by Jaida Jones
She smiled tightly, swept Ivy up in her arms, and passed her off to Bute. Let go of her with fingers that never wanted to let go of anything. “Bute’s taking you in to see Mother, little egg.” Though it had been Inis’s instinct to run out front and confront the charging army, Two was poised by the back exit, and Inis trusted him. He was the only one Inis trusted.
“Where are you going?” Ivy’s eyes narrowed with the realization that Inis wasn’t coming with them as Bute steadied her in his arms like a sack of grain. One that kicked, bit, scratched.
“It’s not his fault,” Inis hissed after them, insistent that loyalty not be repaid in unpleasantness. “I told him to. Don’t you hurt him, Ivy!”
Worse than the struggling: Ivy going limp in submission, her tiny body laden with despair and hostility.
She’d recover from this injustice. An Ever-Loyal could recover from anything, save death.
Nonetheless, Inis winced as she turned and opened the door for Two, leaving her family safely behind.
This was her element. Constant motion. A near-impossible task. Nothing remained for herself after being mother and sister, father and two brothers, to Ivy. Her own hopes and dreams were locked away in Mother’s room, lost and untouchable as Mother herself.
Two lunged sinuously through the grass with the speed of a born hunter, Inis struggling to keep apace.
The fighting was on the other side of the house. No, the slaughtering. Inis intimately knew the difference.
Be glad the one you don’t like isn’t dead. That would make things even more difficult. Two’s voice startled Inis. She strove to keep him in view, his tail rising like a shimmering pussywillow through the grasslands where they bordered woods and field. They were headed away from death, possibly toward more death. I can smell his blood where it spilled. Does the thought of his spilled blood make you smile?
It didn’t, though Inis couldn’t explain why.
I think you aren’t smiling because, Two continued, despite how unpleasant it is to acknowledge this, he is a part of something greater than both of us. He is also a part of us.
I’m following you, aren’t I? Inis thought back, fighting off dueling waves of nausea and headache. She’d left Ivy alone, the one thing she’d sworn she’d never do.
Perhaps this was how the fae took people. The stories had it all wrong. They showed up one afternoon and said you had a destiny to fulfill—then they gave you the most wonderful gift—then, when your armor was off and your guard down, when you least expected it . . .
Inis didn’t realize she’d caught up with Two until he nuzzled her hand, half in comfort, half because he wanted her to scratch behind his one good ear. Thanks, master.
Inis crouched, breathing deeply, waiting for the latest wave of nausea to pass. Helping with the wall repair had been stubborn and stupid, more than she was ready for with Two’s thoughts echoing in her blood, Morien’s shard in her chest, but she couldn’t let the Queensguard, someone who’d destroyed her life, be the one who fixed anything for her. She had to have a hand in it, was willing to pay the price.
She shut her eyes, remembering a time when her mother’s cool hands would have passed over her feverish brow, lifting her curls off her hot neck. The simplest comfort in the world, but wonderful.
Stay here a moment while I explore. It’s safe. Two’s weight tipped her back against the curve of a wizened tree. Inis felt like a fae child nestled amid the roots. Her eyelids were heavy.
I could almost forget you’re mortal, the way you keep yourself going. But you’re no good to anyone if you collapse. Two butted his big, sun-warmed metal head into her hand, brief and comforting, before he was gone.
Just three breaths, Inis told herself. She’d allow herself to rest for three breaths. And then she’d follow him.
Instead, she almost cried out when, heralded by a flicker of sunlight on grass, she saw the world despite shutting her eyes.
Don’t be startled. Two’s voice inside her skull again, in the pulse at her wrists and throat. You see what I see. We’re closer to each other already than One and her pretty boy because you grew up with me. Ate your breakfast off me every morning, though you didn’t know it.
Inis couldn’t open her eyes, but didn’t wish to. Any lingering suspicions she had melted away. Two hadn’t left her behind, hadn’t tricked her, was showing her more than she could have seen on her own. They were sharing one sight. Headache forgotten, she focused on the shapes and shadows of the nearby stream, looking through the silver tint of Two’s eyes at the world around him.
