An Artificial Night

THIRTEEN

THE MISTS WERE HEAVIER NOW. I tried to stand and couldn’t. The earth had closed around me, covering my feet. “Hello?” I shouted, and winced as the echoes returned my voice. I spoke as an adult; the echo answered as a child. “Hello?”

“I’m here, Auntie Birdie, it’s all right.” I felt a cool hand on my forehead, and Karen whispered, “You have to wake up. It’s not safe.”

“Karen. I found you.” I knew she was there. I just couldn’t see her.

“No, you didn’t. You can’t find me yet; it’s too soon. You have to get out of here, and you have to find her. Please!”

“Find who?” I shook my head. “Sweetheart, I’m here to save you. You and the others.”

“No one came to save her, and so she had to save herself. She’s sorry, but you have to find her. It’s important. It’s very important.” She pulled her hand away. The smell of roses hung heavy in the air; not the perfect roses of Evening’s curse, but a richer, earthy midsummer scent. “You can’t find us if you don’t find her. Wake up, Aunt Birdie. Wake up …”

I opened my eyes and promptly wished that I hadn’t. My lower body was numb, and my head felt like it was on fire—not a good combination. If I squinted I could force the shadows above me to resolve into a canopy of branches and dead leaves … the woods. I was in the woods. If I was in the woods, what I remembered happening after the Riders shot me wasn’t a dream. Acacia saved me because she thought I knew her daughter. No matter what this meant, it probably wasn’t something I was going to like very much.

Spike was sitting in the middle of my chest. It gave a triumphant squeak when it realized I was awake, beginning to make the rasping, scraping noise that served it as a purr.

“Hey, Spike,” I whispered, forcing myself to smile. “You been there long, guy?” It chirped. “Right. I’ll just pretend I understood that, okay? I missed you.” Fighting my natural inertia—once at rest, I tend to stay at rest—I raised a hand and scratched the top of Spike’s head. “That’s my good Spike.”

I continued to scratch as I took slow stock of my body. My throat was burning, and it felt like I’d been sucking on sandpaper. More, my head was pounding, my back hurt, and I couldn’t feel my legs. Whatever I was lying in swayed with the motion of my hands—a hammock. I couldn’t see past my chest; for all that I knew, my body ended just past the point where Spike was sitting. That probably wasn’t the most comforting idea I could have come up with. Damn. I spent an unknown amount of time trying to twist around so that I could see myself before exhaustion overwhelmed me and I fell into an uneasy doze.

Maybe my body got some rest out of that unplanned nap, but my mind didn’t. It kept racing, generating countless nightmare scenarios beginning with what Blind Michael would do when he learned I couldn’t run and going downhill from there. I woke to find Spike sniffling at my face, attracted by my whimpering.

“It’s okay, Spike,” I said, stroking its side. “You’ll be okay.” It whined but subsided, and I returned to my unhappy napping.

I don’t know how long that went on before footsteps in the dark heralded Acacia’s return, snapping me awake. I tried to twist toward the sound, half hopeful, half afraid, but I couldn’t even move that much. I was more than trapped; I was helpless. Spike jumped to its feet, chirping at whatever it saw in the shadows. That reaction may have been the only thing that kept me from freaking out completely. Spike is usually a pretty good judge of character. It wasn’t worried—why should I be? Unless, of course, this was the one time it happened to be wrong.

Clearing my throat, I said, “Hello?”

“Good; you’re awake.” Acacia stepped into view, the light from her lantern filling the clearing and finally letting me see without squinting. It was a small comfort—there was nothing but the trees. “I was starting to worry.” She didn’t sound it. If anything, she sounded bored.

I looked at her, taking a moment before I spoke. Except for the scar that cut down the side of her face, her skin looked almost impossibly smooth, like she’d been carved from living wood and the knife had slipped. Only one bloodline had skin like that. “You’re a Dryad.” That explained why the forest was willing to obey her: Dryads are the spirits of trees, and they’re halfway to being plants themselves. None of the Dryads I’d met had that sort of control over plants, but that didn’t make it impossible. Dryads are strange, even for fae. What I didn’t understand was what she was doing there—why would a Dryad choose to live where all the trees were dying? Especially a Dryad as powerful as Acacia appeared to be.

“In a sense,” she said, with a small, bitter smile. “You’re quite observant. It’s a pity you don’t pay closer attention to thrown weaponry.”

“It’s hard to pay attention when it’s behind you.” She had to be talking about the spear that caught me in the leg. The only question was how bad the damage was. As calmly as I could, I said, “I can’t feel my legs.”

“That’s to be expected; poison will do that.” She shook her head, tangles of rootlike hair snaking down her shoulders. “The potion on that spear was well brewed. You should be a tree by now, rooted and growing to grace my forest. It’s a mercy, of a sort, to grant my husband’s victims that much freedom.”

I paled. “Then why …”

“I stopped it. I brewed it to begin with; it was bound to listen to me.” She tilted her head in a curiously familiar gesture. “I wanted to talk to you. Are you well enough for that?”

“I guess I can make an effort.” Inappropriate humor—the last resort of the terrified.

“Good.” She reached toward me, and for a horrible moment I was afraid she was going to pick me up again. Instead, she stopped her hands a few inches from my chest, and Spike stepped into them. She smiled, cradling it close. Spike chirped, beginning to purr. I gaped at them, stunned and bizarrely hurt. Maybe she was a Dryad, but this felt like a betrayal.

“Where did you get this?” Acacia asked. Spike nudged her fingers with its head, eyes narrowed to content slits. Her smile warmed for a moment, then faded as she raised her head and looked at me.

“It used to belong to a friend of mine,” I said guardedly. I didn’t want to say Luna’s name until I knew more about Acacia.

“I see.” She frowned, pulling the scar on her face into a sharp line. “How did it come to belong to you? It’s yours now. I can tell that much.”

“I named it by mistake.”

“Names have power. It’s been with you since then, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve treated it well.” She ran a hand down Spike’s back, not seeming to mind the thorns. “Rose goblins are hard to care for.”

“It’s pretty easy. I just give it water and sunshine, and sometimes fertilizer.”

“We used to have them in these woods. But they died. All of them.” Acacia sighed, hands stilling. “All the roses that grew here died a very long time ago.”

For a moment, there was nothing frightening about her; she was just a woman, lost and a little bit lonely. I almost wanted to comfort her. I didn’t know how to begin. “I’m sorry,” I said finally, aware of how lame the words sounded.

“They had to die.” Her voice was filled with the sort of distance people create to keep themselves from crying. “What good would they have done? The sun never shines here, and roses never bloom in darkness. Better they should spread their wings and fly away.”

“Roses like the sun,” I said, parroting one of the few gardening tips Luna had been able to drum into my head.

“Yes, they do,” Acacia said. “Where is my youngest rose now?”

“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.