Table of Contents
Title Page
Book Details
In Sunlight and in Shadow
About the Authors
In Sunlight and
in Shadow
Alter S. Reiss
Naomi Libicki
Bet is sworn to the service of the Last Court, a secret magical society that exists in the shadows of modern New York City—and her heart belongs to the Grand Sorceress. But her attempts to court Vivienne end in disaster, and disillusionment drives her from the Last Court.
The Court, however, isn't done with Bet.
In Sunlight and in Shadow
By Alter S. Reiss and Naomi Libicki
Published by Less Than Three Press LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.
Edited by Keith Kaczmarek
Cover designed by Michelle Seaver
This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.
First Edition September 2017
Copyright © 2017 by Alter S. Reiss and Naomi Libicki
Printed in the United States of America
Digital ISBN 9781684311002
In Sunlight and
in Shadow
The Lady Ysabet of the Sword had spent most of May and half of June hunting a manticore through the West Village and Soho, down to Tribeca. She'd gotten close enough to smell it several times. That had been her undoing. Manticores did not speak any of the languages of man, but they were as clever as any of the monsters of the depths, saving only the dragons.
At long last, she caught the heavy musk of the manticore on a homeless man near the pedestrian overpass on Varrick Street and had closed in for the kill. Ysabet was sure that what looked like a man lying under a filthy sleeping bag was the manticore crouched in a pit that it had dug, with a sleeping bag over its bulk, waiting for the right time to rise suddenly and feast upon a passerby.
Ysabet wore a scarf woven of shadows, so no one saw her as she approached her prey, sword light and bright in her hand, the virtue of the scarf pulling armor around her as she strode forward. The man, or the monster, was lying beyond the shadows of the overpass, and she came up behind him through those shadows.
Three quick steps, sword ready to strike. Ysabet saw the dead eyes in the face she had taken for the manticore's, but it was too late—as she turned, the manticore was already striking from its hiding place beneath the overpass. She turned, too late, too slow. The manticore was half in shadow, half beyond it, its fur fire-red in the sunlight, clotted blood in the shadow, its human face placid, its lion's body tensed for the kill.
Ysabet's shield rose up, but the manticore was already striking, its paw hitting hard, pulling her shield down, the sting of its tail finding the gap between rerebrace and couter.
The sting burned like a white-hot nail driven into her arm, but Ysabet countered with Glad Tidings, her sword striking at the manticore, a glancing blow that cut both human face and lion's mane. The manticore roared, tail rising up again, and Ysabet was forced to step back, her shield fading into ether, her arm no longer able to bear its weight.
If the manticore struck, she would strike back, slaying and being slain at once. It didn't; it shook its head, spraying blood across the pavement. Then it turned and left, down toward the depths of the Holland Tunnel. Ysabet didn't have the strength to follow.
What Ysabet had thought was the manticore was nothing more than bait. A head, taken from some victim she hadn't saved, discarded clothing, crumpled newspapers, all fouled with the manticore's stench. There was nothing she could do for him, and the manticore's poison was pulsing through her arm.
A manticore's sting was more potent than Ysabet's charms against poison. That cut had wounded the monster, but if she didn't get help soon, she would die. She turned and headed for the Last Court, holding her arm to her side as her armor faded and the shadows that sheltered her withdrew. People could see her now.
As she made her way down into the Canal Street station, Ysabet tried to keep her vision from swimming in and out of focus. It shouldn't have happened—she was the Lady Ysabet of the Sword, sworn to the Pendragon of the Last Court to protect the innocent and to face down the monsters that haunted the shadows. She had three times bested Septimus Alabaster, Master-at-Arms of the Court, in single combat with the lance, with the sword and with the great-axe. She wore the favor of the Court's Grand Sorceress, the Lady Vivienne. Or had worn. The wild rose from Vivienne's hair had fallen in the fight with the manticore, left behind with the remains of the man who Ysabet had not saved.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs above her, and Ysabet pushed herself away from the wall and braced herself to run, but they weren't after her. A group of college-aged girls swept by, chatting. A man in a button-down shirt and sharp haircut shouldered his way past without looking up from his phone. A train pulled up to the platform, and Ysabet could have gotten on it, lost herself in the crowd...
