An Artificial Night od-3

by Seanan McGuire

  “Your ‘kids’? You seek playmates? Come now, the best games are here. The best toys are here.” He dipped a hand behind himself, pulling out a crystal globe with a yellow swallowtail butterfly trapped inside it. The butterfly was frantic, beating its wings against the glass. “Stay.”

  “I can’t,” I said, with level courtesy. “I have a job to do.”

  “They thrust you into service so young? Poor thing, you’ve forgotten how to play. I can teach you. Stay.”

  “No.”

  “Well, then. If you’re so set—which of my new friends are ‘your kids’?”

  “Stacy and Mitch Brown’s children. The children of the Court of Cats.” I paused, remembering Raj, and added, “The Hob, Helen. They’re my responsibility, and I’m not leaving without them. Give them to me, and let us go.”

  Blind Michael laughed, sounding honestly amused as he tucked the crystal sphere away behind him. “Why should I?”

  Good question. “Because I’m asking so nicely?”

  “You’re in my lands, little girl. Why should I let you go, much less let you take any of my new family?” He kept turning his head, like he was seeing me from multiple angles. I glanced to the right and saw that the children on that side were watching me intently; they weren’t looking at their lord all. The Riders, on the other hand, were only looking at Blind Michael—I might as well not have been there. Interesting.

  “Because I’m under your sister’s protection.” I held up my candle. The flame had died back to a glowing ember, but it was still burning. I tried to take comfort in that. “The Luidaeg promised me passage.”

  “And passage you have had. Passage through my lands and through my consort’s wood. Now you are come to me. My pretty sister cannot guarantee your safety in my Court.”

  Damn. “Because it’s no fun for you if you don’t let us go?”

  “Hmmm. Almost a point, child—but you aren’t a child, are you?” He leaned forward, frowning. “You’re not mine. You should be. What are you, little girl that isn’t mine?”

  “I’m here under your sister’s guardianship. Nothing else about me matters. Now let me go, and let me take my kids. You admit that I’m not yours.”

  His frown deepened for an instant, becoming cold and puzzled. “You’re Amandine’s daughter, aren’t you? You are. I can smell it on you. Why are you here? She never came, and once a road is set aside, no other feet should claim it.”

  “For my kids,” I repeated. I could worry about how he knew my mother later.

  “Take them,” he countered. “Play a game with me, and save them if you can.”

  Something in his words clicked. I straightened, hoping he wouldn’t hear the excitement in my voice. “I’m your prisoner. That’s not fair.” He was a child’s terror, and that implied a certain reliance on games. More important, it implied a dependence on being fair. Children don’t care about good or evil; all that matters is that you play fair and follow the rules. If Blind Michael followed children’s laws, he’d have to play fair with me, or winning wouldn’t count.

  Root and branch, I hoped I was right. Blind Michael nodded, turning sightless eyes toward the trees. “It’s not, and games must be fair,” he said. “Shall we have a wager, then?”

  “What kind of wager?” I asked cautiously. The fae may not have souls to gamble with, but there are other things that we can lose.

  “My Hunters cannot see you while you hold my sister’s mark.” He gestured toward my candle. Bingo. They couldn’t focus on me directly. The children still could. That’s why he was watching me through them. “I’ll give you a head start before I loose my Hunters. If they can find you, if they can catch you, you belong to me, forever. If you can free your children …”

  “If I can free them, you don’t follow us out of your lands.”

  “Agreed. The children you have claimed can go with you, if you can escape me.”

  I had to be missing something, but there wasn’t time to argue. “Deal.”

  His expression sharpened. “So run, little girl, as far as your candle will take you. You have until I order my Hunt to follow, and my patience is not long.” He settled back in his throne. “Go.”

  There was a rustling behind me. Turning, I saw that the children had moved aside, opening a clear path to the plains beyond the line of trees. I took off running without a backward glance, clutching the candle close to my body to shield it from the wind. Blind Michael’s Court howled and catcalled behind me, trying to break my focus. I just kept running until I was through the crowd, through the trees, and the sounds of the Court vanished behind me. I was suddenly on the plains where I’d started, surrounded by empty wasteland and miles away from my goal.

