by A. H. Lee
She’d lost track of time when the path finally topped a hill, and she saw a green valley with a grassy meadow, a lake, and what looked like ramshackle farm buildings in the distance. A couple of horses were grazing down there. The sun was halfway up the clear sky, laughing down on a perfect summer day.
Jessica started down the slope, following the switchbacks of the narrow path as it wound through trees, boulders, and ferns. She was beginning to doubt her decision to come this way. What if they went in some other direction? What if they’re lost in the woods? Should I have been leaving tokens? Bread crumbs? Cut-up bits of my clothes? Locks of hair? Deep down, a more frightened voice asked: What could possibly make them leave Mal’s collar?
Jessica reached the bottom of the slope. The trees thinned, and the path ran on into lush meadow grass, dotted with white and yellow flowers. The trail grew fainter and finally petered out a little beyond the last of the trees.
Jessica stared around, baffled. The lake sparkled in the distance. She glimpsed the farm buildings, although they looked abandoned. Insects sang in the long grass, and small birds flitted here and there. A little farther away, the two horses were grazing.
Jessica’s eyes skipped over the scene. And stopped. The horses. One was black as coal, the other white as snow. The black one raised his head and stared at her. His ears flicked. He nickered.
Jessica’s eyes filled with tears. “Mal?” She took a step towards him, but he danced away, only to stop again after a couple of paces, staring at her with confused fascination.
The white horse raised its head. Its eyes were liquid black. Jessica choked on a sob. “Ren?”
A voice spoke behind her. “You’ll only distress them by doing that.”
Jessica spun around. Ania was lounging on the limb of the nearest tree, swinging one leg. Jessica drew her sword as she walked towards her. “Who are you?”
Ania looked down at her. “I told you my name. It’s short for Titania.”
Jessica supposed she should be flattered. Not just any faery. “Mab,” she whispered. “Faery Queen.”
Ania swept an imaginary cap off her head and sat up straight to give Jessica a little bow. “You’re probably blaming yourself for this, but I had a quarrel with Azrael of the Shroud and his favorite pet long before they dragged you into their affairs. I spread the rumors that brought Azrael off his island to deal with Gabriel in person—not because Gabriel was kin of mine, but because I wanted Azrael where I could reach him. This was all set in motion years ago. I have no quarrel with you, fledgling demon, mortal girl. I suggest you walk towards that farmhouse. There’s a faery ring in the garden, and if you pass through at sunset, you’ll be on the mortal plane.”
Jessica wiped fiercely at her eyes. “You used me.”
Ania gave her a sad smile. Had her teeth always been so sharp? “It would have been a lot easier if you’d behaved more like a succubus.”
“I was supposed to feed on you,” said Jessica slowly.
“Yes, why didn’t you?” Ania sounded a little irritated.
“I thought you were my friend,” whispered Jessica.
Ania drummed her fingers against the branch. “Yes, well, I’m a faery. We’re not known for our loyalty.”
“Would you have killed me?”
Ania looked surprised. “Of course not. I would have fed you faery magic—put eyes in your shadow, made you my spy.” Ania’s lip curled. “Mal was supposed to eat the servant I sent through the mirror. I don’t know what happened with that.”
“He did eat it,” said Jessica. “Azrael is just very good at getting rid of your magic.”
Ania blinked. “He…?” For a moment, she looked perfectly furious. Then she took a deep breath, smiled again, and stared over the meadow. “Well, now he’s just very good at eating grass.”
Jessica’s fingers tightened around her sword hilt. “Give them back.”
Ania kicked her heels. “No. I think I’ve been more than generous. I believe I’ve actually been kind. You must be rubbing off.”
“Give them back!”
Ania rolled her eyes. “Jessica, they’re happier here than they’ll ever be on the mortal plane. Likely to live longer, too. Can you imagine Azrael as anything other than a horse? It might not have been Mal’s preferred shape, but he’d follow his master anywhere. They’re still a little confused right now, still bothered by scraps of memory. Every now and then, they’ll remember, just for a second, who they were, and they’ll run around screaming. But that will pass.
