Chapter 146

The elves came up the river road from the south-west on the third morning after the rider, on foot, four abreast, with their bows cased on their backs and the snow up to their knees.

I counted them from the wall walk because somebody had to and I was the one with the pencil. Four hundred and six archers. Ninety-two horses, most of them under packs. Eight sledges of arrows in oiled bundles, two of grain, and one at the back that held nothing but three crates of paper, because my father had never yet seen a war that did not end in somebody needing to write something down.

Behind the last sledge rode thirty-one Seelie in plain grey with a single silver thread at the collar. Not the queen’s blue. Lucien rode at their head with his hood back, and Saskia at his left knee, where a guard rides.

Finn had the gate again. He did not ask who came this time. He opened it.

***

They had to be fed before they could be counted, and counted before they could be fed, and