by Sarah Hoyt
He seemed to think for a moment. “...Gabriel Penn’s help, but if you fail at that – as I think the concerted effort to bring down my house might include him – then you are to procure my fiancée, Miss Blythe, and tell her what happened to me, and to seek redress before the king’s high justice. Trust me, she will be anxious to do so, as she will not want her name to be linked to someone who has broken the law by willingly traveling to other worlds. And then you are to convince the king to find who was at the back of the conspiracy and to do your utmost to recover my brother, Michael, from Fairyland.” He recalled himself and, this time, gave a startled laugh. “Listen to me,” he said, "laying down the law to you, as though I had the power to compel your obedience in the case of my death. I absolve you from all responsibility in following my wishes, of course, only beg you to consider that without me, or Michael, my house will devolve to a distant cousin, and the family will be left destitute. But of course, my transporting us and saving you,” he added, urgently, “has absolutely no conditions. If we are captured here, my family will just as surely be disgraced and thrown into poverty.” He inclined his head to her. “But I would appreciate–”
Something like a look of dismay crossed her features, and she protested, “Of course I’ll do what I can to save your family. Only tell me why you think you might die, but not immediately?”
“In my weakened condition,” he said, “being in a world with so much cold iron and so hostile to magic will–”
At that moment, he felt the probe again, and this time, felt the end of it fasten on them. Through the probe came a voice, unctuous and fulsome, as the voice of a functionary who has completed a difficult task, “I found them, O gracious one. The witches are–”
Seraphim took a deep breath. He called the last of his magical strength to him. He could feel his power fighting, his instinct of self-preservation attempting to keep him from doing such destructive magic, which could only result in his death, or at least, in serious damage to his magical power and his shields. It didn’t matter. If they stayed here, she would have to fight for him. And that, he doubted she could do. Then they would both die. In this world, one of them at least might survive.
He reached with the last of his strength for the coordinates of the world he and Gabriel had called the Madhouse, the world he and Gabriel had sworn never to visit again, not since the last time when the sheer amount of cold iron had almost killed them.
At the last minute, as he was reciting the transport spell, he heard Miss Felix say, “Oh!” and reach in, reach right into his spell and… twisting.
It was still the Madhouse, he thought, frantically, even as the spell activated. But she had set different coordinates. What could she be thinking?
The cold of the Betweener hit him, and then he felt himself fall onto a hard surface, even as the sapping feel of cold iron leeched at his magic.
As consciousness ran away from him, he heard Miss Felix pound on something – sounded like a door – while screaming, “Grandmother. Grandmother. Please, help me.”
Into The Lion’s Den
Marlon had been reclining on a rosewood sofa upholstered in blue velvet, with a book on his knees.
Gabriel’s first thought was that he’d changed not at all. His second thought was that he’d changed completely. And both were true. Marlon’s hair remained that blond on the edge of red – the flame about to catch – and as unruly as it had been at Cambridge, wisps of it standing on end and forming a halo around the oval face. His body remained long and lean, and he wore – as he’d tended to do at Cambridge – blue pants of some serviceable material and a shirt that looked too large for him.
But at Gabriel’s arrival, he looked up. And in that moment Gabriel sucked in air, remarking the difference in his erstwhile friend. Marlon had grown almost gaunt, and his blue eyes looked haunted, as though he’d looked too closely at horrors he couldn’t forget.
Good, Gabriel thought. He also didn’t escape unscathed. And immediately despised himself for it.
After the first start, the shock that widened his blue eyes, Marlon controlled himself and looked as though Gabriel transported into his house every day and twice on Sunday, and not as though they were seeing each other for the first time in years – and after they’d parted in anger and bitterness, in public scandal and private horror.
He stood from the sofa, with slow, calculated movements, as though he didn’t trust himself to move fast, to lose control of himself. He kept his fingers between the pages of the book, holding the page he’d been reading. Standing, he came to a little above Gabriel’s shoulder, but managed to give the impression of towering over him, and also of distant, cold dignity. As though he were the offended one, and not the guilty party.
“You honor me with your visit, Prince,” he said, in extremely polite tones.
Gabriel opened his mouth to protest the title, then bit his tongue. When he spoke, he’d brought his own abominable temper under control, though nothing could stop his heart pounding, or the vague feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. All the furniture here, everything, was what had been in Marlon’s room at Cambridge, and there remained only the question: where was it? Where was that which had once been Aiden Gypson? Gabriel took light breaths, feeling as though, should he breathe deeply, he would smell the faint scent of corruption in the air.
“I came to you,” Gabriel said, with as much dignity as he could muster. “Because you told me I could always come to you if I ran out of places to go, and if I had no one else to help me.”
Marlon’s eyebrows went up. They were the exact same color as his hair, and when they rose like that they gave the impression of twin flames dancing above his eyes. “Nowhere to go, Prince? You astonish me.”
“Don’t call me that. You know very well I am not a prince. I gave up my dignity and my power long ago.”
“Oh, I don’t think you can give it up.” A smile without mirth, an absolutely ghastly grin as unpleasant as a corpse’s bared teeth, contorted Marlon’s face. “I think if you’re born to it, you will always be a prince. Not like the rest of us, who are born to less exalted positions.”
