by M. C. Aquila
“Have they found any trace of Kallista at all?” Deirdre asked later as they walked toward the healing house, where Cai was being patched up. He was found by the soldiers on the battlefield. Apparently he had been killed, but when he woke, he had begun to challenge the monsters and Iron Guard soldiers nearby alike, even though the soldiers were now on his side. Nikias had swiftly knocked Cai out and had him sent to the healers, where he’d apparently woken and was knocked out again after trying to run away and find Kallista.
“They haven’t found any sign of where she is, or”—Iain looked at her meaningfully—“where General Callaghan is either.”
Deirdre sucked in her lip. “So maybe he took her? Nikias said Cai was rambling about finding Alan with her…”
“Anything is possible.”
“Does James know? Did he wake up before you came to the funeral?” When Iain just shook his head, suddenly looking downcast and weary, Deirdre hurriedly continued, “We’ll figure it all out tomorrow. I promise. I’ll help you figure this out.”
“I know.”
“No.” She stepped in front of him, looking into his eyes. “It’s more than that—I didn’t get to know Sybil. I already know Kallista better than I ever knew my own mother. I don’t want you or James to lose her, but I can’t lose her either. And…” She looked down. “I can’t bear the thought of Alan taking someone else away from me. He took my magic, stole it from me. Even once I got it back, I was still terrified. I thought I was scared of the test or the army even, but it wasn’t—it was him.
“Ever since I ran into him in Neo-London”—her voice caught, but she kept talking, desperate to get it out—“all he’s done is take and take from me: my courage, my freedom, my magic. And now”—she clenched her head, pulling at her hair—“he took my own mother. I can’t let him take anything else from me!”
Her eyes widened as Iain embraced her. She hugged him back, hiding her face in his shoulder as she cried. But soon her tears dried, and she relaxed in his arms, comfortably silent. Even though the pain and weariness of the day was still present, she felt closer to him in body and heart than ever.
“Deirdre, there’s something you should know,” he said eventually, his voice low. “The general and the army did break the barrier—but when I was out there fighting, he ordered his soldiers to fight the Unseelies.”
Deirdre leaned back, gobsmacked. “That’s… what? I heard about that, but I thought the soldiers just panicked or something.”
“I couldn’t believe it at first either. But at the least, there’s a possibility he’s started to realize the Unseelies, not the Summer Court, are the real enemy.”
“I…” She smiled weakly at him. “I don’t know if I’d believe that if it came from anybody else. But this means maybe he’s not completely evil? He won’t hurt Kallista?”
“There’s a chance.”
Overwhelmed, she leaned back into another embrace, shutting her eyes, her head spinning. Her memory flitting to a few days earlier, when Lonan spoke about his own past and all the evil he had done, she whispered, “I guess there’s always a chance.”
As a small, round, chestnut-colored bird Dryad landed on the tree next to them, Iain pulled back from Deirdre with great reluctance, sighing, but he sobered when the bird faery informed him James was awake.
* * *
James woke and sat up, his movements slow and weighted, to find he was in a hollow tree—the faery prison they had stayed in during their first night in the realm. Only now he was alone except for the chirping sparrow Dryad, watching him from a twisted tree branch high above him.
“Go away,” he whispered hoarsely, sitting on the floor with his knees to his chest and turning his back to the creature. He heard the fluttering of its wings as it obeyed.
At first the hazy memories of the past several hours were nebulous, as if they did not belong to him. Some other boy had stolen the mirror, fractured the barrier, and caused the deaths of Sybil and other Fae. He was detached from the echoes of Cardea’s words to him and his own desperate shouting for it to be over.
If not for his sore throat, the ache in his skull, and the blood crusted on his face, he might have been able to stay distant.
Half crawling, James reached the well in the center of the room, eyeing it warily before scooping a handful. He was parched, yet his churning stomach warned him against consuming anything. Listlessly he let the water drip through his fingers.
