The Brightest Fell

by Seanan McGuire

  May looked even shakier than I felt. Her eyes were red, and she flinched from every sound like she no longer had the ability to process danger. She’d lived for uncounted centuries as a night-haunt, feeding on the memories of others, her face and thoughts ever-changing to fit the parade of Faerie’s dead. I had no doubt that she had loved before, but always secondhand, always borrowed from someone else’s life and death. In many ways, Jazz was her first love. I was as scared as she was—maybe more, because I had lost lovers; I knew that I could fail and they could die—but I at least had the cold comfort of knowing this wasn’t the end of the world, no matter how much I might wind up wishing it had been.

  Only Quentin looked halfway like himself. Sad, yes, withdrawn, yes, but still himself. He was going to have to be the levelheaded one through what came next . . . and I was the one who’d done most of his training.

  May Oberon have mercy on us all.

  Etienne and Grianne brought up the rear. Neither had said anything about the fact that we were on our way to wake Simon, who had betrayed Shadowed Hills and Sylvester more conclusively than anyone else in the world. Maybe they didn’t feel it was their place. Or maybe they just understood that making this harder than it had to be wasn’t going to do anyone any good, and might lead to me breaking somebody’s nose.

  Sylvester opened another door. The hallway on the other side looked like something from a haunted house, all rickety, splintering wood and cobwebby corners. The floor was scuffed, a threadbare runner rug stretching down the center like a pathway to doom. I blinked.

  “I honestly thought Melly would skin anyone who let part of the knowe get this bad,” I said.

  “The staff is not allowed in this area,” said Sylvester stiffly. “I don’t know how much you know about how a knowe is built.”

  “Not much,” I admitted.

  He walked through the door. We kept following.

  “It begins with intent,” he said. “Intent and power. The maker must convince the Summerlands to yield, as a gardener convinces the soil to yield before the seed. That was part of what drew me to Luna, when we met. I was building my garden walls, and she already had the spade in her hand. She seemed perfectly suited to understanding what I would face—and she did. Oh, she did. She didn’t know much about the process of construction, but she forgave me when the foundations took me away from her. She tended her roses, and she waited for me.”

  This seemed to be less about knowe construction and more about his relationship with Luna. I didn’t say so. We were still moving, and he wasn’t stalling; he was just filling the silence, an impulse I understood all too well. The instinct to whistle past the graveyard is standard to everything I’ve met with enough intelligence to understand what it is to dread the consequences of their actions.

  “You walk into the Summerlands, you find the place you’re going to stake your claim, and you mark it. You go into the mortal world, and you find the place where you want the intersection to occur. You gather your magic and your strength, and you cut a hole between the worlds for the sake of what’s to come. Then you build. You build a beginning. So much of the beginning has to come from your own hands.” He touched a wall, trailing his fingers along it as he walked. “I was never a carpenter.”

  Suddenly, the shoddiness of the hall made a lot more sense. “You built this?”

  “With my own two hands, and with the help of the man I loved most in all the world.” We had reached a small door. Sylvester pushed it open.

  The room on the other side was as shabby as the hall. The walls were papered in lilac brocade that peeled in places, revealing the plaster beneath. The window had no glass; instead, the panes held sheets of oiled paper, no doubt enchanted to stand up to the elements, turning the world outside into a blobby impressionist painting. A single twin bed was pushed up against the wall, and in the bed was Simon Torquill, my old enemy, my last hope.

  Asleep, with all the hard lines and worry eased from his face, he looked more like Sylvester than ever. They had the same bones: it was the way they wore them that differed. They were even dressed similarly, although Sylvester’s clothes were faintly medieval, while Simon’s were more “I stopped keeping up with mortal fashions somewhere in the 1920s.” He was wearing shoes. I guess when there’s no chance the sleeper will roll over, it’s less about dressing them for comfort, and more about dressing them for display. Like a funeral.

