Everyone in Marrowby knows the Fen Witch turns lost men into herons. Hollis Brennan never believed a word of it. Then the frost comes down, the mist comes up, and the Blackfen swallows him to the waist.
Hollis is thirty-nine, the king's forester of the Ardmoor marches, a huge, steady man with light brown skin, a full dark beard and a chest like a barrel, and he has spent half his life looking away from what he wants. Tonight he is soaked, freezing, and out of road, and the only light for miles is a cottage on a hummock among the black alders with rowan nailed over the door.
The man who opens it is nothing like the tales. Corvin Blackmere is forty-four, tall and lean and hard-muscled, pale as the mist, with long black hair knotted back and streaked with silver-gray, silver rings, a black robe, and a dry, wicked humor. He has a hot bath waiting by the hearth. He has a house law, too, and he says it plainly before anything else: a guest under his roof is safe, nothing is given or taken unless it is asked for out loud, no charms ever, and at first light there is a safe path home.
All Hollis has to do is ask.
Firelight, warming oil, and a witch who says exactly what he means. One long November night under the thatch, and a man who has never once let himself be touched learns what happens when he finally says yes.
By morning the frost is on the glass and the path out is waiting. The only question is whether he takes it.
