Story Summary: Ophelia Huntington, stumbles across a secret history and a secret waging war when her new and, what she decides are, completely insane friends need her help. Desperately. But how on Earth can she help them anyway?

Author's Notes:I am inspired by the works of Ellen Kushner, Holly Black and Francesca Lia Block, so I think you should go find at least one book by each of them and devour them until you are bloated. And then realise how crappy my work is in comparision :-P

"Evade"

Prologue

'"What do you fear, Lady?"

"A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valour has gone beyond recall or desire."' - J.R.R. Tolkein

There was no such thing as stationary.

Winter was creeping in. She could feel it slip into her fingers and cunningly turn them into ice. She could see it sharpen the blue sky and the naked boughs and branches against this expanse of clear, cold canvas above her. And when she breathed outside in the mornings, small curls of precipitation puffed into the atmosphere.

She’d have given anything to get away from her most disliked season of the year. Anything.

A shadow slipped across the scene as the sun moved behind a tall building and made her shiver as she found herself caught within its boundaries.

Feet fell repetitively against the dirty, cracked track she followed without thought of routine. She could feel his taste in her mouth still. The second brush of his lips against her presently numb ones burned in her memory. The third wicked contact he pressed against her mouth almost made her kiss him back.

Her eyes stung with her tears – evoked by the chill that whipped against her skin and the images and words that mulled unbidden in her mind. She was sure his grip on her wrists would leave bruises. He had no idea how strong he really was.

“OPHELIA!”

This tall creature was running, brown hair whipping behind her, hapless to the power of the wind’s direction, and even if she wanted to, she couldn’t stop.

“Ophelia Huntington, STOP.”

And, of course, she had to.

Her terrified blue eyes locked into a gaze with the very pair she feared. “I can’t defy when you call me like that.”

“No,” he smiled smugly. “And you cannot evade.”

“I hate you.”

“You asked for this, my little lioness. Remember, you asked for this,” he whispered tauntingly into her ear and wrapped his arms around her. She did not feel any warmer for it.