A Local Habitation Read online

  Gordan had turned while I was watching April fall. I didn’t see her move until she was on top of me, trying to grab the gun away. I shoved her as hard as I could before I had a chance to think. She stumbled away, falling toward the gap in the catwalk rail.

  “Gordan, look out!” I shouted.

  The warning seemed to startle her. She stumbled back another six inches, heels leaving the catwalk. She teetered on the edge, glancing over her shoulder and going white as she realized how far she had to fall. I dropped the gun and rushed forward, holding out my hands. “Gordan, quick! Grab hold of me!”

  There was a choice there. It was a brief one, and a hard one, but it was still a choice. Faerie justice isn’t kind—there’s very little mercy in the immortal—and we both knew they’d never kill her. Death is too much of a stranger to the Fair Folk; they never kill if they can help it. If I saved her, she’d stand before a fae Court and be judged by immortal standards . . . forever.

  Gordan looked at the differences between her possible fates, weighing an eternity of punishment against a moment of pain, and she chose the mortal option. In the end, her humanity won. Her arms stopped pinwheeling and dropped to her sides. I saw the moment of decision and lunged, still reaching for her hand, and for an instant she was almost, barely in reach. I grabbed for her . . .

  . . . and caught nothing but air. She fell in silence, eyes open all the way down. I looked away just before she hit the concrete. It didn’t change a thing. Maybe I didn’t see her hit the bottom, but I could still hear it. She never made a sound; gravity did it for her, and the silence that followed told me that she hadn’t survived the impact.

  Wearily, I moved to kneel beside Quentin, reaching for his wrist. His pulse was weak but steady; he probably hadn’t even realized he wasn’t in the futon room anymore. I lifted my head, calling, “Elliot? Can you hear me?”

  There was no reply from below. I winced, offering my hand to April, and said, “It’s done now. You can get up.”

  She lifted her head. “Will everything be better now?”

  “No. It won’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Will Quentin remain on the network?”

  “I think so, yeah. Elliot, too.” It was over now. If Elliot was alive, Sylvester’s healers would wipe away the damage like it had never existed. He and Quentin would be fine. I wondered if they’d keep the scars, or if the scars they carried inside would be all that was left to remind them.

  She stood slowly, asking, “Will my mother come back on-line now?”

  There were no words to answer that. I gathered Quentin into my arms and rose, waiting for her to understand.

  “Oh,” she said finally, and looked down. Something in her had changed, something more than her new depth of emotion. She looked, for lack of a better term, real. “Where is she now?”

  How do you explain the concept of the soul to someone whose immortality is kept in electrons and wire? You can’t. So I told her the truth: “I don’t know.”

  “She won’t come back? Not ever?”

  “No, April, she won’t. Not ever.”

  “Oh.” She vanished, the air rushing into the space she’d occupied, and then appeared again. “Gordan has left the network. Elliot has not.” Almost timidly, she added, “I secured his wounds to stop the bleeding, when Gordan was waiting for me. Was this right?”

  “It was perfect,” I said. I needed the confirmation about Gordan, but I hadn’t wanted it. No death is pretty, or fair; Faerie wasn’t born to die, and neither were her children.

  “Good,” she said, and looked up at me, eyes wide. “Who will take care of me now?”

  “You’re going to have to take care of yourself.”

  “Can I?”

  “I don’t think you have a choice.”

  “Oh,” she said. Then, quietly, she asked, “For right now, until they come and take Gordan’s hardware . . . can we pretend that you’ll take care of me?”

  “We can,” I said, and smiled sadly, shifting Quentin onto my left arm so that I could offer her my hand. She laced her fingers through mine, flesh cool and slightly unreal—not that it mattered. Reality is what you make it.

  We needed to get Quentin down; we needed to get Elliot someplace safe. But for just a moment we stood together in the dark, looking out across the darkened room, and the sound of our heartbeats mingled with the hushed whispering of the night-haunts’ wings.

