Blood, Glass and Sugar

by Lyndsay E Gilbert

  “I feel so safe now, Prince Charming,” Trix said, fluttering her eyelashes.

  Auran smiled charmingly, and it seemed her sarcasm was lost on him.

  Bran set the dagger he was holding down on the floor, and Trix saw several drops of blood drip from his hand. “So pray tell, what is your plan to anger me? Don’t you think he’s going to know it is a trap?”

  Auran spread his hands out. “It is not a trap. We merely let him know that Evie is here for the killing. If he does not kill her he loses the other sins forever, and lives eternity as a-”

  “I often wonder if you truly understand any of this?” Bran interrupted.

  Trix sat down on the weapon chest with a sigh as he continued.

  “You wish to unseal the King of Unseelie, and I am supposed to rejoice for that? Need I remind you that he did this to me? I don’t suppose we shall be having the celebratory party together once the spell is broken.”

  Auran folded his arms across his chest. Trix had to admit she was curious as much as Bran.

  “I am sure the King regrets that he acted in such haste as far as your curse was concerned. It caused him as much trouble as you.”

  Bran laughed, kicking the dagger at his feet into the wall. “I doubt that. I was a slave in his court while I crafted his damn prison, and I have never seen such depravity. What he does when he is released is unpredictable.”

  “What he does is irrelevant to me. There will be war until he is returned to his Court. Kings from faerie courts over this world and a hundred others keep attacking, and I refuse to be the one risking my life for something that isn’t even mine.”

  “I almost forgot, you’re blood is Seelie. One of the angelic folk.” Bran clasped his hands behind his back and paced the floor. “I thought that was supposed to make you helpful.”

  “If you haven’t realised yet, angels and faeries are different,” Auran snapped. “ I didn’t float in here with feathers and a harp ready to answer your prayers. I have my own ends, and I keep telling you so.”

  “Well I don’t trust you,” Bran said, slouching back against the wall.

  Trix spoke before they could go on. “Right, so now we’ve established our feelings. How about some action, boys?”

  Auran smiled, a smile that reminded Trix he wasn’t human. “Yes the fun part.” Before anyone could guess what he was up to, he sprang across the room, and gripped Bran’s shirt. Bran barely had time to protest before he was flung out the door into the hallway. He smashed against the banister of the stairs.

  Evie streaked past Trix trying to follow them out. Bran was trying to get to his feet as she went, and it was the last thing they saw before Auran slammed the door shut and locked them both in.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The day slipped by without Louise rising from her sitting position in front of the mirror. Finvarra showed her everything. His beautiful image disappeared, replaced by an arrogant young Richard, and Evie’s pregnant mother. They argued, and he lied. Louise saw other women, other beds.

  She saw his wife all alone in the house, watched her trip and fall down the stairs. Then the hospital room, and a premature baby. Louise watched Evie’s mother bleed to death, while across the city Richard made love to another woman.

  Louise was cold inside. She didn’t care when the image changed again, to show Richard now, her Richard, with his other woman, champagne glasses chinking. Louise touched her own belly and wondered.

  He could go to hell.

  She giggled, going forward onto her hands and knees as Finvarra reappeared in his tower. She crawled closer, laughing harder. He stood from his seat at the small wooden table, setting down a feather quill as he rose.

  He rolled a small piece of parchment, and walked to an arched window, opening it out to a roiling sky above. A crow perched on the windowsill, and he tied the parchment to it, whispering in its ear before it took flight. She watched it fly into the moon.

  Her room plunged into utter dark. When she looked to her own window the curtains were fluttering. She had not known it was open. She glanced back to find that Finvarra was watching the window as well, a welcoming light in his ebony eyes.

  “A visitor, “ he whispered.

  Light flooded the room, bright as the floodlights of a car. Lou fell back, shielding her eyes. She squinted, straining to see. A woman’s face, silver strands of hair as thin as spider-webs and a crescent, lunar smile.

