In Sunlight and in Shadow

by Naomi Libicki

  "Septimus Alabaster!" said Bet. She had wanted to believe in his nobility once too. But he hadn't spoken for her, not even as far as Aviva had, and he hadn't gone in pursuit of the things in the shadows.

  Aviva shook her head. "It's not simple for him. If you were there—"

  "I'm not going back." The station entrance was in front of them. Bet turned to face Aviva. "Look, I can't tell you when to come out to your family. That's your business. But let me give you my number, at least, and we can still—"

  "No, we can't," said Aviva. "Not here. I'm going to go back home and my mother is going to be unhappy and wonder why I couldn't have gone to Touro if you're the kind of people I'm meeting at Brooklyn College, and it's not even because you like girls. It's because you're wearing pants and a shirt that shows your collarbone and who knows if you're even Jewish?"

  "I'm not," said Bet.

  "I figured," said Aviva. "Come back to the Last Court, Bet. I can be your lady there, and you can be my champion, and we can dance beneath the starlight for a night that lasts a hundred years."

  "Is that all it means?" Bet had known. She had known when she left, but hearing Aviva say it felt like a punch in the gut. "Is that all I ever was to you, a pretty dream?"

  Aviva's eyes were huge and dark; she stood frozen by the station entrance, and she didn't answer. Bet turned away, fishing in her pockets for her metrocard.

  "Fuck the Last Court," she said, not looking back. "And fuck you."

  *~*~*

  So it was 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. But it was okay. It was fine. The work was steady, and it was something Bet could do. There might be a layer of grease on top of a cup of noodles, but what the hell, peahen was greasy too, and no one expected Bet to say "prithee" for her noodles. And on OKCupid—well, if you dug hard enough you might find a guy who was okay to look at and didn't have any obvious red flags in his profile.

  Which was what Caleb was. And yeah, maybe he was even better than okay to look at. Long black ponytail, nice shoulders, wore girl jeans and made them look good. When they met up for coffee, he looked Bet in the face and didn't try to interrupt her when she was talking. His laugh sounded a little fake, and he had stupid opinions about bands, but who was perfect, right? And when she invited him back to her place, he came, even if it was a tiny studio in one of the least-gentrified neighborhoods left in the South Bronx, and she had to dump a pile of laundry off her bed before they could do anything in it.

  He was real and solid. They fit. It felt good, and it'd been a while since anything had.

  He'd never look at Bet with shining eyes when he bestowed his favor on her. She couldn't imagine doing any great deeds for him. Picking up an extra carton of milk from the bodega, maybe.

  One of his friends had a party at his place, and Bet came along. The music was loud with a pounding techno beat, and none of the neighbors were going to call the cops for anything less than gunshots, and probably not for those either. After a couple of shots of vodka, with her feet tucked up on a ratty old couch, and Caleb's hair tickling her neck as he gestured widely with a beer bottle in a conversation with someone else, Bet was doing pretty okay.

  "Hey! Caleb!" someone called across the room. It was Ian, the guy whose place it was. Caleb saluted with his beer bottle, set it down, and sauntered over. Ian grabbed him by the shirtfront and pulled him into a kiss.

  Bet's world tilted dizzily. It was partly the vodka. Caleb was kissing back, hands full of Ian's ass, rocking his hips up against him as Ian held Caleb's face and stroked his thumbs gently along his cheekbones.

  Finally, Ian broke off and said, "See? Hot, am I right?"

  It had been hot. And it wasn't like—Bet and Caleb weren't exclusive or anything—he wasn't even her boyfriend, really—

  "Now you try," Ian went on. He was talking to a woman who was leaning against the wall next to him. She slumped a little further when he said that, and he poked her with an elbow. "Come on, it's only fair. Now here's... uh, Bet, wasn't it?"

  "Yeah," said Caleb. At some point during the kiss, Bet had come over to him, not really meaning to, not meaning not to. Now Caleb squeezed her shoulder and said, "Yeah, Bet's bi, right, babe? No new territory for her here."

  "What the hell, Caleb?" said Bet.