“For the love of heaven, cut the tomfoolery,” Gabriel said, impatient. “None of– None of what happened had anything to do with the fact that my mother was an elf princess or your mother a mere magical commoner. As different as those are, we still have more in common than with– than other people.” Which had been more than half of what had thrown them together. The other half… Gabriel looked down, trying to discern any hint of the easy laughter that had once sprung between them, or that wordless understanding that had allowed them to communicate without the need for sound. He found nothing. All of that had shattered, years ago, when they’d last seen each other. “You told me I could come to you, if I were out of all other resources.”
“Your high born brother abandoned you, then?” Marlon asked. His look was almost hungry. “The Duke’s family has disowned you?”
In the face of that hunger, Gabriel hesitated. How much could he trust Marlon? If he told Marlon exactly the trouble he was in, would Marlon betray him? Run to the authorities?
But at that moment, he caught sight of it: the mortal remains of Aiden Gypson. In life, he’d been a tall man, and much of Gabriel’s build. In death, his look remained the same, and he wore what Gabriel presumed were clean clothes – since the smell was not that obvious – in this case a serviceable brown suit. Above it, Aiden’s face remained as it had been in life: the well-formed features, the dark green eyes, the narrow, high nose. Only the eyes looked lusterless, and the lips receded slightly to show the teeth. It took more than that, though, and the yellowish wax-like pallor to know the man was dead and had been brought back to life with a resurrection spell. You wouldn’t know that he couldn’t rest until the man who’d made that spell allowed it.
But if you were a mage you could see it and you could smell it: the not quite physical smell of the dead flesh that had not been allowed to decay and instead
sparked and fizzed with unholy magic. And if you were a mage, you could see that more horrible thing: Aiden’s specter, just behind the body, attached to it by a thread of spell, faded and impossibly-tired looking.
How could Marlon live with that ghost? How could he? When he’d met Marlon at Cambridge, he’d heard of Aiden Gypson and the odd, too-close relationship Marlon had had with Gypson until Gypson’s death. But it had taken him more than a year to find Gypson, where Marlon had hidden him, in the attic room of his lodgings. And to realize what Marlon had done.
In sick waves of horror, Gabriel recalled how – in shock – he’d given the whole thing away and how the only reason Marlon hadn’t been arrested and Aiden Gypson destroyed was that the two had vanished. Gabriel, himself, had been sent from Cambridge in disgrace, though nothing could ever be pinned on him. And weeks later he’d gotten the unsigned letter with the coordinates of Marlon’s hideout and the line “when you run out of places to hide.”
Well, he’d run out of places to hide, but Marlon could not denounce him or call the authorities on him. Or on Seraphim. Necromancers were at as great a risk as those who traded with unauthorized worlds.
In a rush, one eye on Aiden Gypson, who stood, knit with the shadows against the wall, half-immersed in them, he told Marlon a very brief version of the events. What he and Seraphim had found of their father’s activities. How they’d resumed them, helping rescue witches from the forbidden worlds. And then the catastrophic cascade of events of the last few days.
Marlon showed surprise only once: when Gabriel mentioned the role that the elves appeared to have played in it. And that in a way was a relief. The thought of Marlon in league with the fairy realm was terrifying. And though his mother must have been a low-born elf – if she had been an elf at all and not another magical creature, one of the many thrown out of Fairyland – it didn’t mean that Fairyland wouldn’t use her son, and willingly too.
When Gabriel came to the end, he was quiet a while, and Marlon said, crossing his arms on his chest, “And what do you want of me, prince? Am I supposed to hide you?”
Gabriel shook his head. “I could have hid myself,” he said. “That is, I’m not so witless that I could not have contrived to.”
“Ah.” Marlon said. “Then what am I to understand you to want?”
“Oh, curse you,” Gabriel said. “Stop playing games. This is not funny. You know very well what I want. I want you to find where Seraphim went. I want you to find where Michael was taken. I want you to help me recover them and discover who is at the back of this, and why, and what they intend for my– for the Duke’s family.”
Marlon was very close now, looking up and somehow contriving to give the impression of looking down. “And what’s in it for me?” he asked. His voice was harsh.
Gabriel felt a spasm of revulsion, but said, his voice controlled, “Whatever I need to do to convince you to save Seraphim and Michael and… and their mother and sister.”
Marlon laughed, a short bark. “You couldn’t do enough,” he said. “It’s more what you need to give.”
“Give?” Gabriel asked, as his stomach lurched. And, uncomprehending, “Give?”
“My price, sweet Prince, is you.”
“Me?”
Marlon was now so close, that Gabriel felt as though he couldn’t look away, even as, by the corner of his eye, he followed Aiden Gypson’s movement as he emerged from the shadow driven by who knew what random impulse.
“You,” Marlon said. “Body and soul and magic too.”
“You do have a penchant for trying to own people!” Gabriel said, before he could stop himself.
Marlon narrowed his eyes. “It’s my price,” he said. “Pay it or seek help elsewhere for your precious family.”