  She came into the room, her bare feet padding on the wooden floor, her pale dress glowing softly. Her belly was round with the swell of pregnancy, bloated like a full moon. She smoothed it with bony hands. Behind her Lou saw that the sky was empty and black outside. Mother Moon had come to visit, just as Finvarra had promised.

  * * *

  The battle still raged outside the door. Evie and Trix had given up trying to pick the lock, neither of them being experts at it. Evie no longer flinched at every crack and crash as bodies hit metal, and fists hit bodies outside. She was immune. The sun was already gone from the sky. Evie’s stomach rumbled, whether with not having eaten or with nerves she didn’t know. Probably both.

  Trix was slumped on the sofa glaring at the door as if her eyes could burn it down, and maybe set the boys who were fighting in the hall on fire as well.

  “This can’t go on forever,” she groaned.

  Evie shrugged, checking her watch. “It can only go on for another few hours, midnight’s not going to wait forever to get here.”

  As if on cue a clock out in the hall began to chime the hour, up to ten. The sounds in the hall intensified and Evie stood up from the weapons chest, her heart speeding up. The walls were changing, colours melting down like rain on a watercolour painting. Trix stood up also, her jaw dropping slightly as she gazed at their surroundings.

  The room transformed, the door disappearing and reappearing on the opposite side. The wall opened out into the corridor. But it was no longer Bran’s home, with his hanging works of art. Instead instruments of war lined the walls, swords of every nation and type, maces and axes. Evie saw the silver hook of a scythe glinting in the light at the end of the hallway, propped casually against an imposing, gothic doorframe.

  She heard the boys before she saw them. A clanging of metal, and gruff shouting reached her ears before Auran stumbled backwards out of an open door just left of where Evie was standing. Bran was in close pursuit, but though he kept his pale skin and dark eyes, he was no longer himself.

  Wrath swung his sword, not with the wild abandon that should have accompanied his name, but with a cruel precision, slashing towards Auran’s stomach as he retreated. The sword scathed its mark, slicing through Auran’s doublet in a thin line.

  Evie looked about for something to help her but the weapons chest was nowhere in sight. Trix stood without animation, staring at what had become of Bran, taking in his feathered hat and strange outfit. He looked almost like a highwayman from an old picture book, except with less humanity in his eyes, and certainly less romance.

  Auran didn’t seem bothered by his wound, barely glancing down to check it as he parried another strike from Wrath’s relentless sword. Wrath gave no quarter, charging forward in offence. Auran was backing further up the hall, closer and closer to the scythe.

  Wrath was enjoying himself it seemed, and as he continued his attack, his cold gaze slid to Evie where she watched. “How foolish of you to come here,” he said.

  He lowered his sword, and Auran jutted forward. Wrath sidestepped easily and took several graceful steps in Evie’s direction. He didn’t get very close before Auran’s sword blocked his progress. The onslaught continued. Wrath was growing impatient, his cruel composure crumbling, replaced by fierce desperation, but it didn’t make him any less precise in his art.

  Auran’s attacked his wrist, trying to disarm him. Wrath remained in control, though his anger was growing, making Bran’s eyes blaze, demon-like. Evie remembered seeing those eyes before and thinking that only Bran lay behind them. Bran, full of hate. She tol
d herself now it was only a curse, and a curse could be broken.

  A pain lanced through her head, and she stumbled back into Trix. She was vaguely aware that Trix tried to catch her, but she slumped down to the hard ground. There was a wet, slapping sound as she did and she looked around her in confusion.

  She was wearing a green gown, and the skirts splayed around her were soaked in hot, dark blood. Her own blood. It was gushing out of a burning hole in her chest. She choked and wiped her mouth with a shaking, mud-caked hand. When it came away she saw it too was smeared in blood.

