She’d seen Dani with Xander just before the latter had disappeared into the House of the Moon. That had been a surprise. Dani was one of Alix’s friends, part of the group that had disappeared with him the year before—it had been in his file. But she knew little about the OberCorp enforcer personally. Not finding out more had been a grave mistake.
It was times like this that she missed Ari, her PA, and her connection to the grid.
How had the OberCorp enforcers taken over the city so easily? Why were the Gaelani deferring to them?
Most importantly, where was Robyn?
The night was growing dark, and the stars were coming out one by one overhead. Quince had lived in Gaelan many years earlier. Back then, it had been a place of great hope and progress. Now it seemed empty and forlorn.
She’d also noticed others like Dani, wearing their black uniforms, on occasional patrol in the city streets below and coming in and out of the House of the Moon—landers. Second wavers. Men and women with no wings.
The occupation was worse than she had believed—the Gaelani had all but been cowed into submission.
If Quince was to have any chance to do something about it, she needed to preserve her strength. There was nothing she could do about the occupation or her own situation at the moment, so she closed her eyes and drifted off.
Pieces of her life drifted past in her light slumber—the night the Queen of the Erriani had been assassinated; her fear and flight after Ballifor had been destroyed; the escape to Oberon with the two children; and her long assimilation into the culture of Oberon City.
She remembered Robyn’s warm touch, the long nights spent together under Titania’s silver moon. From the first time they had met to the moment the Queen had sent her away because it had become too dangerous to continue their affair.
Those soft lips and that strong embrace.
For a few brief moments, everything was right in Quince’s world. Then something brought her awake.
It was cold out. She was still barefoot from being captured in the dead of night, and there was a chill breeze blowing up the River Orn’s valley.
She sat up and looked around. The city was quiet, and the moon was almost directly overhead. It must have been close to midnight.
There was a sound, a tapping of something against metal. She turned to find a little pixie face staring at her from the other side of the door to her cage.
“Morgan?” It came out in a loud whisper of surprise. How in the hell had the boy managed to follow them all this way in mere hours, let alone climb up to her cage unnoticed?
The boy put his finger to his lips, and she understood. Then he wrapped his hand around the lock and concentrated. His hands began to glow, and then the metal shone a bright yellow. The latch released as if of its own accord.
Quince’s eyes widened. He was no ordinary human, that much was clear, but she ceased caring. He could help them get out of this predicament, and right now that was all that mattered.
She moved backward to make room for him to enter. Morgan swung the grate open silently. Hadn’t it made a huge clamor when her captors had opened it earlier? Then he climbed inside. He put his hand on the metal cuff that held her ankle to the pedestal, and after another glow, it too came loose with a small clang as it hit the floor.
She looked over the edge of the cage to the ground below, but sensed no movement in the darkness.
Morgan pulled a pack off his back—it looked like Xander’s—and took out her shoes and handed them to her.
She took them gratefully. She had apparently misjudged the little imp badly. “Thank you,” she mouthed quietly.
He nodded, and started to climb back down the pedestal. Then he turned back to her and said, “Wait,” holding out his palm toward her.
She nodded, and set about pulling on her shoes as quietly as she could manage.
When she was done, she sat and stared in the direction of Jameson’s cage. It was hard to make out anything, but after three or four minutes, there was a flash of golden light, and the barely perceptible opening of a grate.
Another flash, and Jameson was free as well.
A minute later, she heard the word “Come.” It was so soft she thought for a minute she had imagined it, but then the boy’s glowing hand beckoned once.
She pushed open the door as silently as she could, resting it against the outside of the domed cage. Then she stretched and launched herself into the air, her wings carrying her the short distance across the space between the two cages, to where Jameson and Morgan awaited her.
Morgan leaned up and whispered into her ear. “The terrace. Top of the House of the Moon. Take us.”
She nodded and scooped him up. Signaling for Jameson to follow, she jumped into the air again, her wings lifting her and the boy up toward the House of the Moon’s walls.
It felt so good to stretch her wings in freedom. She only hoped they still had enough time.
XANDER SLEPT fitfully, despite the softness of the bed he found himself tied to. He couldn’t turn over, and being stuck in the same position for hours on end was straining his arms, legs, and back. He flexed his wings, trying to stretch out his muscles.
His mind was in anguish. His friends—yes, both of them were his friends now, and Jameson was becoming something more—had fallen right into this trap with him, and he had no idea what had become of them. And what of Morgan, the strange boy who had somehow become almost like a son to him?
Never mind that it was Quince who had drafted him into her impossible quest in the first place.
He had vague memories of Gaelan and the House of the Moon, the place where he’d apparently spent his first two years. They were coming back to him now, slowly. He remembered that House of the Stars. In the past, he’d dismissed those memories as the products of an overactive imagination, or wish fulfillment in his darker hours under Rogan’s thumb. Now he realized they were simple truth.
The city he’d seen as he was dragged into the House of the Moon, though, was anything but happy. It was practically empty, though he had seen many faces hidden behind the windows of the aeries.
