by Jenn Polish
Where there once was not only vast open space framed by our platforms, there is now a silver metal cage, crushing the creatures trying to grow and live below it, but not nearly big enough for the faeries within it to fly around.
Mama sits in the center of it, both ankles chained to each other and to the cage’s bars. She is not wearing wing clamps, but she has a bloodstained wrapping on her forehead, and her neck gills are gunked in pink ooze.
Little Aon is in her lap.
Chapter Ten
SOMETHING DEEP IN the core of my body explodes. Mom, kneeling outside the cage, stares in at her joiner and young one with a look of deadened terror. She hasn’t even noticed my arrival in the Gathering yet. Jax leans forward in his chair, one hand on Mom’s back, the other stroking her wing sprouts softly, rhythmically.
Though the Gathering above me is full of hovering faeries, gawking at the cage like they can’t quite believe it’s even there, the murmur that accompanies my arrival—along with Hands and a procession of centaurs—is low, soft. It’s enough to be noticeable, though, and Jax turns. Our eyes lock. He squeezes my mom’s shoulders and starts wheeling toward me, his face contorted in anger, in the midst of all the murmuring.
I can’t make out anything specific people say as Jax approaches me, surprisingly unhindered by Hands. I don’t know whether they feel bad for me or if they’re happy that the non-looking one finally stopped getting special treatment from the non government. I can’t tell what their looks and whispers mean, and I don’t care.
My eyes seek out the Controller wildly. She’s standing outside of the cage next to Mom and Tacon, her bandaged hand resting on her stomach and her chin in the air defiantly.
The Controller smiles grimly when she sees me looking at her, and she steps forward, casting her voice so loudly that all the Gathering can hear her. As she speaks, Richard and Iema drag me forward, toward the Controller. Toward Jax and toward my caged family. The grip of Iema’s usable arm is gentle and even steadying, especially compared to Richard’s rough tugs.
“People of the Grove. I know that the presence of this temporary confinement home seems like a harsh and sudden imposition into your communal life.” I’m so busy concentrating on letting my feet drag without walking or flying that it takes me a moment to realize, with a jolt, that Evelyn is addressing us in our own language. She continues, her voice level and her eyes never leaving mine.
“With Lunamez rapidly approaching, I know the temporary confinement home seems like a particular dampener of moods. However, in light of the upcoming Initiation for a soon-to-be newly born, it is my intention to ensure the safety of all Grovians. These two faeries will be held in confinement until after this first Initiation under my watch has passed without incident. I will not risk the blood plague returning in full force. Initiations will go uninterrupted, or this merciful form of preventative imprisonment will disappear, and the Pits will be the only option for dangerous dissidents.”
She takes a long breath, but I only notice how shaky it is because by this point they’ve dragged me right in front of her. Up close, the Controller looks relieved, and I realize that she must have memorized those exact words in Grovian faeric.
“My little sibling is a dangerous dissident? Que can barely even fly!” My voice is raw, loud, and for once, I hear a murmur of agreement rise up from people in response to my words. Evelyn’s eyes bore into mine and Richard shakes my upper arm roughly. I hear Iema tsk at him on my other side.
“The Controller represents King Xavier here, faye scum. You’ll address her with respect.” Richard certainly isn’t bothering to sully his tongue with our language.
Mom flies forward behind Evelyn and Jax catches her ankle, holding her steady. He’s staring har*d at the Controller, his gaze somehow at once furious and calm.
Evelyn addresses me like her second-in-command hasn’t even spoken, softly now, so I have to lean in to hear her. “Your sibling may not be dangerous yet, Sadie, but I trust que will prove a good deterrent to dissident behavior.”
“Are you locking up my daughter too, Controller? Why do you have her in those wing clamps?” Mom. Her hands are steady behind her back under her wing sprouts now, her brown eyes blazing.
“That depends, Faye. I have to ask her a few questions. Should she have nothing to hide, I’ll be releasing her to you soon enough. Disperse these people,” she tells Iema, who nods curtly.