  Only now Blind Michael’s entire Court knew I was here. And they would be coming after me. Just great.

  TWELVE

  THE LANDSCAPE HADN’T CHANGED since my arrival in Blind Michael’s lands; even my footprints were intact, marking my point of arrival. I turned to face the distant mountains. That was where Blind Michael and his Court were waiting, and that was presumably where he was holding the kids. Somehow my panicked flight had carried me back to the start of my journey, with no ground lost or gained … but now Blind Michael knew I was coming. I had to go back to his Court, steal my children, and escape, all without being seen.

  Planning has never been one of my strengths—I’m better at leaping before I look—and I know when I’m outmatched. Blind Michael was bigger, meaner, and stronger. I needed to have some sort of plan before I approached him again, or I was going to wind up joining the misshapen throng that haunted the Children’s Hall. I suppressed a shudder. Death would be better than transformation and eternal enslavement to a madman who thought he was a god, and that was probably exactly why he’d do his best not to let me die. People like that like to keep their toys, no matter how broken those toys get.

  That just meant I couldn’t let him catch me. I turned away from the mountains, looking toward the forest. It was closer than the mountains. I could reach the edge of the trees in less than an hour, if I hurried.

  “Blind Michael said the woods belonged to his consort,” I muttered, thinking of the yellow-skinned woman. She hadn’t looked very friendly. I’m normally willing to forgive first impressions, but if she was Blind Michael’s consort, I probably didn’t need to. The Luidaeg’s spell hid me from her. I doubted that made her an ally. “Let’s not go that way.” “Don’t go to the wood” was the first part of a plan. Now I just needed a way to get back into Blind Michael’s Court, rescue the kids, and get them out of his lands without being caught by any of his legion of heavily armed, extremely faithful servants. Why is nothing ever easy?

  My candle burned a reassuring blue as I started toward the mountains. I found myself moving in an uneven line, always staying in easy reach of cover. It wasn’t a conscious decision, and it was still the best idea I’d had all day. The Riders couldn’t see me very well—the Luidaeg’s spell made sure of that—but they’d spotted me when I drew attention to myself. Walking straight for Blind Michael’s throne would probably count as drawing attention.

  The sky was somehow managing to get darker, and a thick mist rose from the ground as true night approached. At least my candle was burning as steadily as ever, the wax still refusing to melt. That was for the best. Being trapped here without the Luidaeg’s gift to protect me would be a bad thing. A very, very bad thing.

  The hours passed slowly, marked by the darkening sky. My legs ached, and my knees were burning, but I didn’t seem to have gained any ground; the mountains were as far away as they’d been when I started. I turned around, suddenly suspicious.

  The forest hadn’t receded at all.

  “Oh, Maeve’s bones,” I moaned. Of course the land was working against me. We were deep enough in the Summerlands that the entire Islet was like one gigantic knowe, bound to the will of its owner. Blind Michael’s word was law here, and he didn’t want me to get away.

  I stomped my foot, fighting
the urge to scream. Maybe it was childish, but if you can’t be childish when you are a child, what’s the point? I’d been walking for hours. My headache wasn’t going away; if anything, the long walk without water or aspirin had made it worse. It felt like little men with jackhammers were trying to rewire my brain. My knees hurt. My legs hurt. I was so thirsty that swallowing scraped the back of my throat, and all I wanted was the chance to curl up somewhere and sleep until everything was better. I forced myself to take a deep breath. There had to be a solution, somewhere. I just needed to force myself to see it.

  I walked to the nearest bramble thicket and dropped to my hands and knees, crawling inside. I stopped once I was past the first row of thorns, staring. I wasn’t the first one to use this as a hiding place; someone had cut away the branches on the inside, opening a path. The cuts didn’t look fresh, and the ground was undisturbed—whoever created this hidey-hole hadn’t been back in a long time. Looking more closely, I saw that the brambles had been twisted so that they’d grow back into the main body of the briar, making the shield of thorns on the outside thicker and more secure. No one would be able to see me from the plains. Those same careful cuts made the narrow tunnel self-sustaining. It could probably go unused forever.

