An Artificial Night

TWENTY-SIX

KAREN SAT BENEATH THE WILLOWS, combing the hair of a Kitsune child. “Hello, Aunt Birdie,” she said, looking up. “You’re coming back for me.”

“I know where you are now,” I said, hearing the faint echo of my voice against the wind. I was dreaming. “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Hoshibara,” Karen said. “She died here.”

“Why?” I looked at the girl, who offered me a small, shy smile.

“Blind Michael stole her, but she got away; she wouldn’t let him change her. She ran to the woods.” Karen pulled her hands away from Hoshibara’s hair, hiding them in her lap. “She died, but the night-haunts never got her body. Someone else did.” She pointed past me. “See?”

I turned. Hoshibara was there, lying under a willow tree. There was someone—a girl, barely more than a child herself, with yellow eyes and hair that fell to her waist in a riot of pink and red curls. She crept out of the trees with one hand over her mouth, staring at the Kitsune.

Hoshibara lifted her head, looking at the girl; looking at Luna. The movement was weak. There wasn’t much movement left in her. “I won’t go back,” she whispered.

Luna knelt beside her. “You don’t have to.”

“I don’t feel good.”

“You’re dying.”

Hoshibara nodded, expression unsurprised. “Will it hurt?”

“It doesn’t have to.” Luna held out her hand, showing Hoshibara the thorn she held. “I can make it stop hurting right now. But you have to do something for me.”

The Kitsune looked at her distrustfully. I couldn’t blame her. “What happens then?”

“You die.”

“Is there a way for me to not die?”

Luna shook her head. “Not unless you go back to him.”

“What do I do for you?”

For the first time, Luna looked nervous. “You let me take your skin. I found … I know how the Selkies did it. Let me be Kitsune. Let me go free.”

“All right.” Hoshibara raised her hand and clasped it over Luna’s. She whimpered once as the thorn cut into her skin. Then she closed her eyes, movement stilling. Luna looked at her for a moment, then leaned down, pressing a kiss against her forehead.

“I wish there’d been another way,” she whispered, and slammed her hand down over Hoshibara’s, binding them together with the thorn. Then she threw back her head and screamed. There was a blast of light so bright that if I’d been watching it with anything other than dream-eyes I wouldn’t have been able to face it. When it faded, both Hoshibara and the rose-girl were gone. A dainty teenager stood in their place, slender hands covered in blood. She had chestnut hair and silver-furred tails, and looked like neither one of them. She stood unsteadily, clutching the hem of her suddenly too large dress, and staggered into the woods, vanishing.

“She got out,” Karen said behind me. “Can we?”

“Karen—” I turned. Karen and Hoshibara were gone. The landscape was dissolving in a pastel smear, and I could smell roses on the wind. I closed my eyes—

—and opened them to find myself at the edge of Acacia’s wood, hidden by a tangle of branches. The sky was black, and my candle was at least four inches shorter. Whatever Luna dosed me with knocked me out for more than a little while, and time was running out.

I stood slowly, leaning against one of the nearby trees. I was back in Blind Michael’s lands, and I knew how Luna managed her escape, and why she’d been willing to give me up to keep its secret. “The end justifies the means,” I whispered. “Oh, Luna.”

The cuts on my fingers were swollen and red and burned if I put too much pressure on them. Cute. “It’s poison Toby week, isn’t it?” I muttered, looking out over the plains. A thick mist had risen, bleaching the landscape; the lights of Blind Michael’s halls flickered dimly in the distance.

There was no time like the present and no time to waste. Shivering, I stepped out of the shelter of the trees and started walking. The steady whiteness of the land around me added an eerie quality to the trip that I could’ve done without. Boulders looked like looming monsters until I got close enough to see them clearly, while brambles and clumps of grass turned the ground into an obstacle course. I held my candle up to light the way, and it burned the mists back just enough to let me see that I was walking in a straight line. The flame was my compass and the light from Blind Michael’s halls was my lighthouse, leading me through the night.

Nothing stopped me as I walked through the mist; the land around me was silent. My candle kept burning slowly down; by the time it was another inch shorter, I was standing in front of the halls, aware of just how exposed I really was. The guards wouldn’t miss me for long. I hunched down behind a crumbling wall, eyeing the mist for signs of movement.

