by A. R. Kahler
The dagger burns bright. Hot.
At first, I think perhaps I have found a way to scream.
Then I realize it is Mab.
Light pours from the wound in her chest. Screams out with her shrieking voice. A brilliant violet light, fierce and strong. It cracks over her skin, turns pale flesh black, chars leather to stone. The fire builds. Power grows. The only sound is her screaming, screaming. The only sight is the terrible violet light. Then the light turns to flame. It curls over her skin, consumes her, burning darker than shadow, blacker than night. The flames swallow her whole, and just when it seems the agony will go on forever, the scream cuts short. Slashed by a dagger.
The light burns out. Leaving nothing but snow and ash.
When Penelope releases my hand, the dagger clatters from my grip to the cold stone.
The Winter Queen is no more.
Twelve
The power holding me in place vanishes. I crumple into myself. I can’t take my eyes off of what’s left of Mab.
There is a hollow inside my chest where my heart and lungs once rested. A hollow filled with shadows and ice. This cannot happen. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This is impossible.
Mab is dead.
Winter has fallen.
And Penelope is laughing again.
It’s not maniacal laughter. Not an evil warlord cackle. No, she’s chuckling to herself as though someone showed her a cute cat video online. While stoned. I slowly look up at her. She stands at the edge of the tower, hands gripping the balustrade like it’s the only thing keeping her standing, because with every laugh her voice grows louder, until she is almost doubled over on herself with mirth.
I want to kill her.
I will fucking kill her if it’s the last thing I do.
“The queen is dead!” she calls. Another fit of laughter rolls through her, and she turns and slides against the wall, now, slouching to a seated position. The waves of her dress ripple in a pale pool around her, the hem stained crimson with Mab’s blood.
She chuckles again. Her hands are on her face, and her fingers are stained red, and when she looks at me, small streaks of blood smear against her cheeks.
“She is dead,” she whispers. “We killed her. Finally, we killed her.”
That is when I know she is mad—I don’t know if she’s talking to herself, or incriminating me as well. There are tears in the corners of her eyes. Tears that streak against the blood, dripping pink down her dress. For the briefest moment I see real sadness in those eyes. Regret. Then they flare with heat, some inner furnace sparking back to life, and that moment of humanity is lost. She sits up straighter. And even though her back is pressed to the wall, even though her dress slowly soaks up all that’s left of my mother, my queen, she looks as if she is seated on a throne.
I can’t look at her. I can’t let myself believe she is the new queen. That she has won.
And that she used me to get her way.
I stare at my bloodied hands, the fingertips coated with ash. They shake. Why can’t I make them stop shaking? Pull yourself together, I want to whisper. But I can’t, because I realize that even with the fire of hate burning in my belly, my face is wet with tears. There is a ringing in my ears I can’t ignore. With every ragged breath it grows louder, and maybe it’s not in my head after all. The ground rumbles. I can’t tell if it’s a tremor from Penelope’s rule, or if it’s the kingdom itself mourning the loss of its queen.
“She had to go,” she says, staring at me. Once more, I can’t tell if she’s making a statement or trying to convince herself. “For all she has done, for all the snares she has set for mortals and faeries alike. Her crimes far outweighed her worth.”
“Who are you to decide that?” I ask, my words finally my own.
She shrugs. The movement is elegant and assured, but there’s something in the set of her shoulders that makes her look lost.
“When you have seen what I have, you would make the same decision.”
“Why are you doing this? Really?” I ask. I have to keep asking questions. It’s the only way to keep the ringing truth from my ears: Mab is dead. Mab is dead. Mab is dead. “And don’t give me any of that bleeding-heart bullshit.”
“Revenge, my dear,” she replies. “Revenge, and power.”
“You came back from hell for revenge?”
“No, my dear,” Penelope says. “I came back to rule. Destroying Mab was the icing on the cake.”