It was like the Slander all over again, only this had been done to his people on purpose.
They were his people, like it or not—they were skythane, like him. That hadn’t meant much to him before, but now he felt a renewed connection to this place and its people.
If Dani and her employers had their way, these people would find themselves subjugated and eventually eliminated to satisfy OberCorp’s thirst for profits.
In a day and a half, though, it would cease to matter. With enough pith in his system, he’d become a willing accomplice to OberCorp’s plan. Would he even remember what had been done to him?
If Quince was right, in a day or two after that, even that would become purely academic.
Xander shivered. He ached to be free, to confront Dani and put an end to OberCorp’s plans. So he drifted in and out of sleep, his head full of half-baked plans that dissolved in the firelight when he opened his eyes. He would fight, for as long as he could, however he could. That was all that was left to him.
The doors to the balcony swept open, letting in a cool breeze from outside. Xander started, straining to turn enough to see what was happening.
Surely Dani wasn’t ready yet to go ahead with her plan. It had to be close to midnight. He had to have at least until morning.
Instead, it was Quince who strode in, holding Morgan’s hand, with Jameson behind her. He had never been so happy to see anyone in his life.
She glanced at the closed door to the hallway, and then knelt next to him. “Hey, are you okay?” she whispered. “I’m not sure how much time we have.”
“Yes, I’m all right. How did you find me?” Had they managed to escape their cages, somehow? He’d seen them locked up like animals before he was dragged into the House of the Moon. Had Dani had a change of heart and let them go? That seemed unlikely—and how in three hells had Morgan gotten here?
&n
bsp; “It was all Morgan’s doing,” Quince whispered. “I’ll tell you later.” She glanced again nervously at the closed door. Then she studied his restraints, frowning.
Morgan handed her Xander’s knife from the pack he was carrying. There must be quite a story there.
Quince grinned and set about cutting the ropes that bound Xander’s arms and legs.
Freed, he sat up and stretched, massaging the spots on his wrists and ankles where the rope had burned him.
Then he picked Morgan up and gave him a big hug. “I am so glad to see you, little guy.”
Morgan smiled. Maybe. A little.
Xander set the boy down.
“Have you seen Robyn?” Quince asked.
He turned away, afraid to answer her, afraid to even look at her. “I’m so sorry, Quince,” he whispered at last.
“Sorry for what?” She took him by the chin and forced him to look into her eyes. “What happened to her?”
“Robyn…. My mother’s gone. Dani, the Oberon woman… she told me that she tortured her to get information about me.”
Quince’s face went white. “Oh gods no….”
She stumbled, and Xander took her by the arm to help steady her, guiding her down to the mattress next to him. She looked up at him as if just realizing he’d lost someone important too. He had guessed that they had been more than friends. Quince’s reaction was confirmation.
“When?” she whispered.
Jameson came to sit down on his other side, putting an arm on Xander’s shoulder.
“I don’t know, but it must have happened recently. Otherwise they would have started hunting me sooner, back in Oberon City.”
Quince’s demeanor changed from grief to burning anger in a flash. “Where is she?” Quince growled softly. “This Dani.” She spat the name out.
Xander shook his head. “I don’t know. Somewhere here in the House of the Moon, I’d guess.” He took her hand. “Quince, I’m so sorry. But we can’t go up against her, not without a plan.”
“We don’t have time for a plan. We have the element of surprise—we should go find her now.” She fingered his knife blade, drawing a bead of blood from her own thumb, seemingly oblivious to the pain.
Xander shivered. He didn’t want to know what Quince planned to do to the OberCorp woman. “We have the occupation forces to worry about too.” He glanced out the window. “How many do you think there are?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Several hundred?”
“Will they know who I am? The Gaelani?”
“With this sigil, yes.” She touched the silver quarter moon that hung around his neck. It shimmered in response. “The prince always wears it.”
That would make things easier. “You take Jameson and go after Dani. Take out the leader, and the OberCorp forces will be in disarray, at least briefly.”
“What about you? What are you going to do?” Jameson asked, his mouth pursed in a frown.
“Rally my people.” It sounded right when he said it out loud. Mostly. He’d have to work on that.
Quince nodded. “We can take care of Dani.” Her voice had a dangerous edge.
“Don’t kill her, Quince. I want to talk to her first.” She knew more than she’d told him. He was sure of it.
Quince stared at him for a moment as if she might object, but at last she gave him a curt nod.
“Let’s deal with the guard outside first.” He stood and started toward the closed door that led to the hall, but Jameson pulled him back.
His warm hands enclosed Xander’s face, and he looked into Xander’s eyes. “I had some time to think, when I was trapped.”
Xander nodded. “Me too.”
“Last night with you, I let it all fall away—my walls, my religious superstitions, everything. Oh God, it was difficult. It still is.” His eyes were wet. “I’m scared, Xander, about you and me. About this place. About the responsibility we’ve been given.” He glanced at Quince, who nodded. “I was afraid that I waited too long. I’m here now, if you’ll have me.” He pulled Xander to him and kissed him hard.
