Phantom Pains

by Mishell Baker

  “Jesus,” I said into the silence.

  We all stood and stared at it for a moment.

  “Makes sense they’d deliver it during the night,” said Tjuan. “Fewer people to get curious about what’s in the box.”

  “Now that I’m looking at that thing,” I said, “I can see why it takes some empty-headed critter like Blesskin to play it. Pretty sure any rational being would drop dead or go crazy if they touched it.” I turned to study Brand. I wasn’t great at deciphering dogs’ facial expressions, but his fixed gaze suggested curiosity at the very least.

  “Do you remember the harp,” I asked him, “now that Parisa cleared your head?”

  “I’ve never seen it before,” he said. “I was never close to Court; that was a whole other part of the world. Besides, I was nobody; my mane was hardly grown in. So this is . . . weird. To look at that thing and know she touched it—maybe even made it—it makes my fur stand on end a little.”

  Naderi moved to stand next to him, stroking him sympathetically, even though there was no way she could understand what we were discussing. Claybriar had always known what I felt too, often when it made no sense even to me.

  Not now, Millie. Don’t fall apart.

  “That whole legend that Dame Belinda told me,” I said. “About the last queen, the war, her suicide. Is all that true?”

  “I don’t know what your dame told you, but I remember the war. I remember hearing when the queen died. She was a celebrity, you know? Shiverlash—that’s probably the best translation of her name. The most powerful siren who ever lived, arguably the most powerful fey. I never saw her, but everyone knew of her.”

  “Was she really a beast? Or is that just propaganda?”

  “I only knew her by her politics, and my feelings were . . . mixed. Don’t get me wrong; I find the Seelie as frivolous and useless as the next guy, but something felt off about trying to exterminate them just because they were stupid. So when she took herself out of the picture . . . it wasn’t entirely a bad thing for Arcadia. But the Accord—the sidhe taking advantage of everyone’s fear to stage a coup—that was horrible. End-of-days horrible. Unseelie followed their queen’s example and killed themselves in droves.”

  “Oh my God. Why?”

  “I can’t even describe the upheaval. It happened so quickly you barely needed a memory to watch the world change. Somehow in what must have been a couple of days, we went from being on the verge of wiping out the Seelie to being ruled by them. People couldn’t cope.”

  “Wait, ruled by the Seelie? I didn’t hear that part.”

  “The sidhe, I mean,” said Brand. “All sidhe were Seelie back then. They sent us their princess as part of the treaty, and everything went to hell.”

  “A princess? This part I definitely didn’t hear.”

  “Really? She’s what started the whole thing. The Seelie King and Queen were sidhe, right?”

  “If you say so.”

  “They were. And our king, you’d probably call him an ogre or something. He fell in love with the Seelie princess, courted her on the sly. Shiverlash found out and went totally batshit, escalated the war to all-out genocide. So ogre-king begged the Seelie princess to murder his wife. That way, by the old rules, she’d be queen instead, right?”

  “This actually happened? This sounds more like a fairy tale than Dame Belinda’s version.”

  “I was there. This little Seelie princess, she was going to do it. Kill Shiverlash. Not sure if she had a thing for ogres, or was leaping at the chance to destroy Public Enemy Number One, or just wanted to be a queen without killing her own mom. But her dad got wind of the plan and wasn’t cool with giving his daughter away to an ogre, so he tattled to the siren queen, and well, you know what happened next.”

  “I’m not really sure I do, at this point, aside from Shiverlash killing herself. Did the princess marry the ogre?”

  “Yeah, as part of the treaty. Became princess-consort of the Unseelie, turned every bit as ugly and mean as her husband. The first Unseelie sidhe. Because all the bigwigs got together and made these rules with the scepters, and about how the thrones can only pass to sidhe. Your Accord. Now the ogre-king was a lame duck, the sidhe consort got herself knocked up by some Seelie duke, and their sidhe son was next in line. Not only was Shiverlash the last Unseelie Queen, but the guy who betrayed her ended up being the last real Unseelie King.”

  “Winterglass isn’t Unseelie?”

