The Brightest Fell by Seanan McGuire
Amandine pulled away from August as she turned to look at me, expression blank, like she had never seen me before; like now that she had the daughter she actually cared about, I was nothing more than an unwanted complication.
I took a step forward. “I found her,” I repeated. “I went to Annwn, and I found your daughter, and I brought her home. Now give me back what you took from me.”
Amandine blinked. Then, to my surprise and dismay, she laughed. “Oh, October, what makes you think you have the right to demand anything of me? I see by the angle of your bones that you’ve made yourself more human to please me, but that only gives you a small scrap of indulgence. Enough that I’m willing to let you walk away.”
“No,” I said. “That wasn’t the deal. You give them back to me now.”
“Mama?” August took a half-step backward, creating a gap between herself and Amandine. “What is she talking about? What did you take?”
“Nothing, sweetheart, nothing of consequence,” said Amandine. “It was worth it, to have you home, and she’ll have her toys back soon enough. She needs to learn respect. A little time without her playthings will help to teach her.”
“They’re not toys,” I snapped. “They’re my friends.”
“They’re pets at best, and beasts at worst,” said Amandine serenely. “You should consider yourself lucky that I don’t hand you their pelts and call my debt repaid.”
“What?” I asked, voice low and dangerous.
“What?” said Quentin. He sounded horrified, but his hand was on his knife again, and I knew if we challenged her, if we both died here, he would go willingly. Let his sister be High Queen. He was the boy who should be king, and I had spoiled him, because he was more than halfway to becoming a hero.
“What?” said August, blinking at Amandine like she couldn’t understand what was happening. Maybe she didn’t. I couldn’t remember ever telling her what Amandine had stolen from me. “Mama, what is she talking about?”
“She came into my home and she took my betrothed right in front of me,” I said, eyes on Amandine, watching every twitch in the muscles of her cheek. “She shoved him into a cage and said that I could have him back if I brought you home. She promised.”
“But I never promised when, October,” said Amandine. “I also told you it was time to learn to respect your mother. Or have you forgotten that?”
August looked at her, expression puzzled and betrayed. “You . . . I thought you sent her because she was a changeling. She was expendable. I thought she went willingly, to win your approval. You stole from her?”
“She stole my fiancé,” I said.
“I stole your cat,” said Amandine airily. “No child of mine would ever willingly wed such a beast. It’s not my fault your little masquerade went on too long and was derailed.”
Attacking her would be the height of foolishness, second only to the moment when Simon had lunged for the Luidaeg. I knew that. I still put my hands on the hilts of my knives and said, very softly, “I know how to kill one of the Firstborn, Mother. I killed Blind Michael for what he did to me. Don’t think I won’t do the same to you, if you force my hand.”
Amandine actually looked surprised. “You would make an enemy of me?”
My laughter was hot acid in my mouth, spilling over my lips before I could suck it back down. “Are you serious? You made an enemy of me when you came into my home and stole my lover.” I took a step forward. “I want Tybalt back. I want Jasmine back. I want them both back right now, and if you don’t return them, we’re going to dance, you and I.”
“You’re too human,” she said dismissively.
“Humans have weapons, too,” I said.
August’s eyes widened. Quickly, she reached out and grabbed Amandine’s arm, causing our mother to turn and look at her.
“She has an iron knife, Mama,” she said. “She can hurt you. She can kill you. If you told her you’d return these people for bringing me home, just . . . just do it. Give them back to her. Let her take her beasts and her baggage and go.”
Amandine hesitated.
“Please,” said August.
That was the final straw. Amandine reached out and cupped her face in both hands, pulling August close to her. “As you like, my darling. As you like.” She turned and looked at me, and there was no love in her eyes. That was fine. I wasn’t looking for it anymore. “The kitchen. You remember the way.”
She slipped her arm around my sister’s shoulders and led her into the tower. The door slammed shut behind them. Quentin turned to me, eyes wide.
“You’re just going to let her leave?” he demanded.
“She told us where to go,” I said, and started around the tower. “Come on.”
He came. Side by side, we walked toward what we’d lost, and we were almost halfway there before I broke into a run, not slowing down, not looking back.
Please, I thought. Maeve, Oberon, Titania, anyone who might be listening, please.
Please let them be okay.
TWENTY-SIX
THE TOWER WAS MUCH less elegant, and much less intimidating, when seen from the rear. The stone was still pristine and the architecture was still grand, but the white flowers of the front garden fell away, replaced by green beds of neglected herbs, some still labeled with tiny, faded signs. The bed closest to the garden wall was a riot of surprising color, bright orange California poppies straining toward the distant light of the moons above. I remembered planting them when I was still a little girl, thinking that if they could thrive here, so could I.
The poppies had blossomed. I hadn’t. Not until I’d fled the Summerlands for the mortal world, where time passed the way my human blood wanted it to, and where the sun remembered how to shine.