The Luidaeg said Blind Michael had taken Karen’s “self.” Remembering ALH, that phrase made me cold. January’s machine pulled the self out of people, left them empty and dead from the shock of separation. I didn’t think it was something you could just toss into a cell—he had to be keeping it in something more solid. A trinket or a toy of some sort, something she couldn’t escape from. So what was it?

The butterfly globe he taunted me with. That had to be Karen’s self, trapped inside the glass and beating itself to death as it struggled to get free. But where was it? He’d had it with him before. He might still have it, or he might have given it to his monstrous children as a toy. Either way, I needed to take it away. Neither place seemed more likely than the other, and I finally settled for the children as the lesser of the two evils. I might survive them and get a second chance if I chose wrong. I couldn’t say the same about him.

Crossing Blind Michael’s holdings alone in the dark is something I never want to do again. I moved from building to building, freezing and holding my breath at the slightest sound. Nothing came out of the darkness to attack me and somehow that wasn’t reassuring. There was no way to know whether I was walking into a trap, and so I just kept going, stopping when I reached the hall with the broken walls. It looked different from the outside, but I recognized it. I always know my prisons.

The outside of the hall was smooth stone. The only way in was the obvious—the broken walls were only ten feet high, and they weren’t barred in any way. It wasn’t a bad climb. I could make it.

An old water barrel butted up against one wall. I climbed on top of it and stuck my candle between my teeth, careful not to bite down too hard as I started feeling around for handholds. There was one clear path, a series of shallow indentations leading up the side of the wall. It made sense. Kids always find a way out, but in Blind Michael’s lands, that didn’t mean getting away. They also needed a way back in.

The climb was slow, painful, and one of the most nerve-racking things I’ve ever done. There was no way to run if anyone found me before I was over the wall; if I got caught, I was as good as dead. The cuts on my hand burned when they pressed against the stone, my knees ached from fighting gravity, and hot wax spattered my cheek and neck every time I moved. But I made it. I reached the top of the wall, my candle still burning a steady blue, and no one sounded the alarm.

The Children’s Hall spread beneath me in an unmoving patchwork of stillness and shadows. The children were gone, probably still searching for me back in the “real” world. That was a good sign. A tapestry hung a few feet to my left, anchored to the top of the wall with rusty metal loops. It looked as decayed as everything else in Blind Michael’s kingdom, but it would do. Inching along the wall, I grabbed the tapestry, intending to climb carefully down.

The decayed fabric had other ideas. It tore under my hands, and I fell, grabbing for a less tattered section of the cloth. This time I got it right. The tapestry stretched but didn’t tear, and I slammed against the wall hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs, nearly biting through my candle in the process. I hung there for a moment, breathing rapidly through my nose. When I was sure I wouldn’t fall, I started to descend.

The tapestry ended about three feet above the floor. I let go, landing hard but upright. I’d made it; I was in the hall, and the children weren’t, although I knew better than to count on that to last. I needed to keep moving.

There were a few makeshift toys scattered around the floor. Sticks, stones, and some bones I didn’t look at too closely; a teddy bear without a head and a doll’s head without a body; shards of wood and plastic. None of them looked as if they were used very often, save perhaps as weapons. I searched until my candle had grown shorter still and didn’t find anything but garbage. “Damn it, where is she?” I whispered. The darkness didn’t answer. Wherever she was, it wasn’t here, and it was time to get moving.

The tapestry I’d used to break my fall looked like it would hold me. Putting my candle back between my teeth, I grabbed hold and started climbing. It didn’t take as long as it did the first time; fear and failure were hurrying my steps. I hauled myself over the edge of the wall, pulling the tapestry with me and dangling it down the outside of the building. It was proof that I’d been there; that didn’t matter as much as not breaking my neck did.

The tapestry made an excellent ladder. I lowered myself down, dropping without a sound onto the water barrel. One down—the easy one—and one to go.

Of course, I’d left the hard part for last.

The night was getting colder. I crept from building to building, stopping outside the one other landmark I was sure of: the stable. The screams that surrounded it before were gone, replaced by nickers and whinnies. The children we hadn’t rescued weren’t children anymore. I shuddered as I slipped inside, hiding behind a bale of hay. No one was likely to look for me there. What kind of idiot hides in a prison? Damn it all, anyway. How many parents were crying for children they’d never see again? Those kids hadn’t done anything wrong—they were just human and in the wrong place at the wrong time. It had to end. I was going to save Karen, and then I was going to kill Blind Michael. Firstborn or not, he’d die for what he’d done.

