Once Broken Faith

TWENTY-ONE

CONSCIOUSNESS CAME ON LIKE a flipped switch: one moment I wasn’t in the world, and the next moment I was. There was no pain. That was probably a good sign. While I was pretty sure that it was possible for me to experience such profound trauma that I lost the ability to feel pain, one little fall from an impossible height wasn’t going to be enough to do it.

I opened my eyes.

The ceiling was redwood, spangled with the cutout shapes of stained-glass stars in blackberry purple and deep sea blue. Matching shades covered the lights, keeping them from becoming too bright. I blinked twice, and decided to skip the whole process of testing my body to see whether it still worked. Either it did, or it didn’t. There were no other options.

I sat up. A wave of dizziness swept over me, forcing me to throw my hand to the side to brace myself. It hit a softly padded surface. I looked down. I was sitting on a bed, sheets beneath me and patchwork quilt atop me. I was also clean. There was no blood on my clothing, which had been changed while I was asleep, replaced by a simple white cotton shift with a drawstring neck. Tiny blackberry flowers had been embroidered around the neck, white on white, virtually invisible save for the tiny pops of yellow at their centers. I was still in Muir Woods, then. Arden seemed to have an almost compulsive need to spatter blackberry symbolism on everything she owned, just to make sure people knew it was hers. I couldn’t blame her for that, considering how long she’d been exiled from her family’s throne. Sure, I would have done the claiming with a label-maker, but to each their own.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I turned toward the voice and found a slim, short woman with pale skin and sharp features standing in the doorway, arms crossed and dragonfly wings beating a mad tattoo in the air behind her. A sleek, short-cropped pageboy haircut framed her face in black silk, making her look like the poster girl for medical responsibility. “You need to lie back down, now.”

“Hi, Jin,” I said, pushing the quilt back. My legs were bare, although my shift extended to mid-thigh—long enough for decency. I rotated my left ankle experimentally. It moved smoothly and without that little catch that it had been showing before. “Did I rebreak my ankle? Where were you before?”

“I went out the window when they came in. Unlike some people, I can fly. Toby, I need you to look at me.” There was something wrong with her voice. I had heard her in distress before; had heard her struggling to save a patient who she thought was not going to willingly stay. I had never heard her sound so serious. Startled, I looked back at her.

Jin wasn’t frowning, exactly. Her expression was one of profound and absolute sorrow. I felt myself go cold. “Toby—”

“When did he die?” The question came out surprisingly even. My voice didn’t shake. My voice didn’t do anything. The words fell between us like stones in a wall, and part of me knew that this had always been the way things had to be. I didn’t get the happy ending, the man who loved me and the bouquet of roses in my hand. The world has never, never been that kind. Not where I’m concerned.

Jin blinked, sorrow fading into confusion. “When did who die?”

“Tybalt. That’s why I was screaming for you before, remember? So you could try to save him?” He’d lost so much blood. It was easy to forget that for other people, blood loss was a dangerous problem, not just an inconvenience to be fixed with Pop Tarts and protein. I’d become so accustomed to being invulnerable that I’d allowed myself to believe everyone I cared about was, too.

Maybe if Verona hadn’t interrupted her. Maybe if she’d been allowed to work. Maybe if we’d gotten the elf-shot into his arm a little sooner.

You can hang the stars on maybe, but they won’t light up the sky.

“Oh, sweet Titania, Toby, no.” Jin’s face relaxed as she understood. “Tybalt is fine. I was able to patch up his remaining injuries and give him a potion to help regenerate the blood he lost. He may be sore when he wakes up, but he’s alive. He’s going to be perfectly healthy. There won’t even be a scar.”

I stared at her. “What?”

“Tybalt is recovering. He’s still asleep because the conclave isn’t over, and we don’t have permission from the High King to wake anyone, but he isn’t going to die.”

None of this made sense. “Then why—”

“You died.”

I froze.

Jin kept talking. “I saw you fall. I was hiding on the roof of the tower, trying to decide whether it was safe to go for help, and when you came out of the window, I went after you. You landed at the base of the tower, and you were . . . you were broken, October. I don’t have the words for what I saw when I looked at you, except to say that I never want to see anything like that again. I didn’t rebreak your ankle. You did, when you fell. You broke . . . I think you broke every bone in your body, and even a few that shouldn’t have been breakable. You shattered yourself.”