  THIRTY-THREE

  IN THE END, THIS is what happened:

  April turned to me as the sound of wings faded, pulling her hand out of mine. “How do we get him down?” she asked timidly, indicating Quentin. “Elliot must be retrieved.”

  “That’s true,” I said, studying her. She was small, but she looked sturdy. “Can you carry live people when you disappear?”

  “Only if I can lift them.”

  “Try.” I stood, hoisting Quentin and passing him to her. She was able to support him, barely, by looping his unwounded arm around her neck and wrapping her own arms around his middle. A haze of static rose around them, and they were gone.

  I raced to the edge of the catwalk and looked down, keeping my eyes away from the place where Gordan fell. Elliot was a dark shape on the floor, and in its own way, looking at him was almost as bad as looking at her would have been. I glanced to the side and saw April appear near the door, looking almost comical with Quentin hanging unevenly from her shoulders. When she saw me looking, she waved. Blinking back tears I hadn’t realized were there, I waved back.

  It took almost ten minutes to descend the ladder: my left hand was only grasping weakly, and it was harder to go down exhausted than it had been to go up panicked. But in the end, there was solid ground under my feet, and I was standing on my own. I nodded to April, leaving her to support Quentin as I went to kneel by Elliot’s side.

  His shirt was drenched with blood, and his pulse was shallow, but he was breathing. If we got him to a healer soon, he’d live. I slid my arms under him and lifted, straining until I got back to my feet. Elliot was smaller than I was: I could carry him, if I took it slow. Nodding to April, I turned, and we carried our respective burdens out into the afternoon sunlight.

  Things ended quickly after that. April left me halfway across the lawn, teleporting herself and Quentin to the futon room before her strength gave out. I walked through the knowe with Elliot in my arms, accompanied by a cascade of cats. Justice had been done. They’d scatter soon, but for the moment, they still belonged at ALH. I don’t know whether it was April or the cats who told Tybalt it was over, but he met me in the hall, scooping Elliot out of my arms without a word. That was good. I wasn’t certain I could talk without starting to cry.

  Riordan’s men could only hold Sylvester for so long. He arrived at ALH almost an hour after Gordan fell, finding us clustered on the lawn in the midst of a sea of cats. Connor was awake and feeling well enough to snipe at Tybalt. Elliot’s wounds had been tended as best we could, and Quentin . . . he wasn’t any worse. That would have to be enough to tide me over until Jin could look at him. We were leaving ALH.

  For good or ill, January’s strange dream died with Gordan. The worst part is that I still don’t know whether it would have worked. If she’d had the time, maybe Jan really could have done what she set out to do—but the clock ran out, and we’ll never know.

  I never saw Sylvester and Jan together, but the family resemblance between him and April was too strong to deny. He hugged her. He told her he was sorry about her mother, and that he’d send her people back as soon as he could. And then his men carried the wounded to the van, myself included, and he took us away. There would be no invasion. Not even Riordan could interpret a man coming to his lost niece’s fiefdom as an act of war. I fell asleep in the back of the van with my head on Connor’s shoulder, and I didn’t dream.

  Tybalt stayed behind, saying it was to take care of the cats who had been Barbara’s subjects . . . but he didn’t look at me. That strange new expression that had come to his face when he saw me wake
Alex was still there, lurking. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Mostly, I just felt tired.

  The healers were waiting at Shadowed Hills, and I started breathing again as Jin, the oldest and best-known of his healers, came to take my hands. The others took Connor, Elliot, and Terrie away, but Jin treated me and Quentin together. She took care of me first, despite my protests; conditions hadn’t been ideal for any of us, but the infection in my hand was farther along than the infection in Quentin’s arm. Gordan really seemed to have done her best with the medical care—something that made a sick sort of sense, since she wanted us intact when she killed us. She did her best. It just wasn’t quite good enough.

  I started crying when Quentin opened his eyes. I couldn’t help it. Part of me was certain we’d lost him until that moment; that the infection was too much, and he’d die without giving me the chance to say I was sorry.