Xander’s heart sang. He kissed Jameson back, and something electric raced through Jameson’s hands and into his head. It was like a tidal wave.
As it overtook him, he remembered.
A kiss like this one, given without reservation.
A life lived in this city, among his own kind. Scenes that flashed past him in quick succession, memories that weren’t his own, but that somehow belonged to him.
He was Elyra, Queen of the Gaelani, and he kissed Daedus, the Erriani King, under a silver moon in a black tower.
They soared over the Riamhwood, and swam in the cold rivers of the Orn.
He was Elyra/Xander—somehow he was both, at once—connected to the House of the Moon and his people.
To Titania.
To Jameson.
He opened his eyes. Jameson’s eyes were full of wonder.
They were connected, to each other and the past, and for a brief moment there was no one else in the world.
Then Quince broke the spell. “Come on.” She pulled Xander toward the door. “It’s time to set things right.”
Chapter Twenty: Battle
XANDER CRACKED the door open, peering out into the hall. Torches lit the stone-lined passageway, and a single man, one of the OberCorp forces, was standing—or rather, sitting—guard. His back was to the door, and Xander could see that he was dressed in a black uniform with the half-circle logo of OberCorp on his sleeve. He was armed with a short knife and a pulse pistol. He also looked half-asleep.
Xander’s mind was overflowing with memories of this world, sizzling in the back of his head. They fought for recognition, and it was all he could do to push them back to try to keep some space clear to think.
Jameson’s kiss had opened a door, and memories were pushing their way through, things he couldn’t possibly have known from his own experience.
In his mind’s eye, the drab hallway outside the door was instead filled with tapestries, the pink sun in the sky lighting the hall through narrow crenellations in the walls.
Xander shook his head, forcing his mind back to the task at hand. He signaled silently to the others.
Quince and Jameson nodded.
Jameson swung the door open wide, and Xander grabbed the man from behind, hauling him into the room, his arms flailing, covering his mouth before he could get out more than a grunt.
Jameson closed the door silently, and Xander slammed the man’s head down onto the hard stone floor, knocking him unconscious.
Quince retrieved some of the rope that had been used to tie up Xander, trussing the guard up and gagging him with a torn piece of the bedsheets.
She handed the man’s pulse pistol to Jameson. She took the knife for herself, handing Xander’s back to him. Then she knelt next to Morgan. “Can you help us find Dani? The lander woman?”
Morgan nodded, his face far too serious for his age.
“You trust him now?” Xander asked, surprised. He’d mostly glossed over the boy’s presence before in the heat of the moment, but now it struck him how strange it was. “How did he get here?”
“Time for that later. Listen, Xander, there’s a bell in the middle of Gaelan on Founder’s Hill….”
More memories flooded back. Founder’s Hill, the large hillside in the middle of Gaelan, the town square topped by a tower with a huge metal bell, which had been used many times before to signal danger or to call the city together. “I know where it is.”
Quince regarded him with a mixture of surprise and resignation. “Of course you do.” She gave him a big hug. “Be careful out there, my little sparrow.”
Memories, his own this time, flashed through him. His mother, holding him in her arms and calling him “little sparrow.” Quince with her, in the House of the Stars, with the little baby who would one day grow into the man who stood beside him.
It was the last time his mother had kissed him good-bye.
“I will.” More than the words passed between them. “Keep Morgan and Jameson safe.” With one last nod, he turned and ran out the doorway onto the balcony and sprang into the air with a single great leap.
MORGAN LED Quince and Jameson out of the room, following him single-file down the hallway. Huge tapestries decorated some of the walls, though they looked ill-maintained, soiled by decades of soot and general wear. Other walls had wide bare patches that were lighter than the surrounding stone; she wondered where those tapestries had gone.
Torches flickered in sconces every three or four meters, some burned almost down to their nubs. The House of the Moon itself was almost deserted at this time of night.
Morgan led them to a stairwell, and they climbed up to the next floor, pausing in the shadows to be sure they hadn’t been seen. They crept down another long hall and up a flight of stairs. Their path was taking them toward the back of the House, where it abutted the valley wall, as near as Quince could tell.
Near the junction of another passageway, they heard noises.
Quince peered around the corner.
A group of four of Dani’s lander guards was coming down the hallway together, joking and laughing. They sounded drunk.
Quince seethed at this lander invasion of her people, her home. Though she was from Ballifor, she’d spent more than a little time in the capital, and seeing them here was a personal affront.
There were too many for the three of them to fight, and the guards had pulse weapons on their side.
Quince gestured to the others, and Morgan and Jameson retreated with her to darkened doorways along the hall, pressing themselves back against the shadows.
Fortunately, the party passed by without turning. Quince breathed a sigh of relief.
They followed the boy down another hallway, and when they came to a corner, Morgan stopped them. “There,” he said, pointing around the corner.
Quince hissed under her breath. Dani had taken up residence in the Queen’s suite. After she arranged for Robyn’s death. She saw the Queen’s face now, as clearly as if she were standing there before them.
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