  His cuffs were frayed. I realized that every time I’d seen him without Oleander there to put on a show for, his cuffs had been frayed. He was holding on tightly to the few things he had, mending them when he had to, never letting go.

  That was his problem, really. He’d never figured out how to let go.

  I turned, looking to Etienne. “You know where we are now,” I said. “Can you go check the grounds for Raj? He’s supposed to be coming with the countercharm.”

  Etienne frowned. “I thought the stuff was too delicate to be exposed to magic.”

  “Walther’s still tinkering with it. Every batch is more stable than the last, and cold is good for it. Helps it settle. According to him, carrying it through the Shadow Roads is actually beneficial—the magic may do a little damage, but the cold repairs all that, and more.”

  “Fine,” said Etienne. He looked to Sylvester, who nodded minutely, granting permission. With that formality observed, Etienne turned, sketched a portal in the air, and was gone.

  Grianne remained behind. Her Merry Dancers spun around her, betraying an unusual degree of agitation.

  “Is he not to be bound?” she asked.

  Ah.

  For Grianne, that was a speech—she doesn’t talk much, and when she does, it’s always to make a point. Unlike the rest of us, who will probably go to our graves yammering wildly away. This time, her point was a valid one: Simon, for all that I needed him, and for all that I was embarking on a quest that was to his personal benefit, had run away before. He’d betrayed everyone in this room, to one degree or another, at least once. What was going to stop him from doing it again?

  “He will be,” said Sylvester. He looked at Simon as he spoke, and his words were filled with a mixture of regret and longing that hurt my heart to hear. “His punishment does not end because I must wake him. For what he’s done, his suffering has just begun.”

  Oberon’s Law forbids us to kill each other. That’s it: that’s everything. The rest of the crimes we commit, the rest of the times we transgress, there’s no law to describe what happens next. There’s tradition, and there are punishments, but the basic judicial system of Faerie is “I do what I want.”

  Simon Torquill was a landless Count who had committed crimes against a landed Duke in his own home. He had committed treason by kidnapping his brother’s wife. He had imprisoned Luna and Rayseline for years, in a place we had yet to identify or find. He had assaulted another noble’s vassal by transforming me against my will. No one would question Sylvester for taking his revenge, whatever form that revenge might take.

  Sometimes, revenge could take some pretty vicious forms. The former King of Silences had been using his rivals for spell components, cutting them apart one piece at a time. While he had been elf-shot for his crimes against the Crown, he wasn’t specifically being punished for that. In the eyes of fae law, he had done nothing wrong. Also in the eyes of fae law, Queen Siwan—who was now back in her rightful place as ruler of Silences—would be doing nothing wrong if she ordered him sliced to bits, as long as he didn’t die.

  When Faerie decides to hold a grudge, the ramifications can echo for centuries.

  “Your knife, please, October,” said Sylvester. He held his hand out, making it clear that this was not entirely a request.

  Feeling uneasy, I pulled the silver blade from its sheath under my jacket and passed it to him. “Do I need to bleed?”

  “For once, no. Your blood is not required.” He leaned forward, grasping Simon�
��s left hand and turning it so the palm was facing toward the ceiling. With a quick, decisive motion, he sliced the ball of Simon’s thumb lengthwise. The smell of blood filled the room.

  I could smell Simon’s magic in his blood, the smoke and rotten oranges tracery that marked him now, and the smoky mulled cider scent that had marked him once, before things had gone so wrong for him. It was complicated all out of proportion, that mix of scents: people’s magic isn’t supposed to twist to such a degree that it actually changes. I couldn’t imagine what it would take to rewrite a person’s essential nature like that. If there was any kindness left in the world, I would never have to learn.

  The world is so rarely kind. Sylvester drew the blade of my knife across his own thumb, making a cut identical to the one on his brother. The daffodils and dogwood scent of his magic rose, stronger than Simon’s, which was—after all—still slumbering, unable to rise in his defense.

