The Lady called. Rather, she Called. It was the king of Call not usually heeded by the living. The kind that the plants were quickest to hear, and the Lingering were the second quickest to respond to. The only truly alive things that truly responded to the Call were those doubly gifted with magic.

But not the Usurper. Never the Usurper. The Lady of the Wood purposely excluded the likes of him from her call.

This Call was to the spirit which Hyacinthe had grown so attached to and friendly with.

The Call did not bring the spirit to the Lady of the Wood, however. It told the spirit of Hyacinthe's state, and asked the spirit to tell the faeries of the mishap that had come to fruition, in spite of all the efforts put forth to keep it from happening.

That was what found the spirit navigating the palace. It looked for Liddy, who had helped the spirit communicate with the six-year-old Hyacinthe. It knew that Liddy would be able to see and hear it, while Loch or Truss might disregard its presence or ignore its news.

Perhaps the spirit had come into Liddy's presence too strongly. The moment that it had entered the guest apartments, Liddy shuddered, dropping his book and looking around in concern. The whole room delved into the colder temperatures, impossibly quick in its change, and the spirit wavered in its mission. But only for a moment. Then it gave conscious effort to becoming visible for Liddy to see.

"Oh," Liddy said. He lit up for a moment. The next moment, though, he was concerned. "Why?" he asked.

The spirit didn't understand the question.

"Why," Liddy repeated. He waved his hand around, indicating the room.

The spirit glanced at the window and saw the bits of frost in the corners of the glass. 'Why' that, then. The spirit turned earnestly to Liddy. It tried to speak.

It couldn't speak.

It tried to convey, instead.

Hyacinthe, Hyacinthe, Hyacinthe, it conveyed, over and over again, its long dead mind screaming at Liddy even as its formless mouth found it utterly impossible to make the noises that would form the word itself, in the air itself. Hyacinthe, Aurore, Daybreak. Prince, Son of the Wood, Friend. Friend!

Liddy had leaned over to pick up the book, but forgot it as soon as he understood, straightening back up. "Hyacinthe," he said.

The spirit, not as formless as it had been before meeting little Hyacinthe, only six years old at the time, nodded its head for Liddy. Yes. Correct. Hyacinthe. The spirit moved closer, though it didn't know if it moved closer on feet or on the air. Danger, it conveyed-said. Help. Danger. Curse.

"Hyacinthe!" Liddy said, more concerned as he understood more.

"He's in his room, isn't he?" Truss was only just entering, so he was only just hearing anything. He took a look at Liddy, then took the effort to see the spirit. Then he looked back at Liddy and intensity began to glow inside him, in his eyes and limbs. "What is it? What about Hy? What happened?" he asked, too rapidly for Liddy to answer the questions individually. "Liddy!"

Liddy startled and looked between the spirit and Truss. "It's Hyacinthe."

"I understood that much," Truss growled. "What about him?"

"He's hurt. In danger. I think... I don't want to think of it," Liddy looked back at the spirit, then covered his face. "The spirit tells me that he's succumbed to it."

"It," Truss deadpanned. The intensity remained, burning just below the surface.

"The Curse," Liddy wiped furiously at his eyes, without removing his hands from his face.

"Yeah, I figured. Where is he?"

Liddy removed his hands from his face and lifted his head to look back at the spirit. "I think our friend can show us," he said. He sounded like Truss's antithesis. There was no intensity in his gaze, his voice, or his blood. There was nothing. He had let everything drizzle away until it was as though he were a bare husk, nothing to make him sentient or real.

The spirit gave an intense nod, emotional enough for itself and Liddy.

"I'll get Loch," Truss said. He was gone before spirit or Liddy could respond. Which was probably for the best. There was nothing to respond, and, as soon as he was gone, Liddy broke down further, almost collapsing upon himself. And what could the spirit do?

"We failed," Liddy said.

The spirit couldn't disagree. But nor could it find it inside itself to agree.

--

The Wood practically followed its Lady inside the cottage. As soon as she had crossed the threshold, there were vines and grass and flowers creeping in, with her. Weeds sprung between boards, ivy took over empty window frames and pulled down unused shutters. A sapling took over the space under the table while moss crept its way up the bedposts and the side of the fireplace.

By the time the Lady of the Wood had reached Hyacinthe's side, the cottage looked as though it had not been lived in for a hundred years, and a bed of the softest moss -- interspersed with inexplicable forget-me-nots in white and blue -- had taken over the floor, directly beneath where Hyacinthe had fallen.

"The Curse you know nothing about," the Lady whispered. Maybe it was the leaves whispering, though. "The Curse no one thought to inform you of. It has caught you. A deep irony, one might think, that the simple act of telling might have stopped this."

The Lady knelt beside the boy she claimed as her own, even as he was claimed by faeries and humans, and turned him over so that he could lie in a more comfortable position. She combed green fingers through his hair and brushed the pads of her fingers down his cheek. Her look was as tender as it had ever been, or could ever be, and her attention was solely on the human boy.

"You did not deserve this," she said. "I doubt you will even recognize Wood or Warden, once you wake. I wonder if it will be a Lady of the Wood, when you wake? Perhaps it will not even choose to take a form so familiar as human, or nearly so. But it will be loyal to you, as much as we of the Wood can be loyal. And it will love me, as I love you. You will always be Of the Wood. But you will have to be Of the Wood in your next waking, so far in the future..."

The Lady of the Wood trailed off, pushing flowers into Hyacinthe's hair and behind his ears. What was the use of speaking to someone who could not hear, and would not hear for years to come?

"Whocan wake you?" the Lady wondered to the sleeping human.