by Anna Sheehan
When Will came into the room he looked up from his book. ‘Good evening, Will,’ he said.
She looked at the windows. The shadows were lengthening. ‘Any change?’ she asked, knowing the answer.
‘Nothing,’ he said. He leaned over and touched Lavender’s still rosy cheek. ‘My poor darling.’
She was twitching with another nightmare. Will knew it was a mistake, but she couldn’t help herself. Something about the nightmares drew her. She had to know what was making Lavender whimper in her sleep. Will reached out and took her hand, tying herself to the dream sharing spell. Again, she was sucked through a tunnel into blackness.
Someone is shouting. I was in hiding, but I know I am revealed. There is someone I have to protect, and I can’t get to her. There is a horde of angry men between us. Some carry pitchforks, and mean to kill her. They’re shouting at us, ‘Demon! Evil! Kill it!’ I push between the men and they cry out when they catch sight of me. I’m nearly to her, I have my hand on her to protect her. One of the dirty pitchforks stabs into the back of my leg. The pain is terrible, shooting through me until my stomach heaves, and the blood drains from my face. I stumble and fall, screaming, screaming.
‘Will! Will!’
Will opened her eyes to find Ferdinand standing over her, shaking her shoulders. There was another sound distracting her, more than Ferdinand’s frantic crying of her name. She realized belatedly that it was her own screams. She closed her mouth. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered, gasping. The dream had frightened her, but she suspected it was Ferdinand’s hands on her shoulders that was really making her tremble. She was very close to his lips.
‘What was it?’ he asked, and she could smell his breath. He smelled of violet water and wine.
‘Her nightmare,’ Will said. ‘There was pain. Fear.’ She shuddered.
Ferdinand’s face crumpled and sucked in breath, holding back tears. Will wanted to reach out to him, but kept her hands at her sides. He swallowed. ‘Does my reading help her, do you think?’
Will shook her head. ‘These nightmares are too powerful for any voice to enter. I don’t even know who I am when I’m in them.’
He sighed and he sank to his knees before her. His hands slid down her arms to her elbows, but he didn’t let go of her. He looked exhausted. His skin was now nearly as pale as his hair. ‘How can you do it?’ she asked him. ‘How can you sit here, day after day?’
‘I must,’ he said, his voice hoarse with reading aloud. He looked up at her, willing her to understand. She stared at him. His face was haggard and his ice-blue eyes were cracked by red lines. ‘I have nothing now but my vigil.’
Will shook her head. ‘This can’t be why you left your father’s kingdom,’ she said. ‘This can’t have been what your fate held in store. You were granted courage and the gifts you needed to defeat the dragon and win the princess, only to sit staring at her bedside day after day, night after night, until you waste away to a shadow of grief?’
‘If the only thing I can offer my beloved is a shadow of grief, I will become it for her,’ he said. He stared into Will’s eyes. ‘You do what you must.’
‘But what if you don’t want it?’ she said. ‘What if it’s tearing you up inside until you feel like you’re going to scream? Until you hate everyone around you so terribly that if they could see it they’d shrivel on the spot?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. He shook his head. ‘You’re right. I look about me and I envy the happiness I see in others. I envy your father and mother for the love they share. I envy you.’
‘You envy me?’
‘You have lost nothing with this Sleep. You have gained again a kingdom.’
Will batted his arms away. ‘You know nothing. You believed from the first that I wanted to be queen. It was never anything I wanted. When you came home with Lavender I was so relieved! There was never anything I wanted more than for Lavender to come back.’ This was it. She told herself not to do it, not to say it, even as she found herself sliding off the bed, onto the floor before Ferdinand, almost into his arms. ‘There is nothing in the world I want more than to bring her back … for you.’
His breath caught, and his eyes closed.
‘I so want you to be happy,’ she whispered, telling herself to shut her mouth. ‘I love you so.’
He almost sobbed. ‘Thank you,’ he breathed. He reached for her and caught her up in a fierce, warm embrace.
