Witch-Blood

by Ash Fitzsimmons

  The terrain leveled again the next day, then started a gentle descent. We made good time, snacking on leftovers whenever we stopped, and passed another quiet night in the woods. On our third day out from the piq settlement, the descent was sharper than before, and the vegetation on the forest floor thinned. We supplemented the last of the mutton with wild berries when we made camp that evening, but I couldn’t sit still at the fire—the tug in my mind was strong and insistent, and I wanted to push on, darkness be damned. Joey stressed what a stupid idea that would be, but I could tell he was uneasy as well, and he offered to help when I announced that I was going to climb a tree and see the land. Having grown up underground, I knew roughly jack about climbing trees, but I managed to make an undignified ascent and peeked out from the leafy canopy.

  And there it was. The towers glowed in the last of the sunlight, and the windows began to illuminate from within, one at a time, like stars coming out. The barn seemed dark, as did the gardens and the long oak grove, but if I strained, I could hear a faint melody on the breeze. As I watched, a few figures appeared from the palace and began lighting torches around the gardens, and I ducked back within the concealing branches, struck with the irrational fear that they could spot me from that distance.

  Joey was waiting when I dropped out of the tree. “And?”

  “Got to put out the fire,” I said, reaching for my canteen. “We made it.”

  CHAPTER 11

  * * *

  We didn’t wait for dawn.

  The night was still black when we packed up our gear and camouflaged it with leaf litter. I wore my sword; Joey carried his blade at one hip and his nail gun at the other, and he pulled his duster on over the top to hide the bulges on his body. Moving as quietly as we could, we made our way through the woods until we reached the narrow stream separating the wilderness from the end of Coileán’s expansive lands, then paused to inspect the terrain.

  As far as I could tell, Oberon hadn’t redecorated the parkland. I recognized the grounds, even by starlight, and saw no indication that he had redone the gardens. More importantly, I saw no sign of guards, at least not on our side of the palace. Almost all of Coileán’s court lived to the south of him, down through the low hills and along the coast. There was nothing of consequence along the northern border to defend against—after all, no one lived in the woods. Seeing nothing to give us trouble, Joey and I waded through the cold stream and ducked into the ancient orchard on the far side, taking shelter among the fruit trees as the sun began to rise.

  And that was when we heard a woman singing.

  Joey’s eyes widened, and he jabbed his finger at the apple tree beside me. I nodded and jumped up into the branches—an easier climb than my last, given the gnarled trunk—and Joey took the one to my left. There we sat, holding our breath as the stray bits of stone in the dirt below us flashed pink in the dawn, and listened as the singing intensified.

  The singer was female, that much was clear, but she seemed to be either making the tune up as she went or forgetting her place every few bars and trying again in a different key. I began to sweat, even in the cool morning, but I willed myself to be still as the voice crescendoed—and then, through the leaves, I spotted Astrid.

  One of the perks of Coileán’s position was having a staff to make life easier for him. In particular, he had put out a call for kitchen aides. Sure, he could will a feast into existence with a snap of his fingers, but it wouldn’t necessarily be a great feast. Astrid and the others who kept the table set were culinary masters, either by luck or through experience. Most of them, like my brother’s guards, were half fae and had spent at least a few years in the mortal realm. I didn’t have résumés on all of them, but I’d lurked around the kitchen long enough for Astrid to tell me about the decades she spent in Paris and Rome and New York, moving from café to restaurant for the sheer pleasure of cooking. That fact alone showed her passion for the practice—it took a rare faerie to willingly work in a room whose primary decorative element was stainless steel. She also had a soft spot for doing things the hard way, which explained the basket over her arm.

  I waited a moment longer to be sure I’d identified her correctly, but the strengthening light made me certain. Astrid’s hair, so blonde it was almost silver, shone in the sunlight that filtered through the peach trees across the aisle, but the clincher was her apron: full-length, bleached white, and covered with laden pockets. I couldn’t see Joey, but as she stopped below his tree to pick an apple, I decided to test my luck and leapt.