  That decided me. Secret places in bushes and quarries are generally the property of children, and this one had likely been cultivated by some long-forgotten child who’d managed to escape the Hunt, at least for a little while. If it was at all like the hiding places I shared with Stacy and Julie when I was a kid, no adult had ever seen it: they could walk right by and never realize it was there. I crawled deeper, careful of the thorns.

  The path wound inward until it met the main trunk, where it widened to become a clear bubble of open space. Whoever made the path also dug a shallow dip in the soft earth, making just enough room for a small person to sit upright. Any vague hopes for alliance were dashed when I saw that indentation judging by the way the brambles encroached on its edges, whoever created this little hiding place had been gone for a very long time. Just another casualty of Blind Michael’s lands.

  I scooted into the scrape and braced myself against the trunk, relaxing slowly. I just needed a little rest and time to think before I had to start moving again. Holding my candle away from the dry wood all around me, I closed my eyes.

  I was only supposed to be there for a few minutes. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. That part just came naturally. And I dreamed …

  The world was blue and gray and amber, ringed by mist that never fully lifted. Sometimes it retreated into the stones, sometimes it hovered among the trees, but the mist itself was eternal. Smudged charcoal lines defined the landscape, sketching the outline of endless plains broken only by mountain’s stone and dying forest.

  Dying? No, living. The mist retreated as I moved closer, leaving behind a wood I didn’t recognize. The trees were lush and healthy, green and gold and springtime yellow. Willows stood sentry, reaching out with hungry fronds to grab intruders. This was Blind Michael’s land. It changed, but the heart of it remained the same. The heartbeat of the land …

  The land’s heartbeat wasn’t mine. Who was I? I fought to remember my name, my purpose, anything. The mist twined around me in a lover’s embrace, trying to pull me closer, taking me farther and farther in …

  “Aunt Birdie?”

  I knew that voice, and because I knew it, I had to know myself: one demanded the other. I shrugged the mist away, turning. “Karen?”

  She was standing in the trees, still wearing the robe she’d gotten from Lily. Yellow and brown butterfly flowers were twined in her hair. She looked frightened. “It’s not safe to dream here, Aunt Birdie. You shouldn’t. He’ll know if you do.”

  “Baby, you’re awake!” I started toward her. The ground snatched at my feet, but I wrenched myself free and kept walking. “We’ve got to get you out of here. It’s not safe—”

  “I know, Aunt Birdie,” she said, moving to reveal a small girl crumpled by the base of the nearest willow. “It never was.”

  The little girl couldn’t have been more than ten years old, dressed in a tattered nightshirt, feet bloody and bare. She was obviously of Japanese descent, slat-thin and used too hard. Her long black hair was knotted at the base of her neck. Tears had washed streaks through the dirt on her face. Three silver-furred tails were curled behind her, and silver fox ears were pressed flat against her skull. Kitsune.

  She wasn’t breathing, and I realized with slow dread that the grass around them was dead, crumbling into dust. “Karen, your friend—”

  “Her name is Hoshibara. This is her place.”

  “Honey, she’s not breathing.”

  The look on Karen’s face was infinitely sad. “I know.”

  “Karen—”

  “Aunt Birdie, you have to listen now,” she said. Somehow her voice filled the world, and I stopped, watching her. She shook her head, something ancient and tired lurking in the faded blue of her eyes. “I’m not really awake. I can’t wake up while he has me. Something’s wrong, Aunt Birdie, something’s very wrong. You have to find her before it’s too late.”

  “Find who?”

  “The rose’s daughter, the woman made of flowers who wanted to be a fox instead. The Blodynbryd queen.”

  “Karen, I don’t understand. I need to take you home. Your parents are worried.”

  She tilted her head to the side. “Home? You can get there and back by the light of a candle, they say. Where’s yours?”

