An Artificial Night od-3

by Seanan McGuire

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You carry a rose goblin bred of her lines. I know the cuttings that sprouted your companion; I nurtured their parents and originals. You can’t lie to me. I won’t allow it. Now tell me: where is my daughter?”

  Oak and ash. “Your daughter?” I was stalling and I knew it. Hopefully she wouldn’t.

  Hope doesn’t always cut it. “Her name is Luna,” she said. “Where is she?”

  “I don’t have to tell you.”

  “Don’t you?” she asked. She shifted Spike to the crook of one elbow and raised her hand.

  There may be words for the pain that swept through my midriff and torso, consuming what was left of my lower body and racing upward until it was almost to my chest. If there are, I don’t have them. The numbness followed close behind it, dulling the pain and replacing it with something a lot more chilling: utter nothingness. I screamed. I couldn’t help it.

  Lowering her hand, Acacia smiled. “I think you need to tell me,” she said. I stared at her, fighting to breathe. “Unless you want to be a part of my wood forever. If it progresses far enough, not even I can free you.”

  Wood. The poison turned flesh to wood. I twisted my neck as far as it would go and stared down at myself. The edge where flesh and wood collided was visible now as a ridge just below my ribcage, tendrils of bark weaving through my sweater. I caught my breath, suddenly aware of how little of my body I could feel. “Oberon …” I whispered.

  “My father won’t help you,” Acacia said. “Where is my daughter? Where is Luna?”

  I shifted to stare at her, wide-eyed. “Your father?”

  “Yes,” she said. “My father.”

  “But …”

  “My mother was Titania of the Seelie Court; my father Oberon, King of all Faerie.”

  Firstborn. Another Firstborn. Bitterly, I said, “Can’t you people just leave me alone?”

  “You came to me, changeling, carrying my half sister’s candle and stalking my husband’s subjects. There’s no reason for me to leave you alone. Quite the contrary: there’s every reason for me to kill you where you lie and collect my lord’s bounties for it.” She paused. “Every reason but one.”

  “What’s that?” I said, fighting to keep the terror from my voice. She’d hear it; she’d have to hear it. The Firstborn are good at that sort of thing. They’re legends—they’re practically gods—and they’re supposed to have the decency to be dead or in hiding. Why the hell was I suddenly running into them around every corner?

  At least this one hadn’t mentioned my mother.

  “You know where my daughter is.”

  I closed my eyes. So that was it. Voice numb, I said, “After you kill me, let Spike go. It didn’t do anything to you.”

  “Are you refusing to tell me?”

  “My lady, you’re bigger and meaner than I am. I know that. But I can’t save my kids like this; I’m going to die here, whether I tell you what I know or not.” I sighed. “I can be a coward sometimes, but not today. If I’m going to die, I’m not betraying Luna while I do it.”

  “But I’m her mother.”

  “You don’t look a thing like her.” I forced myself to relax. If I was going to die, I could at least pretend to do it with dignity.

  “I see,” she said, after a long pause. Her cloak rustled as she leaned closer, and then her hand was pressed against my cheek. Her skin was as cool and smooth as willow wood. My headache faded under the touch, and I sighed inwardly. I hate it when the villains tease.

  “Just get it over with,” I said. I felt the prickle of Spike’s claws as it jumped onto my chest, still “purring.” At least one of us was happy.

  “And so I shall.” She placed her other hand on my opposite cheek and leaned down to kiss me on the forehead. Dignity suddenly wasn’t an option. I screamed.

  It felt like I was dying. Worse than that, it felt like I was being born. Every muscle in my body was pulled tight, flayed open, and made new again. It seemed to last forever, and part of me wondered through the screaming if this was the true effect of the poison; not to kill or to change, but to hurt. Forever.

  Then the pain stopped, replaced by the tingle of pins and needles in my reawakening flesh. Acacia pulled her hands away, sounding slightly bemused as she said, “You can open your eyes now, daughter of Amandine. It’s over.”