  Astrid whirled about and gasped when I landed at her feet, then dropped her basket in shock. I held up my empty hands, ready to plead with her for silence, but her face broke into a wide grin, and she threw her arms around me. “My lord!” she whispered into my hair. “Where have you been? We thought you dead, and…” She pulled back and wrinkled her nose. “Moon and stars, child, when did you last bathe?”

  Before I could begin to answer, Joey landed behind her and thrust the point of his sword toward the base of her neck. “Astrid, I don’t want to hurt you,” he said quietly, “but if you give me any reason to imagine that you might be thinking of doing something—”

  She’d stiffened in the presence of so much steel, but she released me and lifted her hands in surrender when she heard his voice. “Joey? Is that you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Astrid sighed, her face washed with relief. “Put the sword away, you silly boy. I haven’t been so excited to see anyone since I met Julia Child.” She turned to look at him over her shoulder, and he sheepishly lowered the blade. “Oh, gracious,” she muttered, “you’re a mess, too, aren’t you? What crawled onto your chin and died?”

  “Want to tell us what the hell’s going on?” he countered.

  “Gladly,” she replied, stepping clear of his sword. “But might we go somewhere a little less open first? And for my sake, at least, might I tidy up the two of you?”

  After a month on the run, I could have done with a nice, long soak and a deep-tissue massage, but getting magically willed clean was a better use of our limited time. If we were going to be stealthy, it wouldn’t do to announce our presence via stench. Astrid took care of the basics as soon as we’d retreated behind a thick holly hedge, but she fretted when Joey insisted that the beard stay. “Why not just put a flashing sign over your head, then?” she protested. “Mortal right here, take your best shot.”

  He rolled his eyes. “The court knows me already—”

  “Oberon’s doesn’t, and they’re all over the palace. Looking the part might buy you a moment.”

  Joey didn’t like it—I think the unkempt moonshiner look was beginning to grow on him—but he knew Astrid was right, and the beard vanished.

  When we were no longer so offensive to basic notions of hygiene, she scanned the area again for signs of motion, then pulled us close and dropped her voice to a whisper. “He came in the middle of the night,” she began, continuing to glance over our shoulders as she spoke. “With his court. Not all of them, but a fair number. They swarmed the palace, overwhelmed the guards…” She grimaced at the memory. “The king was asleep. They caught him unawares.”

  My guts felt like she’d thrown them in a vise. “Is he—”

  “He lives,” she said, saving me the question. “But he’s trapped. Oberon put some sort of enchantment on him—he’s in an unbreakable sleep.”

  “Stasis,” I said. “There’s a spell for that, too.”

  “I don’t know the workings,” she replied. “But whatever he did, it’s strong enough to bind your brother.”

  Joey frowned in confusion. “Colin’s got the same power Oberon has. I thought the realm gave them both a little something extra.”

  “That’s my understanding,” said Astrid, “but consider Oberon’s age—Lord Coileán is powerful, but against him?” She sighed and briskly shook her head. “They’re close, I suppose, but the difference, plus the surprise…”

  “And I’m sure our loving siblings did
n’t complain,” I muttered.

  Astrid’s face tightened, and she hesitated before replying. “My lord…I don’t want to distress you more, but your siblings…”

  “Joined Oberon?”

  “Are dead,” she said quietly.

  I stared at her for a moment, not quite comprehending what she was saying, and Astrid wrung her hands. “He killed them the first night. They were trapped in the cells—they didn’t have a chance. When no one could find you, we feared the worst.”

  I leaned against the hedge, letting that sink in, and mumbled, “All of them?”

  “All but the king. And some of their children,” she added. “Some of their line have fled the realm, some went into hiding, but the ones who remained—”

  “Why?”

  She offered a little shrug. “If you overthrow a ruler, you’re wise to take out any potential contenders to the throne who could avenge him.”

  I rubbed my face, fighting the pounding in my head. “So that leaves Moyna and me. Unless he’s killed her, too.”

  “Oh,” Astrid muttered, “she’s very much alive.” My head shot up, and I saw that her lips had become a thin, white line. “Word trickles down,” she said bitterly. “The girl joined forces with her grandfather. More than that, I can’t say.”

