I kept an eye on Erris. The jinn had pulled back and Violet was begging him, while Erris tried to pull her back. I couldn’t keep up with that girl if she was going to be so foolish. Of all the men for her to nurse some schoolgirl crush on.
“What do you want me to do?” Celestina said. “They’re here waiting for Mr. Valdana to return. None of us have done the slightest thing to bother anyone in town.”
The man glanced back at his muttering comrades and shook his head. “We’re going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Where can we go?”
“I don’t know. That’s not our business.”
“Fairies belong in the fairy kingdom,” a younger man snapped.
“Violet!” Erris suddenly shouted.
The jinn had grabbed Violet and was holding her against his chest with one strong arm, like a hostage.
I left Celestina to argue with the humans and hurried over to Erris. Could I attack the jinn and not Violet? My own abilities frightened me-they weren’t exactly controlled.
“I have orders to bring her back to the king,” the jinn said. “She won’t be harmed.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry.” He winced, as if in pain himself. I had never quite believed that the jinn didn’t want to hurt us. He had seemed like a storybook jinn before, emotionless and cold. But now I believed Violet. I didn’t think he wanted to do any of it, but he was compelled to, and we had to fight back accordingly.
We were braced for another attack on Erris or Annalie when the jinn did something quite unexpected-he shot a hand out toward Celestina, and a whip of fire caught her, even as she was shouting at the men of Cernan. Her body was dashed against a tree. It looked so merciless.
Annalie flung out her arms, hissing something. The jinn’s fire snapped back. Celestina’s body slumped. Flames still licked at her coat.
“Celestina!” I rushed to her, stumbling, trying to grab at the fire with my mind. I doubted the jinn again. Did he have to follow orders so brutally? I was halfway there when I heard the crack of another whip and Erris cried out.
So fast-so cruel. I had no chance to react.
I saw his body thrown around like a doll, caught in the magic, knocked against rocks and trees, and finally dropped in the snow, scorched and twisted. I was as frozen as the icicles that had fallen from the branches. I barely registered the jinn riding off with a howling Violet. Annalie whirled to watch them go, but she didn’t try to stop them.
I gathered myself just enough to look back at Celestina. Her clothes were no longer on fire, but I barely remembered putting out the flames. Maybe they had gone out on their own.
I ran over to Erris, but it was clear in an instant that something was horribly wrong. His living glamour was gone. The old wooden automaton face, with its staring glass eyes and sealed lips, rested in a puddle of melted snow. I had almost forgotten the automaton face, and it looked so foreign now that I wondered how I had ever fallen in love with him like that. He was meant to be real. I turned away, stricken.
One of the men had dismounted to see to Celestina. Some of the others were murmuring again, but the jinn’s abrupt devastation had shifted the mood.
I tried to straighten out Erris’s twisted limbs, but it was obvious that the magic was gone. Did his soul even remain in this broken body now?
“Annalie,” I said, feeling more desperate than I expected. “Annalie, is he… Can you tell?”
She knelt and extended a hand. Her lips whispered something inaudible.
Her lashes lowered. “I don’t feel him here.”
I started to cry. The air was so cold that my tears felt like ice water on my cheeks. I managed not to cry too loud, but I didn’t feel like I could stop, either. I didn’t really care who heard me.
Annalie put her arm around me and patted my shoulder, and then went over to Celestina. I was crouched and staring at the ground, my thoughts a whirl.
“I don’t think she’s broken any bones,” I heard the man say. “But she took a hard blow. Could be fractures. You should get her inside, and then-well, look, we didn’t come out here to hurt anyone. You let Celestina rest up, but then all of you should get out of here.”
“Sir, I was sent by Karstor Greinfern, the ambassador of magic,” Annalie said. “All of us were. We are no trouble to you. Rather, you volunteered to involve yourself with this.”
The men were silent a moment.
The tension surrounded us thick as fog. Please, just let us be, I begged inwardly.
“If any of you are willing to help us get the wounded home, we’d be much obliged,” Annalie said. “Otherwise, you should leave us. Get warm.” The words were kind enough, but her tone was threatening. I wiped my eyes. If Annalie could stand up to this entire crowd of men by herself, I could pull myself together at least long enough to get home.
“I’ll take Celestina home,” said the wiry man. “But we’re not touching the… that.” He waved to Erris. I almost broke down again, but at the same time, I was furious. I couldn’t stand here another moment. Erris was much too heavy to pick up, but I grabbed his arms and started to drag him through the snow.
The man took Celestina and rode away, with the other men following. Annalie tried to get Erris’s feet, but we couldn’t reasonably lift him and move with any speed. We had no choice but to drag him all the way. His body was wet, with the fragments of fallen leaves clinging to his clothes and hair.
But it didn’t really matter.
His spirit was gone, and his body had been gone much longer.
THE WOODS, LORINAR
Ifra clutched Violet tight against his chest, ignoring her shouting and crying and questioning. He rode just long enough for the light of the torches to fade through the trees, and he could no longer hear the men, the horses, or Nimira’s sobs. But he couldn’t erase the vision of the destruction his own hands had caused.
He stopped the horse, scrambled off its back, and retched. There had been nothing in his stomach but melted snow and a handful of dried apples, but there it went.
He looked at his hands. They were free of marks and blood, which seemed wrong. He covered his face and wept.
“Ifra?” Violet said. “Why are you crying? It’s your fault all this happened.” She let out a broken sob. “Please answer me. Did you kill Erris and Celestina? Ifra! Why? Please. Please take me back.”
