“Cai can’t kill his own brother,” Autumn said.
“Can’t he?” Gran said. “The Hollow Dragon is destroying Eryree bit by bit, and he’s wilier than his parents, harder to catch. He wants to find his baby brother, but he doesn’t know where to look. His fury and hatred of magicians, who killed his parents and stole the only family he had left, is polluting the forest. The Gentlewood is spreading faster, and it’s growing angry—just last week, one of the king’s magicians was strangled by a willow. Soldiers talk of strange morasses that open suddenly and swallow them whole. That forest has always been a wily old thing, but there’s a viciousness to it now that wasn’t there before. My own gran, may she rest easy in her grave, wouldn’t recognize her old Fairyland now, it’s grown so full of shadows.”
Autumn clung to her twin. “What do we do? Cai needs our help.”
“The Hero of Eryree needs us, does he?” Gran snorted. “There’s something I didn’t see coming. You’d best tell me everything. From the beginning.”
Autumn told the story as quickly as she could. Gran asked no questions, merely harrumphed at unexpected moments.
“Why is Cai changing now, Gran?” Autumn said.
“Your journey into the Gentlewood brought it out of him somehow,” Gran said. “Maybe seeing his brother again made some part of him remember what he is.”
Autumn slammed her hand against the arm of the chair. “This is all the headmaster’s fault. None of this would be happening if he’d just let Cai and his brother go!”
She was startled by her own words. The headmaster was a magician. The headmaster was the headmaster. A few short weeks ago, she wouldn’t have even considered having an opinion on any of his grand adventures or secret plots. Headmaster Neath had likely never even spared a glance for his youngest beastkeeper—in a sense, he was as far away from her as the king in his palace, or a hero in a ballad sung in another room while she cleaned a chimney.
But now she was part of that ballad, wasn’t she? Cai was her friend, and so he’d tangled her up in it, or she’d tangled herself. The story didn’t just belong to people like the headmaster anymore. Maybe it never had.
Gran was nodding. “You may be right. But the headmaster isn’t a bad man. Or if he is, he’s only bad in the ordinary way, the human way. His worst crime was keeping hedgewitches out of Inglenook, when we could have done good.”
Autumn drew in her breath. “You know about hedgewitches?”
Gran rolled her eyes. “Has it never occurred to you, child, that I’ve spent a few more years on this earth than you? You can’t surprise me. Headmaster Neath wasn’t the one who kicked hedgewitches out of Inglenook, but like all those headmasters before him, he never bothered asking if it was the right thing to do.” She sighed. “The trouble is, most magicians think alike. Battles and enchantments are all they understand. Sure, you can kill monsters, trap them, take their children. But that only feeds them, really. What keeps them at bay is facing them, having a conversation, sitting down to tea.”
Winter had been listening quietly to the conversation, a pale, still presence. He was often like that—even if he had questions, he rarely asked them. He said to Autumn, “We need to find Cai.”
Autumn started. She had a hundred questions about hedgewitches, but Winter was right. Their eyes met, and she saw his uncertainty.
“Cai’s my friend,” she assured him. “He won’t hurt you.”
He nodded slowly. “If you care about him, so do I. But I also care about the people still trapped in the mirrors. It seems like Cai is the only one who can save them. Will he?”
“Of course.” Autumn felt dizzy. It was too much all at once. “He saves everyone. We’ll find him.”
She went to the window Cai had crashed through only a few moments ago. The wind rippled through the broken pane, sharp with cold and tangled with leaves and pine needles.
Autumn paused. Leaves swirled around Inglenook far below. The torches guttered in the suddenly fierce wind. It was coming from the Gentlewood. The trees writhed and tossed their branches.
Winter came to her side. “I don’t know,” she said in response to the question in his eyes. “But I don’t like it.” She took his hand and pulled him toward the stairs.
“Ah, ah!” Gran called. “Where do you think you’re going with that boy? He’s not well enough for one of your mad adventures.”
Autumn and Winter exchanged looks. “Sorry, Gran,” they said together, and then they ran for the stairs.
