The pavilion hung quietly for all of a moment, and then the bubble burst, and the townspeople surged at Katherine, their eyes reflecting the fire of the torches on the outskirts of the gathering. She leaped out of the way of their grabbing hands, their running feet, their questioning eyes, but knew she could only avoid it for so long. Without the other-worldly glow of the fae above her, the gold of her skirts, of her skin, looked more burnished than gilded and she saw herself how they must see her.

Before them, they saw a young woman tarnished by the very beings they'd hid from for so long. The fae who stole children and livelihoods, were to blame for all of their troubles, may it be the sickness of livestock or a turn of the weather. Katherine may have dismissed the folklore as superstitions once, but now, she saw them when she looked in the eyes looking back at her.

It is one thing to fear the fae; it's quite another to make a deal with them.

She backed away from the townsfolk, an angry and confused mob at her front and darkness at her back. She searched the crowd for her parents once again, searching for them though she knew they wouldn't help her. Her vision blurred with her anxiety, and she found them not at all. Either they'd become one with the mob, or they'd abandoned their last daughter once and for all. They already had in every sense before this evening, but she hadn't imagined it becoming quite so clear.

Her heart pounded in her ears, but her veins filled with lightning-quick adrenaline. She turned on her heel, dashing from the pavilion, and her blood sang with foam, magic, and fear. The spell of the fae had broken, and now the townsfolk remembered their hate, and the grudge that came with it.

"She's a witch!" A woman shouted, distant in the crowd but echoed by the others.

"She'll curse us or help them sing away our children."

"If the king discovers she was here, we'll all burn."

Bile rose in Katherine's throat, stronger than the wave of nausea that crashed over her as she slipped through the fingers of the cobbler and then the grasp of the flower seller. Did the flower seller remember her as the glass maker's daughter who traded a vase for lilies a day before? If she did, the recognition was gone, replaced by the instinct to purge everything misunderstood. A moment ago, Katherine had been glistening with the stars, now, if she were caught, her skin would be nothing but embers in a matter of hours. In no version of her nightmares had her fate turned so quickly.

But in no version of her wildest dreams would she be the sort of woman to make a deal with a Fae king, either. What had she been thinking? Did she think or was this all a curse caused by the fae— a punishment for attempting to trick their King into a different agreement?

Katherine fled from the square, from the garden, from the people chasing her. Her feet pounded against the cobblestones, and her body shook as she cast around for a way out. The gates to the town would be closed, but Katherine had grown from a precocious child into a young woman who remembered rather than regretted her childish adventures. In the east of town, behind the back garden of one of the wealthier dukes who lived more often in Ecrivenia than Cairn, there was a gap in the outer ramparts.

For once, it would do her well that Lakesedge changed slower than the other towns and cities with more people than places to put them.

She sped down a side street, her steps knowing the way more than her mind did. She ran past the storefronts frequented by the wealthy, by the dressmakers she could never hope to afford, and didn't stop as some of the crowd caught onto her path. They trailed her, some stumbling from drink and heaving with the effort, although some of the youths gained faster as their young joints and sure feet were familiar with the way to the mansion in the same sense that Katherine was.

Katherine's calves burned, her feet, tired from dancing even if she did so on air, faltered on her next corner, and she put up a hand to a stone wall to stop herself from falling. She flinched as she did, squinting as her hand came away bloody from the uneven surface. Pushing herself onward she dared not look back as she came upon the the towering hedges and walls of the abandoned duke's mansion.

Gargoyles hung off the edges of the roof, and the gate was rimmed in faded bronze and cobwebs from disuse. From the front of the house and the hedges, a passerby may not see the gap between the hedge and the corner of the fence, hidden by time and nature. Katherine hastened to the small opening, squeezing herself through despite the brambles, thorns, leaves, and rocks that pulled at her skirts and hair. The struggle to get through was over in less than a minute, but the shouts not far off told Katherine that she hadn't been quick enough.

While not all of the town could get through, she didn't have long.

Dashing across the unkempt front garden, Katherine passed abandoned bird baths and overgrown flowerbeds that held the scraggly remains of long-forgotten roses and fruit trees. The windows of the foreboding house lay dark and empty, not even the moonlight reflecting in the dust-laden windowpanes. A movement in one of the windows gave Katherine pause, forcing her to a stop, her heart catching. She stared in fear, but continued when she realized the flicker of gold, red, and blue, were not the torches she thought they were, but rather herself, back-lit by an inner light that shone from her, rather than around her.

She didn't have time to wonder what the king had done to her, to consider what had changed and what it meant. She had to escape. She wasn't sure what the punishment would be for failing to reach the king's palace at all, but she didn't want to find out if the fae king himself would end her or if the mob would.