  The true horror of elf-shot kept revealing itself, like a terrible flower opening one petal at a time. Simon could no more defend himself against his brother than he could wake of his own accord. I’d known that, I’d always known that; the sleeping monarchs of Silences had been the proof, if I’d ever needed any. Yet physical damage can almost always be healed, in Faerie. Losing a leg is a tragedy and an inconvenience, but there are healers who can rejoin severed flesh, artisans who can craft replacements from enchanted wood, or stone, or living fire. There are options. Magic, though . . .

  Sylvester could bind Simon’s magic into his bones, and it might take him a hundred years or more before he could find someone capable of unweaving his brother’s workings. He could turn Simon to stone and leave him there, to wake one day in the dark and the cold, frozen, awake but still captive, forever.

  I reached out before I could think better of it, grabbing Sylvester’s arm. He turned to look at me.

  “Don’t . . . don’t hurt him,” I said. “Please. I need him to help me.”

  “He will,” said Sylvester, and there was no warmth in his tone.

  “I want him to help me willingly.” I’d been the person forced to embark on someone else’s quest before: I hadn’t enjoyed it. Maybe I wasn’t ready to forgive Simon; maybe I still wanted him to pay for what he’d done to me. I hadn’t figured out my own feelings quite yet. None of that meant I wanted to drag him, unwilling and fighting me, into my problems.

  Sylvester was still for several seconds before he sighed heavily and said, “I will bind him only enough to keep him from hurting you.”

  “Quentin—”

  “Is not family. I am sorry, but I can protect only one of you in this specific fashion.”

  “I’ll be fine,” said Quentin.

  Sylvester continued to look at me gravely. “Trust me?” he asked.

  “I do,” I whispered, and took a step back, letting him go.

  He nodded once, accepting my implicit permission to continue, and turned back to his brother. Leaning forward, he pressed his cut thumb against Simon’s. The smell of daffodils and dogwood flowers was suddenly everywhere, filling the air until it should have become cloying. Somehow, it wasn’t. Somehow, it was exactly right.

  “Simon Torquill, I bind you,” said Sylvester. Each word was a brick slotting into a wall, building it high and strong against the world. “By my blood and my bones, I bind you.”

  I clapped a hand over my mouth. I had heard those words before. Not spoken by him, no: spoken by Evening Winterrose, when she cursed me to find the person who’d attacked her—supposedly killing her—or die trying. It was a traditional form. It only made sense that the mother of the Daoine Sidhe would have taught it to her children, who would have taught it to their children, all the way down to Sylvester. But oh, it hurt to hear.

  “By the root and the branch, the rose and the tree, I bind you,” he continued, not seeming to notice my dismay. “By our mother, by our father, by the name we share, I bind you. For the crimes you have committed against me, you owe restitution, and this is what I ask of you. Raise no hand against Sir October Daye, daughter of Amandine. Break no blade and cast no spells against her, lest your tongue be stilled and your hands be silenced. Harm her not, or know no peace. By all that I am and all that you are and all the mercies of our missing Lord and Ladies, I bind you, brother. May Oberon have mercy, for I will not.”

  The spell gathered tight in the air above Simon, filling the air so completely that for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. It was almost visible, a haze of white and pale gold, like the flowers that comprised it. The spell twisted, growing thinner and thinner, until it was a thread, before wrapping itself tightly around Simon’s body.

  This was what a geas looked like when it was cast. This was how a person was bound. I gasped again, this time dropping my hand.

  Sylvester straightened, pulling his thumb from his brother’s. Both wounds had healed. Somehow, that wasn’t a surprise.

  The door opened.

  I turned to watch as Etienne stepped into the room, with Raj close behind him.

  “The Prince of Dreaming Cats,” Etienne said, formal to the last.