What does she mean, she has a few questions for me?
If she brings in Artem, the Head Slicer, for any reason—if he’s somewhere in the Gathering right now, watching all this—none of my lies will matter. He’ll recognize me. I’d intended to keep a low profile until he went back to the Highlands after the Slicing.
So much for saving P’Tal’s newly born from a Dreamless life, or for ever seeing my family free again. We’ll probably all be shipped off to the Pits now. Jax’s voice cuts into my panic.
“With respect, Controller, her wings shouldn’t be in those clamps. She’s still just a near, she—” Jax uncharacteristically stumbles over his words as Evelyn stares down at him, disdain clear on her face. She’s a near too. In her position, I don’t imagine she likes being reminded of that.
“You worry about her friend,” Evelyn says, tossing her head behind me, toward Lerian. “She needs her healer.” Jax just stares at her, incredulous. His merperson markings twitch with the muscles in his throat. After a moment, he nods in the human fashion and waves his arm at Lerian to go back to the infirmary platform with him. Ler’s eyes are wide and red as she passes me. Jax grimaces at me and squeezes Mom’s arm before following Lerian across the Gathering.
“Richard, the faerie can walk on her own from here. And Sadie, do walk. The better you cooperate, the easier this will be for all of us.”
“Controller, please—” Mom starts to object.
“This community needs you, Faye. Don’t leave everyone’s health in only one person’s hands.” Mom glares harder than I’ve ever seen, but she says nothing. She flies up to me and Richard steels his grip on my arm, about to wrench me away from her. Evelyn holds up a hand to stay him, to dismiss him, and he releases me with a kind of backhand toss. He stomps away, and Evelyn watches him go with a slightly furrowed brow.
Mom says nothing, just smoothes a hand gently over my wing clamps, tears threatening to spill down her face. “You’ll be all right, Sadie, —we all will. Your mom and Aon are just fine; I can keep an eye on them in there, all right? Everything’s going to be fine.”
I nod, not trusting my mouth to open.
The Controller clears her throat, and Mom chokes down a sob, turning away from me and flying off toward the cage, toward the infirmary.
“Mom!” I call after her. “I’m sorry I’ve been off lately.” For lying last night. For snapping the other morning. She knows. She turns and her eyes twist up into a sad, horrible smile. She shakes her head and holds her hands over her heart, then throws them up in my direction.
“No apologies, my love,” she’s saying. As everyone she loves is in chains around her.
My eyes swivel to Evelyn as Mom flies away. Iema must have done a good job clearing everyone out, because the air is much emptier now than it was; people have dispersed back to the Forest, the Underland, and those remaining in the area are in their learning pods, scattered across the outskirts of the Gathering on their different platforms.
In the center of everything, it’s just the two of us.
And the cage she’s brought to lock up my family.
I want to rage at her. I want to scream.
I don’t. Maybe my words are stuck in the wing clamps she had them lock me in.
“Follow me,” is all she says, in my language. I obey, my limp worse than usual on account of the chains and the dragging, my heart hammering away in my chest.
She says nothing as she strides into the Forest, her feet unsteady until we reach this season’s centauric-formed Way.
It takes me far too long to realize where we’re
going: —the eastern steam pools near the Flowing, right on the Forest-Lethean border. For a wild moment, I wonder if she plans to kill me and let my body decay in the overly hot, massive black rock formations that join together and reach into the sky like vertical caves all across this part of the deserted beach.
She pauses when lush green Forest gives way to open sky and beige sand, bending to remove her shoes. It takes her a long time because she’s only working with one hand. I almost go to help her.
Almost. Before I realize that both my hands are chained behind my back, and that it’s her fault.
I take the opportunity, instead, to stare at the way her royal white uniform trousers flare out into a skirt in the back, highlighting every curve of her lower body. I’ve never seen that kind of clothing before, and I wonder vaguely if it’s an Izlanian fashion or just the latest fad with royal women in the Highlands proper. Or both.
