A Local Habitation Read online

  The wardrobe doors came open at the touch of my hand, spreading to show a rainbow of gowns. Most of them were designed for a young girl I don’t remember being and may never have been at all. They were made of things both wild and strange: butterfly wings and cobweb silk, peacock feathers and dragon’s scales. Faerie clothing is a bit like Japanese cooking—we use what we have. Amandine always chose the wildest dresses she could for me, putting me in colors that brought out the mortal tints of my skin and hair. It was a long time before I realized that was what she was doing. I’m still not sure why she did it.

  The dress I was looking for was hidden in the back of the wardrobe, buried under the brighter gowns. It was made of dark gray velvet trimmed with slightly paler silk roses; I wore it to a ball in the Coblynau caverns when I was eleven years old. Amandine brought me with her, a small, half-mortal accessory for a haunted evening. I remember that they lit the darkest corners of their halls with jack-o’-lanterns and sparks of gleaming mist, and that the Candela came with their globes of dancing flame, and that when I danced with the master of the mine, his smile was kind. I remember.

  The dress fit like it had been sized for me the day before. Faerie tailoring fits forever, no matter how much you change. I looked down at myself, swishing my skirt back and forth, and looked away. I’ll always be Amandine’s daughter. No matter how far I run, Faerie catches up with me in the end.

  Quentin was staring up at one of the tapestries when I stepped out of the room, closing the door behind myself. I cleared my throat. He jumped.

  “Come on,” I said. “It’s time.”

  Amandine’s estate borders Shadowed Hills on the far southern side. Distances are smaller in the Summerlands: it took less than twenty minutes for us to walk to a place that I knew was more than an hour’s drive from where we’d started. The grove where the funeral was to be held was at the heart of the family forest. It took another twenty minutes to navigate the paths through the forest. Long dresses weren’t designed for walking in the woods. My mother could’ve made the walk without stumbling; she fits into the world that well, even insane. That’s what it means to be a pureblood. I stumble and fall, and I always get up and keep going. That’s what it means to be a changeling.

  The grove was filling when we arrived. They were coming from all directions, meeting and falling silent: no one knew what they were supposed to say or feel. Pureblood wakes are things of deep, bitter mourning, but they exist for the living. Human funerals are sadder, holding a mixture of sorrow, relief, and terror, and they’re held for the dead. Jan was a pureblood, but her funeral would be the first of its kind in living memory. That made it a changeling affair, mixing two worlds that didn’t understand each other, and didn’t want to. I think she would’ve liked that.

  A pyre of oak, ash, and rowan boughs stood at the center of the clearing, piled in imitation of a phoenix nest and covered with a white silk sheet. Jan was at the center, hands folded over her midriff. They’d dressed her in a long red-and-gold gown that brought out the highlights in her hair and concealed her wounds. I winced when I saw her. All the obvious signs of who she’d been were gone, leaving only what she was. Pureblood. Daoine Sidhe. Fallen. That wasn’t even half of her, but it was all she had left, and all she could take with her to the grave.

  Quentin stopped beside me. “She looks like she’s sleeping.”

  “I know.” Fae flesh doesn’t rot. She looked like she should wake up and demand to know where her glasses were. She wasn’t going to. Even if the process was eventually reversed and the other casualties of ALH brought back to life, Jan was gone forever. Thanks to Gordan, she wouldn’t even have the dubious immortality of the night-haunts. For the first time in centuries, a child of Faerie was genuinely lost.

  Sylvester and Luna stood by the pyre, hands locked together. Luna nodded to me as we entered, one ear flattening in silent greeting. I curtsied deeply in reply, and then walked to the opposite side of the grove, standing in the shadow of the trees. Quentin followed. After a moment, Luna patted Sylvester on the arm and murmured something in his ear before walking over to join us.

  “My Lady,” I said. Quentin bowed.

  “Toby—Quentin,” she said, and offered a small, sad smile. “You’re well?”

  “As well as can be expected,” I said.

  “Good. We were worried.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll come visit soon.” She probably knew I was lying. I didn’t care.