  "Okay," said the woman, and she squared her shoulders and shook back her hair. Wild dark hair with glitter brushed into it. Dark eyes as she looked up at Bet—she only came up to about Bet's collarbone. Her lipstick had mostly come off, but traces of dark mulberry still stained the cracks of her lips. She reached up for Bet, and Bet followed her down, the kiss growing heated. She'd been drinking something sweet and fruity. Bet's senses swam with it.

  "Yeah." Ian's thick voice came from somewhere far away. "Now get a hand up her shirt."

  What the fuck was Bet doing?

  She broke off the kiss so suddenly that the other woman stumbled and fell against her front. Bet had to hold her up so she didn't fall altogether.

  "Jesus Christ, kid," said Bet. "How much did you have to drink?"

  "I—" The other woman grabbed Bet's arm unsteadily.

  "Right. Okay," said Bet. "Let's get you home."

  Ian tried to argue, but Bet wasn't listening. Caleb didn't try. He knew Bet that well, at least. Bet managed to get an address out of the other woman, but once she started talking, she also started sobbing. Bet helped her into a cab while she clung to Bet's arm and got snot on her badly patched jacket. She lived in a one-bedroom only a little bigger than Bet's place, and not such a dump. Tidy. Art on the walls, abstract shapes and colors that Bet couldn't make any sense of. She found a glass, filled it from the tap, made sure the woman drank it before she passed out, then let herself out quietly.

  The next morning she had five messages from Caleb. She ignored them. She didn't even have to break up with him because they weren't dating, were they? She could avoid him even if she couldn't avoid herself. She swallowed a couple of painkillers, washed her face, and headed out to her shift at the warehouse.

  The train was delayed "due to police activity". Which could've been some panhandler getting arrested. Could've been something else; when someone got killed in the subways, they didn't announce that over the loudspeakers. Cops had to look at weird corpses—that was police activity closing the line. Asag was growing bolder, Aviva had said. And there were all sorts of things that lurked in the shadows.

  Bet's place might be a dump, but it had a fortress-type steel door and an old-school Fox police lock. Kyle, who worked the night shift at the warehouse, kept hinting to Bet that he could hook her up with what she needed. Bet needed a gun, and it turned out that Kyle could hook her up with a Glock 19. If she got caught with that, she was going to be in a lot of trouble, but if she got caught without it, could be she'd be in more. She kept the gun in her bedside table, while Glad Tidings stayed in the bottom drawer of her dresser.

  If something came out of the shadows for her, she'd hit it with something real.

  *~*~*

  It was another three months before the Last Court caught up with Bet. She'd come home from a night shift at Key Food, which had started after the sun had already set, and Bet was so exhausted from work and train delays and pushing through puddles of slush and piles of snow at every corner that she'd barely managed to take her shoes off before falling into bed. The ringing of her head in sleep turned out to be a ring of steel on steel in real life. She got up, dragged herself to the door, and looked through the peephole. There was an armored knight on the other side.

  Septimus Alabaster. Things weren't simple for him, Aviva had said. Shit. Septimus Alabaster, with the full authority of the Last Court behind him. If he'd come as a friend, he'd have come as Shawn.

  There wasn't a police lock in the world that could hold him back. Bet grabbed her gun and unlocked the door, stepped back as she opened it. "What do yo
u—"

  "Lady Ysabet of the Sword," Septimus boomed out, "you are summoned to trial by the Pendragon of the Last Court; you shall appear at the feast of the Archangel Uriel to hear the charges and answer."

  "No," said Bet. The polymer grip of the pistol was cool in her hand. She'd gone to a range in Jersey a few times, and just like with the sword, she knew how to use the tool that she'd chosen. "I will not."

  "Do you deny—"

  "I deny the authority of the King of the Last Court," said Bet.

  Septimus hesitated. He had heard an insult to his liege lord. By the rules of the Last Court, he was bound to answer it, as surely as Bet was bound to obey his stupid summons. But she was Lady Ysabet, his most promising pupil, who had three times bested him in combat. She also had a pistol in her hand and clearly wasn't playing by the rules of the Last Court anymore.

  Maybe that was why his sword stayed in its sheath.

  "You shall be heard at your trial," he said instead. "And you shall answer for these and other insults."

  "I shall not be attending any trial," said Bet.

