fiona, wings folded, a breeze blowing around her. The flowers and grasses bent and swayed to let her pass. The morning sun rose higher with each step she took, wreathing her in gold.

Fiona’s blood ran cold.

A thousand tales told by the elders around the winter fires sparked in her mind: the fairies lured maidens to their deaths, they kept them as servants, they turned them into stone. Fiona knew she should run.

But she couldn’t move.

She lifted a hand to her brow to shield her eyes from the piercing sun, wanting to see the fairy queen better. The fae’s beauty bewitched Fiona more than any spell could. Her heartbeat quickened in her chest and her blood thawed, running hot and right to her cheeks.

The fairy drew up in front of her, tall as a sapling with a year’s growth. Stunning. She didn’t look much older than Fiona, who was almost twenty.

“Have you seen a cat?” Her voice was deep and honeyed, with magic layered below the surface. And annoyance just below that.

“A… Cat?”

“Yes.” She crossed her arms and her dragonfly wings flicked in and out. Fiona’s gaze caught on her eyes, the deep brown of late autumn leaves damp from rain.

“What kind of cat?” Fiona finally managed to ask. There were lots of cats in the village, but she couldn’t imagine the fairy looking for any of those.

“A bad cat.”

“Any proper cat is a bad cat.”

The fairy laughed. “What’s your name?”

Fiona narrowed her eyes. “Tell me your name first.”

“Do you really think—” The fairy cocked her head to the side. “—that if I wanted to steal you away from here, I couldn’t come up with a better line than ‘have you seen a cat’? You can call me Zaubi, though.”

“I’m Fiona.” Fiona did a small curtsy, hoping Zaubi didn’t notice the flush on her cheeks. “Perhaps I could help look for your cat?”

“It’s not my cat. It’s one of Freyja’s damned ferals—Bee, she’s calling herself today. I was supposed to be watching Bee while Freyja’s looking for her husband.” Zaubi’s wings flicked.

“So you’re responsible for the cat?”

Her wings folded. “Yes.”

“And you’ve lost the cat?”

A heavy breath. “Yes.”

“Let me help you.” The words slipped out of Fiona, and she immediately wished she could swallow them back. No one offered to help fairies. They took whatever—

Zaubi smiled, warm as the rising summer day. “I’d really appreciate that.”

Before Fiona could convince herself that this was a terrible idea and that she was definitely getting kidnapped and taken away to fairyland, she found herself nodding and mentally running through all the places in the village that a cat might hide. “We have a number of cats hanging around, they keep the rats down. Maybe Bee fell in with them? I’ll go check behind the butcher’s, then down by the river. If all else fails, I’ll check the midden.”

Zaubi lifted her chin. “I’ll come, too.”

The fairy’s body blurred and her form changed. The sparkling dew dress shortened, turning into a linen shift. Her stature diminished and she became human. The flowers tucked into her hair no longer shone with enchanted starlight. She was still absolutely gorgeous, though. Fiona balled her hands into fists, fighting off the sudden image of putting her arm around Zaubi’s waist and brushing the red diamond patterned belt now wrapped there.

“And now for the finishing touch.” Zaubi plucked a strand of hair from Fiona’s head.

“Ouch!”

The fairy touched Fiona’s arm. A feeling like cold stream water rippled through Fiona’s blood, dulling the sharp pain. “I’m sorry.”

“What was that for?” Fiona asked.

Zaubi wrapped the strand of hair around her finger. “A charm. Now everyone in the village will think they know me.”

Fiona nodded. A small voice in her mind mentioning that if everyone thought Zaubi lived there, then Zaubi didn’t need to leave the moment they found her cat. She could stay for the midsummer’s dance coming up—Fiona shook the thoughts away, reminding herself that fairies were tricksters, at best. Even when they weren’t at their worst, they weren’t date material.

Off they went, cat hunting.

The cat wasn’t behind the butcher’s, but he told them to check down at the riverbank since the village cats sometimes clustered there, hoping for scraps from the daily fishers. Zaubi smiled and thanked him graciously.

Fiona licked her lips, toying with the thought of asking Zaubi if she wanted to take a break. They could sit and talk and discuss… Cats. Maybe something else if Fiona could turn the subject…

“To the river?” Zaubi asked.