“Hey!” Gran called after them. “Oh, when I get my hands on you two—”
Autumn kept a firm hold on Winter’s hand. She wanted him to rest, too, but she wasn’t letting him out of her sight ever again, and she had things to do now. They had things to do.
Joy whispered through her. How lonely she had been without Winter! How strange it had felt to be Just Autumn.
And now, at long last, she had him back.
They chattered all the way down the stairs—a much easier and faster direction to travel than up. Autumn talked most, of course, telling him everything that she hadn’t told Gran. Winter told Autumn a little about the strange gray land of the mirrors—she pieced together the rest from his silences.
“I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner,” she said when they came to the bottom of the stairs. “I’m so sorry.”
Winter’s face was flushed. He looked better than he had in the tower, as if each breath was a stitch knitting him back together. “In the mirrors,” he said, “the others all forgot their names. But I never forgot mine. Do you know why? I think it’s because you never did. You were always out there, carrying my name around inside you.” His gaze drifted. “Most people don’t have that, you know. Someone who would never stop looking for them, even when there was no hope at all. I think we’re lucky.”
Autumn’s face scrunched up. It was the most words Winter had ever spoken at once. She wrapped him in another hug.
When they found their way back to the banquet hall, everything was in confusion. Many of the servants and students were still dancing. Wind snatched at the music, tangled with twigs and other forest detritus. It was coming from the foyer doors, propped open with stones, where a group of magicians clustered. They cast worried looks at the writhing forest and seemed to be debating what to do about it, but few revelers were paying attention to them. The ravens had been loosed from their cages and were perched on the tables, nipping the food and croaking mournfully, and the music had a wilder aspect now. The bards sang a naughty sea shanty, and many joined in when they got to the naughtiest bits. Older boys chased giggling girls through the whirling dancers.
“Autumn.”
Autumn spun around. Standing behind her was none other than her dear boggart, dressed in a cloak of midnight trimmed with red and green jewels and a neat black suit with black gloves. His mask, pushed up on his head, was pure gold, edged with black fur and what looked eerily like real cat ears, though larger than any cat’s Autumn had seen. Naturally, he was more magnificent than any of the magicians.
Autumn leaped into his arms. Then she pulled back and shoved him.
“Where have you been?” she demanded. “I’ve been looking everywhere! Cai and I could have used your help tonight.”
“Hi, boggart,” Winter said.
The boggart looked astonished. His face split into a smile—whenever the boggart smiled, he seemed surprised by it, as if he’d never done it before. The room warmed, and several students looked up, confused by the summer breeze and the scents of wildflowers and baking bread and other wonderful smells that appeared from nowhere.
Winter hugged the boggart, too.
“But this is perfect,” the boggart said. In his happiness, his child-shape flickered like a guttering flame. “Now you won’t miss Cai.”
“Miss him?” Autumn said.
“Emys,” the boggart said. Autumn turned—sure enough, there was Emys, staring at Winter with mouth agape. Kyffin, at his elbow, let out an inarticulate cry and gave W
inter such a hug that he lifted him clear off the ground.
“Come on.” The boggart grabbed Autumn’s hand and swept her into the dancers.
“Boggart!” Autumn twisted, trying to keep an eye on Winter. Masked figures in colorful cloaks swirled about them like strange birds. “I don’t want to—”
“I have something important to tell you,” he said. “Do you know about Lyn Uskrime?”
Autumn looked back at him, baffled. The careening dancers made paths for the two of them, or perhaps the boggart made them.
“It’s a lake in the Gentlewood,” he said. “Far to the north, near the snow line. Near enough that the lake is frozen most of the year, and perfect for skating, but not so near that the trees forget how to blossom. A dragon used to live there, and she planted hundreds of pear trees that lean over the lake and drop flowers onto the ice. There’s a beach covered in white pebbles, perfect for a dock. At night, the sky fills up with all sorts of colors, like ribbons.”