  "In that case," said Septimus, "the Lady Vivienne, Grand Sorceress of the Last Court, shall answer in your stead. She has stood as surety for you before the Pendragon and before the court."

  "Aviva? Surety?" said Bet. "But—"

  Septimus turned on his heel and stalked out toward the stairs, his armor clinking with every step.

  Bet wasn't playing by the rules of the Last Court anymore. She could see the gap between gorget and bascinet as Septimus walked away. A very small target, a difficult shot even at this range. She could make it, though. His armor might be proof against modern weapons. His neck wasn't.

  She slammed the door behind him, loud as a gunshot, locked it, put the safety on her pistol. Then she slid down to the floor, burying her face in her hands. Taking that shot wouldn't have helped Aviva. It wouldn't have helped anything. She could still remember Septimus standing proudly at her back when she'd received her knighthood from the Pendragon. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Surety. For Bet's crimes against the Last Court. Including failing in courtesy to the Pendragon, denying his authority, ignoring his summons. It would be death, a corpse turned up in some blind corner of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, one more girl who should have known better than to go out alone at night. What did Aviva think she was doing? Did she think Bet was going to come riding to her rescue, like in some Disney movie? Of course she did. Of course she fucking did.

  *~*~*

  Three days later, on the night of the feast of the archangel Uriel, Bet called in sick to her shift at Key Food.

  The bottom drawer of her dresser was flush up against the side of her bed, so she had to move the bed to get out her scarf and sword, the scarf white with golden fringes, Glad Tidings perfect and mirror-bright, two cubits long and light as a willow-wand. The weight of the sword at her hip was as comfortable as if she'd never left it behind, and the scarf sat around her neck lightly, spun of silk and dreams.

  The archangel Uriel was the saint of beginnings and endings. And if the Last Court wanted Bet, they would have her, and she would take the opportunity to make an ending to a thing that had festered on long past the time it ought to have ended.

  Nobody noticed her when she walked out onto the street in full armor. She merged with the crowds of people hunched up in their coats and scarves, but she was not part of them. Bet walked in her own world, unseen. Until someone fell in beside her. Aviva's midnight-blue girdle was woven of the same shadows as Bet's scarf, and nothing could have hidden Bet from the Grand Sorceress's clear-eyed gaze. She spoke no word of greeting but simply matched her strides to Bet's, as if they'd never been apart.

  "Surety," said Bet, her voice thick and bitter.

  "They had called down a hunt upon you." Aviva sighed, like she did when she thought Bet was just not getting something. "Fifteen knights had taken up the Pendragon's claim. I couldn't allow it."

  Well. Fair enough. Bet hadn't thought of that. She hadn't thought, honestly, that Aviva was thinking of anything but her knight in shining armor fantasy. It was just that Bet didn't care about the hunt either, five or fifteen or fifty. "You should've," she said. "Fifteen is too many for me to fight, but there aren't many left with the stomach to keep fighting after seeing someone get shot. Hell, they were too frightened to go after a wounded manticore. They could've—"

  "It had gone beyond the river," said Aviva.

  "Oh, for fuck's sake," said Bet. "It went to Jersey City, not Lyonesse. And it's probably back in the West Village by now, killing kids who walk down the wrong alleys."

  "I couldn't let the Pendragon call down a hunt upon you for almost that reason," said Aviva. "There were three cadet knights who'd taken up the claim. One of them was sixteen years old, Ysabet. I would have preferred to die than to let them kill you, and I would have preferred to die than let you kill them. So I stood as surety for your attendance."

  Bet hadn't shot Septimus Alabaster. Would she have shot a teenager? A stranger? If they'd drawn on her? "I didn't ask you for this," said Bet.

  "And I didn't ask you to come," said Aviva. "If you had not, I would have borne—"

  "God damn it, Aviva!" Bet burst out. Not a knight in shining armor fantasy: a martyr fantasy. Aviva's headless corpse in a dumpster. An item on the evening news. "Don't you get that the Last Court is real?"

  "That's not what you said the last time we talked," said Aviva.

  Bet took a deep breath. The whole reason she was so mad was because Aviva was being stupid and risking her life, and Bet didn't want her to die. So it would really make no sense to strangle her.

