The Brightest Fell Read online

  “I—” Elliot stopped. “I’m not going to change your mind, am I?”

  “No.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  I frowned. “Are you finished arguing?”

  “No.” He laughed unsteadily. “I want to fight you for a year. You’re willing to gamble everything for Jan—and so am I. Almost.”

  “You do not wish to gamble with Yui.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Then why are you agreeing?”

  His laughter this time was even unsteadier. “Because whether I like it or not, you’re my liege.”

  “For now.” If January could be restored, her oaths would supersede mine.

  I had never wanted anything more in all my life.

  “When do you want to do this?”

  “As soon as possible. Tonight. It must begin at sunset.”

  “All right.” Elliot stood again. “I guess I’m going to start calling florists.”

  I nodded to him and disappeared, trusting him to call me when he was ready to begin. For the moment, I needed . . .

  I needed the code. I needed my mother. Not the reality of her, which was still outside my grasp, but the idea of her, the cool and continuous dream of her. She had never questioned my right to be the person that I am, only rejoiced as I grew more and more into the space she had opened for me. She had saved me. All I wanted now was the opportunity to do the same for her.

  Deeper and deeper I traveled into the company file server, until I reached the security files I had sequestered away from all other eyes. Some things are not for sharing. I dove into them, and there she was, my mother, January O’Leary, a book open on her knees, paper and pictures and physical reality, with a little blonde girl pressed against her side. It was always odd to see myself from the outside, but I could no more remove my image from the footage than I could delete a part of my own personality. This had happened. This was true.

  I started the playback.

  “‘But when the girl came out of the woods, what do you think she saw?’” read my mother, giving the child beside her a small squeeze. “‘It was a stone well, set against a low stone wall, surrounded by the most beautiful roses she had ever seen . . .’”

  The memory of my mother continued to read, while the memory of the girl I had once been listened with the rapt attention of someone who did not believe that the world was ever going to change. I sat down at their feet, resting my elbows on my knees, and closed my eyes, and listened.

  When the story ended—and it was an unfortunate truth of the things I had learned, of the woman I had become, that all stories end—I started the recording over again with barely a thought. Over and over, I played it, until it seemed like I had been safe in this preserved moment forever, until it seemed I would never be compelled to leave. I could stay here, with my mother telling me stories, and leave the running of my County to better hands. I could be happy.

  But my mother would still be dead, and Li Qin would not be happy without her. The thought of Li Qin’s unhappiness troubled me. I frowned, reaching past the still-looping video to check the time. Three hours had passed since I had gone into the code. Worse, I had messages, five of them, all waiting patiently, like trained puppies, for me to notice them.

  Three were from Elliot. He had the things I had requested. He was ready to bring them to me, as soon as I told him where to go. The other two were from Li Qin. October had agreed to come and wake our sleepers . . .

  . . . and she was coming tonight. At midnight.

  I was running out of time.

  Cursing to myself in modem squeal and the sound of static, I dropped out of the code and back into Elliot’s office. He wasn’t there. I reached for the network of cameras and connections that spanned the company, and found him in the cafeteria, having pushed all the tables up against the walls.

  A flicker of electricity and I was standing next to him, demanding, “Why didn’t you send a priority alert?”

  He didn’t jump. He’s known me for too long. “I wanted time to sort through my thoughts, and it wasn’t sunset yet.”

  “Li Qin says October is on her way.”

  “October will be here at midnight.”

  “What if that isn’t enough time?”

  Elliot looked at me, and there was a weariness beyond measure in his eyes. “April, what you want to do will either happen in five minutes, or it won’t happen at all. This isn’t something that comes with a clear set of milestones and a set release schedule. The night-haunts will come or they won’t. If they come, they’ll do what you’re asking, or they won’t.”

  “I see.” I glanced at the pile of supplies he had made on the nearest table. “This should be sufficient. Please proceed to my office and collect the bag of blood on my counter. It should be fully thawed by now. After that, you are excused.”

  “April—”

  “I have reviewed the footage a hundred times,” I said. “I know the ritual. I am not a blood-worker, but I am my mother’s daughter. I have the right to borrow what magic may remain in her stored blood. You are not a blood-worker. You lack even that connection.”

  Elliot’s face fell. “If you’re going to do something this dangerous, I want to help. I need to help.”

  “I am made of light.”

  He paused. “I don’t see how that follows.”

  “When October called them, they threatened to devour her. She was afraid. She is a hero, and she was afraid. You are not a hero. I do not want to risk you. I am made of light. Should they threaten me, I can remove myself from their presence with a thought. No damage need be done.”

  “Jan would never forgive me for leaving you alone.”

  I smiled, wan, strained, and hoping he could see how much I meant it. Emotion has never come easily to me, however much I wish it. “Let us hope she will soon be here to fail in her forgiveness.”

  Elliot hesitated. Then, in a low, tight voice, he said, “I’ll get the blood.”

  He turned and walked toward the door, and I was alone. Truly and utterly alone.