“Why are you telling me this?” The lights of hundreds of candles blurred as the boggart spun her around. Autumn wanted to run back to Winter, but something in the boggart’s eyes stopped her. She grabbed his chin and tilted his head, examining him. “You look different. You’re still sick, aren’t you? Why did you run off when you weren’t well?”
The boggart shook free and spun her deeper into the dancers. Several couples stumbled as Autumn and the boggart passed, as if an invisible wind had knocked them out of the way.
“The Hollow Dragon is on his way,” the boggart said. “He’ll be here any moment.”
Autumn went rigid. “How do you know that?”
“Because I said it was all right.”
Autumn’s eyes traveled over the boggart. She’d never seen him like this—he never looked exactly like a boy even in his boy shape, not really; there was always something sly and boggartish about him that gave the game away. But she couldn’t see that now. He looked angry and pleased with himself in a childlike way, as if he’d just shoved another boy into a mud puddle.
The truth sank into Autumn like a damp chill. “You invited him.”
The boggart didn’t answer.
Autumn’s thoughts whirled. “Is that—is that why the Hollow Dragon has never attacked Inglenook? Because you’re here? I thought it was because of all the magicians!”
“Magicians!” The boggart tsked. Some of the mischief returned to his eyes—mischief of a darker sort. “No, he’s angry enough to fight the magicians. But Inglenook is my territory, and by our laws, the laws of the Folk, he can’t come near it. He might want to fight the magicians, but there isn’t a monster in Eryree stupid enough to fight me.”
Autumn thought of how the Hollow Dragon had never come close to Inglenook, keeping only to the forest. And all along, it had been the boggart keeping him away!
“Why?” she murmured.
“The Hollow Dragon is looking for someone,” the boggart said. “He’s been looking for nearly thirteen years. I think it’s time he found him. I think it would be better for everyone if he took him away.”
As the boggart spoke, the room darkened and the air chilled. Autumn felt something inside her break. “Cai,” she whispered.
“It’s all right,” the boggart said. “I would never let the Hollow Dragon hurt you. It won’t matter when he destroys Inglenook, because you and I will go and live at Lyn Uskrime. It’s beautiful there—you’ll like it. You can skate and play in the orchards all day and I’ll build you a castle with a hundred windows, just like I promised.” He smiled. “Winter can come. And the others, if they like. I would never abandon any of you. You’re my family.”
Autumn felt as if the wild music was inside her, drumming the breath from her lungs. She was sick. She was furious. She was a hundred things at once. She was dimly aware that the boggart, in his agitation, was pulling the wind along with him, and that the dancers were standing back, staring at them.
Autumn felt the fury win, radiating from her head down to her toes. She wrenched out of the boggart’s grip and grabbed him by the shoulders. Then she shoved him through the dancers, who were blasted out of the way like dandelion seeds in a gale, and into the wall.
“You listen to me,” she hissed. “You uninvite that monster right now. You tell him to leave and never come back. How dare you let him destroy Inglenook? How dare you let him hurt my friend?”
“Autumn, Autumn.” The boggart looked frightened now—Autumn had never spoken to him like this before. “Cai isn’t your friend—I am. That’s why I brought the Hollow Dragon here—I did it for you. It will be better when Cai’s gone. You’ll see.”
Voices shouted in the distance. The musicians played on, but the dancers were breaking apart, rushing toward the windows and into the foyer. Leaves, brown and wet, swirled into the hall.
“My friend,” Autumn murmured. Her mouth was dry as ash. “Have you ever truly been my friend, boggart?”
“Autumn—”
“You send that monster away,” she said. “Or I’ll—I’ll banish you from the family.”
The boggart looked astonished. “You can’t.”
Autumn’s heart thudded. “You’re right. I can’t. But I can make your life miserable. I can have Gran take down the old beastkeepers’ hut. I can order you to leave every time I see you, and even if you don’t have to obey the command, you’ll still feel it.”
Then she said the worst thing that could be said to a boggart, the only thing they truly feared. “I can ignore you.”
The boggart’s face went from astonished to black. His fury made him lose his shape, becoming a wolf and then a dragon and then nothing, just his natural shapeless self. Autumn turned away, and he followed her.
