Frightened whispers became nonexistent almost instantly. Although there were no back halls in this forest, the proper behavior expected of Household Staff was necessary, regardless.
Finch had never been comfortable with the divide between the Household Staff and the rest of the House. She had, in her first month within the West Wing, found the stiff distance very difficult. She had assumed that the Household Staff were people, just as she was, and their job—their work—was at least work she herself would have been qualified to do. Treating them as if they were invisible had seemed wrong. Pretentious. Judgmental, somehow. She had therefore tried to make clear that she didn’t consider them in any way lesser or inferior.
But the Master of the Household Staff had chosen the servants who tended to the West Wing personally. Merry had been one of them. And she had explained, hesitantly, that attempting to befriend the servants was the worst possible way of approaching them. It made them feel uncomfortable, for one.
It was Merry who had attempted to teach them the etiquette that separated the staff from the rest of the House. Did some of the staff resent the den? Yes, probably. But if they did, they kept it to themselves; they had no choice. Expressing it in any way that might reach the Master of the Household Staff was as good as simply walking away from the job, and the Master of the Household Staff had ears in every wall.
“We see your mess. We see what you leave behind when you’re in the privacy of your rooms. We hear your arguments. We know what you’re eating, when you’re not eating enough, when you’ve bloodied a shirt or two. We know you put your pants on one leg at a time, same as the rest of us. It’s just—your job is different. And if it weren’t for your den-leader,” and she used that word with a grimace of distaste that Finch could almost see, at the remove of half a lifetime, “The Terafin would have died. Servants are mostly lucky. When a House goes to war with itself, when a leader is determined over the bodies of the dead, the invisibility of our positions mostly save us.
“But not all of us. You think we should dream of being more,” Merry had said, the words tilting up at the end, as if there was some question in the statement.
Finch was quiet.
“Why?”
Because, Finch had said, you clean up after everyone, and you could be the person that everyone else has to clean up after. Because you could make all the decisions, instead of just suffering through the results. Because then it would be you who would be important.
Merry, however, had shaken her head. “No. Then other people will think I’m important.”
“That’s what being important is.”
“Is it? I have my work to do. The House Council has theirs. But, Finch? More Council members have died of poison or violence than any of the Household Staff. Our work stays the same, no matter who rules, and no matter how vicious the infighting becomes. We keep the House going.”
Funny, to think of that now. But Finch did. Because Finch was important in just the fashion she had barely dared to dream of on the day Merry had spoken to them. What she had not understood, on that long-ago day—or all the days that had come before it—was the cost, the weight, of those decisions. She had power, yes. And she had the responsibility of that power.
What she wanted now was to support someone she could believe would only make the right decisions. She wanted to be the one who created a space called home for them. She did not want to rule Terafin.
She had not understood Merry’s thoughts at that time, hadn’t understood what Merry had understood. Merry had considered the Household Staff essential. But they worked in The Terafin’s service, trusting that the decisions that The Terafin made would preserve their house and, by implication, their place in it.
She inhaled. Exhaled. Stepped out of the way of the Master of the Household Staff, but only very figuratively. She allowed her eyes to glance off the serving staff, both the people she recognized and the people she didn’t.
Only when the evacuees had slowed to a trickle did the worry that had been nameless shift, deepening and widening. The fear that replaced it had a name.
Teller.
The High Wilderness
The tree took root, and it grew, just as the Ellariannatte had grown. Where it grew, the air was still—still and cold. It did not reach the height of the Ellariannatte; nor did it possess the solidity, the density, of the other metal trees; it was slender, as young trees are, and ringed in varying shades of something that might have been blue bark.
Jewel watched it rise from the ground; watched its branches spread; watched it bud and watched those buds unfurl as new leaves. Those leaves then fell, and this time, wind carried them, and Jewel knew, the moment the wind did, that this was the only road she must follow to its end.
Shadow knew it as well. He shouldered her, and she nodded; she did not move until he spoke. “Get on.” The words were almost a growl. She felt, as they penetrated her awareness, that she was dreaming, had always been dreaming; that reality asserted itself in unexpected ways because she had never truly been awake.
She climbed up on the gray cat’s back and waited for Rath to join her.
Shadow hissed impatiently, but she could not tell whether the sound was meant for the scion of Handernesse or her. He joined her, sitting once again behind, and Shadow pushed himself off the ground.
The cat was not a bird, and she considered his flight for the first time. Gravity did not appear to be the deciding factor in aerial buoyancy, at least where the cats were concerned; they could skim ground and return to the heights without flapping their wings to gain speed, to gain momentum. They seemed, to Jewel, to be momentum personified when they flew.
At the moment, Shadow’s flight path followed the drift of leaves. They were caught in winds that touched nothing else—Jewel could hear the whispered breeze; sometimes they spun as if caught in storm, their edges clinking against one another. But they moved and fell, returning to the earth, and where they touched that earth, they took root and grew. She counted the trees as Shadow passed them. She understood that they would be three dozen in number, and not more.