I didn’t slow down to smell the flowers or check to see if Mom had bothered doing any weeding in the last twenty years. I just kept running, practically vaulting up the back porch steps and slamming the door open to reveal the kitchen.
It was small, rustic, and homey: nearly the antithesis of the rest of the tower. Like the garden, it seemed to belong to a different person. Amandine would never have designed a kitchen like this . . . at least not the Amandine I knew. In many ways, August’s Amandine had been someone else. Someone kinder.
The table, bench, and chopping board were all polished redwood, and the stove was an antique copper thing, surprisingly efficient for something that looked like it had been stolen from a movie about Puritan New England. Copper pots and kettles hung from hooks set into the exposed overhead beams. There were even loops of drying herbs and spices, perfuming the air with sweet, contradictory fragrances.
But there were no cages. Not on the table; not on the counter; not on the hearth in front of the fireplace. I froze in the doorway, hands clenched at my sides, fear and fury flooding through me like a hot wave of bleach. If not for August, I would have been fae enough to breathe in and know they were here, that they were safe. If not for August, they would never have been taken in the first place. Suddenly, hating my sister seemed like an easy thing to do.
Quentin touched my arm. Lightly, but enough to remind me he was there and real; that there was still someone who could help me save the ones who needed saving.
I took a shaky breath, looking one more time around the kitchen. The cages wouldn’t fit in the cupboards, and the shelves were open: I would have seen them if Amandine had stuffed them there. They weren’t hanging from the ceiling. That left . . .
“The root cellar,” I said, and ran across the room to the narrow wooden door half-hidden behind a bend in the wall. It was dusty when I grabbed it and wrenched it open. Amandine had never been much for cooking, not when she could transform a plate of berries into a pie with a wave of her hand, or just wander over to Shadowed Hills to demand her lunch from Sylvester’s kitchen. With me gone, she must have stopped entirely.
The stairwell on
There was a loud ringing beside my ear. I nearly laughed with relief as the pixies that had been riding in my hair since their attack on August launched themselves into the air and began to fly precise loops over the stairs ahead of me, lighting the way. I tucked my phone back into my pocket.
Quentin gasped as he made it far enough down the stairs to see the basement. The sound made my blood run cold. He was a pureblood. He could see in the dark better than I could. Whatever he saw . . .
“Quentin, do I need to give you my knives?” I somehow managed to make the question sound natural, even reasonable. Did I need to disarm myself for the sake of not killing my mother? Because I would. If she had hurt them, if we were walking toward two corpses and not two captives, I would kill her. I had silver. I had iron. Even the Firstborn will fall before that combination. I’ve never wanted to be a murderer. I’ve killed people before, but I like to think I’ve managed to avoid earning that label. And if she had hurt them, I was going to become a murderer today.
“No,” he said. “But . . . hurry.”
I hurried. Even with the pixies lighting my way, I descended those steps so fast that I nearly fell several times, catching myself on the bannister, driving splinters into the soft meat of my palm. The farther down I went, the farther down the pixies went, the light from their bodies revealing more and more of my surroundings. There were the shelves against the walls, packed with bins of potatoes and parsnips and onions. The faint scent of Amandine’s magic hung in the air around them; these were probably the same staples as had been down here when I was a child. There were the racks of preserves. Nothing had changed.
If nothing had changed, then the table at the center of the room was still there. I hurried toward where I remembered it being, the light spreading out before me like honey, and all I had was hope and fear, mixing together in my throat until I could no longer swallow.
The light reached the table. Two cages made of twisted briars rested there, far enough from the edge that there was no real risk of them falling over, even if their occupants had possessed the strength and will to throw themselves against the walls. I could see movement from inside, but it was slight, and the light was dim enough that I couldn’t tell which was which.
“Tybalt!” I had thought I was running before. I had been, apparently, wrong. Now I virtually flew, flinging myself bodily across the intervening space to grab the closer of the two cages. The thorns bit deep into my hands, stinging and tearing. Amandine wouldn’t have considered that a problem when she was constructing her portable prisons: after all, she healed even faster than I normally did. She had lost touch with the fact that other people could be hurt.
There was no latch. Furious, I let go of the cage and grabbed the silver knife from my belt, using it to hack at the bars. They refused to yield. The knife twisted in my hand, hilt slippery with blood. I shoved it back into its sheath and grabbed the iron knife instead, slashing at the cage.
The bars gave way as easily as air, charring and curling away from the bite of iron. I dropped the knife onto the table and pulled the cage door open, making no effort to avoid the thorns.
Huddled at the back of the cage, the large black bird it contained looked at me with avian mistrust, her wings as close to mantled as the narrow confines of her prison would allow. As I watched, she opened her beak and croaked weakly, trying to warn me off.
“Jazz,” I said, relieved and disappointed in the same measure. Freeing her first meant when I freed Tybalt, I could hold him tight, and never need to let him go. “Jazz, honey, it’s me. Come on. I’m here to free you.”