No, she said, putting every ounce of her anger into the word. The boggart staggered back, more from surprise than the strength of the blow. Autumn hadn’t given him an order in the Speech since she was little, when she used to tell him to build snowmen for her or become a horse or a hare or a falcon and race her down the mountainside, and the boggart would pretend that she could make him do anything.
The boggart let out a howl so terrible that the remaining dancers stuttered to a chaotic stop, and the harpists dropped their instruments with a clang. The entire crowd stared at her. But Autumn kept walking and didn’t look back.
“Autumn!”
Winter found her among the swirl of revelers. Some clustered around the windows, while others streamed into the foyer. Light bloomed on the lawn outside, and several of the window-gazers cried out. The musicians started up again, no doubt guessing that whatever was happening was part of the ordinary wildness of Hallowtide. It was chaos.
Autumn spied Emys and Kyffin by the windows. “Come on,” she said, pulling on Winter’s hand. He followed unquestioningly.
They discovered the source of the light as soon as they stepped outside. A ragged line of magicians had formed on the mountainside, staffs blazing as they chanted some spell. Their light became a wall that drifted down Mythroor toward—what? Autumn couldn’t see. The blaze of light made the shadows beyond seem thicker, heavier—her eyes couldn’t pierce them. The forest clustered at the base of the mountain, a well of darkness.
“There,” Winter murmured.
Autumn squinted. At first, she saw only a ripple of movement. Then she tasted ash on the air, and she knew.
The Hollow Dragon floated up the mountainside. His claws brushed the grass, and the decaying dragon skin fluttered in the wind. He was a towering shadow lit by two glowing points of light. Leaves, branches, even entire trees swirled around him. And drifting behind him like a net of fish behind a boat came an army of monsters.
23
IN WHICH AUTUMN WADES INTO THE STARS
Autumn’s heart faltered. There were wisps and humming dragons, tiny and drifting like reflected lights on a dark sea. But there were also gwarthegs, wild gwarthegs, lowing in their terribly human voices. And there were monsters Autumn didn’t recognize, which seemed to be made o
f sticks and ivy and gnarled bark. Lower-order monsters, all—she saw no large dragons or gwyllions.
“Why are they following him?” Winter asked.
“It’s like the forest, I think,” Autumn said. “The Hollow Dragon’s anger poisoned them.”
The wisps threw themselves at the wall of light. At first it seemed as if it would hold, but then it began to fray. The Hollow Dragon breathed a cloud of sparks and ash into it, and it tore. The monsters kept coming, moving higher and higher up the mountainside.
More magicians had joined the ragged group defending the school. They began weaving a fresh wall, but they were scared and clumsy. The Hollow Dragon’s wisps circled, biting and pulling at their hair. Their magic overflowed and spilled down the mountainside like too much paint layered onto a canvas. There was no organization, and Autumn wondered if any of the magicians had ever believed the school could be attacked. Students ran about like lost lambs.
“Where’s Cai?” someone cried.
“Why isn’t he here?”
Headmaster Neath strode forward, his silver-and-gold hair streaming behind him. He looked like a wall himself, noble and strong. She could hear the sighs of relief from the assembled students. A few weeks ago, Autumn might have sighed with them.
Now, though, as he went to meet the monster Autumn had fought in the Gentlewood, she stopped seeing him as some hero in a ballad, or a distant constellation. He was just a man, an old man, and she didn’t think he could stop the Hollow Dragon.
The headmaster gave a cry and thrust his staff into the air. It flared once, painting the mountainside with light. He turned the staff around and around in a complicated pattern, releasing a stream of light. It wove itself into a cloud of silver arrows flecked with bone-white feathers.
But Headmaster Neath was so focused on the towering Hollow Dragon that he couldn’t see anything else. Even when Autumn screamed a warning, he didn’t glance back.
Suddenly, he started and gave his leg a shake. A humming dragon tumbled free, its teeth bright with the headmaster’s blood.
The School between Winter and Fairyland Page 23