  My candle? I realized that my hands were empty. Where was it? We couldn’t get home without the candle. I turned, looking for the familiar flame, and found it on the horizon, far away and moving farther. I shouted, “Wait here! I’ll be right back!” and ran after it. The years fell off me as I ran, until I was a child again, as lost as the rest of them, and I ran …

  … and ran …

  … ran …

  Night had finished falling while I slept, and shadows filled my hiding place. I snapped awake to the sound of footsteps and caught my breath, confusion seared away by the sight of my candle. It was burning an almost lambent red, flame licking high against the brambles. I was half afraid it would set the bush on fire. That was really the least of my worries, because if Blind Michael’s Riders took me, a little fire wouldn’t matter at all.

  They would find me. They had to. The light would lead them to me if nothing else, and then the game would end, with Blind Michael taking the checkmate. It was only a matter of time before one of them realized I was there and shouted for the others.

  But they didn’t. The footsteps faded, leaving me alone with the frantic beating of my heart. The flame dwindled to normal, calming a lot more quickly than my nerves. “What did you expect me to do, Luidaeg?” I muttered. “Walk up and take them away from him?” I could still see Blind Michael when I closed my eyes, tall and vast against the sky. He was willing to be my god. All I had to do was let go of the candle and let him in.

  No way in hell.

  He was blind but saw everything in his lands—everything but me. He wouldn’t have agreed to my little game if he didn’t have to, because victory is always better than playing fair. He couldn’t see me, he couldn’t hold me, and so I was almost safe. But why was I so special? Why should a candle matter so much? I paused, reviewing. The Luidaeg gave me the candle and sent me into his lands. She said I could get there and back by the light of a candle.

  Of course: we were in a child’s land, playing by children’s rules. Blind Michael would catch me if he could, because that was how the game worked, but he couldn’t stop me or see me as long as I kept my candle burning. That would make the game unfair.

  “Just great,” I said. I was trapped in the realm of a mad Firstborn who obeyed the laws of children’s tales, and my only hope for escape was pinned on a candle flame. It hadn’t been able to hide Raj from the Riders, and I wasn’t counting on it to be able to hide any of the other children, either. The Luidaeg and I were going to have words when I got hom
e.

  And then there was the dream. I’ve always been a vivid dreamer, but this was different. It felt almost real, and it felt like it was important. Like it was something I needed to remember. Not that I could have forgotten the look in Karen’s eyes, even if I wanted to.

  My thoughts distracted me enough that I didn’t hear the rustling until something grabbed my shoulder. That’s the kind of mistake you only get to make once, because afterward, you’re generally dead. I whirled as far as the bush allowed, ignoring the thorns raking my cheek as I pulled back my free hand to strike my attacker. Whatever it was might be disoriented enough by prey that fought back for me to get out of the brambles and run.

  I started to swing and froze, staring. Quentin stared back. The brambles had forced him to his hands and knees. Mud was caked on his face and hair, making him look more like an extra from Lord of the Flies than a well-groomed courtier. Spike was on his shoulder, looking unperturbed by the situation. I guess when you’re made of thorns, a few more don’t hurt.

  “Quentin.” I slowly lowered my hand. Spike gave me a wounded look, and I added, “Spike. What are you two doing here?”

  It took Quentin a moment to find his voice. He just gaped, still staring, before he stammered, “T-Toby?”

  “In the flesh.” I glanced down at myself and grimaced. “So to speak. How the hell did you get here?” Don’t you know you’re going to get yourself killed? Did you think for a second before you did whatever it took to follow me?

  Idiots. Idiots, children, and heroes.

  “I—the Luidaeg said you’d be here. She told me to look for the candlelight.” He pointed to my candle. “But I didn’t think …”

  “Yeah, it’s a little weird from this side, too. I ask again, what are you doing here?” He’d gone to the Luidaeg. Oh, root and branch. The Luidaeg can be kind when she wants to, but her gifts are never free. What had he paid to find me?