A second later, the surface of the water shifted, revealing a pair of glinting golden eyes. Cecil’s blank mask of a face appeared in the reflection, warped by the rippling water.
James staggered backward. Anger quickly replaced his fear, and he searched for something, anything, that he could use to end the scrying spell. Standing over the well, gripping the sides, he found a loosening stone around the rim and broke off a jagged piece.
“Y-you knew this would happen,” James stammered. “You wanted the barrier to break. It’s your fault she— You used me to kill her!”
Before the creature could open his lying mouth, the boy slammed the jagged piece of rock into the water, pouring all his intent into it. The last traces of the dark magic that had overwhelmed him funneled into the rock. The moment it struck the water, there was a solid crack as the mirror on the other side fractured down the middle.
Cecil stepped back, his mask falling away as he stared with wide-eyed disbelief at the lines in the mirror like lightning striking. It was broken, but it did not shatter their connection. “James…” He trailed off, speechless for once, his voice lacking all theatricality.
Breathing hard, James pushed back his dripping hair from his face. He wanted to raise the stone and strike again until he could no longer see Cecil’s face. Or his own.
“What was that… that dark magic you borrowed?” James asked weakly, shuddering at the memory. “It took over and buried me under it.”
“What you felt was but a taste of the Winter King’s magic. Unfortunately, I had no choice.”
“Liar.”
“Yes, I did lie,” Cecil finally said after a pause. “I am a liar, James. But you must believe that what I said to you… all those words we shared as just James and Cecil Morris… those were all true.”
When the creature vanished, the spell ending, James was left with his thoughts in the silence of the cell, feeling the weight and length of each passing minute. He’d used to lose track of time, lost in research for hours. As he sat down, he was keenly aware of each second, each breath, and every blink of his eyelids as everything that had happened replayed in his mind in a frantic loop.
Mum leaving, the barrier breaking, Sybil’s death… it’s all my fault. And Cecil… The faeries shouldn’t have stopped me at the rapids. Even if I failed to control the Time Magic, it would have been better for everyone if they had just let me—
“Stop!” He tried to will the thoughts away, digging his fingers into his scalp and gritting his teeth, his heart beating loudly in his ringing ears.
“James? I came here as soon as I heard you were awake,” Iain said from the doorway, startling him out of his thoughts.
Lowering his hands, James said slowly, more to himself, “Right. The Dryad must have told you. That must be why he flew off.” He lapsed into silence, his eyes glazing.
After walking farther in, Iain sat down beside him with a groan, leaning his back against the wall of the tree. They sat without speaking for a while before the older brother grabbed a bundle of something from his jacket pocket.
Nodding to the bundle in his brother’s hand, James asked, muffled as he rested his face against his knees, “What’s that?”
“Oh, this?” Iain unwrapped the bundle. Under the cloth was a cylindrical plastic sleeve with bright colors and bold letters. “I asked a faery to pick these up from a shop in town. He came back with all my quid, so I guess he stole them?”
“These are… chocolate biscuits?” James asked dully.
“Yeah.” Iain cleared his throat. “I g
uess it was a stupid idea. I don’t have any tea—not that you ever dunked them. You always ate them dry.”
James slammed his fists against the ground. “What are you doing, Iain?” he asked roughly. “Why are you acting like everything’s okay? You know what happened because of me. You know what I did!”
He wished Iain would throw every mistake he’d made in the past day in his face. It was what he deserved, and it would only be fitting—it was what James had done to him in the past, after all.
His brother sighed as he rested his head against the tree. “I don’t know what else to do, James. What can I say to you? You know you’ve messed up. You were guilty and hurt enough to run, to try to— You could have been killed.”
“Would it have mattered? I’m to blame for all this. I’m what’s wrong. I’m…” James trailed off. Seeing the shattered mirror in his mind, he felt like he had been broken with it beyond repair. Maybe he had always been fractured.