The blue leaf had been given as a gift to her by the people the Warden of Dreams had almost killed; they had each passed a leaf into her open palms. The leaves themselves should have been of insignificant weight; they had not been. But she had understood, mutely, that it was the price of their passage, and she had accepted them. Perhaps because she had thought it a dream, for it was in dream that they had all, young and old, been ensnared. She did not know if they understood what they had given, because she wasn’t certain she understood it herself. But she was afraid that she did.
And even the fear had a name. No, it had several names.
She began to recite them: they were mortal names, human names, all. They were invocations, they were pleas, they were apologies and, threaded through them, gratitude. She did not know what would happen to their waking selves, and she was afraid to examine the answer, because the answer would change nothing.
She had to be Adam’s Matriarch, she had to be The Terafin. She was far, far closer to understanding Evayne than she had ever wanted to be. This path of trees, this path made of people, was her only way home.
She had to get home. She had to get home now. She did not speak of what she had seen in the crystal; to speak of it was to speak of fear, of terror, and she did not wish to burden the others with either.
But that was not all of her reason, and the other, more immediate, was the desire to give no voice, even indirectly, to fear and terror of her own, as if the words had power; as if speaking them would cause the futures she had seen to harden, to become the only possible futures.
She had once shared every wyrd, every prophetic dream, with her den. In the twenty-fifth, she had gathered them around a table so small it could barely be called a kitchen table; she had gathered them in the kitchen of the West Wing. She had spoken of her nightmares, an
d Teller—always Teller—had inscribed them before the den attempted to drag some sensible meaning out of them.
Only Angel was here, but even to Angel, she did not choose to speak, because she understood the vision her heart exposed. It was not subtle. It was not rife with symbolism that made no sense to her. She could arrive home in time, or she could fail, utterly. She could find—or make—a path that would take her to the manse, or she could lose her city, her House, and everyone she cared about that she had not taken with her. The Winter King had been right. Of course, he had. She had wasted time in the Hidden Court, secure in the belief that she would return to the world having not lost a single minute.
She begrudged the minutes now. She begrudged everything.
If she did not arrive in time, she would lose her den, and it would start with—
Teller.
And Shadow growled: Yes.
Chapter Sixteen
8th day of Lattan, 428 A.A.
Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas
TELLER DID NOT KNOW every member of the Household Staff, nor did he know every member of the House Guard. Many of the people who worked within the manse lived outside of its walls. He assumed that the Master of the Household Staff had given orders that the manse was to be evacuated by all the people who wished to remain on the Household Staff, and assumed, as well, that fear of that Master would override all other fears.
He assumed that the Chosen would have the House Guard in hand; he knew that Finch and Jester were in the forest. He assumed that Haval was with them, and he trusted all three. Daine had the healerie under control; Ariel was in the forest.
He knew that his cat was likely not with them.
He knew that the cat was only a cat. That no one would understand why he was now racing through the kitchen quarters in a mad, desperate rush, while his breath hung in clouds, and frost dusted every still surface in sight.
Had he not been certain that the rest of the manor residents would be ordered or shepherded out—and there were at least two Council members he thought would be fractious, not including Haerrad—he would not have searched. Could not have searched. He personally valued his cat more highly than he valued many of the House Members, but his personal valuation did not absolve him of the responsibility of his office.
He had fulfilled the responsibility of that office.
He cursed his cat in three different languages, because there was no one to hear him; no one but the forest guard who would not abandon him while he searched. Teller’s cat might very well be outside by now. He might be risking his life—and it was a risk, the forest guard had made this very, very clear—for no reason whatsoever.
But this was the last place he could look. It had taken him too much time to even get to the kitchens, a place that was normally forbidden to all but a select handful, Teller not being one of them. Too may doors had opened into territory that had nothing to do with the manor itself, and the last three of those doors could not be closed at all. The halls that he knew—and the halls with which he was only passingly familiar—were becoming all of one thing, none of which was the home in which he had spent his adult life. Doors had become almost irrelevant; he had not had to touch them himself. Pages did that.
Today, he would not have allowed them to take that risk.
He was grateful that the doors that led to the public halls were almost decorative; they were always open. But now that those halls were empty of all save Teller and his unusual guards, they felt empty; his steps echoed.
He was not surprised to see snow.
He was not even surprised to be running, in increasing desperation, through it.
He had done this before, on the day his mother had failed to come home, and snow reminded him, always, of that loss. It reminded him now of what he had found at the end of that long, desperate trek.
8th day of Lattan, 428 A.A.
Scavonne Manse, Averalaan
“You can stop pretending,” Colm Sanders said. “She’s gone to speak with your father.”
Stacy’s eyes opened. She did not, however, demand to be put down. “I hear Winter,” she said, her voice quiet. “I hear Jewel.”