“Oh.”

“Yours wasn’t the only body there, but you were the only one still breathing. I don’t know how you were still breathing. You should have been dead before I could reach you. I was trying to figure out how to move you when Queen Windermere appeared. The pixies had gone to find her.” Jin shook her head. “I gave you an anesthetic, and we carried you back into the knowe. It took me three hours to set your bones, Toby. Three hours. It was like doing a jigsaw puzzle.”

“I guess it was a longer fall than I thought.” The words sounded weak even to my own ears.

Jin glared at me. “You think? As soon as your bones were set, the Luidaeg brought me a decanter filled with blood. She said she owed it to you. I’ve been feeding you the blood of a Firstborn for the last two days, watching your body put itself back together after a fall you should never have been able to walk away from. You died, I’m sure of it. I don’t know how you can be talking to me now.”

“I don’t think it was the first time.”

Jin’s eyes narrowed. “Explain?”

Haltingly, I did. How the false Queen of the Mists had stabbed me through the heart; how Evening Winterrose’s wards had swatted me out of the sky and into the unforgiving sea. All the other near misses and narrow escapes that maybe hadn’t been misses after all. Finally, I said, “I still think I can die. Everything that lives can die. But I think . . . unless my body is so broken it can’t heal, I think there’s a really good chance I’ll come back.”

“That explains why the Luidaeg assumed you would live,” said Jin. “I’m sure that also explains why I need you to lie still and recover. You’ve been unconscious. You need to rest.”

“If I’ve been unconscious, all I’ve been doing is resting,” I said. “I need to find out what’s going on. I need to tell High King Aethlin what happened.” They must have found Quentin by now, sleeping peacefully in the high tower. I needed them to understand.

Jin shook her head. “He already knows. He took a sample of your blood as soon as we were sure you would live. It told him the whole story.”

I stared at her. It was hard not to feel like my privacy had been invaded, even though what she was talking about Aethlin doing was exactly what I did every time I rode someone’s blood without their consent. I would have said he could go ahead if I’d been awake, not because I wanted to, but because I knew that refusing would have been seen as suspicious. I would also have been able to focus my thoughts on Verona and her crimes, rather than allowing him to roam at will through my memories.

At least it had been him. He already knew most of the secrets I was tasked with keeping, although he might not have been quite so aware of Arden’s insecurities. I pushed the sleeves of my shift up to my elbows, trying to cover my discomfort with a question: “How’s Madden?”

“The knife missed all the major organs, and you did a pretty decent job with the field dressing for someone who has no medical background.”

Jin probably hadn’t gone to a human medical school. Ellyllon were natural healers, and their knowledge of the body and its ailments was mostly instinctual. I decided not to point that out. I was already pissing her off enough by refusing to get back under the covers, and I had once seen her knock Sylvester out with a touch of her fingers and a gentle command to go to sleep. “Good. Arden needs him, and he didn’t deserve to die that way. Where are we in the knowe?”

“Oh, no.” Jin narrowed her eyes. “Get back in the bed. I am not going to be responsible for you running off and hurting yourself again.”

“No, you won’t,” I agreed, and stood. “But I’m awake now, and I need to tell High King Aethlin that I’m his to command. I can’t just lie around here waiting until you feel like I’m well enough to deal with my daily existence.” Especially with the conclave still going; especially with Tybalt still sleeping. I needed the High King to remember that I was here.

Quentin was probably going to be a sufficient reminder of the urgency of the matter at hand. I couldn’t imagine any parent would want to leave their eldest child to sleep for a hundred years if there was any way around it.

Jin took a breath, looking like she was going to object again. Then she stopped, and sighed, and said, “I never win this fight. Just once, I’d like to win. You know that, right?”

“I do,” I said solemnly. “Next time I’m at Shadowed Hills, I’ll stub my toe and let you put me to bed for a week, okay?” The idea was appealing. Peace, quiet, access to the kitchen . . . I could deal with that sort of break.

“It’s a promise,” said Jin.

“Great,” I said. “Now where are my clothes?”

Her smile was slow, and more than a little sadistic. “Oh, I’m sorry, did you want me to do you a favor beyond saving your worthless life? That’s not on the books for today.”

