Once Broken Faith by Seanan McGuire
The language he used wasn’t English, or Welsh, or anything else I recognized, but it suited the strange accent that sometimes crept into May’s words, the one she only had when she was reaching past the memories she’d received from me and Dare. It was an old language, I knew that much, sweet and fluid and filled with vowel sounds that more modern languages had tucked away as too hard on the ear.
The Luidaeg stepped up next to me. “We had our own language once,” she murmured, in English. “Mother spoke it, when she talked to the children who spent less time around humanity. But it was easier to use the words the mortals had. They were lords of language in those days, spreading across the world and naming everything they saw as quick as a blink. We’ve never been fond of doing labor that we didn’t have to do for ourselves. My tatterdemalion nieces and nephews may be the only native speakers of Faerie left in the world.”
“Can you understand them?” asked Quentin.
“No.” She shook her head, a sweet, bitter smile on her lips. “Words you don’t use fall away and are forgotten. I can’t even speak it in my dreams.” Looking to Karen, she smiled less ruefully, and added, “Don’t try to check that. You won’t like what you find in my head.”
“I don’t like what I find in your sister’s head,” said Karen.
“That’s because her sister is a murderous, psychopathic bitch, and you shouldn’t spend any time in her brain that can be avoided,” I said. “If evil is contagious, your mother will kill me.”
Karen snorted.
The night-haunts stopped speaking.
I turned to see the flock rise, moving like smoke across the water, and descend on the body of King Antonio Robertson. The more solid night-haunts, the ones whose bodies were firm and whose faces were clear, formed an outer ring around the body. The next tier was slightly less solid. They seemed to waver, but I could pick out individual features, like the curve of an ear or the color of an eye. It would have been possible to describe those night-haunts to an artist and get something a family member might be able to identify. And at the center . . .
At the center were the night-haunts who looked like shadows, so faded that their bodies seemed to have no weight or substance. They were the idea of fae, the concept of solidity, and they couldn’t stay as they were forever; the first stiff wind would rip them into nothingness. Then even those parted, easing a ghost toward the body. The night-haunt they’d chosen to eat first seemed to flicker with every step it took, barely holding itself together. The flock guided it to the skin of King Robinson’s neck.
The shadowy night-haunt stopped. The only sound was the rustle of a hundred wings, and my own breath, which seemed impossibly loud in my own ears. The shadowy night-haunt sniffed the air. And then it opened its mouth, revealing teeth that would have been better suited to some deep-sea horror, and sank them into the dead King’s neck.
That was the signal for the rest of the flock to move, swarming over the body like so many leaf-winged piranha. I fought the urge to clap my hand over Karen’s eyes. I fought the urge to clap my hand over my eyes. They ate like beasts, ripping and tearing at the flesh in front of them, moving with such furious hunger that they left nothing behind. When blood was spilled, they were right there, lapping it up, even lifting it out of the fabric of the carpet and stuffing it into their mouths. When they hit bone, they just kept right on eating, chewing down until there was nothing for them to consume but dust and shadow.
The flock pulsed, beating like a heart, and was still. The weaker night-haunts seemed stronger now, thicker and more distinct, even if they still had no coherent faces. The night-haunts like Egil, like the one who wore Connor’s face, had been the last to eat; they looked no different. Most of their sustenance was coming from the lives they had already consumed, and would be for years, if I was correct in my understanding of how they were able to survive on scraps as rare as the dead of Faerie.
The flock parted. King Antonio Robinson, now reduced to the height of a Barbie and accented with autumn-leaf wings, walked to the front. He looked . . . lost. There was no other word for the confusion on his face, or the way his eyes darted from side to side, seeking some explanation. Finally, he settled them on me.
“The changeling knight,” he said, a slight sneer in his voice. I couldn’t be offended. Maybe if he’d been alive, I would have been, but now . . . I couldn’t blame a dead man for his prejudices. It felt somehow unfair. “I . . . am I dead?”
“He’ll be disoriented for a time,” said Egil, his tone so much like Devin’s. Devin had been a bad man, in so many ways, but he’d always taken care of the ones who needed him. Even if he hurt us, he kept us safe from the rest of the world. “Ask your questions. After you do, we’ll be gone.”
“Okay,” I said, and focused on the night-haunt with Antonio’s face. “You’re a night-haunt now. You’ll start remembering that soon, if eating a life is anything like riding the blood. But yes, you died. I’m sorry. You have stopped your dancing.”
“Where are my girls?” He turned to look to either side of himself, searching the air. “Why can’t I find my girls?”
My heart sank. Antonio had been Candela. The night-haunts hadn’t taken everything for a change; not everything had been food to them. “Merry Dancers don’t transition that way, I guess. I’m sorry. They broke when you died.”
“Ah.” His eyes closed. He made no effort to conceal his pain. I was almost grateful for that. If he could hurt that badly over a pair of dancing lights, he truly was King Antonio, if only until the first rush of blood memories began to fade.
