Once Broken Faith

TWENTY

THE PATH WOUND THROUGH the redwoods like a river, looping and doubling back on itself several times, until I was grateful for the pixies keeping me on the right heading. Without them, I would have drifted off-course and fallen, and there was no easy way to get back up. Occasional stairways sprouted off the main path, ascending and descending to other levels in the tangle, but that wasn’t the same as finding my way from the ground, which seemed even farther down than it had been before. Maybe it was. Geography could be dramatic and odd in the Summerlands; it wouldn’t be out of the question for a canyon to be hidden somewhere below me, in the trees.

I ran, and the pixies flew, until we reached a curving stairway cut from a living redwood bough. They landed there, clustering on the bannisters and lighting up the area like a Candyland dream, chiming in a constant, dissonant wave. The stairs led up to another redwood, this one big enough around to qualify as a tower. The door was standing slightly ajar. Not enough that I would have seen it from the path; without the pixies, I would have run right on by.

“I owe you,” I said. The pixies rang even louder, startled expressions on their Barbie-sized faces. It occurred to me belatedly that I might have just pledged fealty to the local flock. I decided not to argue with it. They wouldn’t be any worse than the actual nobility, and I could probably buy them off with a bag of cheeseburgers and some open cans of Pepsi.

The smell of blood lingered near the top of the stairs. I paused long enough to find the smear on the left-hand banister, wiped it away with my finger, and pushed the door open, putting one hand on the hilt of my borrowed sword as I stepped through. The antechamber was dimly lit, and empty. A staircase wound itself in a tight upward spiral, beginning to my right and ascending up into the dark. I took a breath, steadied myself, and began to climb.

Midway up, the smell of blood began getting stronger. Not all of it was Quentin’s. Most of it wasn’t. I climbed faster.

After another ten feet, I found the body. Not a human’s body: a dog’s, white fur stained with blood, head lolling. He’s past helping, whispered a small, shameful voice. Keep going. If I stopped to help him, I might be too late to help Quentin. I might not be able to save my squire.

And if I didn’t stop to help him, I would never be able to live with myself. I dropped to my knees on the step below the one where he was sprawled, reaching for him. The fur on his neck was thick and tacky with strings of slowly drying gore, but most of the blood, I realized, wasn’t his: it had run down from the red stains around his mouth. The only actual injury seemed to be in his belly. It would still be enough to kill him if it wasn’t cleaned and bandaged—the fur there was practically black—but it wasn’t enough to have killed him yet.

I dug my fingers into his fur until I found his pulse. It would have been too fast in a human, or a Daoine Sidhe. I didn’t know what was usual in a dog. Were they faster than their bipedal companions? Slower? I just had to hope that this was normal. His breathing was shallow but steady.

“Madden,” I whispered, leaning closer. “Can you hear me?”

His eye opened and he whined, low and shrill in the back of his throat.

I hadn’t realized how tense I was until my shoulders unlocked. I forced myself to smile, running my hand along the curve of his neck. “Hey,” I said. “Can you shift? I can help bandage that hole in your stomach, if you can shift.”

He rolled his eye, which I took as an indication that he was willing to try. I moved back, watching as he shivered, a small motion that gradually spread to his entire body, becoming a shudder, and finally becoming a shift in the world. The dog disappeared, replaced by a burly man with red-and-white hair, wearing a white ruffled shirt and a pair of blue linen trousers. The front of the shirt had turned almost completely black. There was no hole in the fabric. That seemed odd for a moment, before I realized the shirt hadn’t existed when he was stabbed: the knife had gone through fur and skin, not fabric. Magic was strange, and its inconsistent rules were sometimes unforgiving.

“Hey,” he whispered.

“Hey,” I replied, and moved to help him into a sitting position. He grimaced, but didn’t make a sound. “I need you to take your shirt off.”

That was enough to coax a pained smile from him. “I don’t swing that way, and Tybalt would murder me. He doesn’t like dogs to begin with.”