Will’s insides melted. Ferdinand, her beloved Ferdinand, had caught her in his arms, held her against his bosom, and she was part of his sphere. He became a part of her, until she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. She could feel the kiss drawing her to him, like a pull on her lips. His breath tickled her cheek, his hands were so strong around her shoulders. His lips were a mere breath from hers. She closed her eyes …
And it broke. He had pulled away from her. He kissed her forehead as a brother. ‘I know Lavender knows how much you care for us, and want our happiness.’
He thought when she’d said you that she’d meant both of you. Part of her was very glad she hadn’t just completely muddled everything with her impulsive admission. Another part was heartbroken. Had he felt it, between them? Had there been anything on his side at all?
She could tell by his calm demeanour that there had not. He pulled away without any awkwardness, and sat back in his chair. Returning to his vigil over Lavender. He had embraced his sister, as he would embrace a child or a distant aunt. The magic between them was all in Will’s own head. She knew this was the case.
That didn’t stop it from hurting.
She had to find her feet. They seemed to have disappeared beneath her dress. It was a fight up a mountain to make herself stand. ‘Good evening, Ferdinand,’ she whispered.
He nodded cordially, but she didn’t wait to hear his farewell. She ran.
Damn him! Damn him for existing in the first place! Damn him for being so handsome and charming that everyone fell in love with him. Damn him for making me care for him so. Damn him for not loving me.
Damn me for loving him.
She fled to her chambers. The bloody message had been cleaned off her door, but she barely cared any more. Her door could have been aflame with the fires of all seven hells, and it wouldn’t have daunted her, so long as behind it lay escape. She slammed it behind her and flung open the door to her closet. She couldn’t see to find her cloak, and it was only then she realized she was still crying. She scrubbed the tears from her cheeks. Ah, there was the cloak. She pulled it on.
She was going to see Reynard. Injunction against magic or no, there was no one else she could trust in her wretched kingdom. Besides, she should make sure he knew that magic had been banned. From the look of his rumpled rags, he couldn’t afford to pay a fine and would likely end up imprisoned if he was caught breaking the law.
Mostly she wanted an excuse to flee the palace.
She pushed her way down the black passage to the secret door. She opened it into the blazing sunset. The sun had turned the snow to fire, and the winter thorns were thick, black smoke.
For everything that grows and every leaf
That hangs upon the climbing vine or tree
Blessed with sweet flower, wondrous belief,
That my poor will can overpower thee
For I am nature’s strength, her arm and hand
That binds the fruitful bounty of the land.
As always, the thorns ceased their writhing and stopped reaching for her. Reynard’s adaptation had made the spell much more reliable. She strode on through them confidently. But long before she reached the edge of the thorns, she could feel her spell weakening. She frowned and peered ahead through the fiery gloom. She should have left the thorns by now …
With an angry creak, some of the thorns reached for her. ‘AK! For I am nature’s strength, her arm and hand/ That binds the fruitful bounty of the land!’ She said it so quickly that many of the words slurred, but it worked. She looked around her. The thorns were quiver
ing, only barely held back by her abbreviated magic. She could see the well worn path behind her back to her secret entrance. When she tried to look past the thorns to the clear, she couldn’t find it. The thorns stretched on and on ahead of her. There … no. There! Her mouth opened. Fifty feet beyond the previous border of the hedge, the forest of briar roses stretched on into the gloom.
She couldn’t do it. It didn’t matter how powerful the spell was. By the time she got through one section of stilled thorns, she’d have to recite the spell again, and she couldn’t maintain it twice. Not reliably enough to get her through. Her second recitation was already crumbling, and any second the thorns would be upon her. Her royal blood was too sweet.
She turned and fled back toward the wall. Her cloak caught on a branch, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out and breaking the ill cast spell. She reached the wall before her botched spell shattered, leaving the thorns grasping for her arms. She slammed the secret entrance shut on them, and she could hear them strike against the stone facade of the door. They realized they could not reach into the passage. With a hiss and a shiver, they settled down again.
