by AJ Lancaster
Wyn had half an urge to embrace him, checked by wariness and the adrenalin of Aroset’s pursuit still pumping through him.
“Koi, where are we?” he said, instead. The room wasn’t circular as he’d first thought, but seven-sided. Seven thick stone supporting columns. Magically significant numbers.
“The floor is a map,” Hetta said, sounding odd.
Wyn looked down. She was right. The floor of the atrium was a mosaic of colourful tiles and gems, stretching out in all directions and forming not random shapes but geography.
“It’s a map of Faerie,” Wyn murmured, awed. It wasn’t a static map either, moving so subtly that it was hardly noticeable. Faelands moved relative to each other, faster in some places and hardly at all in others, like a series of sluggish dominoes sliding around each other.
He moved out of the shadows, heedless of what Aroset might or might not see, and found what he was looking for before he even realised he was searching. He knelt, feathers brushing the stone as he placed a hand on a patch of red-and-white tiles. Magical shadows moved across the surface like clouds, obscuring the details: the curse. “ThousandSpire,” he murmured. He looked up at his brother. “What do you know about the curse?”
“So you don’t know the way out, then?” Irokoi said, his face falling as he looked between them. “Ah, well, I suppose it was too much too hope. Follow me, then.” He gestured at the staircase.
“What if Aroset follows us?” Hetta asked uneasily, looking up at the Gate above.
“Then we’ll have more of a family reunion than I anticipated just yet. But I don’t think she wishes to risk being trapped,” Irokoi said.
Wyn couldn’t share his brother’s calm. “Is Set good enough with portals to penetrate here without a Gate?” he asked.
“It is a very inconvenient gift the Maelstrom has given her, though even she has limits. If she could have made a portal in here, she already would have.” Irokoi huffed. “She thinks I know how to free the Spires from stasis.”
“And do you?” he asked. His fingers still rested on the shadow rippling over the red-jewelled mosaic. His chest tightened.
Irokoi tilted his head. “Yes. Although knowing and doing are two different things, so it wouldn’t help Aroset much even if I told her, which I wasn’t planning to.”
“Will you tell us?”
“And just what were you planning to do if ThousandSpire is freed from the curse, hmmm?” Irokoi asked. “You gave up your claim to it; you cannot take that back, and faelands don’t do well without rulers for long. Better to leave it be, brother, guilty conscience or not.”
That was an excellent question, and one Wyn had been avoiding thinking too hard about. “We need ThousandSpire’s ruler to approve our union, and it cannot choose a new one whilst in stasis,” he told Irokoi, rising from his crouch. “Maybe it will reconsider its choices.” It had to, didn’t it? He’d never heard of a faeland refusing to choose anyone, and there wasn’t anyone else left of the bloodline but his siblings.
Irokoi smiled in a satisfied way, as if Wyn were a dim student who’d unexpectedly given the exact right answer. “Interesting. Perhaps I will help you then.”
He began to walk away, his footsteps echoing loudly in the hushed stillness of this place.
Wyn exchanged a glance with Hetta, and they hastened to follow Irokoi. There was something here…something that unsettled him down to his bones, magic so thick he could taste it, a signature too complex to parse. Too strong, as if each of his senses had been sharpened to the point of painfulness. He couldn’t think properly under the weight of the magic. He changed.
Or—tried to.
For the first time in his life, there was nothing there to change into, no other side of himself. He stumbled, catching himself on the balustrade.
“Wyn?” Hetta’s voice, concerned.
He closed his eyes, trying and failing once more. “I can’t change back to my mortal form.”
It was like discovering a limb was missing. He kept reaching and finding nothing to grasp with.
“Koi, can you…?” Wyn couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d seen Irokoi in his mortal form.
Irokoi blinked at him. “Oh. You want to know if I can change?” He pursed his lips.
“Can you?” Wyn repeated urgently.
Irokoi tilted his head to the side, still looking puzzled at Wyn’s reaction. “I am older and more settled than you are, so I imagine I could, yes. But I think it would be a very bad idea to try, here and now. Don’t you know where we are? Can’t you hear it?”