She stands smoothly at that. I struggle to my feet, not wanting to look like I’m kneeling before her. There are still a few daggers at my disposal, none of them dangerous enough to hurt her. But if I can at least throw her off balance, maybe I can toss her off the tower.
Even thinking it, I know it’s pointless. She just killed her second immortal. She’s back from the depths of the astral planes. It would take so much more than a fall to kill her.
Another tremor rumbles through the kingdom. This one, I know, has been felt through all of Faerie.
“You’re going to rule a wasteland,” I say. “You feel that? That’s Faerie. You’ve destroyed the balance.”
“What do I care of balance? In times of great turmoil, rulers always rise. And I have already set myself for ascension. Faerie will fall into chaos. And soon, the mortal world will follow suit.”
Her statement sends a cold dread through my body, a poison dripping through my veins.
“You want to rule the mortal world as well.” I can’t help it—my words come out as a whisper.
I knew she was mad, but up until now, I’d thought it was all just a plot for vengeance. This goes far, far beyond that.
“Why would I work so hard for the cake, and then not eat it?” she asks. “Mab and Oberon were confined to ruling Faerie by their silly laws—they were content to live in the shadows, stealing Dream like mice after cheese, rather than living in the spotlight. But I am not Fey, and I am not subject to their dead rules. You are right. Chaos will ensue, Claire. And in the midst of destruction, humans will seek a savior. It has always been in their nature, to strive for light in the deepest darkness. And oh, what a darkness this will be. And what a glorious light I will shine. Not faerie. Not mortal. I am the closest to the divine any of your world have ever seen, and they will flock to me like sheep.”
“You’re insane,” I whisper, cliché as it is.
“No. I am wise. I have been dead for only a few decades, but spent eons locked away in the pits of hell. I have seen the worlds turn and fall to dust. I have seen the future and the past and every variation in between. Too long has the mortal world succumbed to ruin and decay. Too long has Faerie relegated itself to the shadows. In this age, in my age, the worlds of Faerie and Mortal will be like lovers, entwined and inseparable. It is a new era, Claire. Just as I promised. An era free of the tyranny of the Courts. An era where Dream flows like honey. An era where mortals and faeries exist side by side, the hunters and the hunted, the dreamers and the devourers. No contracts. No regulations. No limits. Think of it, Claire. You of all people should rejoice. You’ve spent your entire life straddling the worlds, living in shadows, covering your tracks. You are the one mortal in all of existence that lives like this, hiding her true powers, her true knowledge. How lonely that must be. In my new world, there would be no need to hide. You would never feel alone in your knowledge and power again.”
My head spins. Everything she says makes sense, and yet it doesn’t. It can’t. Faerie and Mortal are meant to be separate. That’s how they’ve always been. Isn’t that how they’ve always been?
“How?” I ask.
“I have already crossed the divides between the living and the dead. Bridging the gap between Mortal and Faerie will be a simple task in comparison. All that exists between the two is a curtain. You yourself travel it daily—all it requires is the right spell and the right amount of Dream. To open the veil completely . . . why, that simply requires more Dream. More than the Courts have ever touched. But that is what happens when you fight
over a finite resource rather than pooling for a greater good. I say, why collect Dream from the sidelines when you can bathe in it, center stage?”
The gears in my head click together. “You’re going to combine all the Dream you’ve harvested to open the gateways between Mortal and Faerie. You’re going to destroy the divide.”
An image flashes through my mind: banshees smoking in airplane bathrooms and dryads eating the ducks in Central Park. Gods, humankind is not ready to look up from their phones and be face-to-face with the faerie world. We’re barely able to cope with reality as it is.
“This is why I’ve always liked you,” she says. “Even when I was trapped in the netherworld, I watched you with interest. You are smart, Claire. You think outside the boxes shaped for you. And you are willing to put that power to use.”