Evelyn turns to face me before I remember to stop staring. My face gets hot. She purses her lips, and I can’t tell if she’s pleased or angry. She holds both shoes dangling from the fingers of one hand and steps out onto the beach, gesturing with her head for me to follow her. I do.
She steps back when she reaches one of the smallest steam pool formations, bowing mockingly with a sweep of her hand for me to enter the tall cavern before her. I roll my eyes and step in, not caring that the ankle-deep level of water soaks the bottom of my trousers. After walking so long, the cavern-warmed water actually feels kind of good.
Water sloshes behind me.The Controller is holding the lower half of her outfit up above the water with the same hand that grips her shoes.
We stare at each other for a moment, the sunlight from the hole where the rock formations don’t quite converge way up at the top of the steam pool shining in my eyes.
“You gonna shoot me like they shot Lerian if I sit?”
I take her frustrated glare as assent. There’s a little outcropping in the rock behind me, and I sit gratefully, but only on the edge—it’s not faeric habit to lean back like I’ve seen nons do, because of our wings. Especially not now with these clamps.
She doesn’t wait for me to get comfortable. She doesn’t wait for anything.
“Artem—don’t get that look in your eyes, you know you know exactly who he is—caught a glimpse of you this sunup as you flew to the Underland. He informed me that a young man,” she chuckles at this, “who looks, somehow, exactly like you, met him at the Lethean Inn last night.”
Silence penetrates the cavern, punctuated by the echoed rushing of Flowing’s waves surging through the gaps where different rocks making up the cavern meet, sloshing against their walls.
I don’t know how long it is before I finally clear my throat. “That’s…that’s strange. I guess dashingly good looking is an in look with humans this season.”
The Controller’s eyes flash dangerously.
Her eyes scream the hurt anddisappointment that her pursed lips give no indication of. I tell myself it’s good; the Controller’s job is to dole out hurt and disappointment. So what if she feels it too?
“What were you doing there? Ah, no, and don’t say grabbing a drink. I know your wings were tucked away, Sadie. I know you were spying, the same as you were the night we…” Waves, crashing, up, down. Ebb. Flow. “The night I met you in the Forest.” Seagulls crying out overhead. The soft roar of an unusually big wave against the outside of the steam pool walls. “The night you saved Iema.”
I lick my lips and taste the salt that saturates the air around us. Her eyes catch the movement before she looks away.
“So he says he recognized me. And you apparently believe him, since you’re willing to lock up a young one to, what, prove a point? So what’s your next trick? You going to lock me away now? Were you just lying to my mom about being able to see me soon? And you brought me here first to, what, tell me I’ll never see my family again yourself? All nice and personal?”
She glares at me and I gulp. “Much as it displeases me, I owed you a debt for saving Iema. I convinced Artem to let me handle you, to send for new supplies but to not tell anyone else why.” She must see the shock on my face and she chuckles humorlessly. “I have…friends…in high places.” Something bitter flickers across her rounded features, and her face gets drawn, serious. Determined.
“Evelyn,” I start into the rhythm of the sloshing water.
She looks daggers at me and I backfly. “Controller,” I correct myself.
Her body relaxes. Somewhat.
“Why’d you ask me to meet you at the inn?”
“Why did you lie about who you are?”
I narrow my eyes.
“You should have noticed, you being Izlanian and all, but in case you haven’t made the connection, it’s a lot easier looking like a human than it is looking like a faerie in Lunav these days.” Her eyes sear into mine, and she doesn’t even react when a particularly sharp wave splashes water all the way up to her thick thighs. I blink to make sure she doesn’t think I’m staring.
“People around here don’t exactly… I’m not quite everyone’s favorite person. Even though they have to put up with me, because Mom’s their healer.”
The skin behind her eyes tightens like she’s fighting some kind of battle with herself. “Surely you’re not the only half faerie here.”
I shake my head in the human fashion. “There are young ones from centaur and fae growns. But my…combination? I’ve only really ever met others in the Highlands. Unless they’re all just passing as fully faeric.”
A long pause. Ebb. Flow. Ebb.
“It’s illegal.”