He opened his eyes again, and looked at me. “Why are you speaking to me, changeling knight? I was above you when I lived, and am below you now that I do not. Shouldn’t you shun me, refuse to acknowledge the reality of me, leave me for ballad and for bone?”
“There’s a phrasing I haven’t heard in years,” murmured the Luidaeg.
I ignored her. It was a specialized skill, and one I had better control of than most. “I rode your blood before the night-haunts came,” I said. “I didn’t see what killed you. I thought you might have picked up on something I wouldn’t realize was important.” I had been a voyeur in his life. He had lived it. “Please, can you tell me what happened?”
Antonio looked at me for a moment before he said, “You’ll need to do something for me.”
Of course a pureblood king who couldn’t think of me as his equal would have demands, apart from the natural “avenge me.” I should have known. “What do you want?”
“My wife has never been my queen. I wanted her to have safety and the freedom to move through the world as she liked. She never desired the pleasures of a throne. I want you to go to her. I want you to tell her, ‘you are a widow now.’ I want you to tell her that our son will rule in my stead. He’s young, yet. Too young for such a burden. My seneschal will help him. My seneschal will probably also try to assassinate him.” He smirked, looking more at ease now that he was talking about backstabbing and betrayal. “My boy is quick and clever. He’ll learn. He’ll adapt. And he’ll be a better king than I ever was.”
“Where can I find her?” I asked.
He gave me the address: a street in Anaheim, far from the bustle and decay of Hollywood, close to Disneyland. Arden’s parents had had a similar arrangement, with her mother raising her and her brother in the shadows of her father’s court, never admitting that they were his heirs, for fear they would be harmed. I had to wonder how many hidden princes and princesses we had scattered around the Westlands, tucked away by parents who’d learned the hard way that accepting a crown was a good way to limit your life expectancy.
When this was over, I was going to have a long talk with High King Sollys about the way the nobility took care of their children.
“I’ll find her,” I said. “Now please. What do you remember?”
“I was angry. That woman from the water—a Merrow, marrie
“I was there when you started yelling at Dianda,” I said, voice carefully neutral. “Where did you go after that?”
“Just down the hall. I wanted to clear my head. I wasn’t gone for long—minutes, only—I planned to come back, make my apologies, even if I didn’t mean them, and maintain my standing within the conclave. But when I returned to the dining hall, there was no one there. It was like I’d been gone for hours.”
The sound. “I heard something, when I rode your blood.”
“My wife doesn’t believe in using magic to preserve food.”
The statement was odd enough that for a moment, I didn’t know what to say. “Um, okay,” I offered finally.
Antonio looked at me like I was beneath contempt. “It would be a waste of her skills. She uses a mortal invention instead. Tin foil. Have you heard of it?”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing as I nodded. “Yes. I’ve encountered the stuff.”
“There’s this sound when she tears off a sheet . . . I heard it. From this room. And then the shadows jumped.”
Wait. “What?”
“My Merry Dancers were never still, and their light meant the shadows were never solid. They didn’t have the opportunity to freeze.” He looked at the shadows around him, expression growing grim. “The world flickered like a candle. I never knew how much I would miss it until it was over.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But what do you mean, the shadows jumped? Did they actually come for you?” I hadn’t noticed anything like that. I had been hoping Antonio could reveal some motive or facet of the situation that his blood hadn’t given me, but moving shadows seemed a bit big for me to have missed.
“No, you stupid girl,” he said. “They shifted, as if my Merry Dancers had been moved. Which is quite impossible.”
But it wasn’t impossible for something else to have moved. “I heard the sound twice when I rode your blood,” I said. “Once here, once in the hall. Does that match with what you remember?”
The night-haunt who had been King Antonio nodded.
“One last question, and then you can go,” I said. “Do you know anyone who might have wanted you dead?”
His laughter surprised me. “Oh, you simple changeling creature,” he said. “I was a king, and a good one. Everyone wanted me dead.”
Egil took his arm. “We must away,” he said. He snapped his wings open, launching himself upward, into the air. Antonio was pulled along, and other night-haunts moved to support him, holding him in the air until the instincts of his new body took hold, and his wings began to work. Silently, those of us who were still among the living watched the dead flying away, until only the night-haunt with Connor’s face remained.
“October,” he said.
I turned to him. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. I still felt guilty when I saw him, as if his death had been entirely my fault, and not the result of his own actions. I was grateful for those actions—I always would be—but I hadn’t asked him to die for my daughter. He had chosen to do that entirely on his own.
“Egil won’t thank you for stopping the goblin fruit. His memories of being Devin are too strong, and he blames you for letting the stuff into his streets in the first place, after he died. I’ve talked to the changelings who died because they got hooked, and they wanted me to tell you that they’re grateful, and they don’t share his anger. The flock is not your friend. The flock will never be your friend, not until you join us, and fly with us, and belong to us. But the flock isn’t your enemy, either.” He paused. Then he smiled, that old, familiar smile, the one that used to greet me when I woke up. My heart clenched. I loved Tybalt more than I would have believed possible, but that didn’t mean I didn’t miss Connor. He’d been my friend before he was my lover. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to losing friends.