Another tremor rips through the city. The castle groans, and I finally look out at the city below us, at the seething shadows and triumphant surviving Fey. Fires have broken out, turning the city into a flickering black mass. Pops and hissing fill the air as ice melts and snaps, flames glinting and reflecting off the ice, everything stretched and macabre as Fey dance amidst the destruction. It’s then I realize that the flickering lights come from the Summer Fey that had been doing penance in their iron streetlamps. Without Mab, even their bonds have been released. It looks like something out of Dante’s description of Hell.
“If this is your version of a new era . . . ,” I mutter, staring at the wreckage.
“All new beginnings rise from the ashes of an end. Soon, the flames will spread, and they will incinerate all that stands in my way. In the ashes of that great purge, my new kingdom will rise. One where faeries and mortals dance side by side. As it was meant to be. As it used to be, before Mab and Oberon strengthened the barrier.”
Used to be? When had there not been a clear separation between Faerie and Mortal? But she barrels on before I can ask. Like most villains without intelligent henchmen, she’s been waiting to say this for a long time.
“Mortals have turned away from belief in that which they cannot see. The world of Faerie lies hidden, and with every year that passes, it grows more and more distanced from human thought. Why? When we hold the power, why hide from the weak? Why let ourselves be seen as freaks of nature, when we are nature’s chosen? Humans are but cattle, and the Fey have been content to feed on them in secret, to live as monsters and ghosts, ever at the periphery, ever scorned. No more. We will no longer live in secret. We will no longer steal, when bounties should be placed at our feet.”
Her voice has risen at this, and I know it echoes through the burning kingdom. This isn’t just for me; she wants all her peons to know her plan. She turns to face them and raises her hands out to the side. Her hands, still dripping Mab’s blood. I want to stab her in the back. Want to make her bleed in front of her peons. If she even can bleed. If she’s made of more than magic and my blood.
“The true dawn of Faerie is at hand,” she calls out. “It is time for us to rise from the shadows. Time for us to rule not just these pitiful kingdoms, but every world within our reach. I have seen the truth, my followers. There are many worlds ripe for the picking. After the mortal world falls, we shall spread like plagues.”
She turns to me, drops her voice.
“Perhaps it is the thrill of victory. But despite everything you have done, I am willing to let you stand at my side. As I said, you are the only living human to live with a foot in both worlds. You could be my adviser. You could help me rule.
“Think on it, Claire: you have nothing else. Your mother is dead. Both of them. The life you have spent so long crafting has fallen to dust. Serve me. Let us craft a new world together. And you will know power and wealth and adoration, all beyond your wildest dreams.”
Maybe that speech would have inspired something in me before, something to make me consider her offer. But hearing her plans, seeing all this . . . it lights a new fire within me. One that goes beyond vengeance or fear. It’s righteous in its fury. I won’t let her take the mortal world down with her. I won’t let her extend her twisted rule. I stare at Mab’s ashes and feel the finality of it all in a way I haven’t before. I may not have any power. I may not have any resources. But my queen is gone, and it is up to me to stop this bitch before she goes any further.
Mab was the last straw. Penelope’s reign stops here. With me.
“Oh, Claire,” she whispers, brushing my face with her hand, “that is not the conclusion you were supposed to make. I have offered you everything. But I will not let you interfere, now that you have decided to throw it away. I hope you understand. It’s nothing personal.”
Before I can respond, she presses her hand against my throat.
“Behold, the fall of Winter,” she says. Then she winks. “Forgive the pun.”
Then she shoves me off the tower.
My heart flies to my throat as my body flies toward the ground. The last thing I hear is her laughter; the last thing I see is the star-streaked sky. The last thing I feel is the cold sting of the air.
Then I hit, and death claws me under.
Thirteen
Death isn’t a release.
Death is cold. I should have expected as much; spend my life in Winter, and I’d spend the afterlife there as well. Then Death starts patting the side of my face, muttering my name, and I begin to question just how terrifying the afterlife truly is.
“Claire,” Death whispers, and his voice isn’t scary at all. I flutter open my eyes, or maybe they’ve always been open and the shadows are just fading. In either case, the blurred face of my devilish captor slowly comes into focus. Grey skin, horns, hollow eyes . . .
