Matchbox Girls

by Chrysoula Tzavelas

  His look was pained. “I haven't gotten any faster at major workings in the last twenty-four hours. By the time I could remove them, they'd have worn down on their own.” He added, “You seem to be managing it, though. Just keep it up. What did you say about faeries?”

  “You said there was a faerie glamour on Absolven. I’ve been talking to a faerie in my dreams since this began.”

  Corbin regarded her thoughtfully. “How do you know it’s one of the fae?”

  “Because it was six inches tall and looked like a male version of Tinkerbell? Tinker Chime, he calls himself.” She watched as his expression turned dubious. “It was a dream,” she snapped. “I doubt the inside of my head looks like my childhood bedroom, or that Neath is actually the size of a bobcat.” She looked around. “Where is Neath, anyhow?”

  “I got her and your bag,” said Kari, lifting the sleeping ball of fur in her lap. “Mr. Corbin just wanted to leave her up there,” she added accusingly.

  Marley glanced inquiringly at Corbin as she took Neath from Kari. He looked irritated. “What I wanted was for these precious darlings not to suddenly race away from me, especially while my hands were full of you.” His mouth tightened and he looked out the glass doors at the street beyond.

  Kari said, “Marley doesn’t leave anybody behind,” as if that was all that needed to be said.

  “Yes...” said Marley, giving Corbin a thoughtful look. Then she poked at the sleeping kitten until Neath made a protesting noise and clawed Marley’s leg. “Does she look any bigger to you?”

  “What about this ‘faerie’?” insisted Corbin.

  “The entity from my dream, whatever it was, talked to me on Branwyn's phone. She gave the phone to him. He's with her now, and I really don't like that. I wanted to protect her!” And the nasty little voice inside pointed out, She didn't want to be protected. “I have to get to Branwyn. She’s at Penny’s. Where’s this car?”

  “What do you mean, at Penny’s? You mean where I rescued you before?”

  “Yeah,” said Marley, standing up.

  “The house of the girl who is channeling the angel?” Corbin looked downright angry.

  Marley’s own anger began to trickle back. “How many more friends do you want me to lose to this?”

  “This isn’t a game, Marley! You can’t do anything for them; you can’t save them by throwing yourself into danger.”

  “You don’t know that! I have to try!”

  “What did you do here? And AT’s gone now.”

  Marley flinched like she’d been slapped, and then said, “I will push you off the balcony, you fuck. I can’t believe I traded her for you.”

  “Neither can I,” he snapped. “I didn’t ask you to.”

  “Why the hell are you even helping me?” She stared at him suspiciously. “That asshole Severin said something...”

  Corbin narrowed his eyes. “Zachariah used me. He got my friends badly hurt. I need to understand why. And I need to have words with him about his behavior. That’s all.”

  “Oh. So revenge for fallen friends is much better than trying to stop something from happening, than trying to protect people. Thanks. Then I’m going after him for Penny and AT. Are you going to get in my way?”

  “But we hurt AT,” said Lissa, her voice very quiet.

  The world twisted and stretched. Everything was wrong. The space around her distorted.

  The curse struck.

  There was a harsh, buzzing noise and the power in the building went out. The half-strength lights faded, and there was the acrid, rubbery smell of an electrical fire. Barely seconds later, smoke trickled out of a vent.

  Corbin cursed steadily as he grabbed her stuff and her arm, and started dragging her out of the building. He paused at a fire alarm just long enough to pull it. The clanging helped Marley shake off the aftereffects of the curse striking through her, and she realized that just as Corbin was dragging her, she was dragging the children.

  Out on the sidewalk, Kari wailed, “Why do we break everything?” The city street was nearly abandoned; in the distance, a few cars passed and a pedestrian ran along across the street and vanished down the block. It was disturbingly post-apocalyptic.

  Corbin’s eyes flickered down to the children. “The Machine I summoned didn't mention breaking the Hush. And the Hush doesn't seem to affect their magic at all. That construct was impervious to it. I wonder...” And he trailed off.