They took in the river, the bank, the signs of struggle. The Queensguard’s dirty shirt, all that remained of him. Inis couldn’t unravel what it meant. Her senses were flooded, hearing every buzz from every bumblebee, every click of every beetle leg on bark, every rustle of every worm shuffling through the earth . . .
One is following him, Two explained. But it’s dark and she’s taken many twists and turns. They are already a long way gone. What is the word for when humans steal another human? Kidsleeping?
Kidnapping, Inis supplied.
Have it your way. The word itself makes no difference to those who have been taken. Inis felt Two smile, felt the dizzying rock of his tail flicking back and forth. The assailants split up—a few took Cabhan, while the rest caused a diversion to ensure a successful nap-kid. One has followed her human at a distance. Oh, this is going to be a problem.
The word diversion made Inis’s heart leap, despite what Two said. Is my sister in danger?
No. The diverters are in danger. The Lying One is mad.
The Lying One was what Two called Morien.
So he was back, with his anger. It couldn’t be as strong as Inis’s anger—nothing could. But his came with mirrorcraft.
Morien’s timing was impeccable, and that made it impossible to ignore what Inis had viciously hoped couldn’t be true.
He was spying on them. Constantly.
Rumors had it that hearts bled their truths onto a mirrorglass shard, and none could lie to them or hide from them. But those were supposed to be exaggerated stories. Sorcerers weren’t meant to wield this much power. They drew on old spells, studied the few remaining histories left behind by Oberon’s children, but their work had begun as pale mimicry of legend. They were like children dressing in a parent’s clothes, aping maturity beyond their ken. They could go so far as to predict blurred futures, to extract truths from the Queen’s enemies. To spy, and—sometimes—to salve.
Crisiant the Questing and Siomha the Undine had been frequent guests of House Ever-Loyal while they attended to the Queen’s business, and though they had been odd, they hadn’t been dangerous like Morien, who was a weapon masquerading as flesh.
They didn’t stick mirror shards into people’s hearts and control them like hand-shadow puppets cast on a wall.
She wondered if Morien could hear her thoughts, could eavesdrop on every private conversation she had with Two.
No, Two told her. Our connection is safe. It is beyond the Lying One’s current reach. Relief swelled in Inis’s breast. It was short-lived. He does, however, know that One and her master are missing, because the little one with the dirty mouth won’t shut up about it.
Despite Two’s superior fragment senses, One and her master were too far out of reach for him to determine where they had been taken.
Inis couldn’t let Ivy see any of this. So much like the night they’d lost everything.
Two said, Open your eyes.
Headache or no, it was time to get up.
44
Rags
When Inis came running out of the woods with Cabhan’s shirt, Rags thought it might’ve been a confession. She’d murdered him.
Then Rags figured Morien would’ve seen that coming and stopped her.
Sensible people with wicked mirrors in their hearts needed to avoid pissing off the guy in charge of when those wicked heart-mirrors started heart-murdering.
On the other hand, nothing Rags
had seen from Inis, who’d introduced herself by decking an ex-Queensguard in the face, gave him any reason to call her sensible.
That was another problem with working in a group. You didn’t always get to choose your team.
“I had thought,” Morien said, perched in the seat they’d left for him at the table, “that your purpose was to gather more fragments and masters for me. Not lose ones you had already found.”
“One,” Rags pointed out. “We lost One, not ones.” He laughed too loudly. “Get it?” With his nerves this frayed, there was no chance he’d be able to control his tongue. Morien was going to punish them. Might as well bring it on, control when it happened, if nothing else.
“I see no humor in the situation,” Morien said. “And neither does my lord Faolan.”
“Speaking of your lord Faolan—does he have that insurance you mentioned?” Rags kept talking—shouldn’t have, did anyway—figuring it was the best tactic to draw Morien’s irritation to himself and spare the others. He’d set all this in motion with his own two hands simply by excelling at his trade. He had some responsibility for what happened next. “Your insurance. Speaking of, why not do your sorcery stuff, track Cab down, and solve the problem? That’s why you bound him to your ‘cheating will’—so you could snap your fingers and bring him back.”
