The Brightest Fell Page 33

  Jin was a healer. Jin would know what to do.

  Jin would save them.

  Etienne nodded, stepping through the portal without hesitation. It closed behind him. He turned, waving his arm in an arch through the air, and a new portal opened, this time showing one of Luna’s enclosed gardens. It was a beautiful pastel symphony of orchids and gently curling ferns, with no visible doors; even the ceiling was an eggshell dome, undimpled and unbroken. Tybalt and Jazz wouldn’t be able to escape without accessing their own magic, and hence their humanity.

  “Will this do?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I breathed. Quentin and I followed him through into the sweetly scented garden air, our precious cargo still clutched tightly in our hands.

  Once the portal was closed, I turned back to Etienne and repeated, “Please, bring Jin.” I paused. “And . . . and May. She should be here.” Maybe she would be able to do what I couldn’t, and coax Jazz back into her human form. Even if she couldn’t, she should be here. I wanted my family. All of it.

  Etienne nodded and turned, hands already moving, to step through another portal. Lilac jumped off his shoulder at the last moment, staying behind.

  Jazz beat her wings against the bars of her cage and croaked her misery and anger over her confinement. Blood stained the thorns. I winced.

  “Lilac, if we let Jazz out of her cage, will you follow her and make sure we know where she is?” I hated to keep Jazz confined one second longer than I needed to, but I couldn’t risk losing her. The garden was small and enclosed, but ravens are smart, and if she got away, we’d never get her back. At the same time, I wasn’t going to let her injure herself.

  Lilac chimed assent.

  I turned to Quentin. “Let her out.”

  He nodded, keeping any objections to himself. Gingerly, he set the cage down on the garden path and removed his jacket, giving Jazz a clear route to freedom.

  Seconds ticked by before, cautiously, a raven’s shaggy black head peeked out the broken doors. Once she was sure that no one was going to lunge for her, Jazz walked slowly out into the open. She ruffled her feathers. She stretched her wings. Finally, she launched herself into the air, wings beating hard, and flew toward the stained glass dome of the ceiling. Finding no exits there, she circled the garden twice before landing atop a marble statue of a dancing Silene, feathers puffed out to make her seem larger, and watched us suspiciously. Lilac perched on a nearby bush, glowing bright enough that we wouldn’t lose sight of her.

  That was one down. I walked to the nearest bench and set Tybalt’s cage down on it before kneeling on the path and peering through the bars. Tybalt, crammed into the corner, fur standing on end and whiskers flat, looked back at me with no understanding in his eyes.

  It would have been enough to break my heart, if I hadn’t felt already broken. “I’m going to let you out before you cut yourself worse,” I said. “I know you’re going to run away, and I promise not to be angry about that. I don’t know if you can reach the Shadow Roads or not, but please, if you can, don’t. Stay here. Stay with me. Let us help you.”

  Tybalt pressed his ears down against his head and hissed.

  It was a small thing to take my iron knife and slice through the front of his cage, creating a hole big enough for him to escape through. It seemed like the biggest thing in the world. At least while he’d been captive, he’d been with me. Now, I knew, he was going to run, because he was a wild thing, and that’s what wild things do. I also knew that I didn’t have a choice. He deserved his freedom as much as anyone. He deserved a chance.

  When I moved aside, Tybalt erupted from the cage like a shot, vanishing into the dense ferns on the other side of the path. I dropped my face into my hands, and felt a hand settle on my shoulder as Quentin moved into position behind me, offering what comfort he could from sheer proximity. I wanted to cry. I didn’t dare. If I allowed myself to start, I was never going to stop, and that wouldn’t end well for anyone.

  A door slammed. “Toby!”

  I turned. May was running toward me, arms already open. Sylvester was following at a more sedate pace, but still hurrying, and Jin was coming down the path after him, slowed by her short legs, her wings buzzing frantically as she hurried to keep up.

  Then May slammed into me, her arms locking tight around my upper body. She buried her face against my shoulder, whispering, “You came back. You came back. I wasn’t sure you were going to.”