Sprinting across the grass, she stuck to the shadows of the still barren trees and the sides of the house, melting into the darkness and becoming one with the night and its sounds. Sleeping birds in their nests paid her no mind as she hurried beneath them, and the fireflies continued their lazy circles. The snaps of twigs and branches betrayed her pursuers' attempts onto the mansion grounds, just as she came upon the back garden and the place where the space in the wall sat shielded by ivy and a worn trellis.

The cold air nipped at her arms and her heels, but she paid it no mind, wrenching away the ivy to reveal—

Boards.

Wooden boards, jagged yet sturdy covered the hole, placed haphazardly but close enough together to keep outsiders out and Katherine in.

"No," she whispered. Her hands searched the stone surrounding the boards. Surely, there must be something, a gap, a space, a hope for her. "No, it can't be."

Her fingers bit into the grooves of the stone, her nails catching on the vines and dead leaves. Her injured hand from earlier stung with the effort, and she brought it back to cradle against her chest, leaving a smear of mud and blood across her bodice. A sob broke from her.

After all of this— the moment at her sister's grave, the strange dance, the deal, the same stone wall that always stopped her still stood in her way. It had kept her inside this town for her whole life, and now it would be the end of it.

Distantly, she registered the shouts of victory as the group of townsfolk broke through the front gate and the gap in the hedge. They would come upon her at any moment.

"Katherine!"

Her head snapped up, her vision blurry with tears but her eyes widened as a glisten of silver, blue, and blonde revealed Samuel, standing atop the wall. He stood arrow straight and determined. His broad silhouette appeared dark against the starlit sky but she could see that the edges of his mouth and eyes were set in a serious mold. The gold bracelets on his wrists glittered as he moved to squat on top of the mossy stone of the ramparts.

"Samuel?"

"Come, quickly. They have just broken through." He gestured to her, leaning down. He got to his knees, reaching a hand down to just a foot away from her. "I'll pull you up and over."

Katherine stared at him, at his earnest face and gray eyes. She took a step back. His face crumpled, but he recovered, urgency in his tone.

"Katherine, if you don't come with me, they'll catch you. Who knows what they'll do."

"Why are you helping me?" She demanded. It was too much. This night was too much. How could she trust him? How could she trust anyone?

Samuel threw up his hands, sliding down from the wall in a moment of gracelessness as he stumbled to stand beside her, faltering as he landed. He stood very close but did not touch her, gesticulating in the direction of the side of the mansion.

"We don't have time for this. I'm your only option."

"I—"

Katherine looked back, regretting it immediately. Half the town streamed into the back lawn, bringing an anger of hundreds of years. There was a reason magic was hated here. There was a reason Katherine didn't trust it. It never was simply golden dust and fae dances; magic always had a price. But often, it was the wrong people who paid it. Once, it was paid by men, and women burned at the pire. Twice, it was paid for in empty beds left by children pulled from their dreams and into the forest, never to reappear. This time, it would be paid in golden dust and blood.

Katherine was not to blame for years of fear and loathing, but she would still be persecuted.

"I'll come with you."

For the second time that night, Katherine gave a fae man her hand, but this time, rather than leading her into a dance, Samuel took her right hand in his left and pulled her close, encircling her back with a strong forearm. Katherine gasped as he brought them into the air, albeit less smoothly than the fae king before him.

Soon, they were above the crowd, although, unlike last time, the town was not spellbound literally or figuratively. Shouts and curses followed them up, as did an attempt at launching sticks and stones.

None of them hit their mark, but Katherine couldn't help but look down, to watch as they flew away from all she'd ever known.

Beneath her swirling skirts and behind Samuel's back, she caught one last glimpse of her parents. Her father's face, half-hidden in shadow revealed only horror and grief, but her mother's betrayed a calmness that Katherine couldn't understand.

It wasn't until her mother gave her a nod, the only sign of acknowledgment Katherine had gotten from her in months, that the pit in her stomach hardened to stone.

Her mother would not grieve her absence, certainly not if Katherine succeeded.

Katherine fought back tears and a rush of loneliness that angled to drown her. It had skirted on the edges since the death of her sister, creeping into her quiet moments as she tried and failed to speak to her mother, tried and failed to get her father to listen. She had no one, not even as Samuel held her as close as he could, his body surprisingly warm.

Katherine turned her face towards the light from the double moons, facing out instead at the mountains that still towered over their heads and she didn't look back at the town— not as they flew farther away, and not as they began to dip closer to ground.

She still did not look back, not even when the forest swallowed her whole, with only Samuel's arms to stop her from disappearing entirely.

-----

Thanks for reading Glass Maker! What did you think of Samuel helping Katherine? Any guesses as to what will happen next?

lso, whoops! Late update, but the next will be on its way Monday!