“Pan?” My voice comes out as a rasp. I try to move but pain shoots through my limbs, making the world swim again. “What—”
“Shh, shh,” he mutters, running cold, stony fingers over my forehead. Another shiver races through me, making me ache even more. “Don’t rush.”
Rush what? I think as memories ink back in. I fell off a tower. I should be dead.
“How am I not dead?”
“You were.”
His response makes my head swim. Or maybe it’s just the pain that continues to shoot through me. It feels like being stretched out on a rack. I was dead. I was dead, and there was no light, no visions of heaven, no flashback. I was dead, and I don’t remember anything about it. It was just . . . empty.
Not to mention, I was dead. Yet here I am.
“How?” I ask.
He doesn’t respond. That tells me more than enough.
I’m not dead because it was in my contract. But Penelope had all the contracts, and had apparently negated them. So how—
“She has taken over,” Pan says, breaking me from my train of thought. “Winter and Summer; they are both hers.”
“I know. I was there. It’s sort of why I fell.”
I groan as I roll to my side. Every bone feels as if it’s been shattered and set back into place with safety pins. Nothing is solid. I am a sack of skin containing a bunch of bricks.
“But you don’t understand,” he says. “Mab and Oberon . . . they are dead.”
I push myself to sitting and stare at Pan. The little faun statue looks like he’s been ridden hard and put away wet. He stands there, wringing his hands, and I try to take stock of where we are. Mortal world? The lights are off, and I’m on a tile floor. Far away, I hear the drone of traffic, the honk of horns. It smells familiar, but my head is too thick to figure out why. It’s not Winter; that’s for damn sure.
“I know. I was there for that too,” I say. “How am I not still dead? For that matter, how am I in one piece?” Because despite a few tender spots, I seem to have all my limbs and blood intact—no cuts, no missing arms, no crushed skull. If I didn’t remember falling, or that final, heart-stopping splat right before the lights went out, I would have thought it was all some bad dream.
“Contracts.”
“Our contracts were negated. The book is go
ne. She has it.”
“I do not pretend to understand faerie magic. I was made by it, but I don’t handle it. I . . . I honestly have no clue how you survived. You should be dead, Claire. You should be a thousand pieces on the sidewalk. But when I found you . . . You should be dead,” he repeats. “But for some reason you are not. Perhaps this is a magic deeper than contracts. A magic that could not be held on any page.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Some contracts are too important to lose. Too powerful to fully harness. Think of your mother and the contract she made with Oberon—a contract that binds her beyond life itself.”
That makes me pause. In everything that had happened, I’d managed to forget my mother’s final contract. To be reborn as the Oracle in Oberon’s care. If she was reborn . . . could she be out there, somewhere, wandering through Faerie? Does she remember anything? About me? And without Oberon to hold her reigns, where is she? I take a deep breath and fight down the hope. A prophecy won’t help me. Not now. And I wouldn’t even know where to begin with that.
“A lot of good that magic did them. They’re both dead.”
I almost hope that will make him pause, let something slip. That he will have heard something. He doesn’t. His words are stoic. “But you are not.”
“I’m also not a pancake. How did Mab’s magic prevent that, when it let me lose a few fingers earlier?”
He bites his lip.
“You were a pancake. You were many pancakes, to be precise. When I found you, there was not much of you left.”
“So what happened?”
He looks queasy. I didn’t know statues could look queasy.
“That is a process I’d rather not describe.”
I try to let that sink in. I was dead. Beyond dead. I was decimated. Dislocated. My body was shattered and splattered about. I run my hands over my arms, letting myself delight in the pain of the bruises. I’m not certain how I feel about the fact that I was dismembered. I mean, I’ve done it to other people while they were conscious. But to think it happened to me, and I don’t remember any of it, and now I’m suddenly whole . . . I suddenly feel like a visitor to my own skin.