Impostor Syndrome

by Mishell Baker

  “Though you will never fully return the admiration I hold for you,” he said, “I hope that you and I shall remain friends. I hold no true power in the Unseelie High Court, but I will do what I can to assist the Arcadia Project with what talents I do possess.”

  “Wait for me at Nullhorne,” Winterglass said to his son. “I wish to make certain that Caryl arrives safely home.”

  The king flew alongside us as Brand sprinted homeward, despite the fact that his wings were all air and bone and would never have worked in a world that made any sense. When we reached the base of the rock formation that held the L4 Gate, Brand crouched down so that Caryl and I could dismount.

  “Brand should come with us to the Residence for a little while,” I said, “just until we can get some sort of pardon for what he did to Duke Skyhollow.”

  “Very well,” said Caryl.

  “Baroness Roper,” said King Winterglass, startling me with the respectful address. “Will you remain with me a moment, to speak privately?”

  I turned to Caryl and Brand. “Go on,” I said. “Pretty sure he won’t eat me.”

  Winterglass waited until they had disappeared through the Gate, then turned to address me.

  “You seem to care for Miss Vallo,” he said, “in the human fashion. If Caryl insists on staying with the Arcadia Project, I place the onus on you to make certain that she is safe.”

  I blew my hair from my face in frustration. “How?” I said. “How am I supposed to protect anyone? I’ve fucked up everything. I have no more monarchs on my side than I started with, and I’m probably going to lose Shiverlash. Sure, I took some resources away from Belinda, including you, but she still has two hundred countries’ worth of people she can send at us in various ways. We’re fucking doomed.”

  “Not if you take the Seelie Court from her too.”

  “Well, yeah. But there’s no way to do that.”

  “Submit yourself to their trial,” he said. “Thus far you have only tried to strong-arm Dawnrowan into submission; that is not how the Seelie mind works. If you want her to ally with you, you must play the noble hero.”

  “Dude, seriously. I’m an antihero at best.”

  “If you want Dawnrowan on your side, you must set aside your conception of yourself. You must act as a hero would act, and hope that the truth follows in the footsteps of the lie.”

  Wait. That sounded suspiciously like . . . opposite-to-emotion action. Did King Winterglass of the Unseelie Court just paraphrase my therapist to me?

  “Free advice,” he said quietly. “In exchange for yours.”

  I sighed, raked back my hair. “But I can’t take your advice,” I said, “any more than I expect you to take mine. There are too many ways I could screw up the trial, end up in prison or dead.”

  Winterglass gave a graceful shrug of his spiky shoulders.

  “I just want to go home,” I said quietly.

  “As do I,” said Winterglass. “That advice was my last gift to you. Having offered it, I take my leave.”

  “Wait. Can’t you help me free Tjuan? Please? If you don’t help me,” I bluffed desperately, “I have to go back to Shiverlash. And what she wants in exchange . . . she wants to use me as a weapon against the sidhe. To destroy their estates.”

  “I do not think you will do that,” he said. “But if I am wrong, if you do turn your iron against my people, there is nothing in either world that will protect you from the consequences.” And without further ado he launched himself into the air, a skeletal silhouette growing smaller and smaller against the darkening sky.

  Just as I was seriously considering bursting into tears, Caveat appeared, hovering in my field of vision without bothering to choose a plausible object to perch on.

  “Don’t worry about it anymore,” she said.

  “About what?” I said. I was drowning in so many worries I couldn’t pick one out.

  “About Tjuan,” she said. “I’ve spoken with Shock.”

  “Wait. Are you . . .”

  “He’s agreed to link me to the facade. I’ll take it to the police station, stay in it for the length of the prison sentence, and then I’ll return it to Arcadia to be destroyed.”

  I tried to wrap my head around this. “You’re going to go to prison voluntarily? For potentially ten years or more?”

  “If the Project doesn’t find a way to get me out of there sooner.”

  I stared at her for a moment. “That’s . . . that’s awfully heroic, for an Unseelie spirit.”