Will slid down the wall and stared into the blackness for what felt like hours. She was trapped. The main entrance was guarded not only by her mother’s guards, but by King Lesli’s as well, with their yellow and green livery and the Hiedelen identity tag around their necks like dogs.
She couldn’t escape. Her will about the subject be damned, as of this moment, there was only one road open for her. Her duty.
Chapter 11
* * *
Promises are tricky things. You can’t just go ignoring them. The failure to start is like a lie. It aches on you. Like a thorn embedded where you can’t reach. Throb, throb, throb. You haven’t fulfilled your promise. Throb, throb, throb. Time is ticking forward. Throb, throb.
It doesn’t help when your kit sister stares at you every time she sees you and asks, ‘Well? Have you found her yet?’ If I didn’t love her so much, it would be enough to make me hate her.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t trying to reach Mistress Caital. I’d get up every day and set off through the forest. I tried handling it systematically, but once I got past our little glade on the outskirts the forest changed daily. Sometimes I could hear the winter trees groaning and moving behind me as I walked. Sometimes I just closed my eyes and the forest changed with a blink. All I could do was keep muddling through until the forest spat me back out, usually some miles from where I started. It was hopeless.
I wasn’t really giving up, I told myself as I headed for the club. Maybe someone there had a clue. Maybe I needed to interact with another magic user. Maybe what I really needed was just a break. The city walls were closed but, even without wings, faeries can climb easily. I made it over the rough stone without issue.
The club was full, but there was no witchfire in the kitchen hearth as I slipped through the window. The subdued murmur I heard came from what had once been the parlour. I poked my head around the door.
More than a dozen people were clustered in little groups around the room. I’d never seen so many people in the club at any one time. ‘Hey, all,’ I said.
So many people glared at me my hand went up to check my hood. All was still concealed. ‘Well, old rumple’s still with us,’ said the whore.
The witch looked me up and down. ‘I can’t believe it! I thought sure you were in the dungeon with the rest of them!’
‘Rest of who?’ I asked. ‘Why’s everyone here?’
‘Lots of us have had our homes burnt by our friendly neighbours,’ the witch said. ‘Nowhere else to go.’
‘Burnt? Why? What’s happened?’
‘This,’ she said. She thrust a broadsheet under my nose. Very few people in the club knew I could read, but the witch was one of them.
Magic Banned, the broadsheet read. It has been the opinion of our good Queen Amaranth that, due to the unsettling nature of certain events in the city of Lyndaron and the Rose Palace, that magic and all practice, discussion and sale of magical goods or services are to be banned until further notice.
The sheet went on to list certain punishments, ranging from fines to imprisonment, depending on how the injunction had been broken, and then useful ways to spy on your family and friends, and whom to tell if you suspected a magic user in your area.
‘When was this?’ I asked. The broadsheet had no date.
‘Two days ago,’ the witch told me. ‘You hadn’t heard?’
‘I’ve been busy,’ I said.
‘Old Shine wanted a word with you before he went. He was waiting for you.’
Winnowinn was still in town? ‘Why’d he want a word with me?’
‘Dunno. I think he’s up in the observatory. He was expecting you today, must have a bit of foresight that faerie.’
‘Must have,’ I muttered. I backed out of the subdued parlour and up the creaking stairs to the observatory. I wondered if Junco knew the Sleep spell was mine.
‘I saw you come in,’ he said as I slunk into the observatory. ‘I told the witch to send you up.’
‘I had questions,’ I said. ‘What’s going on? Why suddenly ban magic?’
‘I think it has to do with this Sleep that has infected the princess,’ Junco said. ‘They’re taking all precautions.’
I shook my head. ‘They can’t think this has anything to do with the local hedgewitches.’
Junco shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter what they think. This is what they’ve done. I have to get back to Fortress Frost, but I wanted to talk to you.’
I prepared myself for a fight. ‘Of what?’
‘Before they got all paranoid about magic again, they summoned me to the palace. Well, they summoned Mistress Isolde, but she sent message to accept me in her stead, lest there was aught she could do. There isn’t. This spell is beyond us. It draws shadows ’round your heart, and absorbs any magic which tries to fight it, only making it stronger.’