“To be a non man and force yourself onto your faeric servant? No, it’s not.”
Evelyn’s hurt hand convulses slightly, but she ignores it. When she speaks again, her voice is full of gravel. “To lie about your identity to a government official.”
I scoff. “And how exactly was I supposed to know you had anything to do with the government? For all I knew you were just visiting from Izla and Iema and that creep were just your hired protection—”
“Enough! I won’t quarrel with you as though we’re on equal footing.”
“Way I see it, we’re on exactly equal footing. I lied, you lied.”
“I didn’t lie, you just assumed—”
“So did you!”
An impasse. We glare at each other for a long moment. She takes her eyes away first, and I don’t suppress my victorious grin.
She notices. “Such arrogances for someone in chains! You might want to start taking me seriously—”
“You just locked up my family, I don’t think taking you seriously is an issue—”
“I could have you all killed!”
“But you haven’t. And I’m betting you won’t. Now you tell me, huh, am I arrogant or am I right?”
She licks her lips, and I find myself wondering if they’re as salty from the cavern air as mine are.
“All right, so you didn’t know I work for the king. But Iema was wearing her uniform. You knew she was a Hand.”
“Not when I first heard her screaming, I didn’t.”
The Controller’s eyes flash. “So you would have let her bleed to death if you’d known?”
I shiver, even though the cavern is overly warm. “My mother—the one you didn’t lock up—is a healer. You know that. It…” I can see the face of that young soldier, the one Mom and Jax saved all those harvests ago, burned and broken. His joiner’s wild fear, his desperation to save his love. I repeat what Mom told Jax.
“You don’t leave people to die.”
For a moment, I can’t tell if her eyes cloud up or if it’s just some sort of effect of the cavern. But she blinks, and I’ll never know.
“Fine. But know this, and know it well; I’ve used up my leniency with you, Sadie. I’m only protecting you right now because if you hadn’t reached Iema when you did, she would have bled to death before I got there. Be grateful I’m imprisoning your family in the Gathering, not in t
he Pits. Because I’d be well within my rights to send all of you down there forever. My debt to you is repaid, in full. Do you understand me?”
Rise, fall. Ebb, flow. Up, down. Crash. Crash.
Crash.
I breathe in and out.
The Controller seethes, the ghosts of unspoken pains tugging at the skin behind her eyes.
“You’re done doing favors for me, right. Does uh…does that mean you’re gonna let me hobble back to the Gathering in these chains? Because I’ve gotta say, they’re really starting to pinch…”
Evelyn spins halfway away from me, irritation and a tiny flash of amusement overtaking her features. The sudden movement of her feet splashes us both with water, and I grimace at her. She shakes her head, hard, and flicks her wrist chaotically, almost smacking me in the face with her shoes. My chains and wing clamps echo loudly as they clatter onto the outcropping.
Without meaning to, I close my eyes and groan loudly in relief, not knowing whether to rub my wing sprouts, wing tips, or wrists first.
When I open my eyes, I’m alone.
Chapter Eleven
“YOU SURE YOU should be training tonight, Ler?” Tamzel asks in Underlander, her brow furrowed and tail swishing uncertainly.
Lerian splashes her hooves in the water, her whinny bouncing off the walls of the cavernous steam pool. A massive one, not like the small one Evelyn had taken me into. “The Controller might be scum, but even I gotta admit, she’s not a terrible healer,” she offers, flexing her arms back and forth roughly as though to prove her point. Her torso still has an angry, puckered red wound, but it’s only skin deep and the thick scab probably would have healed now if Lerian would just stop picking at it. I think she secretly wants it to scar; I’m pretty sure she thinks it makes her look tougher.
“Controller must’ve gone to one expensive learning pod,” Ler mutters, nudging me conspiratorially with her elbow.
I chuckle and almost blurt out that I’d thought the same thing the first time I’d met her, but guilt swarms my stomach and tugs on my chest. That would require me to tell Lerian—and everyone else—that I met Evelyn before the non girl was the Controller. The enemy.