  “Oh I suppose he is, technically. He uses Unseelie magic, and so did his parents and his grandparents. But not all fey races are designed to go either way, no matter how many generations deep their allegiances go.”

  “I thought all you had to do was kneel a certain way.”

  “Look, if manticores swore themselves Seelie, they would still suck at it, right? And so would their cubs, and their cubs’ cubs. Make us as pretty and feathery as you want on the outside; poison and terror are buried deep in our bones. And the sidhe . . . they’re addicted to beauty, so of course Winterglass can’t help but hate the people he rules.”

  “Sounds like things in Arcadia kind of suck for everyone.”

  “Everyone but the Seelie sidhe,” said Brand. “They’re the ones who really won that war.”

  I stared at the harp and felt a strange moment of empathy for the lost Unseelie Queen. Back at UCLA I’d watched my lover-turned-nemesis use his power to undermine me, and it had driven me off a roof. But there my similarities to Shiverlash ended; I hadn’t been trying to wipe out an entire population.

  I looked around the soundstage as though its contents might inspire me. There really wasn’t much else there, except for a long table and some folding chairs off to the side. They must have brought them in during the night in anticipation of a meeting.

  “Brand,” I said, “how fast can you go down that list you and Tjuan made and turn those wraiths into wards?

  “Charms would work better,” he said. “Charms are quicker, and plus, wards are huge spells. I’m no expert on your world, but I suspect if we layer too many wards on top of one another, especially Unseelie ones, really unpleasant things will happen. Get me about four hundred of some kind of small object, though, and I should be able to lock down the whole list in a couple of hours.”

  “That’s about all we have. The ritual is scheduled for one o’ clock. But I don’t have four hundred of anything.”

  Naderi moved to the long table and plunked her bag down on it, rifling through. “I’ve got . . . a deck of cards?” she said.

  “That’s only fifty-two,” said Tjuan.

  “Do pages of a book count as separate?” She pulled out a battered paperback: A Game of Thrones. “I’m never going to finish the damned thing anyway.”

  “Hey!” said Brand, perking up excitedly. “That’s perfect. Because there’s a sequence to the names, so a sequenced object . . . yes! Not sure I can hold them on paper for more than a couple weeks, but that should be enough for a demonstration, right? Tjuan, you can even write the page numbers down next to the names on your list! Then we can spend the next few days calling them out one by one and finding better places for them.”

  Naderi handed Tjuan the book; he flipped through its pages with a wry smile. “Congratulations, Brand; you finally found a way to make this thing grimmer.”

  “Good idea for a charm, actually,” said Brand. “I’ll make each page extra depressing.” He gave a vicious doggy grin.

  At first I was excited to see the process of binding the wraiths into the book, but as it turned out, it was every bit as entertaining as secretarial work, and a lot stinkier. It consisted of nearly two hours of droning Unseelie spells by Brand and careful note taking by Tjuan. I couldn’t really help with either, so I parked myself at the table with Naderi to play an interminable game of double solitaire. Every so often, when Brand would start to tire, Naderi got up to give him a few pats, and he’d start into the project with renewed vigor. He managed to bind the last wraith into the book about twenty minutes before one
o’clock, then immediately collapsed for a nap.

  “Are we sure that’s all of them?” I asked Tjuan in a half whisper when he drifted near the table, as if anything short of an air horn to the face would wake the dog now.

  “He said he’s sure,” Tjuan said. “Vivian told him about the ritual she did back when she made the wraiths. One represented each day of the Arcadian year, and their names have to do with the days—he tried to explain it to me but it was very . . . fey. Short version—he’s sure.”

  “So now all we have to—”

  I’d hardly started my sentence before the cavalry arrived. I’m not sure literal horses would have made it any more intimidating. They came in a pack: king and queen and dame and Alvin, Claybriar carrying Blesskin, everyone talking over one another about the harp in that tense, loud, overly agreeable way that’s just a veiled argument waiting to get naked.

  I met Claybriar’s eyes for just a moment, and my insides went liquid, so I forced myself to look away.