  “How do you know my mother?” I asked, and opened my eyes. Spike climbed up to my shoulder as I sat up, looking down at myself. My legs were flesh again: sore, aching flesh, but flesh all the same. I ran a hand down my side. There was no lingering roughness; even my headache was gone. “Everyone seems to know her, but no one tells me why.”

  “She was very … visible, once. A long time ago, before her choices were made. You have her heat in you. I should have seen it sooner. I would have, but I was unaware she had a child. I thought her line had ended.” I looked up to find Acacia watching me, half smiling. “Believe me, I’ve left you no surprises; you are as you were when first you snuck into my woods. I couldn’t stop the scarring, but the wound is healed.”

  “Why?” I asked, bemused.

  “You wouldn’t betray my daughter.” She shook her head. “She must be a good friend.”

  “She is.”

  “Is she … well?”

  Maybe it was the longing in her voice; maybe it was the fact that I know what it feels like to lose a child. If someone had offered me information on Gillian, the chance to know that she was thriving …

  Whatever it was, I believed her. However strange the idea might seem, she was Luna’s mother. I couldn’t trust her with anything important, but what harm could a little news do? Acacia spared my life—hell, she saved my life. I owed her that much. “She’s good,” I said. “She’s married now; she has a daughter.”

  “A daughter.” She rolled the words on her tongue like wine. “What’s her name?”

  “Rayseline.”

  “Rayseline—rose.” Acacia laughed. “She named her daughter ‘rose’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she still in the Duchy of Roses?”

  “The …” I paused. Some people call Shadowed Hills the Duchy of Roses because of Luna’s gardens. I don’t know any other place with that name. “Yes. She’s still there.”

  “I thought she would be.” She lowered her lantern, smile fading into something sadder. “I don’t know where else she could have gone. She could never leave her roses.”

  “I don’t understand how she can be your daughter,” I said, risking honesty. “Luna isn’t … she’s not a Dryad.”

  “She never was. She wore a Kitsune skin when she left me, but you could see the truth of her if you knew to look. Who she was, where she began, it was always there. It always will be.”

  “I don’t understand.”The Kitsune aren’t skinshifters—you either are one or you aren’t. They’re not like the Selkies or the Swanmays, who can give their natures away.

  “That’s all right, you weren’t meant to. Just believe me when I tell you she is my daughter, and that she lived here with me once, before she left to live where roses can grow.”

  I slid out of the hammock, catching myself on the netting as my feet hit the ground. My legs were full of pins and needles, but it was a welcome sensation; it meant they were mine again. “I need to go. I have to save my kids.”

  Acacia nodded. “I understand. Children are important. Where is your candle?”

  “I … oh, root and branch.” I gave my candle to Quentin. There was no telling where he—or it—had ended up. “Quentin has it.”

  “The little Daoine Sidhe? Ah. He’s at the edge of the woods; he thinks he’s hidden.” Her tone was amused. “I haven’t cared to dissuade him.”

  So my candle hadn’t hidden him completely. That made a certain sense; the Luidaeg used my blood, not his, when she made it. “I—” I stopped, aware of how close I’d come to saying thank you. There are some things Faerie etiquette won’
t forgive. “Can I go to him?”

  “I won’t hold you.” She raised her lantern again, silver-shot eyes solemn. “But I’ll ask a favor, if you’ll indulge me.”

  Titania’s daughter, one of the Firstborn of Faerie, was asking me for a favor? Every time I think the world can’t get weirder, it finds a way. “What do you need?”

  “A gift.” There was a rustle of fabric, and she was holding a rose out to me. The petals were black tipped with silver, as soft and weathered as ancient velvet. “For my daughter.”

  “You want me to take it to her?”

  “Please.”

  “Is it—”

  “It isn’t poisoned. I would never do that to her. Please.”

  I paused, frowning. She let me go; she didn’t have to, and she did. What harm could a rose do? “All right,” I said. “I can take it to her.”

  Acacia didn’t speak—what could she have said without thanking me? She just nodded and handed me the flower. I nodded in return, tucking the stem into the curls behind my right ear. I just had to hope it would stay put.