  But Joey’s eyes widened as he turned to me. “When Vivi called, the faerie activity outside the Arcanum…”

  “You think?” I said.

  “I don’t know, man, but if they thought the Arcanum was sheltering us…”

  He let that hang, and my stomach knotted at the implications. “And what about you?” I asked, turning back to Astrid. “You swore allegiance or something?”

  She looked pained. “We were given a choice: swear fealty or be locked away until he decided what to do with us. I thought I might be of more use to the king on the outside. I’ve been hoping someone would come,” she continued, looking at us both, “though…well…”

  “Well what?” asked Joey.

  Astrid seemed almost embarrassed. “I’d rather hoped it would be Toula. Or, um…you know…”

  “Someone with talent,” I finished, and she nodded. “Last I heard, Toula was tied up with the Arcanum situation. Unless the Arcanum has killed her by now—let’s just say we left a mess back there,” I explained, hoping Astrid wouldn’t push for details. “But since our rescue team is only Joey and me, will you help us?”

  She clasped my hand and dipped in a slight curtsy. “However I can, my lord. What’s your plan?”

  “You say there’s some sort of enchantment binding Colin?” said Joey. “First thing we need to do is break it.”

  Her face clouded. “Would that I could, but I’m not that strong. I doubt all the staff together would be able—”

  “Exactly. So we’ll go about this indirectly,” he said. “What’s the easiest foolproof way to break a spell or enchantment?” We looked at him blankly, and he smirked. “Drag the affected person into Faerie. The barrier takes care of it. We just need to get him out, then pull him back through.”

  “Well,” said Astrid, “in theory…”

  “Do you know where he’s being kept?” he asked. “Can you, like, gate us in there?’

  “Yes and no,” she muttered. “He’s been left in a room on the ground floor of the palace, but it’s open. I think the old bastard is using him as decoration, to be frank.” She folded her arms and glared into space. “The room is warded. You can walk in, but you can’t open a gate into it or from inside it—Misha tried that, and the guards got him. They aren’t stationed there at all times, but they make regular sweeps of the halls. And I’m sure there would be an alarm if the king were to be taken from the room.” Astrid looked at Joey and shook her head. “So no, gates are useless.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “What if you got us to him, let Joey and me handle dragging him out of the room, and set up a gate down the hall? Oberon hasn’t warded the entire palace, has he?”

  “Not to my knowledge…” She mulled this over, then nodded. “Yes. If we were quick about it and quite lucky…I could get you in between rounds. That would give you a few minutes to grab him, but you would have to be fast, and I don’t know how close I’d be able to stay.”

  Joey looked at me, and we silently reached a decision. “Sounds like our best shot,” I said. “Unless Val is hiding around here and wouldn’t mind adding a little muscle.”

  “Valerius?” she scoffed, then turned and spat in the grass. “He sits at Oberon’s right hand. I wouldn’t look to him for help.”

  “What?” Joey cried. “That’s…that can’t be right, he’s Colin’s friend—”

  “He got us out of here in the first place,” I said, frowning at Astrid. “If he were working with Oberon…”

  “Perhaps he had a change of heart once he saw the new regime,” she muttered. “I don’t know his mind. But he keeps company with Oberon and his ilk, and I’ve not seen him on the guard rounds in weeks. Dresses like a proper lord now.” She sniffed her displeasure. “Everyone knows he’s one of Mab’s. I don’t mean any disrespect to the king, but he was a fool to trust Valerius.”

  The news came as a sucker punch, but I pushed it aside. “Fine. We’ll deal with him later. How do we get into the castle?”

  Astrid looked around again for safety, then murmured, “Will you trust me?”

  “Not like we have much of a choice,” said Joey, but I saw the hurt in his eyes over Val’s betrayal. “What do we do?”

  She stepped back a pace and smiled tightly. “This won’t be painful.”

  I saw the magic flash around her, and then a bluish cloud enveloped me. Too surprised to cry out, I closed my eyes in preemptive defense…

  …and when I opened them again, I was staring at Astrid’s boots. My eyes were at the level of her toes, yet I was standing.

