Night Veil by Yasmine Galenorn

the word beau I heard a catch in his voice. Chatter had a crush on my cousin and everybody knew it, but nobody wanted to touch the subject.
    “Have you ever been to the Court of Dreams?” I quickened my pace, wanting to be through the woods before afternoon.
    “No, Miss Cicely. I haven’t. Grieve has, though. He went once, against the Queen’s orders. I remember he got in so much trouble.” His voice broke again, and he shook his head, as if to shake off the past. “Best not to dwell on times long gone. Even if we win, nothing will ever be the same again.”
    Peyton cleared her throat. “No, they won’t, but perhaps they won’t be as dire as you think. Sometimes change brings new growth. I know that sounds like a platitude, but honestly, it’s true. When my father ran off, my mother had to change our entire way of life. I was too little to remember most of it, but I do remember we had to move out of our big house into a tiny apartment, and that suddenly, Da was gone. He never came back, and the abandonment still hurts, but we survived. We learned to enjoy life again.”
    I smiled at her, shivering. “I never had a home, except for the Veil House. It’s the only place I ever carried in my heart, because it stood for stability. Heather was the only mother figure I knew. My own mother . . . Krystal was . . .”
    I paused, flashing back to all the nights on the run, trying to escape apartment managers after their money, and johns who were angry because Krystal stole from them after she’d fucked them. I’d catch a snippet on the wind and away we’d run. Though my mother hated her magic—and mine—she took advantage of it when it promised to keep her out of trouble.
    The only stability during those years came from Uncle Brody, who I met when I was seven and who taught me the rules of survival as best as he could, and the few months we lived with Dane, the man who had tattooed me, and who’d been in love with Krystal. But she blew that one, just as she fucked up everything in our lives, and we were out on the streets again, and Dane died from a gunman’s bullet.
    I’d learned to use the wind to help me survive. Ulean warned me of danger, warned me when we needed to move or when there was an opportunity I might miss. She—and the wind—kept us alive on the margins of society.
    I shook my head. “Krystal was a fuck-up. She was weak and she died because she couldn’t face reality. I’ll never let myself become like her.” A glance at the sky told me the snow was falling faster. “Come on, let’s make tracks and get to the portal. Chatter, lead the way?”
    As we pushed deeper into the wood, the world faded except for the stark, barren trees, evergreens blanketed with a layer of white, and brush and rocks hidden by the snow. We must have been walking for half an hour when a noise startled me. I motioned for the others to stop.
    “Did you hear that?” I kept my voice as low as I could and still be heard. Chatter could hear me if I spoke in the slipstream, but Peyton couldn’t.
    Chatter nodded, motioning to our left. The noise was coming from deeper in the woods, and whatever it was, it sounded like it was moving closer. I thought for a moment. We could hurry, try to outpace it, but it sounded like it was coming in fast, and we couldn’t run through the snow. We could meet it, take the offensive, or we could wait. There was no place to hide, that was for sure—unless Peyton and I shifted and Chatter vanished. But that would require getting naked in the cold, and I didn’t fancy that.
    I readied my switchblade and fan, and Peyton readied the walking stick she’d been carrying. Chatter took a deep breath and moved into fighting stance.
    At that moment, the creature broke through and my heart sank. It wasn’t one of the Shadow Hunters, but what we were facing could be far more dangerous. I’d heard of them, but they usually inhabited cold mountaintops or the northern forests.
    Ulean, are you ready?
    I am