  “Jeez, Toby,” he said, squinting at me. “You look awful.”

  I smiled through my tears. “You, too, kid. You, too.”

  The physical wounds were the easy part. There’d be a scar on his arm and he’d have to wear a brace for a few months—not even magical healing can completely repair damaged muscles, and there was a chance he’d hurt himself if he wasn’t forced to take it easy—but that was all. My scars were worse. Blood magic leaves marks. Still, they were nothing I couldn’t live with. The emotional wounds would take longer to heal. For all of us.

  I stayed as long as I could, listening as the reports on the others came in. Connor’s transformation into his seal shape had probably saved his life. Gordan shot him twice. As a seal, his blood circulated more slowly; Tybalt was able to patch him up after coaxing him back to human form. Elliot lost a lot of blood before April got to him, but they were able to save him. The healers said he’d be up and walking in a matter of days. Not bad for someone who’d been at death’s door a few hours before.

  Terrie was another matter. The sun went down and there was no change. Jin knew the situation by then, and told the rest of the healers to wait until morning before they passed a final judgment. I was pretty sure they’d get a surprise when the sun came up. When I perform a resurrection, I do it for keeps.

  And then Sylvester called, and I had to go. I entered the throne room, got down on one knee, and explained everything. He and Luna listened in silence as I explained January’s last days and the things leading up to them, the broken dreams and betrayals, the impossible hopes for salvation. It didn’t take long enough. That sort of thing never does. When I finished, Sylvester said I was free to go, and I walked out without another word. I didn’t say good-bye to Quentin. He’d be better off without me. I took a bus to the BART station and caught the next train home, where I fed the cats, coaxed Spike out from under the sink, called Stacy to offer vague reassurances, and went to bed. There’d be time to think about things later; there’s always a later.

  But later came and went, and somehow, there was always something else for me to worry about. There were bills to pay and laundry to do; there were cases that needed to be taken and solved. They were small, human things—missing children and wayward husbands—nothing supernatural or strange. Once again, I reacted to pain by turning my back on Faerie, and for a while, it worked. There were no deaths and no mysterious screams in the night, and I started thinking I might be able to sleep again.

  The Luidaeg didn’t come to kill me, and after a week had passed, I decided to stop waiting. I showed up on her doorstep with bagels and told her she could kill me if she wanted to. She laughed and called me an idiot, and we played chess for six hours. I still think she’ll kill me someday. It’s just not going to be anytime soon. Somewhere along the line, loneliness turned into friendship—maybe for both of us.

  Sylvester called a month after I walked out. I hadn’t seen or heard from anyone at Shadowed Hills during that time; not even Quentin. Not until the day I came home from following a cheating wife and found the message on my answering machine. “The funeral will be held at our estate in the Summerlands on the new moon. Please come.” That was all he needed to say—I ran away from him once, but now, I always come when he calls. Gordan was right about that much. When you get right down to it, I’m Sylvester’s dog.

  Quentin called the next day, asking nervously if he could escort me to the funeral. I said yes. What choice did I have? If he needed to see me half as much as I suddenly needed to see him, refusing would have been cruel. We agreed to meet at the Japanese Tea Gardens and walk from Lily’s knowe to the edges of the Torquill estate. I wasn’t ready to go back inside the knowe at Shadowed Hills. Not yet.

  Maybe not ever.

  The day of the funeral dawned bright and clear. I met Quentin in the Tea Gardens five minutes after I’d said I’d be there. His arm was in a sling, and he was wearing a black doublet and hose that made him look like Hamlet’s forgotten younger brother. A don’t-look-here spell shielded him from tourists, eliminating the need for a mortal disguise; anyone watching saw me smile and link arms with nothing, then climb the garden’s tallest suspension bridge. If they watched closely enough, they may have even seen me disappear. I don’t think anyone saw. People almost never look that closely.