But Ysabet was still far from the Last Court, and its enemies were many, from the will-o'-wisps that flitted along the tracks to the great dragon Asag, who lurked in the farthest tunnels, and whose very name was a terror. A knight alone, unarmored, would be known by the tokens she wore, and would be brought down by a dagger in the back or a spell from the shadows. In years gone by, perhaps the ways were safe enough that they could ride the trains, but for now, it was best to avoid the populated ways below the ground. Ysabet ducked into a maintenance tunnel, wound her scarf around her neck once more, felt her armor settle heavily onto her shoulders and hips, and began the long walk to Court.
It was hours later, her armor weighing on her until every muscle protested, the pain from the manticore's sting spiderwebbing its way up her arm and toward her heart, that Ysabet ducked her head to avoid an overhanging pipe and trailing wires and stepped into the grand hall of the Last Court.
"The Lady Ysabet of the Sword," the herald boomed out.
The lords and ladies of the Last Court—the knights and sages, the conjurors and bright-eyed young pages—scarcely seemed to hear. A feast was in full swing, and the pages scurried between the tables with platters of roasted boar and peahen, refilling golden goblets from jugs of wine they carried on their shoulders. In the minstrels' gallery, a sloe-eyed young man played the harp, gilding the laughter and conversations of the people below with music. The only ones who turned to look at Ysabet were those she jostled as she made her way up to the high table and fell to one knee, bowing her head over the hilt of her sword, at the foot of the dais where the Pendragon sat with the Midnight Queen at his left hand.
It was obeisance that brought Ysabet to her knees, but also weariness. And also shame, to look the Pendragon in the face when she had failed in her quest.
"My liege," she said, "for a month I hunted the manticore that haunted the lower reaches of your realm, preying on the homeless and the unremarked there. At long last, battle was joined, and I was bested; the beast was injured, but I was too gravely wounded to pursue. Now it licks its wounds across the river. Another knight must take up the quest before it is fully recovered."
Silence, descending on the Last Court like snow, as conversations faltered and died one by one and the minstrel stopped his playing. Ysabet kept her head bowed, seeing only her armored knees and the rough concrete floor strewn with meadowsweet and tansy.
"Must they?" The chill in the Pendragon's voice made Ysabet's stomach clench, but it was only what she expected and deserved. When she understood his words, however, her head jerked up in shoc
k. Surely he couldn't mean to leave the matter lie?
"I see defeat has not humbled you, Lady Ysabet," the Pendragon continued. "Indeed, you grow proud. Do you imagine you have the authority to command my knights, or to call for a quest? This beast has been driven beyond the borders, and it was not I who sent you on that fool's errand."
Fool's errand? Manticores ate every part of their kills, when they weren't using them as lures; there were at least twenty people who'd gone missing over the last year who it had taken. "But Sire—" she said.
"Let the Lady Ysabet's wounds be tended," said the Pendragon, dismissing her from his attention. "And let the knight who takes the laurels in tomorrow's joust likewise take her place at the champions' table."
Lady Hypatia, the Pendragon's physician, led Ysabet away from the high table towards a secluded corner of the hall where she could work. As they passed, people shied away from Ysabet as if the Pendragon's disfavor might be contagious.
Out of the corner of her eye and over her shoulder, Ysabet saw one of the Queen's ladies stand forth from the others and drop almost to the floor before the Pendragon in a graceful curtsey. The Grand Sorceress, Vivienne. Wild roses in her long, dark hair, and a girdle of midnight blue around her waist and hips, just as she had been when Ysabet had unseated Septimus Alabaster at the tilt and first won Vivienne's favor.