“Don’t think I’m going to stay in here just because you refuse to give back my shoes,” I said.

“I don’t think even you will go streaking around a royal knowe.”

“You call this streaking?” I held out my arms. “I’m more covered than a tent. Don’t think I won’t walk out that door.”

“You won’t.”

“Watch me.” I walked past her, choking a little on the cloud of pixie dust thrown up by her frantically buzzing wings, and out the door into the hallway on the other side, where my dignified escape was promptly thwarted by Sylvester Torquill.

“October!” he cried, rising from the lion-footed chair where he’d been sitting, nervous as a father waiting for news from the delivery room. He swept me into a tight hug before I could react, lifting my feet off the ground. I made a small sound of protest. He didn’t appear to notice, occupied as he was with swinging me around and exclaiming, “Jin said you were recovering, but I never expected to see you up and about so soon! And looking so well! My darling girl, can you ever forgive me?”

“Not dead,” I managed to wheeze. “That means I need to breathe.”

“Sorry! Sorry.” He set me gingerly to my feet and took an exaggerated step backward, giving me my space. “Are you all right?”

“I’m still in one piece, despite the best efforts of gravity and the ground,” I said. I felt light-headed with relief. This was the closest thing to an intimate moment Sylvester and I had shared since the night I’d learned that he had lied to me for my entire life. He’d done it out of loyalty to my mother and love for me, but he had still hurt me, and that had damaged my trust in him. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed feeling like I could turn to him in times of crisis.

“Please don’t do that again. My heart can’t handle it.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not the only person who’s going to say that to me,” I said. “Did you get your sword back?”

“I did,” he said. Then he smirked. “Even dropping yourself from a great height is not enough to defeat the art of a good blacksmith.”

“I’ll try harder next time.” I took a deep breath. Let it out. And said, “I’m still mad at you. If you ever keep secrets from me for my own good again, we’re done. I will ask you to release me from my oaths, I will find a new liege, and I will be gone. But I miss you. I miss my friend. I miss my liege. Please, can we make up now?”

Sylvester nodded. He looked tired. Daoine Sidhe don’t age after they reach maturity, staying young and vital forever, but there were still shadows around his eyes, and he looked older than he had before Evening Winterrose came back, before I learned that he could lie to me. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I will do my best never to break your trust again.”

This time, I was the one who hugged him, wrapping my arms around his waist and breathing in the reassuring dogwood and daffodil scent of him, letting it fill my lungs. Sylvester put his arms around my shoulders, and I allowed myself to take a moment and just exist.

But only a moment. I had work to do. “I need to get to the conclave,” I said, letting go and stepping away. “I need to find out what’s going on.”

Sylvester blinked. “Forgive me if this is indelicate, but . . . were you planning to go in what you’re wearing?”

“First Jin, now you, I swear, it’s like you think this is a bikini or something.” I crossed my arms. “I don’t have clean clothes here, and I’m not going to my room to change. I can’t lace myself into half those outfits without help.” Quentin usually helped me, or Tybalt, and both of them were asleep in a high tower, waiting for the people who held the final say to tell me whether or not I was going to get them back.

Fae don’t age, but humans do. If I wanted my boys returned to me, I was going to have to burn away the last of my humanity, and I was never going to forgive the gathered Kings and Queens of the Westlands for demanding that of me. Never.

“I could spin you an illusion—”

“No. I got hurt in their service. They can take me as I am.” Still mortal. Still breakable. Still longing to go home.

“At least take my coat.” Sylvester shrugged out of his greatcoat, which hung to his knees and would fall almost to my ankles. It was soft blue wool, embroidered with abstract yellow daffodils and white dogwood flowers, and it felt like he was still hugging me when I pulled it on. I had to belt it tight around my waist to keep it from slipping off my shoulders, but when I was done, it looked almost like an overdress rather than a coat stolen from someone bigger than me.

“Cool,” I said, and smiled. Sylvester smiled back, offering me his arm. I slipped my hand into the crook of his elbow, and together we walked down the hall, his shoes clicking with each step, my bare feet slapping softly against the redwood.