Cecil knew it. He lied, and he knew how badly I needed to believe him when he said I could be someone, when he said I could make things right, when he said… we were friends.
Tensing beside him, Iain lowered his head to meet his gaze. “James, you’re not—”
“But I am.” James continued on tightly, shaking his head, “The faeries, Deirdre—they were right not to trust me, and I’ve proven… everything they thought about me. Mum leaving, her curse, Dad making the faery deal… it all comes back to me.”
After a moment of silence, Iain said, “All this does come back to you, but it’s not for the reasons you think. You’re the reason Deirdre left the city and found her family, and you’re the one who convinced me to believe Marko and to go after Mum.”
At James’s silence, finally there was a flash of anger in Iain’s face as he grabbed his brother’s shoulders firmly. “I don’t care what you’ve done—there’s nothing that we can’t get past or move on from. Don’t ever try something like you did at the Time Rapids again.”
The numbness faded in James’s chest, the dam breaking as he looked him the eyes. He was terrified to feel everything he was holding back. “Iain…,” he said, faltering. “I-I’m so sorry.”
“I know.”
James hid his face in his hands, breaking down as everything that had happened hit him at once. He was trembling, barely aware as Iain scooted next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. After a few minutes, his energy was spent and he was nauseated. When he lowered his hands again, Iain graciously glanced away, pretending not to notice his tears.
“We’ll deal with this together, James,” Iain said after a moment.
“How? There’s nothing I can do to fix this or make it right again. I can’t… I can’t bring Sybil back.” James wiped his face on his sleeve, shivering. “Every time you screw up or something knocks you down, you get back up. How do you stand it? How do you keep going?”
“Because I have to,” Iain said simply. “If I give up or let my mistakes drag me down, then they define me. I have to keep going to be there for you or for the other people I care about.”
James had once thought his brother was weak for the mistakes he’d made, but him trying and succeeding to become a better person in spite of all he’d done was anything but weak.
I wished I had believed in him and forgiven him a long time ago, he thought, a small bit of the weight lifting from his chest as he did so. Even when he doubted my judgment or what I was capable of, I think he always believed I was strong enough to overcome anything. I don’t know if he’s right… but maybe I’ll find out.
They talked for a while longer as James explained what had happened leading up to him taking the mirror, as briefly and with as little detail as possible. The sparrow Dryad returned and chirped at them, signaling that it was time for Iain to leave.
Before his chance was gone, James asked, “Did… did Deirdre get to take her test? Did she pass?”
“She’s officially a Noble faery now,” Iain said with pride, his smile faint and tired.
James stood as his brother rose to exit the prison.
“Er, good talk, James,” Iain said, awkwardly holding out his hand to shake.
Without hesitation, James crashed against his brother’s chest in an embrace. Iain was stunned for a moment before he wrapped his arms around his little brother tightly in return.
* * *
“Well, that’s a sight to wake up to,” Cai grouched. Iain stood over the knight’s bed with his arms crossed, grimacing down at him while the owl Dryads who had been tending to him scooted out of his way with their trays of water and bloodied cloths. “Deirdre has something to look forward—”
“Cai, tell me what happened,” Iain said.
Letting out a pained scoff, the man grumbled, “You’ll have to be more specific.”
At the foot of Cai’s bed, Deirdre, who had met Iain at the healing house, held back a remark by biting her lip.
Iain asked, “Why were you outside the realm with Mum? How was General Callaghan involved?”
Wincing and holding his head, which was still bruised black by the gunshot wound, Cai eased himself into a sitting position. The first thing he did was glance around the room for his sword, muttering about how Nikias may try to steal it from him while he was unconscious.
Once Iain delivered the blade to him, having to convince the faery keeping watch over it in the next room that Cai wouldn’t try to escape again or slice anyone in half, the knight was more cooperative. He gripped the hilt of his sword, his eyes lighting up and his posture straightening.