  “I will do this,” I whispered, and started for the flowers.

  EIGHT

  When October had performed this ritual, it had been a difficult, complicated thing. It showed in the video I had of her, in the way she moved from component to component, hesitating before she slotted each new segment into place. She had no training in ritual magic, going through the motions with the clumsy precision of a child learning how to set the table for the first time.

  I had no training in ritual magic, either. But I had the video, and I had proof that what she had done was something that could work. So I carried flowers, and I scattered juniper berries, and I drew my circle of salt.

  I was standing in the middle of it when Elliot returned, the bag of blood in his hands. He looked at my work, and made no effort to hand the bag to me.

  “Rituals like this demand the blood of the caster,” he said. “You need me.”

  “My mother’s blood belongs to me,” I replied. “It does not flow in my veins, but her magic gave me life when all was lost; her family line gave me a name. The laws of sympathy state that in the absence of blood I can call my own, hers serves just as well.”

  Elliot looked surprised. I swallowed the anxious laughter threatening to overwhelm me.

  “Never attempt to argue rules with someone who has them embedded in her very code,” I said. “Give me the blood and go. Lock the doors from the outside and wait. I will succeed, or I will fail, and we will know soon. We will know before October arrives whether she is to be turned back at the gate.”

  For a moment, Elliot looked like he wanted to make one last attempt to sway me. Then his gaze flicked to the blood in his hands, and I knew that as much as he wanted his lover back from the dead, he wanted my mother—his liege, his best friend—even more. With a small nod,
he handed me the bag. Then he turned and left the room, pulling the doors shut behind him. There was a click as he locked them. Not locking me in, but locking the rest of the company and the rest of the knowe out.

  That was good. It was time to begin.

  Stepping into the circle, I picked up the paring knife Elliot had provided and sat, the bag of blood resting on my crossed ankles. I closed my eyes, reaching past the thrum and buzz of my electronic world, looking for a natural rhythm that no longer belonged to me. It was faint, but it was there, and when the world clicked over into sunset, I felt the air change, turning tight.

  Quickly, before I could reconsider, I unwrapped the mandrake Elliot had provided before drawing my knife across the bag of blood, splitting its surface and spilling what remained of my mother onto the floor. The smell of it, cold and sterile and yet somehow meaty and animal, struck me in a wave. I shuddered, and ran my fingers through it, hoping to make the connection between it and myself.

  “My name is April ap Learianth,” I said, using the form of Mother’s name which accompanied her title, the one that predated this country, this culture, this place. “I am the daughter of January ap Learianth, who built this place with her own hands, and I am here to petition for your attentions. I bring you blood and flowers and salt from the sea. All our Courts together here support my plea.”

  The mandrake was lying motionless in the spilled blood, soaking it up but not responding. That was wrong. On the tape . . . when October had performed this part of the ritual, the mandrake had come alive, consuming her blood, taking on her form. This was wrong.

  Even as the thought formed, the flowers around the edge of my circle burst into bluish-green flame. The candles lit themselves. The mandrake might not be awakening, but the fire was burning. There was still a chance.

  “I bring you life,” I said, and pressed my hands flat against the floor, as I had seen October do. The mandrake did not move. I grabbed the knife and drove it, with its burden of my mother’s cold, sluggish blood, through the mandrake’s chest. The fire burned higher. “If I could speak with you a moment, I would be greatly appreciative.”

  I waited. The room seemed to quiet, until I could barely hear the crackle of the flames, until a low buzz, as if a hard drive were starting to skip, filled the air. I raised my head.

  The night-haunts were there.

  They surrounded me in a gauzy cloud: small, winged figures dressed in tattered shrouds, as if even their clothing came from the dead. Those closest to me looked solid, like ordinary fae compressed into miniature versions of themselves. It was . . . odd, to see Silene and Centaurs and Cait Sidhe with autumn leaf wings growing from their miniaturized backs, but the oddness was not enough to make them disappear.

  They dropped lower, until one of them—a male, with eyes like frosted violets, and a starkly beautiful face—was hovering at the edge of the circle, on a level with my eyes.

  “What do you think you’re doing, daughter of trees?” he asked. There was more curiosity than cruelty in his tone. “We have been summoned here before. Do you know what you’ve done?”

  “I am Countess April ap Learianth of Tamed Lightning,” I said. “I have summoned you here according to a ritual passed from the Luidaeg to Sir October Daye of Shadowed Hills. I have called you, and you have come.”

  One of the night-haunts laughed and flew forward, joining the first. This one, I recognized. He had a seal’s dark eyes, and spiky brown hair streaked with gray, like a seal’s fur. “She’s got you there,” he said. “Toby strikes again.”

  “Remind me why we let her live,” muttered the first night-haunt.

  “I know you,” I said. They both stopped talking and looked at me. I kept my eyes on the second one. “You were her suitor, weren’t you? The Selkie man who came to help her.”