  “Hey, everyone!” I said in a sharp enough voice to poke a hole in their conversation. “Great news! We don’t have to use the harp after all!”

  Tjuan presented the book to Dame Belinda. “Our friend Brand here has bound all three hundred sixty-five wraiths into this book.”

  Belinda gave Tjuan a long, unnecessarily cold look that reminded me how deeply racist many old white people are, then took a pair of reading glasses from her handbag and opened the book to peer inside.

  “Very clever,” she said, turning a page forward, then back. Either those were fey glasses she was wearing, or the pages were altered to plain sight in some way I hadn’t noticed before wandering off. She closed the book then and tuck it in her handbag, making a muscle in Tjuan’s jaw twitch. “And the dog, I am led to understand, is our manticore?”

  Naderi, the only person in the room who didn’t seem intimidated by Dame Belinda, nudged Brand with her foot, waking him. “This is Brand,” she said. “My Echo. He did all the work, spent two hours at it.”

  “A pleasure to meet you,” said Dame Belinda with remarkable aplomb as Brand clambered drowsily to his feet. “Mr. Lamb has told me of you.”

  “That’s all of them,” Brand said with a huge, fanged yawn. “Every spirit that was serving Vivian.”

  “Very well done, all of you.” Dame Belinda turned to me, slipping her glasses back into her bag. “Miss Roper, as controversial as your actions have been, it seems that I was correct in assuring Alvin that there must be sound reasoning behind them. We will need to work on enticing you to trust your superiors and proper procedure, but one cannot argue with your results.”

  Blindsided once again by unexpected support, I glanced at Claybriar. A sad smile tilted his mouth. He was proud of me, even now. I felt giddy with gratitude, and dangerously close to hugging them both.

  “I . . .”

  “Just thank her,” Tjuan whispered between clenched teeth.

  “Thank you,” I said dutifully.

  “Now,” said Belinda, turning to Alvin. “Let us have our harpist do her work, and then we can begin the meeting.”

  “Wait, what?” I said.

  “Millie . . .” Tjuan said warningly.

  I ignored him. “Why are we still playing the harp? The reason Brand did all this is so that you wouldn’t have to.”

  “It was an excellent plan, and he has done well, but unfortunately as head of the Arcadia Project I have access to information I cannot share, information that suggests more extreme measures are necessary at least for now.” She smiled a little, softening her words, but they still carried a discussion-over sort of vibe.

  Time for the Hail Mary pass. I sidled my way over to Winterglass, and as soon as Alvin set Blesskin down on the floor, I grabbed the king by the wrist.

  His blowtorch eyes turned to me in shock, but after a brief, gentle effort to withdraw from my iron grip he seemed to decide that further physical struggle was beneath his dignity.

  “Is there some reason for—” he began in a chill whisper, but Blesskin had already spotted him. Recognizing the man from the drawing, she instantly ran to prostrate herself at his feet.

  37

  Queen Dawnrowan shrieked. Claybriar reached to catch the queen as her knees went out, and I let go of Winterglass so that the king could rush over to the lady’s aid as well. Now everyone was thoroughly distracted by the swooning damsel.

  Except for Blesskin of course: the king’s newest little Unseelie subject. She was intently focused on me, waiting eagerly, so I slipped my hand into my pocket and retrieved the single sugar cube I’d smuggled out of the Berenbaums’ house. It disappeared so fast I’m not sure anyone could have spotted it in my hand even if they’d been looking at me.

  “Blesskin!” Alvin of all people finally barked. “What are you thinking? Swear fealty to your queen immediately!”

  But of course, Blesskin didn’t understand. Queen Dawnrowan snapped something at her too, but, apparently, without arcane compulsion or sugar cubes, there was nothing in the world that could make Blesskin do anything that she didn’t damn well feel like doing. Right now she seemed to feel mostly like dancing in a circle and singing a creepy little song to herself.

  “This complicates matters,” said Dame Belinda dryly. She was no idiot; she was looking directly at me. And I think she’d gotten over being pleased by my initiative. “She’s now a member of the Unseelie Court; she cannot touch the harp. Millie, would you care to explain why you have—somehow—sabotaged these proceedings? The why is what concerns me; you needn’t explain how unless it pleases you.”