“They’ll drink from the Lethe, and every time, they’ll remember a little less…until there’s nothing left in their horsey brains but running and eating and fucking. Even though they’re both stallions, I bet they’ll still mount each other.” She smirked. “I’m sure they’ll still do that.”
Jessica wished she could stop the tears that were dripping down her chin. “I’ll fight you for them.”
Ania went still. “Careful, Jessica. Be very careful.”
Jessica had lost every game they’d ever played, but she glared at Ania and said nothing.
The Faery Queen spread her hands. “They really are happy here. Or they will be. Think: I could have made them rabbits or foxes and hunted them. We love our hunts here in Faerie. I could have made them my courtiers. Gods, wouldn’t Azrael have deserved that! I could have made them love me, made them ride in my hunt, made them my thralls.” Ania looked at the horses critically. “I might still take them on the hunt. I’d like to see Mal broken to a saddle.”
Jessica squared her shoulders. “They’re mine,” she said. “They belong to me. You can’t have them.”
Ania sighed dramatically. “Jessica…you poor child, you don’t even know the rules to the game you’re trying to play.”
“Then teach me,” she spat. “It can’t be harder than pool.”
Ania gave her a long-suffering look. “You’re their champion?”
“Yes.” Jessica remembered the stories now. “Yes, I am their champion. I have a token.” She touched Mal’s collar.
Ania shut her eyes. “You could have walked away,” she muttered. “Do you know how often I let mortals walk away?”
“Hardly ever,” snapped Jessica. “Are you going to fight me on the ground?”
Ania shook her head. “I am not going to fight you at all. I have my own champion.” She raised her hand and gave a twitch of her fingers. Jessica’s eyes flicked to a movement in the deeper shadows beneath the trees. A knight stepped into view. He was dressed all in black, but Jessica recognized the shape of his head, the set of his shoulders. Not your stalker, she thought miserably. Your bodyguard.
“Just ignore him?” she said aloud.
“I’m afraid that won’t work anymore.”
A silver eye opened in the middle of the knight’s chest. Then another and another, all over his body. Jessica wondered how she could ever have thought of this creature as human. He was made of shadow, his face indistinct and shifting. His own eyes were difficult to make out, but the silver eyes opened and shut everywhere else. Will I end up like that?
The knight drew his broadsword as he stepped nearer. Jessica’s more delicate rapier looked puny by comparison. The shadow monster raised his blade and charged.
Chapter 64
Jessica
Jessica knew that if she allowed a much bigger person to close with her, she was dead. In a battle of brute strength with a heavier opponent, she would always lose. She was, however, accustomed to fighting bigger people in her lessons, since most of her training partners were men. Jessica spent a good deal of time keeping her distance, waiting for them to make a mistake. This annoyed many men, who enjoyed exchanging heavy blows with each other. Sometimes, their irritation led to the mistakes, and prolonged games of cat and mouse often led to fatigue. Jessica always had more stamina.
The shadow knight, however, showed no signs of either irritation or fatigue. Again and again, Jessica danced away from his blows, staying just beyond his reach, but he
kept coming. After a while, Jessica realized that she was tiring. She’d walked who-knew-how-far through the woods, and she hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since breakfast.
Can this thing even get tired? Jessica also wondered how much the monster really weighed. She was treating it as though it must weigh as much as a human opponent of the same size, but did it?
I’m going to have to find out. If she kept ducking and weaving, he would eventually run her down with pure exhaustion. I need to go on the offensive. Things aren’t going to get any better than they are right now.
Jessica saw her chance as the knight lunged forward. Instead of dancing away, she caught his blow on her own blade and slid down and around.
He did weigh something. The jolt of impact ran all the way up her arms into her shoulders, forcing a grunt of pain from between her clenched teeth. However, she’d chosen her moment well. His blade only nicked her arm, while her own blade slashed into his exposed side.