  She raised one hand and pointed toward the edge of the woods, saying, “Go that way, and you’ll find him. And when you see my daughter, tell her that I miss her.”

  There was nothing more to say. Gathering every scrap of courtly etiquette I’d managed to pick up in my years as a hanger-on at my mother’s side, I dropped into a deep, formal bow. Acacia’s expression when I straightened up again was worth the effort; she looked shocked and gratified, like a woman who’d just received an unexpected gift. I smiled, turned, and walked away. The light of her lantern faded behind me until there was nothing but the darkness of the trees. And I walked on, toward the distant calling of my candle.

  FOURTEEN

  QUENTIN CROUCHED AT THE EDGE OF THE FOREST, staring at the plains like he expected them to rise up and attack at any moment. Considering everything that had happened so far, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had. My candle was in his right hand; the flame was burning a soft green that shifted to a cobalt blue as I approached. Apparently it also reacted when allies came closer—good to know.

  He was so fixated on the horizon that he didn’t hear me coming. I put my hand on his shoulder, saying, “Quentin.” He jumped back to his feet but managed not to scream as he whirled to face me. Good; he was learning.

  Folding my hands behind my back, I grinned. “Hi. Miss me?” Spike chirped a greeting, rattling its thorns.

  “I—you—I—” he gasped.

  “Yes, I snuck up on you, and you let me get away with it,” I said, trying to conceal how glad I was to see him alive and unharmed. “If I was something hostile, you’d be dead by now. Have you forgotten everything I taught you? Now give me back my candle.”

  He stared at me, eyes wide, before flinging his arms around me and hugging me so tight I was afraid he’d break something. Like my neck. “Whoa! Quentin, hey, come on, let go—”

  “I thought you were dead!” he wailed. “You fell down, and then that woman came out of the woods, and I tried to follow you, but the trees kept closing in, and I couldn’t see—”

  “Oh, Quentin.” I wrapped my arms around him as well as I could, given our relative sizes, and I held him until the shaking stopped. “It’s okay. I was scared, too.” He was a brave, cocky, annoying, headstrong kid that had been through a lot with me, but he was still a kid. If he needed a few minutes to calm down, he could have them. Even if I had told him to stay at home.

  Eventually he pulled away, wiping his eyes. I looked at him, asking, “You okay?” When he nodded, so did I. “Good. What happened? How did you get away?”

  “Once you gave me the candle, it was like they didn’t see me anymore.”

  “Good. That means the Luidaeg’s spell doesn’t just cover me; if anything happens, you can take the candle and get home.”

  “Not without you,” he said stubbornly, “and not without Katie.”

  “Right,” I said, smothering a sigh. There’s nothing more stubborn than youth, with the possible exception of old age. “Still, it’s good to know that you can, if it’s necessary.”

  “Are you hurt? You were hurt. I saw.” Quentin twisted around to look at my leg, using the movement to cover his clumsy change of subject. I decided to let it go as I snatched the candle out of his hand. “Hey!”

  “Hey yourself,” I said. “It’s my candle, and I’m fine. Acacia healed me.”

  “Acacia?”

  “The one you saw carry me away. She healed me and told me where to find you.”

  “But why?”

  “So we could save the others. Come on. If we follow the trees for a bit, we’ll have a better shot at getting across the plains without being seen.” I started walking, hoping the activity would be enough to kill the conversation, at least for now. If he questioned me too deeply I might tell him what I’d learned about Luna, and that really wasn’t mine to share.

  Whatever Acacia was, I knew enough to be worried. I knew she was Firstborn; she was old, possibly as old as the Luidaeg; and she called one of my best friends daughter. The implications of that hurt my head. I tried to remember what little I knew about Luna’s past—where she came from, who she was before I knew her. There wasn’t much. Popular legend says she was waiting when Sylvester came to establish the Duchy of Shadowed Hills, already tending her roses. When he arrived, she smiled and said nothing more complex than “you’ll do.” They were married the day the knowe was opened.