The sounds of the horses faded into background noise, becoming almost normal, and a new sound began making itself heard beneath the stamp of hooves and the rustling of hay. A sound I didn’t want to hear. Sobbing.

I turned to look at the nearest stall. It was barred with brambles and wire like the others, but whatever was behind it hadn’t been changed. Not all the way; not yet. I crept closer, whispering, “Hello?”

There was a pause. Then a too familiar voice said, “Hhello.”

Oh, oak and ash. “Katie?”

“Yes?” She sounded distracted. I’d have been distracted too, if I’d been kidnapped by a madman intent on turning me into a horse.

“How did you get here?” I saved you, I thought, I know I saved you …

“Quentin said we needed to move. He took me outside and then …” There was no emotion in the words; it was like she was reading from a script. Something inside of her had broken. “They brought me here again.”

“I’ll get you out. Don’t worry.” I cursed myself for a liar even as I spoke. I failed to keep her safe once; what made me think I could do it now? And then there was Quentin. Where was he? When they came for Katie, had they taken him too?

At least the others were safe in Shadowed Hills; the Riders couldn’t enter Luna’s domain. But Mitch and Stacy’s kids, Tybalt’s kids—oh, oak and ash. “Katie, were you the only one?”

“They said I hadn’t been bargained for. What did they mean?” A note of hysteria was creeping into her voice. “You said I could go home! What’s happening to me?!”

Blind Michael had broken my spell. It dulled her pain, and he wanted her to hurt. “It’ll be okay. I promise.” I’d lied to her already. What was once more?

She didn’t answer. “Katie?” I glanced to my candle. At the rate it was shrinking I had six hours left; maybe less. Not enough time. “Katie, I’ll be back.” There was still no answer, and finally I stood and walked away. There was nothing else I could do.

Good luck always runs out. I shouldn’t have been surprised when rough hands grabbed me from behind as I left the stable, yanking me into the shadows. I struggled, trying to break free, and was rewarded with a sharp slap upside the head.

“Hush, mongrel,” hissed a voice. “We’re taking you to Him.”

My candle was burning an angry red, warning me, but it was too late; I was caught. They dragged me through the village, the mists rolling back before us, and into a broad clearing filled with Riders and misshapen children. The children laughed and shouted, dancing around a vast bonfire that painted the sky with lashes of crimson and gold. We kept going, past the shrieks and laughter, until we reached the open space in front of the fire. Then the Riders who held my shoulders released me, fading back into the crowd. I stumbled and looked up, already knowing what was there, already afraid to see it.

Blind Michael was seated on a throne made of ivory, amusement in his sightless face as he turned toward me. “So,” he said. “You’ve returned.”

“You cheated,” I snapped. One day I’ll learn when to hold my tongue. “You said I could free Mitch and Stacy’s kids. You didn’t tell me you had Karen.”

He leaned back. “So did you. You took children I’d not agreed to lose.”

“I never said I wouldn’t.”

“I never said I’d tell you what children I had, or that I wouldn’t take back the ones you didn’t bargain for. The children you won fairly are yours, the others are mine if I want them.” He smiled. I shuddered. There were things in that smile I never wanted to know the names for. “Of course, we could always make another bargain. I enjoyed our last one.”

“What do you want?” I asked. “You can’t keep me here. I have the Luidaeg’s blessing.”

“Oh, I know. My subjects were—enthusiastic—in bringing you. I apologize.” I somehow doubted anyone was going to be punished for their enthusiasm. “As long as you hold my sister’s candle, you may leave at any time. But.”

“But?” I echoed. There was a catch. Of course there was a catch.

“You leave without this.” He pulled a familiar crystal sphere out of his vest, holding it up to show me the struggling butterfly trapped inside. “Isn’t she lovely? She brushed past me in the night, and I took her. How long will she last, I wonder?”

Karen. Oh, root and branch, Karen. “Let her go!”

“Stay with me.”

I froze, staring at him. “What?”

He smiled again. “Put down your candle. Stay with me. You don’t have time to save her and escape, but if you’ll stay of your own free will, I’ll let her go.”