  Marley remembered what he’d discovered on the roof, about the children being a kind of event horizon to the celestial Machines. She smacked him in the chest, propelling him away from her. “Don’t even think it,” she snarled. “They’re children.”

  Corbin looked at her, all angry coiled energy. For a moment, she wondered if she was going to have an actual fistfight with him. Distantly, in the sparking fogs of fear and bravado that now made up what could laughingly be called her mind, she recalled that only a few minutes ago, she’d been worried about him fighting with Severin. She knew she was being completely irrational, but she could no longer bring herself to care. Being rational hadn’t saved anybody.

  A black limousine slid up to the curb. The back door popped open. Corbin looked between her and the car, and then he sighed. “Get in.”

  -thirty-one-

  The ride to Penny’s house took far too long, and was far too quiet. The girls didn’t protest the lack of car seats as they had before. They didn’t talk. They didn’t play with the buttons in the limo. They didn’t even cry. They just sat quietly in their seats, staring dully out the window.

  Marley felt like she should address their fears, but her brain was full of sparks that flared and quickly died. She didn’t know what to say. She barely knew who she was. She tried to focus on suppressing the curse, so the limo didn’t have a catastrophic failure, and she could feel the suppression draining her.

  Penny’s house looked utterly normal outside. Branwyn’s car was parked beside Penny’s, and the shades were drawn against the coming afternoon sun. Penny’s neighborhood showed more signs of life than the street where she’d found Corbin, although most people remained indoors to avoid the smoke. The fires were so far down the mountain now that she couldn’t see much of the orange line, just the black ashes marking where the flames had been.

  They emerged from the limo. Corbin paused for a quick word with the driver, who left the car running. Then he looked up at the charred mountains and blinked. “I think you’re right,” he said quietly.

  “About?”

  He shook his head. “Faeries. I know there are other angels involved, but I don't think that was who was on the roof, using the pollution. Fae magic is elemental, and it's governed by the Covenant, not the Hush.” She stared at him, and he shook his head. “Let’s go see your friend.”

  But when they knocked on the door, nobody answered. Marley tried the door, and then fumbled for her key to Penny’s house. Before she could find it, Kari reached up and touched the knob. There was a click.

  Marley squeezed Kari’s other hand, and opened the door. “Penny? Branwyn?” she called, as she stepped inside. She didn’t expect an answer, and she didn’t get one. Dread nearly freezing her limbs, she walked down the short hall to the living room.

  It was empty. The whole house was empty. It was perfectly tidy, the model house that Penny’s parents wanted it to be. But their model daughter was gone.

  “Are you sure they were here?” Corbin asked, coming out of the kitchen.

  Marley frowned. “I was sure...” But had Branwyn actually said?

  “Marley,” said Lissa. She pointed at a delicate transparent sphere, balanced against a photo of Marley, Penny, and Branwyn laughing together. Marley stared at it, frozen, then rushed across the room to snatch at it.

  As soon as she touched it, it burst. She saw the room as it had been.

  Penny lay on the couch, so pale she seemed transparent. Branwyn stood near her, fierce and angry, facing something that Marley couldn’t quite make out. Light bent around it
, much like the blurred figures on the roof who had controlled the pollution elementals. “I can’t believe she didn’t tell me,” said Branwyn. Then, overlaid on the scene like a double exposure, a hole in the world gaped open. A winged sprite flitted through it.

  The vision faded.

  Marley’s breathing was ragged. “They took them. Chime took all of them. Zachariah. Penny. Branwyn. We even talked about how faeries steal people.”

  Corbin said slowly, “Fae elemental magic could be shielding Ettoriel from the Hush. That fire’s producing a huge amount of power. But why would they be helping an angel? The Covenant limits them tremendously and they hate the angels for inflicting it on them. And angels hate fae magic because it's parasitical. So... why?”

  “Desperation? I'd use whatever power I could get right now.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t understand anything. But I know where to find answers.” She knelt down in front of Kari. “You felt the door in the fire once. Can you feel a door to the Backworld where the faeries live?” Slowly, Kari nodded. Marley took a deep breath. “Can you open it?”