  I looked around until I saw Joey some distance away, half-hidden in the lush grass. Before I could run to him, something scooped me off the ground and into the air—a hand, I realized, seeing its twin descend toward Joey. At the end of the breathless ascent, I found myself looking up at Astrid’s face from the hollow of her palm. “Temporary, I promise,” she whispered. Her plosives were gusts of wind in my hair, and I held on as she lowered me into the darkness of her apron pocket. Her other hand shook Joey off beside me a few seconds later, leaving us trapped in the warm darkness of her clothing. Without another word, Astrid began to walk—but where she was taking us, I couldn’t tell. At least Kuni had been able to see from his seat in my palm. Astrid’s idea of transportation left much to be desired.

  “You know,” Joey muttered as he made himself secure in the corner of the pocket, “this plan might have a few holes we should have considered ahead of time.”

  I’m not going to say that the day I spent being bumped around in Astrid’s pocket was the strangest of my life, but no matter what happens to me in the future, it’ll probably remain in the top five.

  Unless you’re riding in a pocket, you don’t think about how much your clothing moves when you walk, especially something like an apron, which shifts with every step. The particular pocket in which we’d landed hit Astrid at mid-thigh, making our ride feel kind of like a hammock from hell. Adding to the general misery were the fact that Joey and I couldn’t really talk—we didn’t want to draw attention to Astrid with mysterious squeaking—and the disorienting task of trying to figure out where we were in the palace by smell and sound alone. The latter was easier to work around, since Astrid spent most of her time in the kitchen. Mercifully, she stopped by the counter at one point to peel and core the fruit she’d picked that morning. Every so often, her hand would slip into her pocket and drop a few crumbs for us—a bite of apple, a sliver of ham, a crust of bread—and so Joey and I passed the time by gorging ourselves. In retrospect, this might not have been the brightest idea we’d ever had, since a swaying apron and a full stomach don’t exactly mix, but we held it together and even managed to doze in shifts.

  For
her part, Astrid went about her day as if nothing were out of the ordinary. She spoke little but did so politely, making herself as inconspicuous as possible. I heard unfamiliar voices laughing a few times—Oberon’s people almost certainly—but Astrid said nothing to them, and they paid her no attention.

  As the hours passed, Astrid moved back and forth between the kitchen and the dining rooms until the night grew late and she finished her work. Joey and I bumped along as she walked upstairs to her quarters, and then, after a large jostle, the movement stopped. He started crawling over to me in the dark, but before we could speculate together, Astrid’s eyes appeared at the top of our pouch. “I’m going to bed,” she whispered. “You’re on a hook on the back of my door for the moment. We’ll wait for the palace to quiet before we do this, so try to get some sleep.”

  At a loss for a better idea, Joey and I divvied up the last of the food and stretched out, making ourselves as comfortable as we could. I know I dozed off, because when I opened my eyes again, it was still pitch-black, but we were moving once more. Joey reached out and squeezed my arm, offering reassurance in the darkness, and I fumbled until I made contact with his shoulder. It would be all right, I repeated to myself. All we had to do was drag Coileán out of bed and through a gate. Piece of cake. We didn’t even have our backpacks to slow us down.

  After a time, there came a heavy click, our movement stopped, and the only sound I could hear was Astrid’s breathing. Something descended into the pocket, and I realized it was a crooked finger when the short nail brushed against me. I climbed aboard and held on, and following a long rush of wind and a plunge like a roller coaster, I found myself on the carpet. The finger retreated, but it returned a moment later with Joey—and with another flash of enchantment, we shot back to our proper sizes. As we checked ourselves over for missing pieces, Astrid lit a tiny flame in her hand, silently showing us where we were: a seldom-used sitting room tucked far in the eastern wing of the palace. “He’s down the corridor and around the corner, the third closed door,” she whispered, and extinguished her fire. “The guards will pass shortly. Once they’ve gone, you’ll have no more than ten minutes to retrieve him. Are you sure about this?”