  "I mean," said Bet, "it's not a story. If you die in the Last Court, you die in real life. For Christ's sake, you wouldn't even give me your fucking phone number."

  Aviva ducked her head and held onto her elbows. There'd been a few moments during their conversation in Flatbush when Bet had seen Lady Vivienne, Grand Sorceress of the Last Court; now she saw Aviva Marks, shy education student and dutiful Hasidic daughter, dressed up in Vivienne's clothes.

  "I'm sorry," said Aviva. "I was scared. But I shouldn't have—you weren't just a dream to me. The Last Court is real. And it's a story. I can be your lady there, and you can be my knight. You can be noble, and I can be brave and selfless. For real. That's what stories are for."

  "Aviva," said Bet.

  "Here and now, it's Vivienne."

  "They're the same person!" said Bet. "It's—" she shook her head. She wasn't getting through. And there wasn't enough time left for her to waste any of it squabbling. "Sorry."

  Aviva looked like she wasn't done arguing, but she didn't say anything either. They walked together for a time, their breath puffing up in front of them. Neither of them saying anything, neither of them wanting there to be anything said.

  "Sold on walking the whole way?" asked Aviva after a while.

  "Not particularly," said Bet.

  Aviva took a handkerchief from her pocket and threw it up into the air. As it fluttered down, it grew and changed, became a stallion of silk and midnight: pure, perfect black, with a saddle and tack that were all black leather, silver, and rubies.

  "Maish!" said Bet, and rubbed the stallion's neck. It whickered softly, leaned into her.

  "As far as the court is concerned," said Aviva, "his name is Rumor. But he's missed you, too."

  Real and a story, Aviva and Vivienne, Maish and Rumor. Bet had decided not to argue about any of that. They mounted up together, Aviva in front, Bet holding her lightly from behind, and they galloped out into traffic, Maish moving faster and more smoothly than any motorcycle. The Bronx fell behind them as the horse dashed across the waters of the Harlem River in the shadow of the 145th Street Bridge, his hooves kicking up waves on the surface of the waters.

  Maish got better every time Bet saw him. Aviva had let herself get pulled in by the games of the court, but her talents were real and her abilities were constantly growing; if she could just survive at
court for another year, for another five, she'd be strong enough that even the Pendragon wouldn't be able to touch her.

  They rode through the streets of Harlem, the towers of the city rising up around them as they raced downtown, slipping through coils of steam and snowdrifts, through crowds and lights, down to the darkened hulk of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Maish clattered through crowded corridors, then less crowded corridors, and then empty hallways, where Aviva and Bet had to duck their heads to avoid overhanging pipes and trailing wires.

  They dismounted, and with a gesture, Maish was once again a handkerchief. Aviva snatched him out of the air as he fell, returned him to her pocket.

  "And do I have to be brought in bound and gagged, ready for the slaughter?" asked Bet.

  Aviva shook her head. "The Pendragon summoned you, and you came. Every courtesy will be extended."

  "Until," said Bet.

  "Until," said Aviva. "But you have right on your side." She touched Bet's cheek, trailed her fingers down her jaw. Bet caught Aviva's hand and pressed a kiss to the knuckles. She didn't even think about it. The gesture was natural here.

  For a few seconds, they stood looking at each other and didn't speak. Aviva was flushed from the ride, bright-eyed, beautiful.

  "If you were in the wrong," Aviva said finally, "I would not have stood surety for you, regardless of the consequences. You are in the right, and you will prevail. Trust me."

  That wasn't how the world worked. Right got extra work dumped on its head, while wrong was related to the manager, took five hour breaks, and dealt drugs from the breakroom. It was past time for Aviva to give up on that kind of fantasy, too, but despite how unlikely it seemed, Bet hoped Aviva was right this time. She needed something to hope for. She extended her arm, and Aviva took it, and they walked into the grand hall together.

  "The Lady Ysabet of the Sword, and Vivienne, Grand Sorceress of the Last Court," the herald boomed out.

  The feast of the Archangel Uriel was already well in swing. The Pendragon and Midnight Queen sat together at the high table, and all along the lower tables, knights and consorts, sages and conjurers, dukes and duchesses sat and ate, with jugglers and acrobats dancing between.