  “What-” she tried to speak, but her throat tightened up, leaving her mute. She looked for Trix, for Auran, but she was no longer in Bran’s house. She was in a wooden cottage. And only Wrath was there with her now. He was wiping his stained glass sword with a handkerchief, cold and meticulous. Then she heard the high wail of a baby, and saw behind him an old swinging cradle. The small cherub-like hands of a child reached up to be lifted.

  Wrath re-sheathed his sword and turned to the cradle, cooing nonsense words. He reached into the cradle and Evie saw the baby, her baby, clutch his bloodstained finger.

  * * *

  Trix hauled Evie to the far end of the room, trying to keep as much distance between her and the homicidal Bran as possible. Evie’s eyes were closed, but she was definitely breathing. Her cries tried to form into screams, but died as little gasps on her lips.

  Trix had to remind herself to breathe as well. There was an anxious weight in her breast, the beginning of a panic attack. She tried to keep it under control. Tried to ignore Auran and Wrath as they fought. She could barely look now. She couldn’t stand when it looked like Auran might falter. If he did, Evie was going to get cleaved in two.

  She leaned her friend against the wall, propping her into a sitting position and slapping her cheek. Evie groaned, pulling to the side in an attempt to get out of Trix’s reach.

  “Evie, wake up. Come on!”

  Her violet eyelids flickered, and the little blood left drained from her face. She opened her eyes, and Trix couldn’t help but jump back at the suddenness of it. Evie seemed alert, and manic.

  “My baby,” she croaked, and scrabbled forward, knocking Trix off balance. Auran had Wrath backed against the wall, and Wrath was escaping each attack, sliding just out of range, sinuous and lithe.

  Then Evie sprung like a cat. She dived at Wrath, sending him sprawling. The glass sword shot from his grasp and clattered onto the floor, skimming half the length of the hall before coming to a stop. Trix stared as Evie used the full advantage of Wrath’s shock to scurry towards the weapon before he could grasp what had happened to him. Auran was ahead of her, reaching down to grab the hilt.

  Wrath recovered swiftly, climbing to his feet and taking several strides forward. He grabbed Evie’s hair; a fistful of her ink black curls tangling between his fingers before he yanked on it hard. She fell back, and Trix felt herself moving into action, her hand still clutched the dagger she had taken from the chest. Her fingers curled so tight around the hilt that they were damp and numb.

  Wrath hauled Evie against him, locking an arm around her neck. Trix felt her insides twist, and bile sting her throat as she realised that Wrath meant to break Evie’s neck. His other hand reached round and grasped her quivering jaw.

  Trix didn’t plan ahead. She pounced on him viciously, all thoughts of Bran disappearing as she sank the blade into his shoulder. She wasn’t prepared for the tearing sound as it sliced through his skin and into the soft flesh beneath. She had never thought just how pathetically fragile human skin was.

  Wrath released Evie, and she fell forward. Trix saw that she was no less determined than she had been on waking. Driven by something that made her eyes half wild. Relentless, she dashed towards Auran, who was holding the sword out for her to take.

  Wrath shoved Trix aside in his attempt to get to Evie, yelling out as her fingers slid over the hilt of his precious sword, and then curled around it, squeezing so hard her knuckles whitened.

  Auran interceded Wrath’s charge, holding his sword out so that Wrath was forced to run off course to avoid impaling himself.

  “Go, Evie. Outside now!”

  Evie hadn’t needed to be told, she was already making for the Gothic doorway at the end of the tunnel. Trix ran after her, though it felt like she was running in sand, and her legs kept failing to support her.

  Wrath made a growl of frustration as Evie reached the doorway, but to everyone’s surprise she never had to open it. In that instant, the door was thrown open from the other side, and a man stepped into the hall.

  “Your Highness, there’s been ano-”

  Trix only just had time to recognise his face before the scythe that had been propped against the wall at the side of the door swung down in an arc and cleaved his head from his neck.

  The head hit the floor with a wet thud, but Trix couldn’t take her eyes off some severed gold-blonde hair that floated down in the air after it, glinting like something magical in the candlelight. It was smeared with purple blood.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Evie froze, feeling blood spray her face like warm rain. The faerie’s head rolled to her feet and when it stopped she could see a face staring up at her, eyes still wide, mouth opened with the words he’d come to speak.