  “As fast as I could,” I said. “I got there and back by the light of a candle.” Only I hadn’t, because Simon still had our candle: he had taken it with him when he lost his own way. Maybe it would burn forever now, unable to ever guide him home.

  May sniffled, pushing me away. She plucked at a lock of my hair. “This is different.”

  “I found my sister—our sister. Turns out Mom never taught her to play nice.” I shrugged, trying to look unconcerned, trying to look like this was the sort of thing that happened every day. In a way, it sort of was. “Madden’s letting Arden know I need to borrow the hope chest. I’ll be fine.”

  “Good,” she said. Formalities observed, she turned finally to look at the statue where Jazz perched, still wary, still frozen. May sniffled. “Does she really not know who she is?”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Tybalt . . .” May looked back to me. Whatever she saw in my face must have answered the question she hadn’t yet asked, because she stopped, and nodded, and said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  “October.” Sylvester had been hanging back, giving us our moment. Now that it was done, he walked forward, offering me his hands, and asked, “What can I do?”

  “I don’t know.” It was getting harder to keep myself from crying. “She locked them in cages that hurt them, that were too small to let them transform, and then she left them alone in the dark for days with nothing to eat or drink. I don’t know what to do.”

  Jin visibly relaxed. “Oh,” she said, coming closer. “Is that all?”

  May and I both turned to stare at her, united in our shock and horror. She shook her head, wings snapping open to punctuate the gesture.

  “Shapeshifting—all shapeshifting, whether it’s inborn or aided by a Selkie skin or cloak of feathers—is magic. Magic is a muscle that exists inside and outside the body at the same time. That’s why practice makes you stronger. You’re working that muscle behind the magic. Your mother . . .” Jin paused, mouth twisting in a moue of distaste. “What she did was cruel and unreasonable, and they’re currently experiencing the magical equivalent of a muscle cramp.”

  “Can you fix it?” May demanded, barely a heartbeat before I was going to ask the same question.

  “If they let me,” said Jin. She smiled, clearly trying to be encouraging. “Ellyllon are very good at muscles, both physical and non. That’s why we go into medicine. It’s where the muscles are.”

  “Please, help them,” May said, and there was nothing else for me to say, so I stayed where I was, with my squire, my liege, and my real sister, the one I’d chosen, the one who’d chosen me, to see what happened next.

  Jin walked slowly toward Jazz, her hands open at her sides, her wings flat against her back. Jazz shifted uneasily from foot to foot, watching the Ellyllon approach. She gave a warning croak. Jin stopped, holding her position until she was confident that Jazz wasn’t going to fly away. Then, and only then, did Jin start forward again. She spread her wings as she walked, leaving traceries of red glitter in the air. Jazz watched warily.

  “Peace,” said Jin.

  Jazz cawed.

  “Sleep,” said Jin. She made an elaborate motion with her hands, and Jazz toppled sideways off the statue, plummeting like a stone. She never hit the ground: Jin was there before she had the chance, plucking her from the air and bearing her gently down to the garden path.

  Jin looked up, turning toward us
. She beckoned May forward, and May went, slowly at first, then with increasing speed, stopping only when she reached Jin’s side. Her eyes were fixed on Jazz, and only on Jazz.

  “What do you need?” she asked.

  “Sit,” said Jin.

  May sat.

  “Hold her,” said Jin.

  May gathered Jazz in her arms with such delicacy that it hurt to watch, cradling her sleeping girlfriend. Jin opened her wings again, the air around them growing thick with red dust, and began moving her hands through the air, tracing patterns I could neither see nor understand.

  “Your hands,” said Sylvester. I glanced at him, startled. He frowned. “What did you do to your hands?”

  “The cages,” I said. “The thorns. I’m too human to heal the way I should right now. I’ll be fine.” We’d fix Jazz and Tybalt. We’d take them home. Arden would loan me her hope chest, and I’d be fine. I had to be. We had to be. I had worked too long and too hard for the life I had now, and this wasn’t how I was going to lose it. It wasn’t. I refused.