  “We can’t play the harp here,” I said. “I was worried I couldn’t convince you of that, so I did what I had to do. I’m sorry. I haven’t broken any rules.”

  “I will allow this much:” said Dame Belinda, “this is certainly the least destructive way you might have interrupted these proceedings. But I do not think you realize how catastrophic the results will be if there is even one wraith still free.”

  “Did Alvin tell you what arcane energy actually is?”

  “The commoners have always believed in spirits,” said Belinda. “And while I have no intention of interfering with their religion, I do not adhere to it.”

  “Can I say something?” said Claybriar.

  Dame Belinda turned to him, and for a moment I saw the same sort of distaste flicker over her expression that she had shown when she looked at Tjuan. “Do you feel it would add substantively to the discussion?”

  “Since I’m the only person I know of who has converted from the commoner beliefs to the sidhe ones, and then converted back? Yeah, I think it would add.”

  At last Belinda was able to master her sense of outraged superiority and inclined her head to him in patient acquiescence.

  “I’ve been sick about this plan, ever since I heard of it,” Claybriar said quietly, his voice almost swallowed up by the great empty soundstage. “I know it’s hard for you to understand, because the only spirits you’ve ever spoken to are wraiths, and they’re not great poster kids for a race. But I’ve spent my whole life in the most . . . beautiful relationship with the best of the spirits. Even when I was ‘taught better,’ those lessons never quite stuck. I know what I experienced.”

  “Tell us the truth, then,” said Belinda evenly, “as you see it.”

  “Half of the spirits you’re about to trap here . . . they’re the ones who least deserve it. The innocents, the very essence of beauty, of desire, of laughter. They’re everything that has ever made life worth living, joy given life and purpose. And when you bring them here, they won’t know what’s happening. They’ll forget what it was to move, to flow, to breathe. Imagine if you couldn’t speak or even blink, trapped somewhere in the dark. Imagine that going on so long you forgot anything else. What would be left of you? And you’re about to do that to the most beautiful beings in our world. You can’t.”

  “Well, we most certainly cannot now,” said Dame Belinda, “as our harpist is currently unable to
touch the instrument. But I’ll confess that your words are moving, and there are certainly portions of your argument that—”

  Queen Dawnrowan didn’t let her finish. Possibly the first living being to dare interrupt Dame Belinda, the queen suddenly cried out something unmistakably commanding in the Seelie tongue.

  And Claybriar, like an automaton, started toward the harp.

  “Don’t!” I cried, on my way to him almost before she finished speaking, because I knew what she had commanded. Intercepting him, I locked my arms around him and planted my prosthetic feet in a wide stance that I hoped was more stable than it felt. “Don’t!” I said again, but to the queen this time, even though I knew she didn’t understand me. “Why would you do this to him? How could you make him be the one to destroy his own gods! He won’t ever, ever forget!”

  “Millie,” said Claybriar hoarsely. “You’re going to have to let go of me.”

  “No!” I said, looking up at him. The real him, horns and all. “Not a chance.”

  “She ordered me,” he choked out, his strong hands digging into my arms, prying them away. “I can’t help but fight you. You’ll get hurt.”

  “Better me than your gods,” I said. “I’ll understand. I’ll get over it. No matter what you do to me, it won’t make you not my Echo anymore.”

  “Let go!” he said, and then shoved me away with a sound as though he were wrenching his leg out of a bear trap. I staggered back a few steps, but managed to stay between him and the harp. As he advanced, I tried to stop him again, but he was too strong, too heavy; all I succeeded in doing was getting myself waltzed backward toward it.

  Both Tjuan and Alvin started toward us at a sprint, but it was too late. Clay tried to push me to the side, reach past me to the harp, but I got there first. Wrapped my hand right around its spine.

  Which obviously, in hindsight, was a really bad move. But I don’t think anyone could have predicted how bad.

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but being blown back twenty feet by a blast of greenish-purple light and coming damn close to breaking my neck in a near back somersault on the soundstage floor was definitely not it.