He nodded. So did he.
“She’s afraid.”
He nodded again.
“We won’t be sleeping, will we?”
“What do you think?”
“I think we won’t. Or maybe we will, but we’ll never be awake again.” She looked at her hand, lifting it. Her eyes widened. “She’s—she just said my name!”
“Aye, lass. She did. I heard it.”
“And Lillian’s. She said Lillian’s name.”
“I think she’s saying them all.”
“She hasn’t said yours yet.”
“She won’t forget it.” He smiled. “I’m not as much fun to be with as you or Lillian. She’ll probably say mine last.”
Stacy nodded, completely in agreement with his assessment. “My mother will be sad.”
“She will.”
Colm was a man who believed in the gods. Or rather, believed in their existence. He was also a man who believed that the gods didn’t give a damn about men like him. Or girls like Stacy, for all that her life seemed blessed in comparison to the life he’d led. He didn’t have it in him to resent her; might as well resent the ocean or the sun. She was from a different world.
She was in a different world now.
Colm hadn’t been entirely honest with Muriel A’Scavonne. Stacy had tried, but Stacy’s explanations were incomprehensible to her mother. Even Colm Sanders—who had experienced the same things as Stacy—could only make heads or tails of her words because he’d known exactly what she was trying to say.
Who’d’ve thought a man who faced death on the battlefield at the hands of demons would be such a coward? But he was, and he knew it. He could not handle her mother’s tears.
“Look! Look at my hands!”
He did. But he was looking at her face, at her expression, and after a brief glance at the hands she’d lifted, his gaze returned to that face. Her eyes, widening in wonder, lost fear and apprehension. She was glowing. Light could be seen shining through her skin. That light grew brighter, and brighter still, as the skin itself grew transparent, as if to let that light out into the world.
He watched as Stacy began to dissolve. She had done it, he thought. Jewel. The Terafin. She had planted the leaf. Had planted the leaves given her by the dreamers.
He was impatient now. His hands were only barely beginning to shine, and Stacy had already gone to wherever it was he—and the rest of the dreamers—must go. But if he could not endure Muriel A’Scavonne’s tears, he nonetheless meant to keep his word to her. As he could, and if he could, he would protect her daughter.
8th day of Lattan, 428 A.A.
The Common, Averalaan
Gyrrick and the warrior-magi fell the last few feet toward a ground that was becoming, as the seconds passed, increasingly unfamiliar. The wind howled past them all; Meralonne had not chosen to land. He had, however, dropped them at the feet of the guildmaster and her attendants.
One of those attendants was Gavin Ossus.
Gyrrick did not understand—and further, did not like—Gavin. Although they had come from similar places, and evinced similar abilities, Gavin treated everyone like a rival. No, like an enemy, a foe; someone to guard against. But Gavin had respect for Meralonne, and Meralonne’s teaching, and Gyrrick had come, with time, to understand that men like Gavin were necessary. Liking him, not liking him, was irrelevant. Especially tonight.
He therefore extended a nod to Gavin before he offered Sigurne a full bow. To his surprise, Gavin offered him the same nod; he could see the same acknowledgment in Gavin’s expression. Today, all differences of opinion were, and would be, irrelevant.
The guildmaster had never looked as frail as she did now. And neve
r, Gyrrick thought, as determined; the contrast, resting as it did on one face, was striking. “I cannot leave the Kings,” she told them. She did not offer explanations, and none were asked; there was no time to listen, even had she been willing to offer them.
“In my absence, you must do—both of you—what you were trained, in the end, to do. We have received Royal permission to use the whole of our magical arsenal in the open streets.”
“And our task?” It was Gyrrick who asked.
“You are to protect the citizens of Averalaan, and you are to survive doing so.”
“The Kings—”
Sigurne’s smile was almost gentle. “I will retain Gavin; Matteos will remain by my side. Olivia will arrive shortly. But, Gyrrick, none of us can do what your cadre can do. In the main, it has never been necessary. You have all practiced; you have all learned what to do if the magic you call upon becomes suddenly greater than you expected. Those lessons will save you tonight, because tonight the talent-born will be stronger than they have ever been. The trees that you see here, and the trees that will grow elsewhere in the city are necessary; they are not to be harmed, where you can prevent it. It is by the grace of those trees that the majority of the population who can be saved will be saved. Shepherd the civilians to the cover of the trees.”
“What enemies do you expect we will fight?”
“Not,” she replied, “the Sleepers. You will know the Sleepers on sight. You will flee them. Do you understand?”
He nodded.
“But like Kings of old, they ruled, and they ruled over others less powerful. It is those that you are meant to counter, where you can. It is against those that you have some hope of survival.”
“Not demons, then.”
“Think of them as demons,” Sigurne replied. “They will be as dangerous in the end; the practical differences—tonight—count for little, if anything.”
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