He swallowed the words he wanted to say but knew not how to form—he, the master and spinner of so many words—that the creature there, in that glittering plain beyond pain and death would not be Edmund, not the child who'd run after chickens and played with dogs. There was no room for such things in fairyland, no room for the untidy mess of human feelings. "He might be ill, but he is young. He'll live. He'll live like the rest of us fellows who crawl thus, between heaven and Earth. He'll survive. He'll learn to take the bitter with the sweet."
But she laughed. "You know the rules, son of Adam. You know them well. Tonight is Winter solstice and tonight we ride. You hold on to him and he is yours. But once you let him go, once he joins us, he is of ours, he is none of yours." Before Will's eyes, she vanished.
The ride. Will knew the ride well. In Arden it had been a solstice dance. In his youth the elves had taken Will's wife, Will's