The Sickleseer’s curse tugged at him.

He could feel it again, for the first time in weeks, burning and burning inside him now, deep in his chest and belly and no longer just in the mostly-healed wound on his left arm. It was sickening in a more than physical way; Jathen did not want to go to the Sickleseer’s cave and smell her putrid flesh and see her pale, luminous eyes; he did not want to step back into Faery.

The curse tugged, and his heart skipped a beat.

Stifling a groan, Jathen rolled off of the bed; Elisabeth, sleeping soundly with her hair across her cheek, did not stir. Jathen stood, wobbly and off-balance, holding the bedpost for support, and, cursing internally, he managed to stoop and scoop up his sword from the desk before stumbling from the room.

It took him several minutes to find his feet, but when he did find them, he ran; down the hallway, silent like a big cat, and out the front door where the cold winter air hit his face and blew through his hair and the sudden dark pressed upon his eyes. He ran, his limbs carrying him effortlessly but his breath sobbing in his throat, whether from the cold or the exertion or from something else, he didn’t care to know.

As he turned a corner and neared the gutter where the Sickleseer lived, Jathen slowed. He began to walk. He put his sword and scabbard through his belt. He looked down to make sure his boots were on and firmly tied. He cracked his knuckles, and looked upwards at the winter sky, with the stars so far away, their light masked by the lights of the city; he was suddenly overcome by anguish, and he turned his face farther upwards, closing his eyes, trying vainly to feel the starlight on his skin, reaching, reaching, and yet he felt nothing. He stared down at the ground, and it was dark and frozen and patched with snow.

Then, with determination, he strode to the Sickleseer’s hole and slid through the tunnel on his belly.

“Welcome, little prince,” the Sickleseer whispered.

Jathen remained where he was, kneeling in the mud of the cave floor, and said nothing, staring at her; he was unaware of the hollowness of his eyes or the tightness of the way he gripped his sword hilt.

“Now,” she said. “Why does he think I’ve called him here, I wonder? He must know, the silly princeling. I’ve not finished with him yet.” Her voice was soft and sibilant and wet.

“He’s – I’ve no idea,” Jathen said tiredly.

“No idea, he says?” she replied. “No idea. Well, now, mayhaps I shall give him one. He’s done two of my tasks, long enough as they took, and seems he’s forgot the third and most important.” Her sentence ended with a hiss and a growl, and Jathen was vaguely disgusted.

“The third,” he answered dully. “I killed the anarchist. I found the Unseelie Court. I found out the truth. Three, true and proper.”

The Sickleseer smiled, an unnerving and toothy grimace. “Ah. The truth he found, yes indeed, but what does he lack? He discovered the truth, but not the prophecy. What’s truth to me, when I knew it for so long? I want to see the prophecy fulfilled, is what I want. Do it and I’ll lift the curse.”

The mud was soaking through Jathen’s breeches, wet and cold and grimy. He stood and, looking down at the seer, said with listless irritability, “How can I fulfill a prophecy if I don’t even know what it is?”

She smiled at him again. Her trailing fronds made scraping sounds against the wet mud as she dragged herself forward; she patted Jathen’s knee with a cold and scaly hand and told him, “All you must do is go back to Faery. Leave the mortal limbo you’ve trapped yourself in. Go back to Faery, and it will come clear.”

Jathen took a step back, staring down at her. Oh, he was weary. “No,” he said.

“Brat,” she answered in an immediate hiss. “It will happen whether you wish it or not. I give you three days to return to the Unseelie Court. If three days pass and you have not returned, I shall curse you so terribly that it will boil your entrails and explode your heart in your chest.” Cackling, she pinched him viciously on the leg; it felt like a bee sting. “Go!” she hissed.

He went, without a backward look, with a hot, futile fury burning in his chest.

The old playground was desolate.

It was empty, gray, lonely; it had no indication of the beautiful, horrible halls that lurked within its depths. Jathen leaned on the chain-link fence and stared at it, musingly, the iron burning dully through his clothes. He turned and walked away.