  My hands ached. I flexed them. The punctures burned more than they should have, like they’d been coated in a stinging sap. But Tybalt and Jazz were fine, and they had been in those cages. They had been . . .

  They had been in those cages, enspelled not to turn back into their human forms. Would Mom have worried about her spell slipping? Would she have wanted to be certain that if they did turn human, they wouldn’t be able to escape?

  “I think something’s wrong,” I said, looking at Sylvester.

  He looked back, worried.

  His face was the last thing I saw before I hit the ground.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  AS WAS SO OFTEN the case when I passed out at Shadowed Hills, I woke up in a bed, the covers pulled up to my collarbone. The ceiling above me was deep blue, painted with pink swirls, like the sky at sunset. Somehow, that didn’t make me feel any better.

  My hands didn’t ache anymore. That was good. I couldn’t actually feel them. That was bad. I pulled my arms from under the blanket, raising my hands to my face. They were swaddled in a thick layer of gauze, until I could barely move them. The numbness was probably one of Jin’s salves. That, or Mom had used a poison on the thorns that had done permanent nerve damage. At the moment, it was difficult to tell.

  I was alone. The room was too silent for anyone else to be there. Even Tybalt would have made some sound, however slight. Cohabitating with one of the Cait Sidhe has sharpened my situational awareness out of self-defense. I sat up, looking around. The room was small and plain, with the minimum amount of furniture necessary to make it livable. One of the guest rooms, then. Judging by the color on the walls and the quality of the furnishings, one of the family guest rooms. I was moving up in the world.

  Moving up, and moving on. I shoved back the covers, noting with some satisfaction that I was clothed for a change—wearing a loose white chemise and a pair of soft gray chamois trousers, but clothed—and climbed out of the bed, padding barefoot toward the door. I could worry about where my weapons and real clothes were later. Right now, I needed to find Jin, and find out whether she’d been able to coax Tybalt back into his human form. If she hadn’t . . .

  That would be when I started worrying about weapons, and when Sylvester would need to start worrying about whether I was about to do something he wouldn’t be able to forgive.

  Almost unsurprisingly, when I opened the door, I found a sentry waiting. Grianne was leaning against the wall, her Merry Dancers spinning a slow ballet through the air above her head. Like all Candela, she was gray-skinned, gray-haired, and lithe of build, while her Merry Dancers were perfect spheres of whitish-green light that brightened and dimmed in accordance with her mood. Judging by their current brilliance, her mood wasn’t all that great.

  More surprising was the purple pixie playing tag with her Merry Dancers, spinning around them with dizzying speed. Lilac stopped playing when she saw me, hovering in the air ringing for a moment before she dove for my hair and buried herself there. Grianne looked down and focused on my face, one brow raising slightly as she took in the rounded planes of my cheekbones and the brown of my hair.

  “Huh,” she said finally. “Old school.”

  “I’ll get back to normal soon,” I said.

  She shrugged, expressing that it was no concern of hers. “How are your hands?”

  “Numb.” I held them up for her to see. “Did Jin tell you how bad it was?”

  “Yes.” That seemed to be enough for Grianne. She pushed herself away from the wall. “Duke Torquill sent me to wait for you. He and the others are in the kitchen.”

  The kitchen. That could be a good thing. That smacked of recovery, of needing to take people where they could get a good meal and a glass of something extremely alcoholic. My hope must have shown on my face. Grianne shook her head.

  “Don’t,” was all she said. She turned and started down the hall, leaving me with little choice but to pad after her, swallowing my questions. I’d have my answers soon enough. Pestering Grianne wouldn’t make them come any sooner, and might result in her deciding I was too much trouble to guide.

  I’ve been in and out of Shadowed Hills since I was a little girl. I did most of my training there, and while it’s been a while since I was a regular sight in the halls, I still know my way around. Mostly. Like all large knowes, the building has a tendency to rearrange itself, and I didn’t want to risk getting lost. The time I’d already spent unconscious had been more than long enough.