The terrible thing was that Wyn almost knew what Irokoi meant; there was something like a song here, a hum of magic plucking at every nerve, a tune he almost recognised.
“Or you could just tell us?” Hetta suggested.
“This is a place for deep truths,” Irokoi said with an impish grin and kept walking.
Deep truths. Wyn held his wings tight against his back, the rustle of feathers disconcertingly loud. What part of being stuck in his fae form was a deep truth? He wanted to argue with that unsubtle insinuation. Why should this form be any more or less true than the other?
At least Irokoi had suggested the effect was limited to this place, which meant Wyn had only to cope until they found a way out. He could do that. Hetta squeezed his hand, her eyes too knowing.
They followed Irokoi up flights of stairs, around and around the many floors of the library. The presence of so many books had a muffling effect, the resulting quietness oppressive. There were desks set aside for non-existent researchers, and a reading room on one of the floors complete with feylights. There was no dust.
“Are there other people here?” Hetta asked.
Irokoi shook his head. “Only us, now.”
Wyn was about to suggest they fly the rest of the way up, since there were still many storeys left to climb, when Irokoi led them away from the stairs towards a wide archway.
“This is the ground floor, sort of,” Irokoi said before Wyn could ask. “The library is half above and half below, and we do not want to climb all the way up to Aroset, even if she could see us.”
“She can’t?”
Irokoi shook his head. “There’s an obscuring spell on the Gate. You must have noticed it was rather dark when you looked in?”
“We were in something of a rush,” Wyn said drily.
Irokoi led them through to wide stone hallways, the ceilings so high it felt almost as free as open sky above—except for the whispers of the magic, like voices on the edge of hearing. Wyn kept turning his head to catch them, but instead there was only a faint shell-hush, almost like distant waves.
Fae statues three times larger than life stared down at them, the seven-fold architectural patterns of the library tower repeated in the way they were arranged. Each one was unique, as if to showcase the full diversity of forms fae could take. Which rather clashes with the idea of form as a deeper truth, he thought, glaring at the statues. Especially since the statues were of one individual.
“Who are they?” Hetta asked, briefly touching the chilly stone hand of a woman with antlers and four sets of eyes.
“The High King,” Irokoi answered.
“All of them?”
“He can take whatever form he wishes. Though probably not all at once.”
Depictions of the High King weren’t uncommon in Faerie architecture, but this place, speaking right to his bones in a language more primal than words… “Koi, where are we?” Wyn asked again.
“The High King’s library.”
“Is he here?” Hetta asked.
“No.” Irokoi flicked his fingers on the knees of a gigantic androgynous figure with the lower half of a goat. “I was looking for answers, but I think I was tricked into coming here so I’d stay put and be safe.”
Hetta frowned. “What makes you say that?”
“I wouldn’t have locked myself in with all these memories; I’m not quite that feather-brained.”
Hetta kept asking
questions with increasing impatience; Irokoi kept giving his typically circular answers. Wyn knew he ought to be trying to help wring some sense out of his brother, but the song of the magic here hummed through him, increasing in volume the longer they walked, and it was as if he were hearing their conversation through water.
They reached a heavy set of entrance doors that pushed open with smooth ease at only a touch from Irokoi.
“And what does that mean, exactly—” Hetta broke off as she stepped through the doors, jerking to a halt on the paving stones beyond. Wyn was a step behind her, and his wings half-flared in panic as he beheld what lay outside.
It wasn’t the fact that the stone building they’d exited, though large, wasn’t yet large enough to contain the many storeys and hallways they’d wandered through, its largest tower not nearly high enough. Wyn could cope with buildings of impossible internal dimension; he’d taken a tape measure to many of Stariel House’s rooms, after all. Nor was the neatly planted terrace overlooking the ornamental lake worthy of much note under the circumstances.
No, it was that the entire thing was underwater.
“Faerie geography,” Hetta said in wonder.
Wonder was not Wyn’s primary emotion. Transparent walls rose at the edges of a neat garden, curving to encase the building, grounds, and ornamental lake within an immense bubble. Schools of fish swam past beyond the boundary, seemingly oblivious, and further out, shapes moved in the ocean’s shadows, ominous and indistinct. There was a strong salty tang to the air.
