Moonkind (Winterling) Read online

  She saw heads nodding. The people stirred.

  “But here’s the thing,” she said, holding up her hand so they’d wait to hear the rest. “The glamories are gone. There will be no more rule. You will have to work together to heal the lands.”

  “We belong to the land, Lady,” the Sea-Lord said with dignity. “We remember now. We can do this.”

  “We can!” others shouted.

  “The Ways are clear of the stilth,” Fer told them. “You can go now, and get started.”

  There was a surge toward the shore of the Lake, and the Ways started opening as all the Lords and Ladies led their people back to their stilth-stricken lands.

  Phouka pranced as people pushed past him.

  “Thank you, Lady,” called the Birch-Lady, surrounded by her saplinglike people. They hurried to the Way, eager to return to the Birchlands.

  Fer nodded and then sighed. All the lands had been damaged by the stilth. She thought of the Sealands, the horror of the plain of mud, and the forest land draped in the cocoons of dead butterflies. Fixing those lands would not be easy. They had a lot of work ahead of them.

  And oh, she was tired. Wearily she slipped from Phouka’s back.

  “And what about us, Lady?” Asher asked. He gave her a glinting grin. All the pucks, including Rook, stood behind him in a shifty, dark crowd, watching her. “Got anything for us to do?”

  “Ha,” she answered. As if she’d order the pucks around.

  “We’ve decided, Lady,” Rip answered. He stood with hands on hips, his yellow eyes fierce in his black-painted face.

  “We have, that,” Asher added. “We pucks are tired of wandering around all the lands, having no place to call our own. We like the nathe, and this handy Lake of All Ways, and now that the High Ones are gone, we’re going to live here.”

  She opened her mouth to protest.

  The pucks watched, waiting to see what she would say.

  She swallowed a giggle. Pucks at the nathe! Living with the nathe-wardens! It was perfect, really.

  Laughing, the pucks gathered around her. Phouka nudged her shoulder.

  Hm, yes. She had something to settle with Rook. She reached out and grabbed his arm and pulled him out of their midst.

  The pucks made a circle around them. Rook watched her warily.

  She smiled back at him and felt a bubble of happiness floating inside her. “Well, pucks. There’s something else. Your brother Rook has stayed true to me.”

  They laughed at that. “Leave it,” Rook growled at them.

  She smiled at him, then stepped closer. “And I will always stay true to you, Rook,” she said, holding out her hand.

  He took it and nodded, suddenly solemn. “You are true, yes.” The pucks stilled around them.

  “Do you know what this means, Lady?” Asher asked, from the circle of pucks.

  “I do, yes,” she answered.

  “If one is true, it means we’re all true, Fer,” Rook said to her.

  She nodded. It meant she was one of the pucks. They were bound together. She could feel the bond with them, feel it in her heart. It was stronger than promises, stronger than friendship, stronger than oaths.

  She looked around at the pucks. Tricksy, all of them. Black hair, flame-colored eyes, full of trouble. Her brothers. “So I’m a puck now, am I?” she asked.

  “You are, yes,” Rook said warily.

  She grinned up at him. “Okay. So when do I get to turn into a horse?”

  The pucks stared.

  “Or a dog?” she asked. “You’ve all got a shifter-tooth, right? Don’t I get a shifter-tooth, too?”

  “You do, Fer,” Rook answered, smiling at last. “You do, yes.”

  She laughed. Being one of the pucks was going to be so much fun.

  But she was never, ever going to eat any rabbits.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to:

  My editor, Antonia Markiet, who is a freaking genius. And to associate editor Rachel Abrams and editorial assistant Abbe Goldberg.

  My agent, Caitlin Blasdell, and Liza and Havis Dawson at the Liza Dawson Associates agency.

  To the wonderful publishing team at HarperCollins: publisher Susan Katz, editor-in-chief Kate Jackson, editorial director Pheobe Yeh, senior production editor Kathryn Silsand, copy editor Kara Levy, senior art director Amy Ryan, senior designer Tom Forget, production manager Shayna Ramos, associate publicist Olivia DeLeon, and cover artist Jason Chan.

  To my first readers and dear friends Deb Coates, Greg van Eekhout, and Jenn Reese.

  To the Blue Heaven crew for helping me survive yet another exciting medical emergency, especially Charlie Finlay, Rae Carson, Toby Buckell, and Cassie Alexander.

  To Jessie Stickgold-Sarah for making Fer a better rock climber.

  To my wild animal children, Maud and Theo, and to my dashing mad-scientist husband, John.

  About the Author

  Sarah Prineas lives in the midst of the corn near Iowa City, Iowa, and can usually be found writing fantasy novels on a stealthy silver MacBook Air called Dash. Prineas’s Magic Thief series introduced readers to the irascible wizard Nevery and his gutterboy apprentice, Connwaer. Sarah holds a PhD in English literature and recently taught honors seminars on fantasy and science fiction literature at the University of Iowa. She has an amazing dragon action-figure collection and occasionally bakes biscuits (although she says hers never seem to turn out as tasty as Benet’s do in The Magic Thief).

  Sarah is married to John Prineas, a physics professor, which comes in handy when she’s writing about magic. They are the parents of Maud and Theo. You can visit Sarah online at www.sarah-prineas.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Books by Sarah Prineas

  The Magic Thief

  The Magic Thief: Lost

  The Magic Thief: Found

  Winterling

  Summerkin

  Back Ads

  Credits

  Cover art © 2014 by Jason Chan

  Cover design by Tom Forget

  Copyright

  Moonkind

  Copyright © 2014 by Sarah Prineas

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Prineas, Sarah.

  Moonkind / Sarah Prineas. — First Edition.

  pages cm

  Sequel to: Summerkin.

  Summary: “Fer, the Lady of the Summerlands, trusted the Lords and Ladies of her world to fulfill their oaths by removing their glamories, but their pledges have gone forsworn, and now the consequences of their broken promises are ravaging the land and it’s up to Fer to restore peace before it’s too late”— Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-06-192109-4 (hardback)

  EPUB Edition NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN 9780062285607

  [1. Magic—Fiction. 2. Shape-shifting—Fiction. 3. Fantasy.] I. Title.

  PZ7.P93646Moo 2013

  2013032167

  [Fic]—dc23

  CIP

  AC

  * * *

  13 14 15 16 17 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FIRST EDITION

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