  We walked through Lily’s knowe, stepping out the back gate into the Summerlands. All the glory of the endless Faerie summer was on display, and I stopped, catching my breath. I’ve been living in the mortal world too long, and it takes time for me to adjust. Summerlands air is too clean for lungs accustomed to modern pollution, and the constantly changing twilit sky disorients me. I still love those lands, but they’re not home anymore, if they ever really were.

  The sky was the color of burnished amber, and the hills were bright with flowers. I picked a blue daisy, and smiled as it dissolved into a dozen tiny butterflies. The Summerlands are like that. Logic is just a convenience there; change is the only constant, and even that’s false, because the Summerlands are founded on the concept that life—our life, the life of Faerie—can last forever. They’re wild and strange and slowly dying. They weren’t the first home of my people. They’ll almost certainly be the last.

  I was a child in the Summerlands. I won’t say I grew up there, but I was a child there, and they’ll always be a part of me. They have a lot in common with stories of Never-Never Land—no one there grows up, just older. Faerie is a world filled with eternal children, forever looking for the next game and never quite learning what adult life is like. That’s what we learn from the mortal world.

  Quentin watched me, frowning at this odd frivolity. He was as serious as he’d been when we met; he’d lost a lot of the ground he’d worked so hard to gain. I could understand why: part of his innocence was gone forever, and while I hated the way he’d lost it, I couldn’t say I was sorry it was lost. We all have to learn that leaving the Summerlands means leaving the nursery; he’d grow up or he’d die. Maybe that’s cruel . . . but that’s the world.

  I straightened, wiping the pollen off my fingers. “Come on. We need to get moving.”

  “Of course,” he said, and followed me across the fields toward a spiraling rose-colored tower. It was like something from a fairy tale, all spun sugar and elegance, and we reached it faster than perspective indicated we should.

  The gardens around the tower were a maze of greenery and untended roses. I led Quentin through them, stopping at a tiny door almost concealed behind a wishing well. He looked at it, frowning.

  “You know your way around pretty well,” he said.

  “I should.” I pressed my hand against the door. It swung open and I smiled sadly. At least the house still knew me. “I used to live here.”

  “Will your . . .”

  “Don’t worry, Quentin. My mother’s out.” She’s been out for a long time now. No one knows exactly when Amandine went crazy; she collapsed a few years after I vanished, moving into an internal world far stranger than the Summerlands. She doesn’t spend much time in the tower anymore. Most reports place her wandering endlessly through forests and
standing, motionless, at crossroads.

  I wish I knew what she was looking for.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, subdued. “I didn’t think.”

  “It’s not your fault.” I stepped inside, motioning for him to follow.

  Amandine’s tower has no mortal aspect: you can only get there via the Summerlands. I led Quentin through the gallery and up the stairs to my suite. My door was still closed, sealed with the wards I set on my last visit. Amandine was the only one who could open that door without breaking my wards, and she never would; my rooms would stay the same until the end of time unless I chose to change them. There was something reassuring and deeply sad in that thought. We stopped in what had been my living room; it was almost as large as my entire mortal apartment. Quentin looked around wide-eyed, air of sophistication fading as he took in the high windows and tapestry-draped walls.

  “This is really nice,” he said, sounding surprised.

  “I suppose. Can you wait here? I need to change.” We were only visiting the tower so I could raid my own wardrobe. I had nothing suitable in the mortal realm, and I didn’t trust my magic to obey me well enough to keep me properly dressed for the entire funeral.

  “Sure. But . . . why don’t you live here anymore?”

  “Quentin? If you don’t already know the answer, there’s no way I can explain.” I walked through the door into the bedroom and closed it behind me, leaving him alone.

  My old bedroom isn’t large, but it’s the only room in the tower that looks like it’s been lived in. The bed grew to match me as I aged, and the shelves lining the walls are still piled with small, interesting items collected from the forests and fields nearby. I never cared much for toys after I came to live in the Summerlands, but I always loved running and finding things out. Everything I loved went into that room, right up until the day I left it.