“Tybalt will understand battlefield necessity,” I said, beginning to undo Madden’s buttons. “I need to bind your wound. I don’t expect you to walk, but if we can stop the bleeding, you’ll be okay long enough for me to deal with the Queen of Highmountain, get back to Arden, and find Jin.”

Madden grimaced again, rolling his shoulders to help me with the undressing. “I don’t mean to be a pessimist, but maybe you’re expecting too much of yourself? I can’t stand. I don’t think she’s going to get here in time.”

“Hope can be cruel, but giving up is worse,” I said. Revealed, the wound in his stomach looked about as good as it was possible for that sort of thing to be. It was high and off to the side, where it might have sliced into the fat and muscle of his abdomen, avoiding his internal organs. If we were only dealing with blood loss and not sepsis, I might not be being overly optimistic after all.

His shirt was linen, sturdy enough that it refused to rip when I pulled on it. That was good. I used Sylvester’s sword to slice it into strips and wrapped them around Madden’s middle, doing my best to stop the bleeding without tying them tight enough to do additional damage. He was panting and pale by the time I was done, but still sitting upright; he hadn’t blacked out even once. Under the circumstances, I was willing to call that a win.

“I have to go,” I said quietly. “Did she say anything about what she was hoping to accomplish?”

“She told her handmaiden her hands were too dirty; she’d burn for what she did,” said Madden. He frowned. It was impossible to tell whether the pain in his expression was physical, or due to remembering Verona’s words. “She said if she was willing to finish this—the queen said that if the handmaiden was willing to finish this—her sister would be taken care of. The handmaiden’s sister, I mean.”

“I understand,” I said. Blood loss was making him loopy. I wasn’t going to get much more out of him. Still, I paused, and asked, “Madden, what’s at the top of this tower?”

He blinked, seeming perplexed. “The sleepers,” he said. “I thought you knew.”

“Oh, root and branch,” I muttered. “No. I didn’t. I’ll be back.” I pushed myself to my feet and started up the stairs, faster now that I knew what I was racing toward—and what I was racing against.

The tower where the elf-shot sleepers were kept was an interesting target, tactically speaking. Nolan, Prince in the Mists was definitely there; Dianda Lorden might or might not be. Either way, they’d make excellent hostages. The thought that Tybalt might have already been moved up there crossed my mind, and was promptly dismissed. Arden’s people couldn’t have moved that fast. If they had, they would have been in the room when Verona and Minna arrived.

Or would they? I didn’t know how long I’d been trapped in that fairy ring. I didn’t know, and now two of the people I loved could be in that tower, alone with a woman who thought nothing of killing as long as her own hands remained technically, dishonestly clean. My ankle was damaged enough to make the stairs difficult. I ran through the pain, feeling things shift and straighten within the confines of my skin as my body adjusted.

Sometimes I think the true power of what I inherited from my mother is the ability to keep running, no matter how badly it hurts.

The stairs ended at another door. This one was closed. I tried the knob. It was also locked. Verona had anticipated someone following her. Not enough to have set a fairy ring on the threshold, which is what I would have done: I would have made sure anyone who thought they could interfere with my plans wound up a frozen, helpless bystander. Either she was cocky or she was scared. Either way, I needed to get into that room.

Swords are not good lock picks. My earrings were silver; too soft to work the tumblers in a door this size, even if I could twist them into the right shape. I cast around for something else I could use, pausing when I saw the banister. Like everything else in the knowe that wasn’t made of stone, it was polished redwood, enchanted to remain smooth and snag free.

“We’ll see about that,” I muttered, and retreated a few steps down the stairs, trying to put some distance between me and the door. It was a foolish to hope that I might be able to go unheard, but it was all I had at this point, and I was going to hold on to it.

The banister was sturdy. My first blow with the sword didn’t even scratch the wood, and the recoil was enough to send me staggering back a step. Not the safest thing ever, with me near the top of a long stairway. I didn’t want to climb back up, and so I kept my second swing more controlled, hitting the banister harder. This time, the blade bit in, just a little. So I swung again and again, chipping away at the wood until it gave way, shattering along the cut I had made. I kicked the broken spot, and kept kicking, breaking off a chunk of banister about the length of my forearm.