  “Good. And Toby . . . he’s not angry. You did the best you could. Both of you.” She smiled again and turned, walking back to her husband.

  I suppressed a bitter smile as I watched her go. If ALH was us doing our best, I never wanted to see our worst. Quentin’s expression looked as conflicted as mine felt, and I was willing to bet that his thoughts were running along the same lines as my own.

  Letting my eyes drift across the crowd, I froze, my stomach dropping as I saw a flash of silver-blonde hair attached to a willowy woman in a tattered green-and-brown dress. “Mom . . . ?”

  “Toby, what—”

  “Wait here,” I said, and started across the grove, yanking my dress up around my knees to keep myself from stumbling. Several people shot startled glances in my direction at my lack of decorum, but no one stopped me. It didn’t matter.

  By the time I reached the place where I thought I’d seen my mother, she was gone.

  Quentin came running up behind me, wide-eyed and bewildered as he said, “Why did you run off like that?”

  “I thought I saw someone,” I said, closing my eyes and sighing. “Somebody I knew. Guess I was wrong.”

  “Oh,” said Quentin, and quieted.

  We were still standing there, silent, when a voice spoke behind me. “Please do not jump or scream or make any other exclamations of surprise. I am very tired.”

  The voice was almost familiar: female and slightly flat, like it had been run through a synthesizer. But it was an adult voice, not a child’s. I turned. “Hello, April.”

  “Hello.” April had changed in the last month, going from a teenager to someone that could have been Jan’s twin, if you ignored the blonde hair and too-perfect skin. When she grew up, she grew up fast. She was wearing a black dress made of some glittering material that I suspected was actually solid light. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  Quentin was gaping. I understood the impulse.

  “We couldn’t miss it,” I said. “I didn’t think we’d see you here.”

  “Elliot has used my mother’s notes to establish a portable server unit. It only works for short periods, but it expands my range of motion considerably.”

  “That’s good,” I said.

  “April?” Quentin asked, wide-eyed.

  “Yes,” she said, and smiled sadly. I looked at her expression, and realized she’d had a crush on him at ALH. Had; past tense. However strong it might have been, it was over now.

  She’d outgrown him.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said.

  Elliot walked up behind her, leaning on his cane. He looked battered, but at least he was moving. “Toby,” he said.

  “You made it,” I said.

  “I had to.” We embraced. It was a short, awkward thing; I was being careful not to hurt him, and he didn’t seem to know how to balance his cane. Still, I think we both felt better by the time I pulled away. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “It’s good to see you, too, Elliot.”

  He looked toward Quentin, asking, “How are the Hippocampi doing?”

  Quentin blushed as I looked at him, brows raised. “You took the Hippocampi?” I asked.

  “They were a gift,” he mumbled.

  “Cool.” I turned back to Elliot and April. “Is Alex . . . ?”

  “He didn’t want to leave our lands,” April said. I was right about Terrie: when dawn came again, she’d turned back into Alex, and awoke. Every sunset brought on the same collapse. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t feeling up to going out.
r />   “I’m sorry,” Quentin said.

  “We’re going to have to wait and see whether he recovers. Still, we thank you for all your help. None of us would be here without you.” April offered her hand, and I took it, squeezing. Her fingers felt faintly unreal. I knew better.

  “Not a problem,” I said. April is too young and strange to share the standard prejudices about certain things—like saying thank you. Watching her grow into herself was going to be a lot of fun.

  The arguments over succession in Tamed Lightning were venomous, but in the end, tradition won. April was Jan’s daughter and the knowe recognized her as such, and so—in the absence of another legal heir—the County was hers. There would be no dissolution and no war; just a bit more healthy chaos. Duchess Riordan would have to wait.

  In a way, April’s assumption of her mother’s throne was the final, most bitter irony of all. She’d been a killer when she was too young and alien to understand what she did, and Faerie forgave her for her ignorance; Gordan led her astray, and for the justice of Faerie, that was enough. If she’d stayed ignorant, we might have called her a monster and killed her anyway, for our own protection . . . but she didn’t. Her mother’s death forced her to become a real person, and now that she understood her own crimes, she was fighting to undo them. By understanding her own guilt, she became innocent again.