Jessica whirled away, repositioning herself, confident that she’d injured him, perhaps mortally. Blood was seeping into her own sleeve, but it was nothing serious.
The knight did not make a sound. He staggered backwards, unsteady for a moment, although his sword came up to guard. Jessica saw the gaping hole in his body. Then the shadow flesh ran back together, and the wound vanished as though it had never existed.
Jessica would have screamed if she’d had breath. “That’s not fair!” she snarled at Ania, though she didn’t dare look at her.
“No one said anything about fair. You’ll make a pretty horse, Jessica.”
Jessica sobbed for breath. The knight was coming at her again, relentless. If I can’t injure him, what’s the point? He can certainly injure me. The blood was working its way down her arm and would soon make her grip slippery.
Loudain killed one. At the moment, she would have given anything to see that ginger beard. But he’s a wizard. He can use magic. He had an enchanted sword.
Something stirred inside Jessica, like sunlight.
The shadow knight was coming at her. She was out of breath and out of time. In desperation, Jessica reached for Azrael’s magic—that trace of bright fire she’d drunk from his lips. She thought of her sword, thought of it as an extension of her arm, of herself, and she pushed outward, down the blade.
The knight’s sword crashed into Jessica’s. He was inside her guard, and his greater weight drove her to her knees. Jessica threw him back and got in one desperate stab as his sword rose to cut her in half.
Time seemed to slow down. Her sword was in his belly at an angle to enter his heart, and he should have collapsed, but he didn’t. Because he’s a shadow monster. Because he can’t be killed.
Jessica blinked. Her sword was glowing. Blue fire crackled over the blade.
And it was devouring the knight. His sword, raised to strike, wavered. Jessica skittered out of the way as it came down, weak and uncoordinated. She jerked her own blade free and stepped back. The monster was sizzling, shrinking, dissolving.
Jessica watched, breathing hard, until it was nothing but a puddle of darkness full of silver eyes. Only then did she dare to raise her face to Ania in the tree.
Ania was staring at the puddle. She moved her head to look at Jessica, eyes wide and disbelieving. “How did you do that?”
I made love to a sorcerer who fed me his magic. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Ania stood up on the tree limb. There was something feral about her, like a fox or a cat. Jessica saw the suggestion of wings behind her in the air—ephemeral, like a dragonfly. She leapt to the ground, landed on all fours, and stood up. She seemed to grow as she stood—her hair and skin darkening, her eyes growing larger, her face sharper and wilder. Her clothes turned into trailing green robes, the sleeves long and heavy. Now she looked like the queen out of legend—terrifying and alien.
Jessica pushed a strand of hair out of her face. She did not back away. “You are going to let them go,” she said.
“Am I?” purred Ania, her voice a little deeper than before. The forest sighed with her words.
“Yes,” said Jessica, “but not because I beat your champion.”
Ania hesitated.
“You are going to let them go because we are friends,” said Jessica, “and because you would like me to come back and go on a picnic.”
A long beat. Then Ania laughed. She sounded almost human again. “As though Azrael would allow that.”
“Azrael is my friend, not my master.”
Ania studied her face. “You’re serious.”
“Of course I’m serious.”
“You would come back into Faerie?”
Jessica looked around at the forest and the meadow. “Who wouldn’t?”
Ania cocked her head. “You would put yourself in my power again? After I tricked you?”
Jessica thought about it. “Yes. In fact, I’ll be your ambassador to the Shrouded Isle. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Ania stared at Jessica as though she’d grown a second head. At last, she said, “You know I’m not remotely human, don’t you? I have more in common with that tree than I have with you.”
“I know,” said Jessica. “But I think you’re fascinated by humans. You asked me once if you should go to the art college, and I think you should. I think you’d enjoy it.”
Ania laughed again. She shrank back down into the freckled blond pixie that Jessica had first met. Her face was still a little too sharp, her eyes a little too big, but she looked more human. Jessica held out her hand.
Ania looked at it, then at Jessica’s face. “You should be afraid of me.”