  Kari hesitated. “Is that where Uncle Zach is?”

  “Yes,” said Marley, absolutely certain.

  Kari’s gaze went far away.

  In an undertone, Corbin said, “Marley, the valence event is passing soon. Technically, by still being alive, you're winning. In a day or two, you'll have time again.”

  Marley didn’t even look at him, her gaze fixed instead on the patch of air where Kari was staring. He sighed, and said, “Right.”

  Then Kari touched a point in the air with one finger, and the point flared. It was different from the holes in the world opened by Severin and AT. This looked like lightning, like sparks, like the thin membrane between “here” and “there” was melting and curling from the heat of Kari’s touch. It didn’t look like a hole that would zip shut again easily. Oh well.

  “We’ll just step inside and see what there is to see. And we’ll come right back out again if we don’t like what we do see.” Marley wasn’t sure if she was reassuring Corbin, the girls, or herself. She held out her hands to the girls and took a deep breath.

  Then she stepped through. As she passed through the shattered barrier, Corbin suddenly said, “Marley, wait—”

  But she didn’t wait. The world on the other side wasn’t the white, featureless hall that AT had led her into before. It was a large room, with dim lamplight caressing rich textures. Marley’s feet sank into layered carpets, and the spiced air tickled her nose. Shimmering fabric veiled the walls and tinted the light emanating from mirrored lamps set in shallow depressions.

  Silhouetted in an arch on the other side of the room was a tall figure with dark hair, broad shoulders, and a familiar profile. It was Zachariah. First Kari, then Lissa, squeaked and pulled away. Before Marley had finished taking in their new location, they were both running forward.

  And everything went horribly wrong. Whiteness flared, crackling around the children. Marley screamed as something ripped the twins from her with the force of a tidal wave. A canyon opened between them, and the twins were on the far edge, still moving away from her.

  That wasn’t Zachariah.

  The world turned inside out. The curse struck. Everything became a series of images and unconnected sensations.

  The room around her shattered, shards of color and light flying everywhere. A giant invisible hand batted her through the air. She flew backward and then dropped, sickeningly.

  She was falling.

  Knives sank into her arm. Something yowled.

  Without any clear awareness of a transition, the fall through the air slowed like she was sinking through water. Then, as gently as if she’d laid down, she came to rest on a surface. Something warm was on her chest.

  Marley couldn’t see, blinded by tears. The twins were beyond her protection, although she could still feel them, still sense the awful danger they were in. What had happened?

  She remembered AT saying there were things that lived in the Backworld who could control her perceptions. Were the girls really gone? She brought her hands up to scrub at her eyes.

  Neath was on her chest, grown to the size of a bobcat again. Marley was lying on a giant velvet pillow tossed against a wall hung with bronze and green. It was the same place she’d stepped into through Kari's Backworld portal, and there was no sign of whatever horror had occurred. She hurt all over, though, like she’d been caught in an explosion.

  The twins were nowhere to be seen, but the figure that had seemed so close to Zachariah in silhouette was still present. A single door led from the room, behind him. She could see no sign of the portal that Kari had opened.

  Still dazed, she stared up at the man as he moved closer to her. The resemblance to Zachariah went beyond his height and build; he had Zachariah’s hair and there was a familial likeness in the features. This man was even more attractive, though, exuding a magnetism that Zachariah barely carried off.

  He blew out his breath in a sigh, and then smiled at her. “Come now, stand up. We’ve waited so long for you.”

  There was something familiar in his voice, too. It was deeper than Zachariah’s, a lazy drawl that didn’t seem to expect much of her even as his words encouraged action.

  She tilted her still-ringing head, trying to understand who he was. He looked like Zachariah, yes, but that wasn’t where the familiarity stopped. “Who are you?” she breathed.

  He held out a hand and flexed his fingers. The air before his hand shimmered, and a tiny winged figure sprang into existence. He bent his hand forward and the figure bowed. He waggled a pair of fingers and the figure opened its mouth in a pantomime of speech.