  Caveat took the trouble to manifest a shrug, clearly patterned after one of Tjuan’s. “It’s not altruism,” she said. “It’s balance. I stole a lot of years from him. Now I’m going to give them back.”

  “Caveat. We’ll . . . we’ll talk about this more. I want you to be sure. Don’t do anything just yet. Are you going back to the Residence now? Or staying here?”

  “Here, until I’m called.”

  “Could you . . . could you find Claybriar for me?”

  “Of course. What do you want me to tell him?”

  I gave the Gate a lingering look, then turned my back on it. “Tell him I need safe escort back to Skyhollow. I’m turning myself in.”

  44

  As bad as I needed to pee by this point, I didn’t dare step through the Gate, even for a minute. I ducked behind the thick scrubby brush those guards had used for a hiding place instead, put my portable toilet to use. Then I ate an awful protein bar from my backpack and drank the entirety of my small canteen of water, even though there was a whole refrigerator waiting just on the other side of that Gate.

  I knew if I saw Residence Four—the cat hair, that drippy faucet in the upstairs bathroom, the peekaboo graffiti, all the ugliness that now meant home to me—I’d never be able to muster up the courage to come back.

  By the time Claybriar found me, dusk had turned to night, and I was lying back on the sand, pinned like a butterfly by the depth and brilliance of the Arcadian stars. These were no random assortments of burning matter flung haphazardly across the galaxy; they looked placed by an artist’s hand. Maybe they had been.

  Claybriar said nothing in greeting, just helped me to my feet and then gathered me against his furry chest, holding me close. He was alive, and warm, and smelled like forest. For a moment I couldn’t even breathe and held him tightly enough to make it hard for him, too.

  “I thought maybe you’d died,” I said brokenly. “Alondra said you were okay, but—”

  “Shhh. I’m fine.”

  “Is the queen all right?” I said. “Skyhollow?”

  “They’re both still breathing,” he said. “Best to leave it at that. Caveat says you’re going to turn yourself in?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Give it to me straight, doc. How bad is this going to be.”

  He shrugged. “I’m biased,” he said. “Seelie trials are meant to discover the truth of someone’s character, her motivations. So I think you’ll do great.”

  “Won’t she just think I’m lying? I’m getting a lot of that from fey lately, when I try to tell the truth.”

  He shifted his weight. “Ah, well, see . . . you kind of grabbed the queen’s scepter and ran with it? And also escaped prison and disabled a couple of ancient wards? So . . . you’ve forfeited the whole consent thing, as far as reading your mind goes.”

  “Who’s going to be doing the reading? Is there a judge?”

  “Lucky you—the queen has decided to oversee your trial herself.”

  “Gulp.”

  “Come on,” he said. He slipped his hand into mine and began to walk with me along the road. “It’ll be all right,” he said confidently. I tried not to think about the fact that he could lie to me if he was lying to himself.

  Holding hands, it was easier to stay in step along the enchanted path, and somehow less disorienting. The nighttime landscape of Arcadia lurched crazily past us, a thousand steps at a time, as we walked.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “And you know I love you
too, right?” I said. “In my own weird way.”

  “Every human loves in their own weird way,” said Claybriar. “That’s what’s so interesting about humans.”

  “It’s not the same with fey?”

  Claybriar shook his head, looking troubled. “Love is a very specific thing to a fey. Different, maybe, between species. For me, it’s like a hunger. For the sidhe . . . it’s something else. I don’t even know what.”

  I let my gaze drift up to the stars for a moment; they, at least, seemed to hold still as we walked.

  “Clay,” I said. “I saw the two of you. You and Dawnrowan.”

  “Yeah,” he said sheepishly. “I knew that was a possibility. I just couldn’t think of a better way to distract her.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “In my way, yes.”

  “Hunger.”

  “Yes.”

  “But I know you care for me, can make sacrifices for me. I’m not just a sex toy to you. Is it the same with her?”

  He glanced at me, seeming uneasy.