“The river,” Fiona found herself saying, before she could say anything else.

It was for the best. Fairies were dangerous. No one with a lick of self-preservation would spend their morning trying to figure out how to flirt with one. Fiona motioned Zaubi to the path leading out of the village and towards the river.

“So what’s the party for?”

“Huh?”

“I noticed the pigs hanging in the butcher’s. Seems like a lot for day-to-day life in a small village like this.”

Fiona nodded. “Our midsummer festival starts in two days.”

Zaubi ran her hand along the yellow flowers bobbing along the river path. “That sounds like fun.”

I looked up from my green tea and she was there, standing in the doorway of Marek’s Café with long fair hair plastered to her head by the rain. A puddle formed beneath the hem of her dripping coat as she folded her futile umbrella. Her eyes flickered around the dim light of the café searching, searching.

You might say I was surprised. It isn’t often the woman of your dreams walks into your life.

I mean that literally, I’d never seen her before but I’d been dreaming about her for two weeks. I knew that face, knew how the corners of her mouth creased when she smiled, how she pulled her fingers through her hair and tucked it behind her ears when it fell before her eyes.

She took two paces into the café, pulled the fingers of her left hand through her dripping hair and tucked it behind her ear. Her face turned towards me in the shadowy alcove at the back. Two seconds, then she marched up and stood facing down at me over the table.

“You’re Erica Fallon.”

I nodded. She pulled out the chair and sat. Marek appeared at her shoulder. “Espresso,” she said without looking up. “They say you’re good at finding people.” Her gaze held me with an intensity that might have been intimidating, from anyone else.

I steadied my breathing. “Who have you lost?”

“My brother.”

“When did you last see him.”

“Fifty-seven, but I don’t remember it.”

“Twenty-three years ago.” The sea was where it was supposed to be, the bio-war was at its height. “You must have been very young.”

“They thought six when they found me.”

Marek ghosted silently to the table and placed the small cup before her.

“CM-2057-phi-kappa?” I tapped my phone to pay.

She grimaced and nodded. That was one of the nastier of the weapons deployed in the war, went straight to the brain. Ninety-eight percent of infected adults died. Survivors, mostly kids, suffered total amnesia.

“They found me on a street corner. No idea where I came from, so they gave me a name and put me in an orphanage.”

“So what is it?”

“What?”

“Your name.”

The briefest of smiles flashed across her face, creasing the corners of her mouth. “Rosemary Baker.”

That jarred. It didn’t sound right. “And your brother was with you?”

“No.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

Her fingers stroked the handle of her cup. “Not much. He’s about six years older than me.”

“Does he have a name?”

She sipped her espresso. “Everything else I know is… unreliable, more likely to mislead you, like it has me.”

A brother she couldn’t remember, no evidence he ever existed. Her story was like something from a spin dream.

“I know that look,” she said. “You have a healthy scepticism, Erica. But put aside your preconceptions.” She took out her phone and flipped me five hundred picos. A generous fee. “That’s for trying. Double if you succeed.” She downed the remainder of her coffee.

Dad takes you to the Tree when you turn twelve years old.

“We’re leaving,” he says as he wakes you, a shadow of a man standing tall over your bed. The world is gray outside your window; the air is frigid, unpleasant. He does not speak as you untangle yourself from your blankets, eyes heavy with sleep. He does not say happy birthday.

“It’s cold,” you try. You are barefoot, dressed only in plaid pajama pants and an off-yellow shirt, but he does not let you change. He only stares—dark eyes, dark, graying hair—before he turns and walks away.

There’s nothing to do but follow.

Down the stairs, past family photos of that all-American dream. A mother with laugh lines, a father with a strong, angular face. Two little boys, glowing and laughing with youth, next to a dog with floppy ears. Turn the corner. You drift through the kitchen, past threadbare, empty sofas and a fireplace, unlit.

The front door is open when you get there, and the wind bites your skin. Dad does not shiver. He is already grabbing the keys to the truck, breezing out the door. The swing hung from the tree in your yard sways piteously back and forth. Wood creaks. Leaves ripple.