My recovery room was located in a part of the knowe I wasn’t familiar with. Sylvester led and I followed, down a long hall and two flights of stairs, until we came to those old, familiar receiving doors. They were flanked by guards. Lowri stood on the left-hand side, and her eyes widened when she saw me.

“October,” she said. “You’re alive.”

“Alive, awake, and in sort of a hurry to get back to work, hence the lack of shoes,” I said. “Can I go inside?”

“The conclave is already in session,” said Lowri.

“We were invited,” said Sylvester. His tone was mild. His expression was steel.

Lowri hesitated for a bare second before she looked to me, said, “Welcome back,” and opened the door, revealing the arcade. I offered her a quick smile, and stepped through.

There had been deaths and political intrigue, but we’d started with a large enough group that the absences were only noticeable if you took the time to look at them. As I walked down the aisle in my borrowed shift and coat, I took the time to look. To find the holes. Some of the missing would be back—Dianda, Quentin, Tybalt—but others were gone forever, and they were owed the small acknowledgment of my attention. As for the rest, they were dressed in their court finery, as always, listening with impatient attention as the Centaur King of Copper explained, in a droning voice, why distributing the elf-shot cure would endanger his community, and thus could not be borne.

We walked down the aisle, and as we passed, people began to whisper and point. Arden, who had been slumped in her throne like she was dreaming of finding an excuse to go for her phone, sat up straighter. Maida stiffened, tapping Aethlin’s arm. The High King turned his head, saw me, and stood, cutting off the King of Copper mid-sentence. The Centaur stared at him for a moment before turning to scowl at whatever was causing this disruption. Then he went very still, only his tail swishing.

Sylvester let go of my arm when we reached the row where Luna was seated. I offered him a smile. He nodded in reply, and walked away, leaving me standing alone in the center of the aisle. No use in putting this off any longer. I turned to face the dais, and curtsied deeply before I rose and said, “Sorry for the disruption. I figured if I was awake, I should probably get over here.”

“Sir Daye,” said Aethlin. “You’re . . . surprisingly mobile, considering.”

“I heal fast,” I said, with a quick, one-shouldered shrug. “Jin told me you’d taken my blood to determine what happened. Did you have any questions for me, or are you content with the order of events?”

“I doubt I’ll ever be content with a choice that left three of my vassals dead, an abused woman equally so, and a brave knight on the verge of following them into the dark.” The fact that he was willing to say “dead,” rather than something flowery and useless like “has stopped dancing” did more to drive home the gravity of his words than anything else could have done. They were gone. They were dead, and they had died in a way that forced this collection of fae royalty to admit it, to actually see it. There was something incredible about that. Mostly, though, it was just sad.

High King Aethlin took a breath, steadying himself, and continued, “But I’m content that you took all measures within your power to try to prevent this tragedy; you did not act out of anger or the need for revenge, however justified you might have been; and you did not break Oberon’s Law. You have not committed murder.”

Hearing him say that should have felt good. I wasn’t going to stand trial, again, for something that I didn’t do. All I felt was tired. “Cool,” I said. “We still talking about the whole ‘should we distribute the cure for elf-shot’ thing?”

“Yes,” said Maida.

“Cool,” I said again. I looked toward the King of Copper. “I’m really sorry to ask for this, but I’m still wobbly, and my fiancé and my squire have both been elf-shot. I’d like to go and sit with them for a while. Do you mind yielding the floor for a moment?”

He minded; I could see it in his eyes. He just had no way of saying so without coming off as insulting, and possibly winding up challenged to a duel for my honor. Under the circumstances, I was okay with that. “Please,” he said.

“Come to the stage,” said Arden. “Given what you’ve done for us, you should be heard.”

Walking the last ten feet to the stairs that would take me to the stage seemed to take almost as long as walking from the back of the gallery. Karen and the Luidaeg were seated in the short row of chairs that had previously held us all; they looked very alone there, even when the Luidaeg offered me a quick, almost solemn smile and an equally hasty thumbs-up. I nodded to them, trying to keep my nerves under control, and took up the spot where I had stood to explain how the cure was formulated in the first place. It seemed like such a long time ago. It was definitely several ruined dresses and a lot of bloodshed ago.

I didn’t want to do this. I had no right to do this.

I had to do this.