Beautiful as she had been later that day, the fine silk gown slipping from her shoulders—or riding double with her on the Wild Hunt through Central Park last Hallow's Eve, the wind in their faces and the fastest horse in the world thudding beneath them—
"My liege, please reconsider," Vivienne was saying. "The Lady Ysabet spoke in haste, but she is your champion still—"
Ysabet turned away and let Hypatia lead her onward until she couldn't hear Vivienne anymore, let her unstrap the armor and examine her injured arm, almost reveling in the renewed pain that Hypatia's attentions brought. At least that was real.
The rest of it—if Vivienne didn't like it that the knight she'd given her favor to had been disgraced, she could give her favor to someone else. The champions' table! Who cared? Feasts, and jousts, and courtly love. While horrors stalked the shadows, people who called themselves dukes and duchesses and protectors of the innocent laughed and sipped sour wine from golden goblets.
It hadn't been like this when Ysabet had first given her oaths to the Last Court.
No. It had been. She'd just chosen not to see. She'd been a college dropout working two jobs, with just enough left over after food and rent for membership in a dinky little gym upstairs from a laundromat. When she'd met Septimus Alabaster—Shawn, he'd called himself, which was probably the name on his driver's license—it wasn't just how much he could bench, how fast he moved and how hard he hit in the boxing ring. There was a nobility to him, like he'd been touched by some supernatural grace. Bet hadn't even been surprised when he told her about the Last Court. It had seemed so right. And he took her to that glittering world, made her his squire, and later, she'd knelt and received her knighthood from the Pendragon himself.
Then Vivienne had joined the court, young and radiant, the power of her magic putting all the Last Court's conjurors to shame. She could stretch a single night into a week's revels, call upon the wind to do her bidding, conjure a horse from a handkerchief—the horse might have been a little stiff and insubstantial when Vivienne had first arrived, but it was still the horse whose name was Rumor, the fastest steed in all the world. As soon as Ysabet saw her, she knew that here was a lady worth doing the bravest deeds for, facing the most perilous adventures.
And of all the knights of the Last Court, Vivienne had smiled on Ysabet, had taken a wild rose from her hair and tucked it into the straps of Ysabet's armor.
Ysabet had wanted to believe in the nobility of their cause, to believe that the Last Court was the light that stood against the monsters that haunted the shadows. How could she not? What else was there but a day shift at the warehouse followed by a night shift at Key Food, a cup of noodles in the microwave, a parade of creepy guys on OKCupid and girls who hadn't updated their profiles in three years?
Nothing.
Hypatia applied mithridaticum to Ysabet's wound; there was a sudden cool, which spread slowly from the point of contact, and Ysabet could once again feel her fingers. Then she wrapped a bandage infused with boneset and emerald dust on the wound, and Ysabet could feel her breath coming a little easier. Ysabet muttered a brief word of thanks, and Hypatia nodded and went back to the feast. Ysabet might have followed her, been led to her new place by one of the pages—but she didn't want it, even if it was at the Pendragon's right hand. The Last Court was glittering and hollow, and she had a real life waiting for her out on the sunlit streets above. It might be a shitty life, but there it was.
Bet unwrapped her scarf from her neck, let her armor fade, and left the Last Court without a backwards glance.
*~*~*
A month and a half after she left the Last Court, Bet managed to find Aviva again.
Aviva. Aviva Marks, education student at Brooklyn College. It sounded so… everyday. Bet liked it. Vivienne had let slip so little about her life outside the Last Court that it had taken Bet this long to track her down, and even now—in one of those neighborhoods with row houses and little postage-stamp-sized lawns, trying to pretend it was a suburb—she was still afraid she'd made a mistake.
No way could Aviva have one of these houses. She must still live with her parents. Or else... Bet wasn't going to think about it. It was the right address and the right house, and Bet walked up the steps and rang the bell.
"Nachy, it's for me!" The voice, distorted and muffled by the door, still made Bet's breath catch. "Get out of the—" And the door jerked open, and it was. It was her. Vivienne. Aviva.