  “I’m not trying to trap you here,” I said. “I know you think I’ll be jealous, but I just want to know the truth. If you don’t really love her, then don’t fuck with her, because she seems like a crazy bitch. But I also don’t get to tell you who you should love. And if you do love her, I don’t want you to give up on her just because you don’t think your kind of love is good enough for her. Let her decide that.”

  “I’m pretty sure she’s already decided.” Immediately he seemed to regret having spoken. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can only hurt you by talking to you about this. And I’d rather die than hurt you.”

  “You sound like some emo college kid,” I said, raising his hand to my lips briefly despite the pain I knew it would cause him. “Hard to believe you’re like a hundred years old or something.”

  “More than that,” he said. “I mean it, though. I never want to hurt you. You’re part of me.”

  “When you say things like that, it’s hard for me to feel jealous of anyone. Whatever you feel for her, she’s not your Echo. I am. I’m as secure with you as I’ll ever be with anyone.”

  He nodded, exhaled as though he’d been bracing himself for an injection that was now over. “You’re everything to me,” he said. “That drives her crazy.”

  “Dawnrowan?”

  “Yeah. But what I can’t tell her—what she would misunderstand—is that in a certain way I do love her more.”

  That stung a little, despite my promises. But I didn’t want to punish him for being honest with me. “I’m everything to you, but you love her more?” I said as casually as I could. “What’s more than everything?”

  “Well, ‘more’ in a . . . certain way. What you’d call a ‘romantic’ way, I guess. I’d step in front of a truck for you, no hesitation. You’re always the first thing in my mind. I’d fuck you if I could, believe me. But with her, it’s that—you know, that breathless thing where you don’t even feel quite safe. Like you’re falling.”

  “It’s always like that for me at first,” I said. “And then it mellows. Or goes away altogether.”

  “I’ve known her for a hundred years,” he said. “And still I get weak kneed around her. I thought maybe it was because she was queen, but supposedly I’m her equal now, and I still just . . . looking at her is like looking at the stars. Makes me feel small, but in a good way. I know I’m not making any sense.”

  “No,” I said, squeezing his hand. “I think I get it. And . . . I’m sorry you felt like you had to hide that from me. I know I flip out over stuff sometimes, but I do get over it. You can always tell me anything, and I’ll never stop being your Echo.”

  He squeezed my hand back. “I love her,” he said, seeming to marvel at hearing himself say the words. But he quickly sobered. “Unfortunately, she only loves me when she has me on a leash.”

  “Then that’s not love,” I said, “no matter what she tells herself. I am no expert on healthy attachment, but even a dunce like me knows that if it comes with conditions, it’s not love. Listen, though,” I added when he started to look downcast. “You’ve got a long life ahead of you, and you’re a hell of a catch. If you ever do find someone who makes you see stars, and really loves you back? You have my blessing. I promise.”

  He stopped then and bent to kiss me. Carefully, bracing himself against the pain. Then he took my hand, and we resumed our stroll under the night sky.

  “Be careful at the trial,” he said. “Dawnrowan can’t lie, but I speak from experience—she can trick the shit out of you.”

  • • •

  The royal guards were gentle when they found us at Skyhollow Estate. I could tell Greyfall wanted to break a few of my bones just on principle, but King Claybriar insisted on accompanying us all the way to the White Rose prison, right up to the point that they locked me back in the same damned cage where I’d so recently employed two people and a spirit to spring me out.

  “Be careful,” Claybriar said again, giving my hand one last squeeze through the twisted boughs of the cell.

  I watched with a sense of dull resignation as he and the guards ascended the stairs, leaving me without even a glimmer of light.

  There wasn’t much to do but lie down on the floor and close my eyes to shut out the darkness, and I was so exhausted that I dozed off almost immediately. I woke with a start when the prison doors opened again, letting in a wide, gentle shaft of starlight.