“Arden needs to give me a damn skeleton key,” I muttered, and settled to breaking down the chunk still further, until I had a handful of skewers. Wooden lock picks aren’t my favorite, but they’re better than nothing. I shoved the sword into its scabbard and walked back up the stairs. The door was still closed. That was actually a bit of a relief. Maybe Verona hadn’t heard me after all.

She’d hear me soon. I crouched in front of the door, inserting the tips of two of my skewers into the lock and beginning to work. Everything else fell away, replaced by the calm simplicity of the tumblers and the way they interacted with my makeshift lock picks. Devin had always called me a natural where breaking and entering was concerned, and while I might not be proud of my roots, that didn’t mean I was going to reject the skills they’d given me. Better to be a respectable detective who could pick a lock than one who stood helplessly outside a locked door, refusing to do something I was fully capable of.

Morality, like everything else, is often a matter of which side of the situation you’re standing on.

The tumblers clicked open. I left my skewers in place as I drew my sword. Then I reached up, grasped the knob, and turned it. There was no point in hiding the evidence that I’d been here when I was about to show up in person.

Verona was standing near the window shouting at Minna. Minna was shouting back. They were too wrapped up in their private drama to have noticed me, and so I risked a glance around the room, trying to get a feel for what had gone on in here.

Too many of the biers were occupied. I blinked, bringing them into focus, and swallowed a gasp. Quentin and Walther were both there, the one crumpled like a discarded rag, the other stretched out like a king in state. They were asleep, their chests rising and falling with drugged slowness. Elf-shot. They’d been elf-shot. They wouldn’t rejoin the land of the living for a hundred years, or until the cure was administered—and Walther was the one who knew how to make the cure.

I had a moment of sickening terror before I remembered that Siwan could almost certainly recreate Walther’s work, even if he wasn’t awake to help her with the potion. Assuming the conclave went well, they’d be awake sooner rather than later.

Nolan and Duke Michel were on their biers, where I’d expected them to be. Dianda’s bier had been replaced by a shallow trough of water, with her lying at the bottom like a drowned maiden. It was a disappointment but not a real shock to see Tybalt lying on Dianda’s other side. The fairy ring had kept me in place long enough for Arden to move him to a place of supposed safety, and now here we were, all in danger together, one more time.

Jin wasn’t here. Either she’d been somewhere else, or she’d managed to get away. That gave me a small amount of hope. We might be able to survive this. I turned back to Verona and Minna. They still hadn’t noticed me. That was about to change.

“In the name of Queen Arden Windermere in the Mists, High King Aethlin Sollys, High Queen Maida Sollys, and a bunch more nobles who’d like you to cut this shit out, you are under arrest,” I said, as clearly and coherently as I could. The urge to charge in and start swinging was strong. Surely I couldn’t be charged with violation of the Law if the decapitation was accidental.

Verona and Minna stopped shouting at each other and turned to stare at me in wide-eyed disbelief, briefly united by their surprise. Verona found her voice first. “You,” she said. “How are you here? We left you prisoned in a circle. You can’t have followed us.”

“Turns out the circle was pretty half-assed,” I said. “It broke, I followed. You have nowhere left to run. Come quietly and maybe the High King will be gentle with you.” That wasn’t going to happen. Whether she realized it or not, Queen Verona had signed her own conviction when she jammed an arrow into Quentin’s arm. The Sollys family might have been able to forgive her treason and insurrection, but they weren’t going to forgive a direct attack on their only son.

“I told you,” said Minna. “I didn’t have time to set the traps in that room, not with you moving around and refusing to let me mark them. The fairy rings I scattered were weak, to prevent you being snared and stuck until someone came to free you.”

“That didn’t stop you from killing my husband, you washed-out, death-born bitch,” snarled Verona. Her attention swung back to me. “You can’t arrest me. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“The Law may be the only crime that can carry a death sentence, but I’m willing to bet that between Arden and the High King and Queen, they’ll come up with something to punish you for,” I said. “That’s the trouble with having a justice system built on royal whims. Sometimes they work against you.”