You spare a glance back at your home–dim and foreign and weary. Your teeth chatter, and there is something coiled and heavy in your gut. Something that yells at you to turn back, to run, to burrow under blankets and away from the chill. But you are twelve years old, now, you remind yourself. You’re not a little boy anymore.

Dad starts the engine; it sputters before roaring to life. You hurry toward him. The darkness prickles at the back of your neck, and the pavement digs harshly into your bare feet. You shake, as you pull on the handle and haul yourself in.

The truck’s moving before you even shut the door.

Dad does not turn on the radio. Dad does not say anything–still does not say happy birthday–as he peels out down the road. Words are stuck in your throat. The silence weighs down on your shoulders, makes you curl in on yourself, sinking into the musty leather of the seat. If you close your eyes, you can almost hear your mother’s laugh in the rattle of the exhaust system. You can almost see your younger brother’s gap-toothed grin, feel his sticky fingers on your face.

The truck jerks to a stop, and Dad grabs your arm. “Come on,” he says, and you follow.

You always follow, and so you step out, blink your eyes open, and–

There’s the Tree.

It is a goliath of wood, a monster of sickly, brittle leaves. The smell of decay is heavy in the air, and flies buzz gleefully around its trunk. One tries to get in your mouth. Gagging, you stumble back, and something squishes underfoot.

You look down. There is a heart on the ground.

There is a heart on the ground, with twine hooked in its muscle–with red staining the grass. You are frozen, wordless, and as you tear your eyes away, the Tree greets you again. Only this time, you can see the shapes hanging from its boughs, swaying gently with the wind. Dozens, hundreds of hearts.

“Family tradition,” Dad finally says. “My father took me here when I turned twelve. His father took him. On and on–all the men in our family, far back as anyone can remember.”

Your breathing is coming out too fast, too harsh. Blood is soaking into your sock.

“You’re scared,” Dad notes. “But you won’t be. You’re not a little boy anymore.”

Dad unzips his jacket, pulls the collar of his shirt down. And right over his chest, is a jagged, ugly scar–puckered and red. A missing piece, as he pulls out a piece of twine from his pocket.

He clamps a hand on your shoulder and smiles. “It’s time to become a man.”

Lynne Inouye is a young, queer fiction writer who lives in Minnesota. Her work has been previously published in Blue Marble Review and Pyre Magazine, and you can find her on Twitter @liinouye.

While royal blood soaked into the whitewashed planks of the gallows, I ran.

I didn’t bother to pack up my cart. Leaving it in the palace courtyard meant losing my good shovel, ten sacks of fertilizer, and the half dozen mulberry sprouts I’d hauled all the way up here. But hanging around in the aftermath of an assassination would be much worse for me in the long run.

I hurried towards the gate as quick as my weak knees and heavy work boots would allow, waiting to hear cries of “Stop, Master Acton!” or “Seize that gardener!” from behind me. Luckily, the red-cloaked guards hadn’t noticed my exit. Even at the best of times, a worker from the lower boroughs wasn’t worth a second glance from them or any other Perch-dwellers. Now, with the sovereigns dying at their feet, I might as well have been invisible.

Fine by me.

Before I slipped out of the courtyard, I chanced a look back. There, King Phillipe and Crown Prince Rillin Verling were splayed out in the hooked claw shadow of the gallows. Crossbow bolts stuck out from their bodies, and my stomach twisted. Grief and confusion won out over my desire to run. Were they dead? Was the assailant still here? Was the princess the next target?

I scanned the parapets lining the courtyard, searching for unseen villains. Nothing.

Then, a flash of movement to my right, a shadow disappearing into an alley. Was it the killer? Maybe. If I took the main street, I could head them off at the intersection, tackle them, bring them before the Royal Guard, and–

Stop.

I gripped the cold metal of the courtyard gates. I didn’t know who wanted to murder the two most important men in the city, but it wasn’t my responsibility to find out, much less track them down. This wasn’t my world anymore. I’d left the upper borough years ago and returned today for a job. That’s it. And I wasn’t even staying to finish it. Whatever came of this morning, it didn’t concern me. I needed to cut my losses and let the shrikes up here deal with it.

I turned my back on the courtyard and started the long journey down from the Perch.