  Queen Dawnrowan brought her own radiance; her golden skin, hair, fur, and feathers were surrounded with an aura like candlelight. I watched her white-swathed shape glide down the long stairway, feeling once again the raw power of her grace. Her palace was rubble above us, and yet nothing in her demeanor even hinted at defeat. She made the desolate cavern a palace just by walking into it.

  “Good evening,” she said as she stopped in front of my cage.

  “You’re . . . speaking,” I said stupidly.

  “Your blood is still with me,” she said. “Will be with me past dawn. As for the words, since you have broken the laws of courtesy yourself, I no longer require consent to find them in your mind.”

  “Is it time for the trial already?” I said.

  “It is.”

  “I wish justice moved this quickly in my world. Can you tell me how it’s going to work?”

  She tipped her head thoughtfully. “Think of it as a dream, if you will, a dream that I can observe as you make your way through it. What you do in that dream will tell me your character. What you reveal about your character will tell me your guilt or innocence in the crimes that have occurred here.”

  “Couldn’t you just ask me? With access to my mind, you could know if I told the truth.”

  “I am in your mind already. I already know your answers to any questions I might think to ask. But these are only the answers to what you believe about your motivations and intentions. Deeper answers are hidden within you, waiting to be revealed. Conversation is for those who seek the surface; I wish to know the truth whole. You may not understand what I do as an interrogation, but all the same, it will give me answers.”

  “Before we start,” I said, “may I propose something? Can I attempt to secure a promise from you?”

  “You are here to undertake a trial, not to make an agreement with me.”

  “Can’t a girl do two things?”

  Something about this seemed to amuse her. Good. An amused Dawnrowan was a merciful Dawnrowan. She took a half step closer, her golden eyes as intent and curious as a cat’s. “I will hear you,” she said, “but I can make no predictions of agreement.”

  “At the end of all this, it sounds like you’ll know me and my motivations pretty well. Better than you know Dame Belinda.”

  “I have never put her through a trial; it is true.”

  “So if what you find proves to you that I want the best for Arcadia, will you withdraw your support from Dame Belinda and give it to my faction, instead? Will you take some time to listen to what m
y side has to say about the spirits, and how you might harness them in spellwork without enslaving them, the way that Claybriar does?”

  She had seemed on the verge of outright refusing until I said his name, and then she hesitated. “And if you do not pass the test?” she said.

  “That’s your demand to make,” I said. “Whatever makes it worthwhile to you to bind yourself to this promise.”

  She thought it over for a moment. “If you do not pass this trial,” she said, “your death will give me all that I require, except for the return of my palace. For that there is no remedy. But I see in your mind the Unseelie prince who stole from us. I see that he can make more like you, with iron in their bones. If you fail, before you are executed, will you arrange for him to meet with me, so that I may find out what he wishes to trade for this information?”

  I cringed. I hadn’t realized that her full access to my mind would implicate everyone who had collaborated with me. “I can’t promise to make him appear, but I can promise to do my best. You won’t hurt him, will you?”

  “That is not my way. I only want the knowledge that he possesses. There is a war coming, and if this weapon will be used against us, I would like to have it to defend my lands as well.”

  “And I’ll be dead, so I guess it’s no skin off my back either way. You have my word, then. If I don’t pass the trial, I’ll do everything in my power to arrange a meeting between you and Prince Fettershock of the Unseelie Court.”

  Queen Dawnrowan carefully, ritually rephrased both sides of the promise in unambiguous words and then withdrew a by-now-familiar wooden key from somewhere inside her diaphanous garb. Someone needed to speak to Earth’s fashion designers about those pockets.

  The queen turned the key in the lock, then swung the door to my cage wide.

  “Come,” she said. “Let us begin.”

  45

  I stepped out of the wooden cage and into . . . the office of Professor John Scott, on the UCLA campus.

  “Oh Jesus,” I said out loud, and did an abrupt about-face, walking back the way I’d come.

  But when I walked through the door, I found myself simply blundering into Scott’s office again. There was no sign of the prison anywhere; it was as though I’d awakened from a dream of it.