“My name is October Daye,” I said, looking toward the audience. “Knight of Lost Words, sworn in service to Duke Sylvester Torquill of Shadowed Hills, daughter of Amandine the Liar.” When did I start thinking of my mother using the title the other Firstborn gave to her? Probably when I found out how much of my life she’d spent lying to me. “I, uh, have spoken to you before, so I guess you knew all of that. And I know the High King has told you what he learned from my blood, how Queen Verona and King Kabos decided to take this conclave as an opportunity to get rid of some people they didn’t find politically convenient. But what I really want to talk to you about is how they did it. See, they were royalty. Nobility, just like most of you, and they knew the Law. So they didn’t kill anyone. They threatened the sister of one of their vassals, and used that vassal as a weapon to keep their own hands clean. Technically, Kabos died innocent of all wrongdoing under our laws.

“How is that fair? He orchestrated the death of King Antonio Robertson of Angels. He was complicit in the attacks on me, and on King Tybalt of the Court of Dreaming Cats. He gave the orders, and he pulled the strings, and had he been brought before this court, he would have been innocent, because we put too much focus on the wrong things. We look at the letter of the Law. Oberon was a pretty cool guy, according to all the stories I’ve heard. He made the Law so we’d stop killing each other. How is it any different to stand behind a throne and give orders that can’t be refused? How is that better?” I paused, trying to read the room. Most of the faces looking back at me were impassive, giving nothing away.

I wanted to turn and look at the Luidaeg. I didn’t dare. “Elf-shot was created to get around the Law, but it still kills. I’ve encountered elf-shot modified to carry a slow poison, for use against purebloods. When it’s used against changelings, it doesn’t even need that to be deadly. It’s a killing weapon. Changelings . . . we probably outnumber purebloods in today’s world, because the humans are so close, and the human world is so tempting. We’re part of Faerie, too. We’re part of this community, too. And continuing to use a weapon that’s a guaranteed violation of the Law in spirit, if not in the way it’s written, is wrong. It’s as wrong as what Verona and Kabos did. It’s as wrong as murder.

“But I also want to talk to you about theft. The theft of time. I’m standing in front of you today, wearing this face, wearing these clothes,” I plucked at my borrowed jacket, “because my stepfather, a pureblood, transformed me into a fish to save my life. I’m not saying he was wrong to do it—I like being alive, and at the time, he didn’t see another option—but when he made that choice, when he made that very pureblooded choice, he destroyed my life. I lost my child. I lost the man I was planning to marry. Everything I’d worked for was over in an instant, because someone who thought of time like it was air forgot I had a shorter supply than he did. That I lived in a faster world. Well, we all live in that faster world now. If you have a cell phone, if you drive a car, hell, if you watch soap operas, you’re living in the fast lane. Elf-shot doesn’t take away fourteen years, like Simon did. It takes away a century. It kills changelings, and it steals time from the people who survive it. Imagine trying to catch up with the last twenty years of mortal innovations. Now imagine trying to catch up with a hundred.”

The arcade was silent, everyone watching me, some of them barely seeming to breathe. I thought Liz, the Selkie clan leader, was nodding, but I couldn’t be sure; she was too far away, and my vision was blurry with unshed tears. I wanted to wipe them away. I wasn’t willing to show that kind of weakness. Not here, not now, not with all these people listening for a change.

“Duke Michel used elf-shot to remove Duchess Lorden from the conclave because he didn’t want things to be different. He wanted to disrupt this meeting and take your choices away. Queen Verona and King Kabos used their vassal as a weapon to remove the people whose politics and policies they didn’t like from the world, because they didn’t want to live in a world where a crown was anything other than an absolute pass to do whatever they liked. All three of the people who’ve disrupted this gathering did it because they want to keep living in the past. They want to steal our time. Don’t let them.” I turned to the three people seated behind me, Arden and Aethlin and Maida. “That was all. May I be excused now?”

“Yes, you may,” said Arden.

I couldn’t find the words. I had said too much, and my tongue no longer wanted to obey me. So I curtsied, as deeply and formally as I could manage, and turned to walk back down the stairs and along the aisle, through the silent arcade to the door.

I had done all that I could do, and there were people who needed me. Whether they woke up tomorrow or in a hundred years, I was going to honor that.