I swallowed. This was a Nameless spell indeed, cast in shadow, drawing in all because there was a void to fill. I hoped he hadn’t noticed that. I made quite sure I was standing in the shade.
‘When it became clear I could do nothing the queen grew quite angry. She demanded that I contact Mistress Caital, and they all grew considerably irate when I told her I could not.’
I raised an eyebrow. Was Will talking about me? ‘The reason they reinstated this law is because you refused to contact Faerie Caital?’
‘I didn’t refuse,’ Junco said. ‘We can’t contact her because she doesn’t want us to. She was always a little eccentric, and she’s gotten worse since the end of the interregnum. Queen Amaranth didn’t believe me when I said that only those Cait wants to see are allowed through the enchanted forest. It wasn’t until after she accepted we couldn’t reach her that this law came down.’
‘So you can’t get through the forest either?’ I asked, hoping I didn’t sound obvious in my inquisition.
He shook his head. ‘I’ve asked. Several times. The forest keeps sending me away.’
‘Wait, what do you mean, you’ve asked? If you can’t contact her, how can she know to send you away?’
‘I’ve asked the forest. That’s both the door and the guard at the door. If the forest doesn’t let you through, that’s the end of that.’
Ask the forest. That hadn’t occurred to me.
‘Why do you care about Caital?’ he asked. I had been rather blatant.
‘I’m living by the edge of the forest,’ I said truthfully. ‘It’s good to know one’s environment. Why did you want to talk to me?’
‘They’re banning faerie magic, now,’ he said. ‘I’ve been banished back up to the fastness. If I show my face outside again I’ll be arrested with the rest of them.’
‘They are truly arresting all magic users?’
‘Aye. At the moment the Winnowinn clan is to stay in their fastness. If this persists, the queen tells me we may be banished from the kingdom altogether. I thought you sho
uld know.’
‘What difference would it make to me?’
‘I want you to get out of the kingdom.’
I blinked. ‘What?’
‘You heard me. The climate here is about to get very cold towards people like us.’
‘But, as you know, I am not like you,’ I told him. ‘I doubt I’d notice a difference.’
‘You may not,’ Junco said. ‘But I thought it a kindness to warn you all the same.’
‘Yes, such a kindness. You know full well there’s nowhere else we can go. The other faerie clans have been very clear on that point. The Nameless are not permitted to intrude on their territory.’
Junco tilted his head. If I didn’t know better, I’d have said he was a little uncomfortable. ‘I suspect that an exception could possibly be made in your case. Your taint is by association, not from any crime you yourself have committed.’
‘How do you know?’ I said. ‘I could be committing crimes left and right. I could be the demon they call me.’
Junco shook his head. ‘I suspect you aren’t a demon.’
‘If you’re so concerned about us, invite us to your fastness,’ I said. ‘We’ll share your internment in the north.’ The lack of response was all the reply I needed. ‘No. I thought not. Thank you for your warning, but I’ll take my chances with the same thugs who have always been after me, rather than cross borders and deal with fellow faeries who despise me with the added benefit of power.’ I turned to go, and then hesitated at the door. ‘How does it feel, Junco? To have everyone hate you for what you are? To have your very existence outlawed?’
Junco gazed back at me. ‘Not good.’
‘You still enjoy watching my envy?’
He looked down, fluttering his white wings. ‘I don’t pretend to be an angel.’
Whatever reply I might have made to that was drowned out by a sudden scream from below. Without looking at each other, Junco and I both fled down the rickety stairs. Or rather, I fled, he flew. A terrible banging was coming from the front door. The door was nailed shut, but that didn’t seem to disturb whoever was on the other side. The door splintered in on itself, revealing an entire squad of the queen’s soldiers. Or I thought they were at first; on second glance, half the livery was of the green and gold of Hiedelen’s guards. I felt a stab of anger. Of course; my spell puts half the soldiers to sleep, so what does the royalty do? Just go and get more! People were expendable to royals.