“There are limitations to the spell.” Morien’s voice had hardened to the point of petrification. Rags’s pulse raced while limping like a dog injured at the track. “If he has been blindfolded, or if he is unconscious—if he himself does not know where he is—then I am unable to track him.”
“Cheating will these days ain’t what it used to be, eh?” Rags asked.
Darkness fell too quickly, not from the setting sun, but behind Rags’s eyes. He didn’t know if Inis was consigned to suffer the same fate or if he’d managed to direct the burden toward himself alone. Then he stopped thinking, stopped asking questions, stopped breathing. Clutched his throat, like that makes a fucking difference, and dropped to the floor.
As quickly as the punishment began, it stopped.
“—will be able to find them both more easily with the assistance of the other fragments.” Shining Talon was talking fast, saving Rags’s ass again. This debt was piling up so big, he’d never be able to repay it. His eyes watered. No sound but rasping wheezes came out of his throat.
Inis remained seated, unharmed. She looked pissed, but also smart enough not to draw Morien’s attention—and with it, his wrath.
They were Morien’s prisoners, his pawns. Whether he’d predicted this would happen or not, the masters the fragments had found had something to live for. Family to protect, or, selfishly, their own futures to preserve. Morien had more leverage than mere mirror shards, could manipulate both with equal skill.
“Without Rags, you will have to wait another of your human lifetimes for a Master of Five to come of age,” Shining Talon continued. “A shameful delay, when we are closer than ever. With Inis Fraoch Ever-Loyal and Two, we have all we need to uncover the location of Three and Three’s master, who will lead us to Four—”
“And so on,” Morien said, voice diamantine.
“—which means we do not currently require Cabhan of Kerry’s-End and One. We will be able to find the others without them, and find them with the others,” Shining Talon concluded.
“There, see?” Rags knew it was a mistake to speak up again, but did it anyway. Didn’t like the way a simmering-with-fury Morien was focused on Shining Talon. “I might be a pain in the ass, but at least you’re not changing my nappies until I’m of Mastering age, yeah?”
“I feel that perhaps I’m not being taken seriously.” Morien raised his left little finger, traced a half circle in the air. Rags screamed, the noise drawn from a part of him he hadn’t met until this moment, never wanted to meet again.
Not just his heart, but traveling through his right arm to his hand. His right fingers spasmed. Pain spread through Rags’s chest to his lungs, his heart.
Shining Talon moved toward him in a golden blur. Rags shouted, stopping him in his path. Was reduced to nothing but an animal, unable to explain to Shining Talon what was happening.
Every one of his ribs felt shattered to splinters. His lungs stretched to the point of splitting. His heart was in tatters. Those were facts.
Rags had seen his first dead body when he was six. A waxy white woman, skin stretched over bone, no muscle or fat to soften her features. She’d taken refuge in one of the sewer pipes that flushed refuse out of the warehouses into the sea, and died there.
Rags had found her because that was where he slept three days of the week.
She’d been stiff as pressboard. Still clothed, so fresh she hadn’t been stripped yet. Rags could find nothing in her pockets but a glass pipe.
Since his first, he’d seen countless more. He knew how bodies worked and had a passing familiarity with their limits, how far flesh and bone could be pushed before they gave up.
His fingers popped at the joints one by one. Worse than a thousand paper cuts, the sensation of blade-thin arrows of honed air tearing apart the muscles in his hand.
Rags neared the point of no return. Dark spots and bright spots flashed in his vision. His heart was beginning to fray, the muscle pulling apart with as little fight as the threads of an old shirt.
In a distant, dark part of him, held separate from the pain, he wondered if he was going to die.
He didn’t want to.
When he came to, his hand was still twitching, not to mention stinging like he’d shoved it into a hornetsuckle bush. Morien’s face loomed in his blurring vision.
Something warm and solid at his back. A steady, broad touch. Shining Talon. Rags glanced up to see murder flashing in the fae prince’s monochrome eyes.