Verona turned to Minna. “Kill her,” she said calmly.

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“No,” said Minna.

“Kill her or I’ll kill your sister,” said Verona.

“I’m right here,” I said. “I have a sword.”

“You can’t threaten her anymore,” said Minna. “I know you won’t hurt her. Not as long as you want to control me. Leave my sister alone, and maybe I’ll be willing to listen to you.”

“Didn’t you just, you know, kill her husband? King Kabos of Highmountain? Remember him? He’s dead. Maybe you should move away from her, and stop letting her tell you what to do.” I’ve been attacked and I’ve been belittled. I’d never been ignored while people argued about what to do with me. Especially not when I was heavily armed and already covered in blood.

Covered in blood . . . “Minna,” I said, causing the Barrow Wight to look at me in surprise. She’d never told me her name. Kabos had done that, bleeding out his secrets under my hand. “Who stabbed Madden?”

“She did,” said Minna, indicating Verona. “He wouldn’t stop barking.”

“There’s no crime in killing a dog,” said Verona dismissively.

“There’s certainly a crime in killing the Queen’s Seneschal,” I said. Verona turned to stare at me. I smiled. “Madden is Arden’s best friend and closest confidant. More importantly, he’s Cu Sidhe. You’re not innocent anymore.”

Verona took a step backward. “Don’t touch me!”

“Now you’d run? Now you’d flee? Because your hands aren’t clean?” Minna reached out and grabbed Verona’s arm, digging in her fingers until the other woman yelped and squirmed, trying to get away. “My hands were clean! My sister’s hands were clean!” Her face was starting to distort, becoming the monstrous mask she had worn when she killed the king.

Verona wailed.

I lowered my sword. “Let her go,” I said, softly. “She deserves justice. So do you. Let her go, and I’ll take you both to Arden to stand trial. If there’s any way to go gently on you, she’ll find it.” There wasn’t. Minna was going to die. But maybe she would be the last.

“My sister’s name is Avebury,” said Minna. “She’s only fifteen. She doesn’t know what the world will do to you. She doesn’t know what the world demands. Get her out of Highmountain. Don’t let them hurt her.”

“Please, let her go.” I took a step forward. “You know that an easy death is more than she deserves. Let her stand trial.”

“Did the dog live?”

Minna’s question was so abrupt that it took me a moment to realize what she was asking. I nodded. “Yes, but—”

“Then so will she. What’s a hundred years, to a monster? That’s what she made of me. She could only do that because of what she was.” Minna’s face softened a bit. “She came to me after my mother died and said ‘do what I say and your sister will have the best of everything; refuse me, and she will have the worst.’ My mother died as her assassin. This ends only with an ending, not with a pause.”

“Please, she’s mad, please,” moaned Verona.

“This ends,” said Minna, and ran for the nearest window, dragging Verona by the arm.

I realized what was about to happen as soon as she began to move. “Minna, no!” I shouted, dropping my sword and lunging for her.

Her shoulder hit the glass. It shattered, and she fell through, dragging Verona with her. I grabbed Verona’s arm, hoping to pull them back. Minna turned to look at me, briefly arrested in her descent. There was sorrow in her eyes, deep and profound and utterly resigned.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and jerked me forward with all of her Barrow Wight’s strength. There was no time to catch myself before we were falling, all three of us, caught in the unyielding grasp of gravity.

That was all we were caught in. Minna let us both go and fell with her eyes closed and a beatific smile on her face. Verona screamed, grabbing first at the Barrow Wight and then at me, like we could somehow stop her fall. I pushed her away. I couldn’t save her, not now, not with the skills I possessed; all I could do was hope that she wouldn’t suffer overly much.

I tried to go limp as I fell, hoping it would minimize the pain of my impact with the ground, which was rushing up on me faster and faster, becoming a black sheet that blanketed my vision and blocked out everything else.

This is gonna suck, I thought.

Then I hit the ground, and everything disappeared.