Wyn looked up and gulped. No sky; nowhere to fly. Only green, directionless light making it impossible to tell how far beneath the surface they stood.
Hetta touched his arm, an anchor point. He closed his eyes and made sure he was looking at his feet when he opened them. The paving stones were a soft golden colour, matching the architecture of the Library’s exterior. Right. He moved his attention: a series of bronze urns set along the front of the building, holding geometric topiary. The ornamental lake at the bottom of the steps, its surface preternaturally still. He supposed wind wasn’t an issue.
The lakes edges stopped at the bubble, dark lake water held separate from the murkier greenish sea without. A lake at the bottom of the sea, he thought and looked up again. A small sound of protest emerged despite himself.
No sky! How had Koi borne it without going utterly mad? Although—maybe he hadn’t. Hard to say.
“Yes, I suppose it’s a bit surprising,” Irokoi said, gazing placidly up at the bubble.
Hetta let go of Wyn’s arm and stepped cautiously ‘outside’ into the strange underwater garden.
“How does it work?” she asked. “How deep are we?”
“Magic, and I don’t know.”
Wyn stayed where he was and called plaintively after Hetta, “Are you sure you don’t wish to keep leaning on my arm? It makes me feel useful.”
“I’ll let you know when I require further coddling.” She padded curiously down to the lake’s edge.
Sorrow crept into his heart, an emotion so absolute it stilled him. Or it would have if he hadn’t already been rooted in place. Where was the emotion emanating from? It tangled with the magic in the air, heavy as the pressure before a storm, and he wanted to spread his wings, take Hetta up and go—but there was nowhere to go. Trapped. The word beat at him, his heart threatening to race. He breathed in, out. I am not a bird to panic so.
When he opened his eyes again, Hetta was still peering into the lake, and sorrow still hung on the world like ice. She went to dip the toe of her boot into the water, and Wyn was already moving, a cry of alarm on his lips, but it was too late, she was too close—
“Stop!” Midnight and frost bloomed on the air, and Irokoi’s magic wrenched Hetta back from the edge, his hands making a clawing gesture. “Don’t touch the lake,” he said, releasing his magic, his expression cut from granite.
Hetta stumbled, off-balance with the motion, but Wyn was at her side and wrapped his arms around her. She let out a startled exhale, steadied herself on him.
Wyn narrowed his eyes at his brother. “Why don’t you want Hetta to touch the lake?”
“Yes, and if you could explain without going all cryptic and unhelpful, that would be wonderful,” Hetta added as she rearranged herself to stand beside him, though she tucked her arm into his.
Irokoi’s expression grew sardonic. “Do not touch the lake, Lord Valstar, because there is an enormous lake guardian sleeping beneath the surface who has no love for mortals, and especially those of your bloodline, and it would be a very bad idea to wake it.”
“Oh.” Hetta frowned. “Wait—of my bloodline? You mean Valstars specifically?”
Irokoi’s gaze didn’t shift, but his blind eye glowed a fractured arctic blue. “Yes.”
Wyn exchanged glances with Hetta. “Why?”
Irokoi didn’t answer, and Hetta huffed at him. “You seem like you’re trying to be difficult. Why won’t you just tell us what you know?”
Irokoi cocked his head at Wyn. “I can see why you like the mortals. They’re very direct.”
Wyn sighed and made an effort to focus, the heavy magic and sorrow here still threatening to pull him into abstraction. He could do this. “Let me add my own directness then. You appeared to me in Meridon via astral projection—and let us set aside exactly when you gained that ability for the moment—and told me to pass a message to Cat. Following which, she flew straight into the heart of the Maelstrom just as the Spires fell under a curse. I recognise manipulation when I see it, Koi. What’s going on? You said you knew how to free the Spires. Will you make me bargain with you for the information?”
Irokoi cocked his head to the side. “Lord Valstar has a nice house, or so I hear.”
“I’m not giving you my house.”
Irokoi burst into delighted laughter. It sounded louder than it should in the still air.