“Kallista asked me to guide her out of the realm, and I promised her I would protect her,” Cai said. “I was going to destroy the machine while she… reasoned with Alan. Kallista was convinced that the pain she’s been having was connected to him by a curse.”
Shaking his head, Cai said bitterly, “I thought if anyone could get through to him, it would be her. But the moment I got close, that same damn magic that wounded me before attacked me again. I should have—”
The knight broke off but recovered, saying, “I think Alan took her after he shot me. All I know is I’m going to find her. I won’t be stopped or weakened again. I just need to find out where she is.”
Iain ran a hand over his face. “Mum said they were connected by a curse. They’re connected already by the faery pact with the Cait Sidhe, aren’t they? I bet you that—” He almost cursed but stopped himself when he remembered Deirdre was present. “I bet you that creep is involved in this. He’s the one who told James that stealing the drachma and performing a spell would save Mum.”
Cai nodded. “That… actually makes sense.”
Deirdre covered her mouth, sitting down on one of the wooden benches. “How has he been contacting James, and when? I thought he’s been with Alvey this whole time.”
“We all thought that,” the knight said grimly. “Not even the faeries knew otherwise, with all their magic, not even my little feathered friend who was trailing James.”
A thick silence fell over them. The old knight glared at the wall while Deirdre sighed, hanging her head. They were perhaps all thinking the same thing—that they hadn’t seen what was happening until it was far too late to stop it.
His hand twitching over the pommel of the faery sword at his hip, Iain ground out, “The Cait Sidhe’s involved in this, and I want to put my blade through his chest. He has to pay.”
“I want that too,” Cai admitted. “But this isn’t your task, Iain. You know exactly where your place is.”
Nodding once, Iain glanced at Deirdre.
“I promised that I would keep an eye on the lad, and I promised your mother that I would keep her safe,” Cai said, his blue eyes burning with determination. “I plan to keep those promises.”
When Iain and Deirdre left the healing house, Lonan was waiting for them in the shade of the trees below. He addressed the two of them in a soft voice. “I hate to speak of such grim matters so soon. It is unlike the Summer Court to rush about as human
s do, yet infinite time is not something we possess at the moment.”
With an effortless flick of his wrist, the raven-haired faery summoned shadows on the ground in front of them, illustrating his points as he spoke. “With Sybil no longer here to maintain the barrier, the bomb suspended over the realm is unstable. It will burst if it is not consumed safely with extremely powerful Shadow Magic. Unfortunately, I cannot manage this feat on my own—I require your help, Deirdre.”
“My help?” Deirdre, who had been chewing on a fingernail as she eyed the shadow of the bomb, quickly dropped her hand.
“Aye.” Lonan nodded, his face softening. “You will need to become fully realized and balanced in all forms of magic by attempting your drachma quest. It is a challenge that many faeries face alone… unless they have a willing participant.”
Looking at Iain, the faery asked, “I suppose you will be accompanying your brother, whatever his fate may be? Or perhaps the Iron Guard calls you. I heard a commander asked you after the battle if you wanted to join their ranks.”
Iain shook his head. “I’m still Deirdre’s champion, and my job isn’t finished until she has fully integrated into the realm. I’ll do whatever I can to help her on her quest.”
The faery failed to mask his genuine surprise, but he smiled faintly and earnestly as he said, “I thought you might say that.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
268
The tree prison was quiet but bright with sunlight. James was seated on the low hammock, and though his eyes were dull, he sat up and gaped as Cai entered.
“I heard Iain’s filled you in,” the knight said, walking over to the well in the middle of the tree and stopping, leaning on it. “You know about your mother.”
James nodded, sitting up straighter. “You went out there with her?”
“Yes.” Cai recounted to James all he had told Iain just a few hours earlier. The boy listened, taking the information in but with barely any response, as if everything he heard wasn’t quite real, as if he was miles away from everything that had happened in the past two days.
