Faerie Winter Read Online Free Page A

me a grin as he scrambled to his feet. “Into Johnny’s pants.”
    “Kyle!” Johnny was Kyle’s older brother. I tried to sound severe, but if there was anyone whose pants I’d not mind seeing crawl with ants, it was Johnny.
    “Ants in pants.” Kyle laughed as if he’d done the funniest thing imaginable. “They promised not to bite.”
    Did ants keep their promises? I doubted they could even find Kyle’s brother, given how hard Johnny’s stalking magic made it for anyone to find him lately.
    “Don’t stay too long,” I told Kyle as I headed for one of the woodpiles. “Your mom’ll be looking for you.”
    Kyle’s laughter died. “No. She won’t.” He looked down at his boots.
    I piled wood into my arms. At least Brianna was feeding Kyle and, as far as I could tell, not lifting her hands to him. Still, I glanced back uneasily as I stepped over the ants and out the door. Kyle’s focus was back on the insects; he didn’t seem to see me leave.
    Outside, the wind blew harder, carrying a faint burned-leather smell. From the forest beyond the Store, I heard a foot break the snow, a ragged breath caught and held. I set the wood down and turned.
    As I did, a stranger fled deeper into the forest.

I ran after the stranger, a boy around my age. Snow flew up from our boots as we wove among the bare trees. Patches of his burned sweater fell into the snow behind him. Had he been caught in the same fire as Ben? Was he the one who’d buried the younger boy?
    The distance between us grew.
“Stop!”
I put my magic into the command. I’d been too late to save Ben, but I might not be too late for this boy. Remembering Ben’s final word, I called,
“Ethan, come here!”
    The boy skidded to a halt in a small clearing, snow flying in his wake, and I knew the name was his. He turned and walked back toward me, steps as stiff as those of Kyle’s ants, eyes as wild as those of a deer trapped in a hawthorn thicket. His hands were shoved into the charred pockets of his pants and his tangled curls reminded me of Ben.
    “Is your town safe?” the boy asked.
    “Safe from what?” No town was wholly safe from fire—but the fire didn’t explain why Ben had fled after he’d been burned. I narrowed my eyes. “What happened in your town?”
    “It wasn’t my fault. The children—I tried—” Ethan’s legs trembled, and he crumpled into the snow. Beside him a redbud shivered its irritation, sighed, and was still.
    “What wasn’t your fault?” I crouched beside him. Whatever danger his town had faced, my town needed to know about it.
    Tentative footsteps came up behind me. Kyle reached out to touch the boy’s face. “Hot.”
    I put a hand to Ethan’s forehead. His skin burned with fever. “Get your mom,” I told Kyle. As the town’s midwife, Brianna was the nearest thing we had to a doctor.
    Kyle shook his head. “Not Mom.” He pointed to Ethan’s pockets. Wisps of smoke rose from them. The burned-leather smell in the air grew stronger.
    “Mom doesn’t do magic.” Kyle looked up at me, as if expecting some answer to that.
    “Get Kate, then.” Matthew’s grandmother knew some things about healing, too. “No—get Matthew.” Matthew could help carry Ethan to their house.
    Kyle nodded and ran into town, arms flapping at his sides. I reached to draw Ethan’s hands from his pockets,but he moaned and pulled himself into a tight ball. The smoke stopped.
    A few minutes later Matthew came running through the snow, Kyle at his heels. Matthew glanced at Ethan, gave my gloved hand a quick squeeze—his fingers were bare, as if he’d left in a hurry—and turned to Kyle. “Another firestarter?”
    Kyle bit his lip. “Is this one going to die, too?”
    Matthew rubbed at the ragged scar around his wrist. “I don’t know.” The look that passed between him and Kyle was filled with the years they’d secretly learned about magic from Mom while I’d thought my town free of magic. Just as I’d thought Jayce’s