“I am not asking for your house, Lord Valstar. But take me to your house—to your faeland—and I will help you remove the curse from ThousandSpire.” Irokoi looked thoughtfully at Wyn. “I will need to gather all the Spireborn who are left in order to do it properly.”
A heaviness crept into Wyn. Did Irokoi know? He should, but Wyn hadn’t felt Torquil’s death from the Mortal Realm, so perhaps Irokoi hadn’t either, trapped in Deeper Faerie. Wyn didn’t want to tell him; until he did, there still existed a piece of the world where their brother was alive, even if that piece was only in Irokoi’s fractured mind.
Wyn hadn’t seen Torquil for more than ten years—and they hadn’t been close. They’d never grow any closer, now. That knowledge tainted grief with prickling guilt, because he wasn’t sure whether he was mourning Torquil so much as the idea of him; mourning for the fact that one of his siblings was capable of murdering another.
He struggled to say the words, but eventually they came out, cold and sharp as mountain flint.
“Torquil is dead.”
Hetta squeezed his arm.
Irokoi didn’t react as Wyn had expected. His expression grew sheepish. “Ah. No. He isn’t, actually. Torquil is alive.”
If the bubble had punctured then and sent a thousand tonnes of seawater raining down, it would have been less of a shock. Shock—Wyn stepped away from Hetta as his anger rose hard and fast. Lightning sparked over his feathers as he flared out his wings in challenge.
Irokoi’s wings fanned out in response, black as the Void. But there was no sense of power rolling off him, his magic tightly leashed. Wyn couldn’t say the same for his own, which was crackling in the air around him so strongly it overrode even the salty tang of the sea. He balled his hands into fists, struggling to find words.
Hetta put her hands on her hips and glared at Irokoi. “What do you mean he’s alive?” The temper in her voice matched his own.
Irokoi folded his wings in, looking apologetic. “Ah—I sort of helped him fake his death.”
“Aroset.” Wyn’s voice came out hard. “Rake and Cat believe she killed him. A
s did I.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be a very convincing trick if no one believed it, would it?”
“That’s not funny,” Hetta snapped. “How can you joke about something like that? Don’t you care that—”
Irokoi lost all his boyish playfulness. Wyn sometimes forgot that Irokoi was oldest, older even than Aroset. Even now, Wyn couldn’t gauge Irokoi’s power; it was too tightly coiled.
“No, it isn’t funny at all, but it was necessary. I have always done what was necessary, at no little cost to myself, Lord Valstar. Do not accuse me of a lack of compassion; that isn’t my flaw.”
“No, it’s deliberate unhelpfulness,” Wyn said, provoked beyond all bearing.
Irokoi whirled on him, words falling as blows. “Cat thought you might refuse the throne, and she wanted to know if there was a way to keep the Spires from going to Aroset if you made that choice. I knew of stasis, but I knew to make it work, a member of the royal blood would need to sleep alongside the faeland. I was looking for some alternative, to stop her making such a sacrifice, but I couldn’t find one. And that, Hallowyn, is why Cat flew into the Maelstrom when she did, so which of us, exactly, has been unhelpful to this situation?”
The words hit Wyn as darts, puncturing his fury with painful sharpness. Cat had sacrificed herself for the Spires. Because I failed her. She expected me to fail her. The thought bit deep, giving old guilt new life, tiny thorns burrowing into sensitive flesh.
Irokoi ran a hand through his hair, temper fading as quickly as it had come. “I’m sorry. You have come to rescue me, after all, and I’m not ungrateful. Besides which, Cat’s current situation is…not your fault, ultimately. She made her own choices.” His expression was once again all boyish openness, and Wyn believed it even less than usual. “Do you forgive me for yelling at you?”
“There is nothing to forgive.” Regardless of what Irokoi said, Cat was Wyn’s fault. He wanted to wallow in guilt, but it felt too self-indulgent in the circumstances. No amount of wallowing would free Cat from the Spires, but untangling Irokoi’s cryptic puzzle pieces might. “Why did you give me that message for Cat—why not tell her directly? And how were you able to perform an astral projection and speak to me from here all the way to the Mortal Realm?”