Rags distracted Shining Talon from trying, failing, to kill Morien the Last, by doing the only thing he could think of. His quick hands found the shaft of the arrow in Shining Talon’s back. The one that still worked yanked the arrow free. His fingers twitched but held.
A wet rip of muscle. Rags winced.
“That hurt me more than it hurt you,” he offered hoarsely.
Shining Talon cleared his throat, almost a cough. He sought Rags’s gaze, but Rags was busy pressing his hand into Shining Talon’s shoulder to stanch the sudden flow of slippery, shiny, cold fae blood.
Not Rags’s best play.
But it had worked. Shining Talon hadn’t done something stupid like get himself killed sparring with Morien for Rags’s sake.
“Everyone here has respect for the gravity of the situation except you, thief.” The scarves over Morien’s mouth never moved when he spoke. “I’ve left you a reminder. A few needles of mirrorglass in the appropriate joints—they’ll cause you significant pain, but nothing more. Now we can avoid misunderstandings in the future.”
Rags’s vision tunneled, black at the edges, with a center of pure white.
Morien hadn’t taken Rags’s hand, merely crippled its motion. This had once been Rags’s greatest fear.
In recent days, his perspective had shifted to welcome a host of new, even greater fears. He was going to pass out. Good. He welcomed not having to think about what had just happened.
“I don’t need you whole to find the rest of the Great Paragon.” Morien straightened, looked around at his captive audience. “You won’t lose track of anyone else?”
The sun dipped low on Rags’s consciousness. He jolted awake to find Morien gone, then again as Inis helped him into Shining Talon’s arms so Shiny could put him, little more than a collection of shivering bones, into bed. He clung to the gossamer of Shining Talon’s fancy shirt, the fae fabric cool and slippery, bunched in his hot palm. The wound in Shining Talon’s back was already healing. Maybe already healed.
Rags wasn’t so lucky.
“You should have let me kill him,” Shining Talon said, low enough that only Rags could hear. Could’ve imagined it. Rags was feverish, fever being the true mother of al
l Cheapsiders.
He shook his head again and again. Shining Talon pressed it to his chest to still him. Rags had spent so much of his life in motion that it felt good to lie still for a change. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d let anyone this close. Such carelessness in the Clave got you pickpocketed. Or stabbed, then pickpocketed. Shining Talon’s arms around Rags felt sturdy the same way a taut rope felt in his palms after he’d managed to hook a grapple on the first try: safe to rest his weight upon, while the rest of the world threatened to crumble.
Though Shining Talon made for a silent companion, no throat-clearing or irritating mouth-breathing, Rags knew he was there.
He listened to the steady lift and fall of Shining Talon’s breaths. The heat rolling off Rags’s skin smelled scorched, like woodburning, or the forge in a smithy. Charcoal and steel. Because he was too tired and sore to stop himself, he thought about the fae prince’s silver eyes, the black bones underneath his skin, and shivered.
This ancient, powerful creature answered only to Rags’s command.
Why did it feel like he’d swallowed hawkshade?
Too tired to ponder it further, Rags told himself that if Shining Talon was going to stick close, at least this time it meant the fae would get some rest, instead of staring at Rags in the dark.
So Rags couldn’t bring himself to protest.
Only this once.
45
Cab
Cabhan woke to blindfolded darkness. Excruciating echoes of pain in his chest. Before the first flash of panic set in, he learned he wasn’t alone.
Shh. One’s voice settled alongside the pain. Soothing it, icy-cold. Wasn’t enough to take it all away, but it dulled the agony. You are in a good place where they have taken the Lying One’s black mirror from your heart. It hurts but is already beginning to heal.
“They”? Cab asked.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, One replied.
Is it supposed to hurt this much?
It is supposed to hurt more. I am doing what I can to help. One’s voice sounded faint. Separated from Cab by a great distance, or focused on more important work than conversation. In the same way that Cab had trusted her from the start, he trusted her now. If she said he was safe, he was safe.