The look on her face was wide-eyed, radiant, joyful—and it was almost immediately replaced with panic. She said, nearly too soft to be a whisper: "Ysabet."
A sulky-looking teenage boy stood off to the side in a tiny living room so full of bookcases and furniture that there didn't seem to be much room for people. A tall man, his beard and hair shot through with white, loomed behind Aviva. Both the man and the boy had the same dark, intense eyes as Aviva and wore black skullcaps and white button-down shirts. Aviva's top was a familiar midnight blue.
The man, looking mildly puzzled, said, "Excuse me, miss. Do you—"
"Ysabet's from my Early Medieval Lit class," said Aviva quickly. "She came by to bring me a book I'd forgotten."
"Uh… right," said Bet. It was like being in high school again, except she hadn't known any Hasids in high school. This was how Aviva lived?
"Gosh, it's crazy how lost you got on the way here, isn't it? Let me walk you to the station so you know where to find it. I'll be back in half an hour or so!" Aviva yelled over her shoulder, grabbing Bet by the arm and dragging her out towards the street.
"You have to help me find the station?" said Bet as the door closed behind them. "Like I don't have a phone?"
Aviva shrugged. "We don't believe in smartphones. Too easy to watch inappropriate things on them. My father forgets they exist sometimes."
"How old are you, really?" said Bet.
"I'm twenty," said Aviva.
With her twinset and the skirt that swept her ankles, her ballet flats, and her hair pulled back into a heavy braid, she might have been sixteen. Twenty was okay. Bet was only twenty-four. But still. Hell. Somehow, Bet had thought that finding Aviva would be the hard part.
"I take it you're not out to your family. What with the Bible saying you're an abomination or whatever."
"Out?"
"Like, telling them you're queer? Because—"
"Oh, that." Aviva shook her head, and there was a spark in her eyes that would have made any lord or lady of the Last Court take a few cautious steps backwards. "Look, first of all, it's 'toeva.' 'Abomination' is a terrible translation. Second of all, that's about a man lying with another man as with a woman. Lesbianism isn't a toeva.
It's... immodest."
"Immodest," said Bet incredulously. "Like wearing a miniskirt."
"Like that," said Aviva. "And third of all, that doesn't matter. I'm not any of that here."
"Wait," said Bet. "If it's like wearing a miniskirt, then—"
"Then I don't wear miniskirts. I couldn't. People here don't. It's a different place, and we can't do that here."
"But—"
"But where have you been, Ysabet?" Aviva was happy to see her, and she was also furious, and she was also... also too many other things to figure out.
"I'm just Bet, now. Always have been, really."
"Bet," said Aviva. "Where have you been?"
"Here," said Bet. "In the real world. Where there are things like smartphones and jobs and you don't have to say thee and thou all the time, and... shit, Aviva. You heard the Pendragon. Protecting the innocent from the things that lurk in the shadows is a fool's errand. God knows I fucked it up when I tried. Guess I decided to stop being a fool."
"You were never a fool." Aviva reached towards Bet like she was going to cup her face, or feather her fingers through her hair, then she stopped, jerked her hand back. "You were the flower of chivalry and the soul of honor. I miss you."
"I missed you too," said Bet, her voice embarrassingly thick. "That's why I came looking for you."
"You know where to find me. You've known all along. I miss you at court, Bet. The Pendragon... You were right and he was wrong, of course. And I know you didn't mean any offense. You just assumed he saw things your way because, well, who wouldn't? It's just that he's ruled the Last Court for a long time. And he's afraid of losing what he has."
"I never challenged him," said Bet.
"No," said Aviva. The sun was setting, and the light filtered through the leaves of the trees planted at orderly intervals along the sidewalk and dappled Aviva's hair and shoulders. "And with you gone, anyone who might is afraid to even say anything. That train that derailed at 135th last week, it was Asag. He's growing bolder. And Septimus says—"
In Sunlight and in Shadow Page 1