“I’ll see you soon,” said the night-haunt with Connor’s face, and launched himself into the air, and left me alone with the living.
TEN
WHEN THE NIGHT-HAUNTS TAKE a body from the mortal world, they leave a mannequin behind, one that mimics the mortal disguise of the deceased. Those mannequins rot, bloat, and decay, just like a human corpse. There’s no need for that sort of subterfuge in the Summerlands. All the night-haunts had left of King Antonio were a few scraps of clothing and the shattered husks of his Merry Dancers, which were already dissolving into sand.
“What would have happened if Toby hadn’t found the body?” asked Quentin, after a long silence. “Would the night-haunts just have come, and not left anything to let us know that somebody was actually dead?”
“Historically, if there was no one to witness the feeding, they would leave dried leaves and rose petals, love-lies-bleeding and sprigs of marigold,” said the Luidaeg. “It’s a very specific bouquet. Anyone who found it right after someone had gone missing would know what it meant. I’m surprised you don’t.”
“We haven’t reached ‘mysterious deaths’ in my lessons,” said Quentin uncomfortably.
“Also, I didn’t know the answer to that,” I said. “Mom never taught me. Neither did Etienne.”
“Deaths in Faerie are rare enough that they probably thought you’d never need to know.” The Luidaeg snorted. “They never did understand you very well.”
“I guess not.” I turned to Karen. “You okay?”
She was pale, even for her, but she wasn’t shaking, and her eyes were clear. “I didn’t know it was like that,” she said. “How long will that night-haunt look like him?”
“A year for every year he lived,” said the Luidaeg. “Anything more would be unfair; anything less would kill them all, and we’d be right back where we started. You’ll have two lives, when your time comes. The one you lead among the living, and the one you lead among the dead.”
“Wow,” I said. “If that’s meant to be reassuring, you need to redefine how you think about the word. Any ideas on that whole ‘I heard tearing metal and then the shadows moved’ thing?”
“Not yet,” said the Luidaeg. She put a hand on Karen’s shoulder. “You ready to go back to the conclave, kiddo?”
Karen looked startled. “What? Why would we go back? Isn’t it over now?”
“If you think a murder is enough to disrupt a collection of kings and queens, it’s a good thing you’ll never be asked to be a part of the monarchy,” said the Luidaeg. “If anything, this is going to make them more determined to come to a consensus. Their honor has been threatened. How dare the world intrude?”
“Yes,” I said softly. “How dare it.”
We left the dissolving fragments of Merry Dancer where they were. I didn’t have anything to carry them in, and I didn’t know what the protocols were for handling something that was, in its way, evidence of the existence of Faerie. Maybe once they’d finished dissolving, the sand would be returned to Antonio’s widow, or maybe it would just be scattered to the wind. Either way, that was something to worry about later. Now, I had bigger problems.
I saw the Luidaeg palm one of the larger shards, slipping it into the endlessly cascading waves of her gown. I didn’t say anything. If the sea witch had a use for a piece of Merry Dancer, I didn’t want to know what it was, and I’ve learned to trust her over the years. I’ve also learned that sometimes, I have to be able to put my life in her hands—and that’s usually easier for me when I have no idea what she’s planning to do.
The hall outside the dining room seemed almost obscenely bright after spending so much time in darkness. Arden’s staff had been through, lowering the light
Quentin walked beside me, his shoulders squared, his chin lifted, and his eyes fixed on the door to the gallery like he was being led to his execution. I understood the feeling. Karen and the Luidaeg trailed behind us, and somehow it seemed less like we were being followed and more like we were their appointed heralds, leading the way and attracting any dangers onto ourselves. Which nicely summed up the relationship between the monarchs of Faerie and its heroes, all things considered.
Lowri and another guard stood to either side of the gallery door. She nodded when she saw us, acknowledging our presence, but she didn’t say anything. She just stepped aside, and the doors swung open, allowing us to enter.
We were at the back of the gallery—naturally—forcing us to walk down the long aisle past the gathered nobles and vassals who’d come to participate. The room went silent as we moved toward our seats. Walther was already there, looking about as uncomfortable as I felt.
No one spoke until Quentin, Karen, and the Luidaeg were settled. I was sinking into my own seat when High King Sollys said, “Sir Daye, if you would come before us.”
Well, crap. “Of course, Your Highness,” I said, and straightened, heading for the stage.
I couldn’t resist glancing at the audience as I climbed the stairs. Tybalt was back in his seat, and while his lips were pressed into a neutral expression, I could read the worry in his eyes. That made me feel better. At least I wasn’t the only one who was miserable and scared. Maybe that was cruel of me. Honestly, it didn’t change anything, and so I didn’t feel the need to care.
“If you would tell the conclave what you have learned, we would be most grateful,” said High King Sollys. His voice was level. If he was upset about the death of one of his vassals, he wasn’t letting it show. I couldn’t decide whether that was impressive or chilling.