“I am. But I would still like to be your friend.”
Ania shook her head, but she stepped forward and took Jessica’s hand. Her fingers felt cool and smooth, like birch bark. “You are a very strange demon, Jessica Charles.”
“I’ve been told.” They started walking towards the horses, hand-in-hand. “Why don’t you and Azrael get along?” asked Jessica.
Ania snorted. “Because he’s a controlling tyrant, who thinks he should make all the rules about how other people use magic.”
Jessica looked at her sidelong. “I thought it was because you steal children.”
Ania rolled her eyes. “So does he. He stole you.”
Jessica considered. “But I could say no.”
Ania lifted her chin. “I am the Faery Queen. I don’t have to explain myself. Everyone knows I’m not nice.”
Jessica said nothing.
After a moment, Ania muttered, “It wouldn’t work if they were old enough to choose. It only works if they’re babies.”
“What only works?”
Ania licked her lips. “Faerie begins to fade without human beings, and the world of men would have no magic without changelings. Every magician, including his horsey lordship over there, has faery blood somewhere in their ancestry.”
Jessica was surprised. “Do they know?”
“Some of them suspect. Most of them don’t believe it.”
“But why don’t you—?”
“Question time’s over!” snapped Ania. They’d come within five paces of the white horse, and she let go of Jessica’s hand to motion to him. “Come here, you bastard. You’ve been rescued, more’s the pity.”
The horse came, hesitantly, and put his head in Ania’s hands. Jessica stroked his velvet nose. “Are you sure you want him back as a man?” said Ania regretfully. “He makes such a pretty horse.”
“He makes a pretty man, too,” said Jessica. “Will he have his clothes and everything?”
“He’ll have everything he came with…although I would love to send him to his trial naked.”
“Please don’t.”
“He put me in a bottle,” growled Ania. “Me! In a bottle!”
“Not for long.”
“It felt like forever!”
“I’m sure he’s sorry.”
“I’m sure he’s not!”
Jessica looked over at Mal. He was watching them with that confused expression.
“And that one,” stormed Ania, “taunted me.”
“Mal can be an asshole,” said Jessica meekly.
“He certainly can.”
“But I love him.”
“I can’t understand why.”
“They’re mine,” insisted Jessica.
“Yes,” snapped Ania. “We’ve established that. I hope they’re grateful, but I doubt it.” She snapped her fingers, and the black horse came slowly over to them. “Resume your former shapes.” And, without so much as a transition phase, they did.
Mal was a panther, wide-eyed, all his fur standing on end. Azrael staggered backwards, clutching his chest and gasping. He was wearing his suit from the morning, though it looked a little disheveled. Ania shot up into her taller, darker form as she stepped forward and grabbed him by his collar. “You make a pretty horse, Ren,” she hissed. “If you don’t want to be a fox next time, do not fuck with me again!”
Azrael stared into her face, blinking and trembling. “Wha—?”
Ania released him in disgust. “Oh, I’ll let Jessica explain it.” She turned and walked away without a backwards glance. “Farmhouse. Faery ring. Sunset. Blah, blah, blah.”
Azrael stared after her. Mal had slunk over to press his face against Azrael’s side. “I feel sick,” he whispered.
Jessica took off the silver collar and slipped it over Mal’s head.
Azrael’s eyes skipped around the meadow. “You’re in Faerie,” said Jessica gently. “You were a horse. Mab is letting you go. Do you remember?”
“Sort of,” croaked Azrael. He jammed a trembling hand into his pocket and fished out a watch. “Trial,” he whispered. “Should be there right now.” He shut his eyes, opened them again. “Lucy’s one-way jump. We’re going to use it.” His voice was growing stronger. Jessica could tell he was folding all of his questions away for later. “Mal, I need you to have hands.”
Mal dissolved into black smoke and shot up into his human form. Azrael took his hand. Then he reached for Jessica’s. “It will feel like a strong tug. We’ll be in the void for an instant. Don’t panic. It won’t last. Ready?”