This time, her croak was louder, and more obviously a threat. She hunched her shoulders, fluffing out the feathers on her throat and head, trying to make herself look huge. Some of the fear that had faded came surging back.
“Jazz. It’s October. Don’t you know me?”
A caw, harsh and angry.
“Oh, oak and ash. Quentin, we’ve got a problem.”
“What?”
I turned to look at him. Jazz was still compacted in the back of her cage. She wasn’t going to fly away. Yet. “I don’t think Mom fed them, or watered them, or let them have any light for . . .” How many days had it actually been? When I added in the time dilation of the Babylon Road, it was almost impossible to say. “For days,” I finished finally. “She doesn’t know who I am.”
Which meant Tybalt might not know either. Inappropriate laughter clawed at the back of my throat, threatening to rise up and choke me. Everything we’d gone through, everything we’d done to find August’s way home, and now the people I’d been trying to save could be as lost as she was, and with nothing as simple as a bargain with the sea witch to blame. Magic can be reversed. Trauma isn’t that simple.
“Watch her,” I said, picking up my knife and shoving it into my belt. “I’m going to check on Tybalt.”
I didn’t even have to touch the cage. As soon as I reached for it his paw lashed out, claws drawing four lines of pain down the back of my hand and adding more blood to the mess already there. I closed my eyes.
“Damn you, Mother,” I whispered. Then, careful of the claws, I opened my eyes and picked up the cage by the handle. Thorns dug into my palms. I didn’t care. “Quentin, can you get Jazz, without leaving her room to fly away? May will never forgive me if we lose her.”
“Of course,” he said. He was already moving to do as I had told him when he asked, “Where are we taking them?”
There was really only one option. The Luidaeg’s back door was too far, and there was no way we could carry two cages full of angry, uncomprehending shapeshifter through the swamp without losing one or both of them. The mortal world was out for similar reasons.
“Shadowed Hills,” I said. “Maybe Jin can help.”
“Okay.” Quentin didn’t argue. He was a good squire. Better than I deserved, some days.
The pixies lit our way as we carried the cages out of the root cellar and back into the kitchen. I only looked back once, checking to see that Quentin had Jazz contained. He’d removed his jacket and was holding it over the front of the cage. Birds don’t like the dark. If she was really thinking like a bird, she wasn’t going to try to get through the fabric. It was a simple solution, but a good one, and it might be enough to keep her from breaking free.
May would never forgive me if I let her girlfriend fly off to live out the rest of her days as a raven—and those days would be very, very long. A transformed skinshifter is as ageless as any pureblood. Jazz could remain a raven for centuries, unable to remember what had been done to her, unable to change back.
That wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to let it.
There was no sign of either Amandine or August as we carried the cages around the tower and down the garden path to the gate. The door remained closed, making it clear that we were no longer welcome here, if we ever really had been in the first place. This wasn’t my home. Maybe it never had been.
Tybalt hissed and snarled and threw his weight against the bars as we walked across the meadow beyond the tower. His fur was thick enough to shield him from most of the thorns, but every so often one of them would manage to break through to the skin, and his yowling would take on a note of genuine pain. Then he’d go right back to thrashing, trying to get me to drop the cage and let him go.
It wasn’t going to happen. Every time his howls turned pained, I winced; every time he hissed at me, I had to fight the urge to stop and struggle for breath. He needed me to do t
The pixies spun and twisted through the air around us, the chiming of their wings urging us on. Still, it was a relief when the meadow gave way to the strange trees that grew around Shadowed Hills, and an even greater relief when the trees dropped away, replaced by the manicured hedges marking the edges of the grounds. I stopped where I was, turning to the nearest of the pixies—it was purple, and far enough away that I couldn’t make out details, although I assumed it was Lilac.
“Do you know Sir Etienne?” I asked. “Tall, dark hair, Tuatha de Dannan. Can you find him and bring him here?”
Chiming loudly, the pixie bobbed affirmation in the air and darted away. Two of the remaining four followed her, leaving Quentin and me with two chiming sentries circling above us.
Quentin looked at my bloody hands, and then at my face, before asking, “Are you okay?”
This time, I let the laughter, unsteady and brittle as it was, free. “I don’t know,” I said. “Right now, I really don’t know. Every time I think this is going to be over, it throws me another curve ball.”
He was opening his mouth to answer when the air rippled and a portal opened, revealing Etienne, Lilac standing on his shoulder, holding his earlobe in one hand and pointing imperiously with the other.
“October,” he began. “When a pixie broke in and started ordering me around, I should have known you were the—” He stopped as his eyes finally finished taking in the scene in front of him: the blood, the cages, the animals where there should have been people, even the shape of my ears and the shade of my hair. The color drained from his face. “Oh, root and branch, what happened?”
“Amandine happened.” Even the things she hadn’t done directly were still her fault. “We need help. Please. Can you take us somewhere safe, and bring Jin?”