“Why?”

“Because you tricked me once; that impressed me, but I’m not leaving you free to do it again. Because your existence offends me, daughter of Amandine.” He spun the sphere, making the butterfly fan its wings in a frantic attempt to stay upright. “You stay. She goes.”

“And Katie?”

“You have no claim to her.” He shook his head. “Sacrifice yourself to save one, or lose both. The choice is yours, daughter of Amandine. You haven’t got that much time left.”

I looked down at my candle. He was right: time was slipping away, and I wasn’t sure I could make it out alone, much less with my kids. Damn it. Forgive me, Luidaeg, but you were right. I really did run away to die.

“I see,” I said, looking up.

Blind Michael smiled. “Will you make the trade?”

I shivered, taking another look at my candle. It wouldn’t burn forever; if I stalled too long I’d be trapped, and Karen would be trapped with me. If I took his bargain, at least one of us would get away.

I didn’t mean to fail anyone; I didn’t mean to leave Katie behind. At least she’d forget that she’d ever been anything but a horse in a madman’s stable, and Quentin was young—he’d have outlived her no matter what happened. Loving a mortal is never wise. You get burned every time. He was just going to have to learn that lesson a little earlier than I did.

I knew I was justifying what I was going to do. I didn’t care. There was no other way.

“If I stay,” I said, slowly, “you’ll let Karen go. No tricks, right?”

“Of course,” he said, offended. “My word is my bond. Am I not born of Faerie?”

That was the thing. He was born of Faerie, a Faerie so old only the Firstborn remembered it. Our word has always been our bond, and his blood was older than mine. His word would be more binding. “Promise me,” I said.

“If I promise, you stay. You will join my Hunt and belong to me, forever.”

One last chance. I could still say no; I could run away and come back to save them all, if I truly believed I could still get there and back by a candle’s light. The wax was melting faster all the time, running down and coating my fingers. How many miles to Babylon?

Too many.

“If you promise, I’ll stay,” I said. “You have my word.”

“That is all I need.” Blind Michael stood, giving a short, mocking bow. “By my mother’s blood and my father’s bones, I promise,” he said, in a singsong voice that echoed back and forth until it filled the world. I shivered where I stood, wanting to run. Too little and too late, by far. I’d given up my chance, and I was going to have to live with the consequences.

“By oak and ash, by rowan and thorn, I promise. By root and branch, by rose and tree, by flowers and blood and water, I promise this to you: your sleeping princess and her siblings shall be free of my lands, and I will never touch them again. My Hunt will not pursue them, my Hunters will not take them. You have my word.”

His words were ash and dust; I breathed in their power and felt myself go cold. The children erupted into cheers. He’d done it. The promise was made, and not even Blind Michael could escape his own bindings. Karen would go free and I would stay behind. It was up to Quentin and the others to free Katie. The fight wasn’t mine anymore. My fighting was over.

I looked into his face and saw the end of the world. “Your turn,” he said.

“I …” There was nothing I could say. Like it or not, I’d given my word. You can get there and back by candlelight, the Luidaeg said, and she’d been right; the light brought me into Blind Michael’s lands and kept me as safe as possible while I was there. It was my road home, and as long as I had it, my promises didn’t matter. As long as I didn’t let go, there was still a chance.

Wordless, I opened my hand, and I let the candle fall.

The Hunt watched, and Blind Michael watched through them. When it hit the ground, flame finally going out, he smiled. Victory, damn him forever. Victory was his. I stood as straight as I could, blinking back tears. The land wasn’t very welcoming when I was under the Luidaeg’s protection, but now, without my candle, it was terrifying.

Dimly, I realized that I wanted my mother.

“I stay,” I said.

“Yes,” said Blind Michael, “you do.” Something hit the back of my knees, knocking me to the ground. I tried to raise my head, but the world had gone dark, filled with the icy whispering of Blind Michael’s lost children. Oak and ash, what had I done?

“Here comes a candle to light you to bed,” they chanted. I could feel them closing in around me, but I couldn’t get my body to obey me and move away.

Luidaeg, forgive me … I thought, desperately. “Here comes a chopper to chop off your head,” rumbled Blind Michael. “Take her.”

Something heavy hit me on the base of the skull, and the world fell away.