  Raj looked like he had regressed years, becoming the twitchy, arrogant child he’d been when we met. Like May, he flinched from every sound. Unlike her, he glared at the world, daring it to challenge his authority, wrapped in his own self-importance like a veil. With Tybalt missing, he was in charge of the Court of Dreaming Cats, at least until someone came along and challenged him. He wasn’t a King yet. Their succession didn’t work that way. But if someone else figured out that San Francisco’s cats no longer had a King, he might have to take the crown, and all our careful plans would be disrupted. So would his life. And none of that accounted for the fact that Tybalt was all the family he had left. If he died . . .

  Tybalt wasn’t going to die. Neither of them was going to die. We were going to get them back, no matter what it took. No matter what I had to do to accomplish it. We were going to get them back.

  “Hey,” I said. “Did you get the stuff?”

  Raj pulled a glass vial out of his pocket, holding it up for inspection. The liquid inside was pink, purple, and gold, like something a small child would think looked delicious.

  “Good,” I said. “Bring it here.”

  “You don’t get to give me orders,” he said, but he brought the bottle anyway, dropping it into my outstretched hand with a quick, sidelong glance at my face, like he was looking for my approval.

  He already had it. I allowed myself the flash of a smile, holding it just long enough for him to see, and said, “Yeah, but I’m so good at it.” I looked around the room. There was no one here who was wholly unfamiliar to Simon. More importantly, there was no one here that he would see instantly as an enemy, except for maybe his brother—and he had to know that if his brother was there when he woke up, he was probably going to live. Sylvester could hate him. He couldn’t kill him, or watch while someone else did it. He wasn’t that kind of hero.

  “Do you want me to do it?” asked Sylvester.

  “It should be me; I’m the one who’s forcing you to let this happen,” I said, and turned to Simon, crouching down enough to put myself on a level with his prone form. He looked so much less dangerous like this, when he was unconscious and not in a position to ruin anybody’s day. And I was about to wake him up.

  A hand landed on my shoulder. I glanced back. Sylvester was standing there, ready to defend me.

  That helped. Gingerly, I raised the bottle to Simon’s lips and tipped it until the liquid trickled into his mouth. He swallowed, an automatic reflex not normally found in elf-shot victims. That was the magic in Walther’s work, already starting to reactivate the body.

  I pulled the bottle away, stood, and waited. Not for long. By the time I had counted silently to ten, Simon’s breath had quickened, moving from enchanted sleep onto the borders of wakefulness. I counted five more, and he twitched, his
previously injured hand opening and closing.

  He opened his eyes.

  Silence reigned for several more seconds before Simon said, in a perplexed tone, “Is this the old knowe? Root and branch, it looks like it’s going to collapse at any moment.”

  No one answered him.

  He pushed himself into a sitting position, moving easily, without any visible aftereffects from his enchanted nap. He was still looking at the ceiling, maybe because he didn’t want to see who else was in the room. I couldn’t blame him for that. He had to be half-wondering whether he was experiencing his last moments of freedom for another hundred years, before Sylvester had him seized and thrown into the nearest available dungeon.

  “I think it is,” he said. “I remember doing the joins in that ceiling. Terrible work. I was never meant to be a carpenter. Anyone who said I was, well, they were lying. Hello—” He finally looked down, and his voice caught, hitching before he finished, barely above a whisper, “—brother. And October. October, what are you doing here?”

  “Simon,” said Sylvester, and his voice was ice, his voice was a killing frost sweeping across the land. There was no love there. Listening to him, it seemed impossible that love could ever live there again. “Look at me.”

  Simon went still, the brief animation draining from his face. He shifted until he was fully facing his brother, shutting me out. “Hello, Sylvester,” he said.

  I flinched. Simon was a chameleon, in many ways. He was a man who had traded his freedom to his Firstborn for the chance to bring his daughter home, who had done things so terrible that they’d twisted and tainted the smell of his magic. But he was also the man who had loved my mother, who had loved his daughter, and who had tried, in his own misguided way, to save me from Evening. His methods were terrible. His intentions were, in their own way, pure. How did he contain that many contradictions without breaking himself?