  Was there anything else? She’d mentioned her parents once or twice, but she’d never said anything specific about her past. It was always just “I was the youngest, the others were grown when I arrived” or “my mother taught me about roses.” She’d never mentioned Japan, not once, even though the Kitsune were born there. She wasn’t fully Japanese, either; Luna was the only half-Caucasian Kitsune I’d ever seen. Lily served a perfect tea service, but Luna never did. She served rose wine, yes, and milk with honey, but never tea.

  “Maeve’s bones,” I muttered. “She never had to lie.”

  “What?”

  I looked over my shoulder. “Nothing. Just plotting the things I’m going to say to the Luidaeg when we get home.”

  “Oh,” he said, drawing up alongside me. “Yeah.”

  We walked in silence for a while before I said, “What did she charge you?”

  “Charge me?” he asked, sounding too innocent.

  “Yes. Charge you.” I kept walking. “The Luidaeg never works for free; I don’t think she can. You said you’d do what I told you to if I let you stay, and I’m telling you to answer me. How did you find her, and what did you pay her?”

  “Oh.” The candlelight played across his cheek and forehead, turning him into a ghost out of someone else’s memory. Not mine. For that moment, he wasn’t mine. “I followed you when you left Shadowed Hills.”

  “You followed me? How? You don’t drive.”

  “I swiped your spare car key while you were on the phone.” He had the good grace to look embarrassed, ducking his head as he said, “I hid in the backseat and cast a don’t-look-here to keep you from seeing me.”

  I stopped to stare at him. “You hid in my car so I’d take you to the Luidaeg?” I demanded, following the question with, “You stole my car key?” I wasn’t sure which was pissing me off more.

  “Pretty much,” he said, wincing. “I’m sorry.”

  “You realize how stupid that was, right?”

  “I figured it out. But I didn’t have a choice.”

  “There’s always a choice, Quentin. I told you I’d take care of it.”

  “You didn’t even care that I love her! How was I supposed to trust you to bring her home?” He looked at me, expression pained. “I had to.”

  “Quentin …”

  “I know you’re a hero. Does that mean no one else gets to even try?”

  “I’m not a—”

  “You can deny it. I don’t care. Do you even care anymore about what happens? Or are you just h
ere because you think you have to be?”

  “Quentin, are you seriously standing with me in the middle of Blind Michael’s realm and asking if I care? Because if you are, you need serious help.”

  “Do you really want to know what she charged me?”

  Narrowing my eyes, I nodded. “Tell me.”

  “Fine.” His face was filled with a grim determination that I recognized even as I tried to reject it. “I get out with you. Not before, not after; with.” He paused before adding, more softly, “Not without.”

  I stared at him. “That isn’t funny.”

  “I’m not kidding. That was the price for her showing me how to follow you. She gave me my passage in, but I don’t get out without you. You’re my ticket home.” His chin was set, making him look very young, and very scared. “I’m on the Children’s Road, just like you, but I don’t have a candle. I have to make it home by the light of yours.”

  “Oh, root and branch.” I stared at him, fighting to keep my hands from shaking. “That’s what you agreed to? That’s what you paid?”

  “That’s what she asked for,” he said. “I didn’t have anything else.”

  “So you came to save Katie without knowing whether or not I was alive.”

  “And because you needed me.” He looked at me, expression an odd combination of determination and hope. “You do need me, you know.”

  I paused, and then nodded, slowly. “You’re right. I need you.” I offered him my hand. “Come on. Let’s go.” After a moment, he slid his hand into mine, squeezing my fingers. I smiled at him, and we turned together, stepping out of the shadow of the woods.

  And then we stopped, staring.

  The landscape had shifted, but the changes weren’t apparent until we left the shelter of the trees. The mountains were barely a half mile away, glowing purple-gray against the sky. I could see the rough shapes of Blind Michael’s halls scattered around the base of the mountain like abandoned building blocks. They all seemed to have shattered walls or broken turrets, outward signs of their decay.

  Quentin’s fingers tightened on mine as he asked, “Is that—?”