  The night-haunt looked at me sadly. “I was him most recently, yes. He died. Now I wear his face, and remember him, as is the accord between ourselves and the rest of Faerie. I remember you, too, April. You’ve grown.”

  “I had to.”

  “Why have you called us here?” He looked at the motionless mandrake in front of me, and frowned. “The ritual is incomplete. The blood spilled is not your own.”

  “The blood belongs to my mother.”

  His face softened. “January is not among our number.”

  “I know. None of the dead of this place are with you, except for Gordan.” I looked at the flock, searching for that second familiar face. “Where is Gordan?”

  “We aren’t the only flock,” he said. “She didn’t want to return here, and we didn’t make her. Guilt lives into the grave.”

  The thought was chilling. I was suddenly, completely grateful for the knowledge that when I died, I would not join the night-haunts. Nothing without blood and bone to consume could ever be counted among them.

  “I see,” I said. I focused on the night-haunt at the front of their number, the one who wore the Selkie’s face. “I have called you for my mother.”

  The night-haunt frowned. “I don’t understand. Her death was denied to us.”

  “Because it was no true death,” I said. “Her body was destroyed, but the part of her you could make your own was trapped, held outside the ordinary way of things.”

  The night-haunts whispered and buzzed. The Selkie-haunt’s frown deepened. “We are sorry for your loss, and for our own,” he said. “But what does this have to do with the ritual?”

  “I want you to make her a new body.” I picked up the mandrake and offered it to him. “I know you have the skill. This blood is hers. It will work. The ritual will be sound.”

  All the night-haunts stared at me. The room seemed to grow darker and colder as they closed in, their wings buzzing wildly. My outline blurred, static and distortion, before resolving back into the shape I was determined to hold until this was done. The night-haunts were recalcitrant enough when dealing with one they viewed as an adult. Who knew how they would respond if forced to negotiate with a child?

  “You would ask us to make a manikin?” asked the Selkie.

  “No,” I said. Before the night-haunts could react, I continued, “I want you to make her. I want you to use fae blood to craft fae flesh. I know it can be done.” I knew no such thing, but I remembered my mother telling her programmers that she knew they were capable of things they claimed were impossible. They had always delivered. Once they had known that she believed in them, they had always delivered.

  The blood was hers. If the night-haunts were capable of crafting human flesh from nothing, they could craft fae flesh from fae blood. I knew they could do it. If my mother could craft a Dryad from splinters and circuits, the night-haunts could give her back to me.

  I knew they could.

  “You ask too much,” said the Selkie. “It’s never been done.”

  “You can do it anyway.”

  “Why should we?” demanded another night-haunt, a female Barrow Wight with wings like cobwebs strung over elm leaves and hair the color of blackened oak. “Even if we could, we owe you nothing. You had no right to summon us. You offer us no reward for a favor you should never have asked.”

  “I offer you the only reward that matters to you,” I said calmly. “I offer you death.”

  The night-haunts drifted lower, their wings beating even faster. The Selkie looked at me suspiciously. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “My mother wasn’t the only victim,” I said. “She was merely the only victim to lose her body as well as her life. She needs a new body, if she’s to continue. The others, however, can simply be awakened—something that does not require your intervention. October is on her way. She can put them back together. She can undo what should never have been done in the first place, and restore them. They will walk in the world. They will face its dangers. In time, I am confident some of them will risk too much or reach too far, and will die properl
y, as they always should have done. Then, their deaths will come to you, to feed and sustain your flock. It may take years. It may take centuries. You will be fed either way.”

  “It sounds like all we have to do is nothing, and we’ll get those deaths regardless,” said the Selkie.

  “If you refuse to restore my mother, if you will not construct her the new body I know it is within your power to grant, I will lock the gates, and I will not permit October’s entry,” I said. “The dead will stay dead. The lost will stay lost. Your stomachs will remain unfilled. The dead who are in my keeping will never join your number.”

  His eyes widened. “That would be . . . you would condemn so many people to lose the remainder of their allotted lives, all for the sake of your mother?”

  “I would burn the world to ashes for the sake of my mother,” I said. I had no need to force my calm. Serenity came easily to me now. “I would rip it up by the roots and leave them to dry and wither in the sun for the sake of one more minute in her arms. A few corpses are nothing. They are deadwood at the forest’s edge, and I do not care for them.”

  “Do you have no heart?” demanded the female.

  “That is still under debate,” I said. “I have a hard drive. I have slivers of the wood that was my home, before I died. Before she saved me, and made me a new body, one that would last as long as I needed it to. I am not sure a heart went anywhere into my construction.”

  “Surely you wouldn’t punish so many for the sake of one,” said the Selkie.

  “I would,” I said. “I will.”

  “What if we try, and can’t accomplish what you want?” asked the Selkie. “A fae body . . . is very different from a manikin designed to rot into nothing.”

  “If you truly try, if I believe you have truly tried, I will allow October to try as well,” I said. “But I must believe you. If I do not, the doors remain locked, the dead remain dead, and we will never speak of this again.”