Gabriel felt as though his throat had gone very dry, his mind lurching into horror, his body hovering on the edge of nausea. But Marlon was the only person he knew whose power was as strong as Gabriel’s own. And Marlon was ten times as knowledgeable. And there was nowhere else Gabriel could go.
“Which one is it going to be, Prince? Yes or no?”
Feeling as though he had to force his body to obey him, Gabriel lowered his head and hissed through clenched teeth, “Yes.”
Mirror Mirror
The dressing room smelled heavily of rose water, as though every surface had been scrubbed with it, every one of the frothy dresses hanging from a rod at the back dipped in it, every one of the ornate paintings on the wall painted with it.
The smell of roses mixed with other cloying scents: powder and grease paint, wax candles and a trace of the incense that climbed in a thin blue thread of smoke from the mouth of a dragon-shaped incense burner to the ceiling.
The Twin was in front of the mirror, applying makeup with quick, deft gestures. That’s how Barbara, Dowager Duchess of Darkwater, always thought of her Fey double: as The Twin. She knew the woman had a name, something soft and liquid and running to excessive syllables, but she didn’t know it, just as she didn’t know Gabriel’s elf name. Elves were born with their names, as attached to them and as much a part of their anatomy as a hand or a foot, and as important as their own heart. She knew, too, that in the human world The Twin went by the name Maryalys Penn, the last being the surname of her first husband, discarded a long time ago, but in Barbara’s mind she was always and forever The Twin – that creature like herself and yet not whom she had first glimpsed for a few moments after she’d been brought back from Fairyland, and before The Twin was sent back to it.
Time had made differences between them, of course. The Twin hadn’t aged from whatever age she’d been when she’d come out of Fairyland with Gabriel. Thirty? Somewhere around there, Barbara thought, though it was thirty in elf terms, which means she looked very much like the Duchess at seventeen, with pale, creamy skin, rose-touched cheeks, plump lips that rested in a smile, and midnight-black hair loosed down her back. Only their eyes were different. They’d always been different. The Twin might have been formed from birth to echo the Duchess, which one understood was how Changelings were created, but the eyes, though they might have the same shape and color and be nestled beneath the same dark, arched eyebrows, were not Barbara’s. They managed to be both much, much older than those of any human who ever lived, and somehow not human. Like the eyes of a bird of prey, glittering and hard.
Had Gabriel had eyes like that, Barbara would never have allowed him into the house, no matter if he was just a child and had been living rough on the streets or had almost been killed just before Arden rescued him.
And now that Barbara thought about it, that was likely to be a point of contention between them. After all, Gabriel had been The Twin’s to dispose of and to do with as she pleased. Or at least The Twin would think so. She could not have approved of the Duke's taking him away. And she would hold it against Barbara. No matter.
As The Twin’s gaze met hers in the mirror, for just a second Barbara read surprise in them and then a thread of fear. There were many reasons The Twin might fear her human counterpart, of course, but the quick flicker, quickly subdued, gave Barbara a sense of hope. There was something there. And The Twin was involved in it.
Aloud, she said, “Good evening, Mrs. Penn. Are you preparing for a performance? I beg your pardon, interrupting you at this time, but I must have some information from you.” She spoke casually, and adjusted her gloves on her fingers as she spoke, as though this were a social call and she were merely verifying a detail or two. It was probably all to naught. She had never fully known what elves could do – no human did – but she had an idea that Gabriel could smell much more acutely than normal humans, perhaps even smell magic. She’d seen him detect people in falsehood with no other indication. And she knew he could hear far more sharply than normal humans, since he’d used that talent all through childhood to cover whatever mischief Seraphim and he were engaged in at the time.
So this creature could probably hear the frantic beating of Barbara’s heart, and surely she could smell
the uneasy perspiration as Barbara hoped with all her might that Caroline would stay where she’d left her, at the door to the dressing room and behind some fantastical wheeled horse used in plays, where no one was likely to see her or bother her. Please, let Caroline not come in. Let her not be exposed to The Twin.
None of this mattered. Barbara’s composure must be maintained, as much to keep Barbara from breaking down as to fool any external person.
The Twin’s eyes glittered at her from the mirror. “I fail to see in what I might help you, my lady,” she spoke, her voice also a perfect imitation of Barbara’s at seventeen or eighteen, dulcet and cultured. “What of mine you wanted, you have already taken: my lover and my child. What more could you want me to give you?”
“My husband was never your lover,” Barbara said, then caught herself. No use speaking half-truths around elves. They could always twist them. “No more than in the carnal sense, and there he was many women’s lover. He lay with you, sure. Desired you too, I am sure, since he married me, and I’m sure he saw in me an echo of you, but it is not love. If you don’t know the difference between those, Mrs. Penn, you know not the least thing about being human, and all your time amid us has been wasted. As for your son, he was not yours when he came to us. From what I understand he had been living as a beggar in London and supporting you both. Something no child should do.” She saw The Twin open her mouth to speak and said, “But that is neither here nor there, Mrs. Penn. What I wish to know is, where are they? And why?”