  Her hand went lax, the sword handle slipping out of her sweat soaked palm. She heard a gentle laugh from behind her, and did not need to turn to know that Wrath was escaping. The glass sword disappeared before it could even clatter to the ground.

  The house shifted so that she was standing at the doorway leading out to the shop. All the weapons were gone, including the scythe that had killed the faerie knight.

  She expected Auran to yell at her, to curse and make a scene because she’d let Wrath go, but he was silent. Trix didn’t speak either, just stared down at the head and the body, her eyes eventually resting on the cleanly severed neck, where blood still ran, pooling on the floor.

  Auran released a loud breath of air that broke the silence. Evie managed to turn and face him, seeing Bran standing just behind him, also staring at the fallen knight. Auran’s face was drawn of colour.

  “Was he a friend?” she asked, the words croaking from dried up lips.

  Auran didn’t look at her, still watching the body. “What does that matter?”

  “I’m sorry.” Evie said.

  “He needs to be buried-”

  Heavy footsteps broke him off, and another of the Unseelie knights marched up the stairwell and into the hall. He almost tripped on his comrade’s body. Evie expected him to be horrified, but he gave the beheaded corpse a cold, acknowledging glance before turning his attention to Auran.

  “There’s been an attack at Court. You’re needed there immediately, Highness.” He gave a shallow bow, Evie thought she saw the edges of his dark blue lips curling very slightly, but his black hair fell forward to shield his features. When he straightened his lips were solemn, but the wicked merriness had found a home inside his eyes.

  The silence in the room was charged. Auran took in one sharp breath before he answered the knight. “I have a job to do tonight. I’ve no choice but to put you in charge. Consider yourself my new General. I will return with the King, and if he comes back to find that you’ve let some usurper sit on his throne he won’t think you’ve provided him with a suitable homecoming.”

  The mocking light went out of the new General’s eyes like a doused candle flame. He stuttered when he spoke. “B-but your-”

  “Get out and stop wasting my time!” Auran yelled. He stepped forward and shoved the man back so he stumbled down the stairs and into the shop. They heard him pull the front door open and run out into the street.

  When Auran turned back to face the rest of them his eyes were dead. “I guess now you get to see your stepmother, Evie. We have to get something from her.”

  “And what about Wrath?” Bran spoke for the first time, his voice tentative.

  “He’s comin
g with us,” Auran said.

  This time no one argued.

  * * *

  They walked through the streets in silence. No one dared to say a word in case Auran exploded. Trix walked a few paces behind and could see how Bran stared at the world around him, a world he hadn’t known for centuries.

  Cars drove by when they reached the main street, and crossed over to the row of houses where Evie lived. Bran’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything, merely turned his head and watched the cars drive by.

  Auran stormed ahead. He looked impressive in the blizzard of snowflakes spinning around him. Like some mythical Ice Prince.

  His face had not shown a single emotion since he’d hauled the headless body of the young knight out of the hallway and into one of Bran’s bedrooms. He hadn’t let anyone else touch it, and Trix for one had been a little relieved inside.

  She felt a heavy pressure in her stomach, and couldn’t forget the fact that it had been that boy who had shown her that Auran had enough goodness in him to inspire love and loyalty. He’d almost convinced her she could trust Auran, and now she knew Auran was wishing more than anything that he had made the boy go to Seelie, willing or not.

  As they neared Evie’s house Trix saw that the front door was wide open, and snow had drifted into the hall. Evie sped up, hurrying past Auran and stumbling up the icy steps into the house. Trix ran behind her, praying that Lou would be okay.

  * * *

  Evie climbed the stairs, legs shaking under her. She tried to call for Lou, but her voice wouldn’t come. It was like being a child again, half waking from a nightmare and making silent, shuddering screams.