  The time . . . “Grianne, how long was I out?”

  “Eight hours. Maybe.” She kept walking. “Long enough for everyone to yell a lot. Sir Etienne had the shift before mine.”

  If I’d woken up while Etienne was on duty, I might have been able to get better answers. I silently pledged to do a better job of timing my returns to consciousness. The thought was laughable, but it was a good enough distraction to keep me from grabbing Grianne and shaking her until she gave me the answers I needed.

  Then we were at the kitchen doorway, a wide, gently peaked wooden arch that led into a large, comfortably designed room. Melly, the Hob in charge of the kitchens as a whole, was bustling between the stove and an artfully rough-hewn table, a bowl of soup in each hand. Quentin was seated there, across from—

  “Jazz!” I sped up, brushing past Grianne in my hurry to get to the now-bipedal Raven-maid. May was standing behind her, hands resting on her shoulders, keeping her in place, keeping in contact at all times. They turned to look at me, Jazz weary, May wary. “Are you all right?”

  “I have thumbs again,” said Jazz. She sounded distant, and faintly dazed, like she was still waking up from a long and not entirely welcome dream. “I didn’t before.”

  “Eat your soup,” said May. She kept looking at me as Jazz turned to begin fumbling for her spoon. “She needs time. How are your hands?”

  “Messed up, but I’ll live.” I raised them for her to see. “Where’s Tybalt?” If Jazz was back in human form, Tybalt would be too. He’d probably been asking for me.

  May looked away.

  A chill lanced through me. I turned to Quentin. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “What?” I demanded. “What’s going on?”

  “You should eat something,” said Melly. She sounded worried about my well-being. That wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was the way she was looking at me, with sympathy and something I didn’t want to let myself read as pity.

  “Sylvester was supposed to be here.” I whipped around, looking for Grianne. She was gone. She had delivered me to the kitchen and left, presumably because she didn’t want to be here when the shit hit the fan. “Grianne told me Sylvester wanted me to come here. And where’s Jin? Where’s Tybalt?”

  “Duke Torquill was with me,” said Arden. I turned.

  Arden Windermere, rightful Queen in the Mists, was standing on the other side of the kitch
en, with Sylvester slightly behind and to the left of her. It was hard to focus on him, or on anything beyond the box she was holding. It was made of wood—four kinds of wood, to be exact, oak and ash and rowan and thorn, carved with knives of air and water, joined together through cunning manipulation of the wood, not with anything as mundane as nails or hinges—and about the size of a thick paperback book, and I wanted it. I wanted it so badly that my hands began to ache again, this time with the effort of staying lowered by my sides. Assaulting a queen to steal a hope chest wasn’t the sort of thing that was going to end well for me.

  Arden herself wore a long gown of frost-blue velvet, simply cut enough to pass as casual attire for a queen. It called the dark red highlights out of her long black hair and drew attention to her mismatched eyes, one mercury silver, the other pyrite gold. I wasn’t as human as I had been, but I was still human enough that when I finally switched my attention from the hope chest to her, she briefly took my breath away. It wasn’t a comfortable sensation.

  I swallowed hard, forcing down the awe and the sudden conviction of my own insignificance, and asked the only question that mattered: “Where’s Tybalt?”

  “Jin is with him,” said Sylvester. It would normally have been considered rude for him to answer for the queen, but his tone was gentle, almost careful, and it seemed like they had already discussed the necessity of handling me with delicacy.

  It made me want to punch someone. “That’s not an answer.”

  “October.” Arden somehow turned my name into a command. I glanced back to her, only flinching a little when I met her eyes. She held the hope chest out toward me. “Madden told me you were going to need this. I am . . . grateful that you were able to free him from the enchantment he was under, and regret that I did not notice the situation myself. I hope you will accept the loan of this treasure as a token of my gratitude.”

  So she wasn’t going to ask anything of me in exchange for use of the hope chest. That should have been a good thing. That should have been her honoring me as a hero of the realm. Instead, it felt like the sort of gesture you made to someone on the brink of breaking down.