  Elliot started to say something, but stopped as Sylvester stepped to the center of the grove, clearing his throat. The murmur of the crowd faded, replaced by an expectant hush. Sylvester looked at us and faltered. Luna stepped forward, ready to catch him if he fell. He took her hand and cleared his throat again, steadier now. Sylvester never falls; he just teeters on the edge. I’ve never seen him refuse a helping hand. He’s one of the bravest men I know. He survives.

  “In the beginning, we were given a promise,” he said. His voice was almost too soft to hear, and still loud enough to carry to every corner of the grove. I don’t know where he found the funeral rites; there have been no funerals in Faerie since the night- haunts were born. But part of me recognized his words—they were the right ones. He found the right words.

  “We were told we would live forever,” he continued, looking straight at me. “That promise has been betrayed, and now Countess January ap Learianth, who lived among the mortals as January O’Leary, lies slain. She has crossed the line from which there is no coming back, and the promise we were given did not protect her.”

  He turned and leaned over the pyre, kissing her forehead before looking over the crowd once more. “She was my sister’s daughter. She was my niece and the mother to my grandniece, and a thousand things to a thousand people, and she is gone. Mortality can strike even the immortal. Remember that, and keep the ones you love around you, and live each day as well as you can.” He glanced toward the edge of the crowd. I followed his gaze and saw Raysel standing there, arms folded, looking bored. Oh, Sylvester. It’s always the good ones that die.

  “But there is hope.” He took a deep breath, and repeated, “There is hope. In a world where one promise can be broken, perhaps others can be kept. She may yet find peace . . . but she will find it without us.” He waved his hand and the pyre burst into flames. He straightened and stepped away. “Good-bye, my dear one,” he said, even more quietly.

  Jan remained visible through the smoke for a brief moment; then it closed around her, and she was gone. She didn’t save Faerie—she didn’t even save herself. She lived and died and left us mourning for her, and for all the lost souls of ALH, both the living and the dead. None of us got out the way we went in.

  Not one.

  Watching the smoke curling against the amber sky, it was hard to believe anything could last forever. Maybe Jan was right; maybe Faerie was dying, and this was the last gasp of a world that was already on the way out . . . but there was still time. April would rule Tamed Lightning in Jan’s place. If there was a way to bring back the others—Barbara and Yui, Peter and Colin, even Terrie—she’d find it. Elliot and Alex would have time to rebuild their lives; Quentin would have time to heal; I’d have time to remember that not everything ends badly. We all had time, and a second chance to survive.

  I would find my mother, and find out what was wrong with her. Why she’d broken; why, when she saw me crossing the grove, she’d chosen to run.

  I put my arm around Quentin’s shoulders, keeping my eyes on the sky. Maybe Faerie is dying, and maybe nothing lasts forever, but I’m going to believe Sylvester. Something endures, no matter what happens.

  Something lasts.

  Coming in September 2010 The third October Daye novel from

  SEANAN MCGUIRE

  AN ARTIFICIAL NIGHT

  Read on for a sneak preview.

  LILY GRABBED MY WRISTS, and yanked me forward. There was time to yelp and catch my breath: then I was falling through a curtain of water, with Tybalt shouting in the distance. After that, I was just falling.

  I hit the ground hip-first, rolling to a stop before I sat up. I was dry despite my fall through the water, and my hands didn’t hurt anymore. I looked at them and laughed as I saw that the skin was whole and smooth again. Well, I guess that’s one way to heal someone, assuming you go in for slapstick. “Lily, that wasn’t—” I stopped, blinking. “—funny?”

  The knowe stretched out around me in an array of ponds and flatlands, all connected by narrow bridges. Lily, Tybalt, and Karen were gone. “Tybalt?” No one answered. I stood, automatically reaching up to shove my hair back, and stopped as my fingers encountered a tight interweave of knots and hairpins. I pulled one of the hairpins free and glared at it before shoving it back into place. Jade and dragonflies. Cute.