  It was Tinker Chime. Chime, the adorable little pixie, had been a puppet of the man standing before her. He’d done everything he could to lure her into his domain, and as soon as she’d entered, he’d ripped the twins away from her.

  Part of her felt she had to get up, rage, attack him. Part of her wanted to weep and shudder in a corner. The rest of her thrust herself to her feet. The oversized cat on her chest fell onto its paws and entwined itself around her legs.

  “You took them. You took all of them. Zachariah. Branwyn and Penny. The kids. Where are they?”

  “Some of them are here, some of them are there. What does it matter now? You’ve lost them.” The bastard’s little smirk didn’t change.

  “No, you’ve stolen them. There’s a difference.”

  His smile broadened. “Is there?”

  Marley paused to consult her guardian sense. The kids were still alive, although in great danger. She thought they were asleep. She had a vague sense that they were thataway but had no idea which direction thataway was. She nodded at the door behind the man. “Is that the way out?”

  “I must inform you there is no way out.” His smile twitched.

  Marley was tired. She'd been utterly emptied by recent events. But she put her hands on her hips. “Are you trying to be intimidating? Because you’re a man who masquerades as a six-inch-tall pixie. Last night I had somebody trying to shred my soul. You’re going to have to try harder.”

  He moved his head to one side, staring down at her. The world went all topsy-turvy again, knocking her off her feet. Something cold and hard caught her around one wrist, then the other.

  The world righted itself, with a yank on her arm sockets. This time she was dangling with her toes a few inches above the ground. Her wrists were pinioned over her head, held by, as far as she could tell, a pair of metal hands jutting from the wall.

  “Pretty good,” Marley panted. Her shoulders hurt and her head drooped.

  “I can’t just let you go,” said the faerie. He sighed again and the light puppet of Chime crossed its arms and tapped its foot. Marley wondered if he always had the puppet out, like a ventriloquist. The thought was unbearably creepy. She shuddered.

  Then the little puppet faded away, and the tall man said, “Exhausted, confused darling. If you had found your way
here earlier, you could have rested between your downfall and the end of our little play.” His eyes slid away from her, finding the cat crouched to one side, growling quietly. “Your damnable guardian delayed things some. Is it a construct of your mother’s, perhaps?” His gaze shifted back to her. His eyes were pied, one green, one brown. “But you came, all the same.”

  “You could have lured me in a lot quicker with an open door and a big sign saying, ‘ZACHARIAH HERE’.”

  “But then we wouldn’t have had all those marvelous talks. I enjoyed them, despite that thing.” He nodded at Neath again.

  “You enjoyed lying to me, you mean. Who the hell are you, anyhow?”

  He bowed. “I am Tarn, Duke of Underlight and Master of the Sunset Halls. This is my Velvet Hall, and here is my court.”

  -thirty-two-

  Marley became aware of the feeling of dozens of eyes watching her. The staring was a pressure, a familiar pressure. She’d felt this before over the past few days, at Zachariah's and at Penny's. Invisible eyes, watching her from all directions. But this time the eyes weren’t invisible. In the shadows among the hangings on the walls, they glinted.

  Marley twisted in the metal grip. The presence of many observers made her feel even more helpless. She wondered if Severin would actually do as he’d threatened, and come to claim her if she failed. She wondered if this Tarn person would let him. Would they fight? She was pretty sure that wouldn’t go well for her. Or what if they teamed up on her?

  Blackness rolled over her vision. The curse had only triggered a moment ago, but already it was growing stronger again. She didn’t have a clear memory of what exactly had happened, in that horrible moment when the twins had been torn away and the world had spun upside down, didn’t know what had broken or where, but she’d felt it strike through her. What would it break next time?

  Tarn stared at her calmly. Slowly, she became aware of the rustling sense of expectation among the half-hidden fae in the shadows. They were waiting for something. Was Ettoriel going to come in and finish the job his curse kept almost doing? Was this a strange form of fae torture?