  My frown deepened as I looked down at myself and took in the whole picture. Lily apparently extended her services to healing my fashion sense as well as my hands: my T-shirt and jeans were gone, replaced by a steel-gray gown cut in a vaguely traditional Japanese style and embroidered with black and silver dragonflies. A black velvet obi was tied around my waist, with my knife concealed underneath a fold of fabric. It wouldn’t be easy to draw, but at least she hadn’t left me unarmed. Pulling up the hem of the gown exposed one battered brown sneaker—she’d left my shoes alone.

  “Not funny,” I muttered, and started down the nearest path. We were going to have words if she’d vaporized my clothes.

  Finding your way out of Lily’s knowe is easy, as long as you don’t mind walking. The boundaries of her lands are flexible—sometimes there are miles between landmarks, while other times it’s only a few feet—but all paths eventually lead to the moon bridge. I’d gone about a quarter of a mile, grumbling all the way, when a throat was discreetly cleared behind me.

  “Yes?” I said, turning.

  A silver-skinned man was standing on the water, the gills at the bottom of his jaw fluttering with barely concealed anxiety. He was wearing Lily’s livery, with slits cut down the sleeves and in the legs of his pants to allow the fins running down his calves and forearms the freedom to move. “My lady has . . . sent me?” he said, uncertainly.

  “I can see that. What did she send you to say?”

  “She wishes me to tell you she is . . . waiting in the pavilion? With . . . the King of Cats and . . . your niece?”

  “Good to know,” I said, bobbing my head. “Which way to the pavilion?”

  “Go as you are and turn . . . left . . . at the . . . sundial?”

  That seemed to be the end of his instructions. I was turning when he spoke again, asking, “Lady?”

  I glanced back over my shoulder. “Yes?”

  “Can I . . . go?”

  “Yes, you can,” I said. He smiled and dissolved into mist, drifting away across the water. I shook my head and resumed walking. Naiads. If there’s a way to make them smarter than your average rock, nobody’s found it yet.

  The rest of the walk was uneventful. A flock of pixies crossed my path at one point, laughing as they tried to knock each other out of the air. I stopped to let them pass. Pixies
are small, but they can be vicious when provoked. Several flocks inhabit the Park and are currently at war with the flock in the Safeway where I used to work. I’ve been known to supply the store pixies with weaponry—usually in the form of toothpicks or broken pencils—and I didn’t need a flock of Park pixies descending on me seeking retribution. I started again after they passed, crossing several more small islands and mossy outcroppings before I reached a sundial in the middle of an otherwise featureless patch of ground. It cast no shadow. I rolled my eyes, wondering why Lily bothered, and turned left.

  There was no pavilion before I turned. As soon as I finished turning, it was there: a huge white silk pavilion decorated with a dozen coats of arms I didn’t recognize, anchored to a raised hardwood platform by golden ropes. Its banners and pennants drifted in a wind I couldn’t feel. Apparently, “turn left” didn’t mean “keep walking.”

  Lily was kneeling on a cushion, pouring tea into rose-colored china cups that rested on a table so low to the ground that kneeling was the only option—not that she’d provided chairs. Lily can be a bit of a traditionalist when she wants to be, and that’s most of the time. Tybalt sat across from her on a similar cushion, looking entirely at ease with his surroundings. That’s another infuriating thing about him. He’s so damned self-confident that he could probably have dinner with Oberon himself and not feel like he was outclassed.

  Karen was asleep against the pavilion wall, pillowed on a pile of cushions with Spike curled up on her stomach. It looked like she’d taken her own trip through the amazing Undine car wash and healing salon. She was wearing a white robe embroidered with cherry blossoms and her hair was combed into a corona around her head. She was just as pale as she’d been before Lily pulled her little stunt and, somehow, I didn’t think she’d woken up. Her original clothes were folded on the floor next to her, along with mine.

  “I see you’ve found us,” said Lily. She waved a hand toward the other side of the table, indicating the place next to Tybalt. “Please. Sit.”