“Are you stupid?” He grabbed her arm. “I’m a jinn. I told you. I have to do what my master asks of me. No matter what it is. I’m not a man, I’m a vessel for wishes.”
“B-but… do you have to be so cruel?” Violet started sobbing into her scarf again.
He took a deep breath and stroked the nose of his dear, patient horse. The simple sweetness of animals had always been a comfort to him, even at the worst of times.
“I don’t mean to be cruel,” he said. “No. I’m sorry.”
She sniffed. “Then… please… is Uncle Erris okay?”
He shook his head slowly.
“Is he dead?” Her voice sounded hollow.
“He’s… Well, I guess it depends on whether he was alive to begin with.” Ifra trailed off, knowing it hardly mattered what Erris really was. That dark part of his mind that was no longer his own had taken over more often than not this past day, gathering the townspeople as a distraction, attacking the scarred girl to break the concentration of the woman in the black dress. With his goal so close, he became relentless and cruel. Now that it was over, he was left alone with the consequences.
“I think… Celestina will be all right,” he said. Even as he said it, he wasn’t sure. It was hard to give them names, these people he destroyed.
“Why did the king want you to hurt him?” Violet said, her voice very small. “Before… you said he wanted you to bring him unharmed.”
“Now it’s you he wants. As soon as he found out you were a Tanharrow too, he wanted me to destroy Erris.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. But I do know there are many people in the fairy lands who want to
see a Tanharrow on the throne. They don’t like Luka. There’s a group called the Green Hoods, waiting for you or Erris to return. I presume Luka wants you so he can calm down the people who want to follow a Tanharrow. He wants you to marry his son Belin. Make you queen… control you.”
“I don’t want to become a queen to someone’s king,” Violet said fiercely. “I want to be queen on my own.”
He gripped her arm in what he hoped was a reassuring way. “Maybe you have an opportunity. There are people behind you. People waiting for you. And you’ll have me. If you sit on the fairy throne, I can answer to you.”
She looked curious. Cautious, but he sensed she found him attractive. His heart was racing. If he managed this right… if Violet was on the throne… he might finally gain control of not only his own life, but a kingdom as well.
Running beneath his ambition to be free was a dangerous undercurrent of interest in this girl who could become his secondary master. It was never wise to care for a master.
“How?” she asked.
He briefly explained the nature of his enslavement.
“But I don’t want to marry this Belin,” she said. She shivered a little. The only light they had was the half-full moon reflecting on the snow. Violet, looking tiny and cold, clutched the handful of books she’d been holding on to for dear life even as he swung her onto the horse.
“Think of it not as a marriage, but as a strategic move,” he said. “Like a game you’re trying to win. I’ll help you.”
Her breath came in soft, frosty puffs. “Ifra?”
“Yes.”
“When you attacked us… you kept saying you were sorry. But you didn’t sound sorry.”
“I’m not really myself when I grant wishes. I can’t be. Trust me… there is no pleasure in it. Quite the opposite, in fact; it’s-it’s awful.”
She looked at him for a long moment, and whispered, “I’m sorry I shouted at you when you were crying.”
“No. Don’t be.”
He mounted the horse, putting his warm arm around her again, trying to be protective and comforting. It wasn’t really hard to think of falling for a young woman like Violet. He yearned so deeply for a loving touch with another person, and her own loneliness was so palpable, so easy to understand.
“If we’re going to meet the fairy king,” she said, “I want real clothes. Clothes for a lady, not a girl, so they’ll take me seriously.”
“We can get you some clothes.”
She was quiet, then, and a few minutes later she started to cry quietly into her scarf. She cried herself right to sleep, while he rode on through the night. Jinn could go days without sleep, which was just as well when there was no welcoming bed for miles, but unfortunate when dark thoughts chased his waking mind wherever he went.
Chapter 20
Celestina was in considerable pain when she woke. Without proper care, we could only guess at her injuries. The man who had examined her-I didn’t know if he was a doctor or merely someone with a talent for bonesetting-said she had no broken bones, and she could move her fingers and toes, but she couldn’t do much else. She could only lie on her back, and she couldn’t get out of bed.
I was hardly prepared to take care of anyone.
“I’ll see to her,” Annalie said. “Why don’t you get some sleep?”
“I’m not going to be able to sleep.”
“I know. Just rest.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone to handle all this.”
“We are never really alone.” Annalie smiled just a little. She had always reminded me of the Queen of the Longest Night herself-something about her seemed much older than her years or her smooth skin implied.
I felt very, very alone myself. I went to Erris’s room instead of my own. We’d left his body in the greenhouse room. It had seemed fitting in the moment, to leave him among the green growing things, but now it occurred to me all the plants would probably die without Erris and Violet to tend them. I shuddered at the thought of his clockwork body gathering dust and the plants withering away in the darkness, but I had no intention of opening the door to that room ever again.
The last real conversation we’d had was a quarrel, one where I’d been stubborn. He was right about Hollin. The man had done things I shouldn’t forgive him for, and if I felt like I couldn’t even tell Annalie about our correspondence, it wasn’t proper for it to continue.
I went to the kitchen and fed Hollin’s letters to the woodstove. Then I sobbed for a long time, with the cat wending around me, letting out his own sad cries. I didn’t know if he missed Violet, or if he just sympathized with the situation. I ended up sleeping curled up with him on the rug.
There would be no letters from Hollin anymore, in any case. The next morning, Annalie came down and said we ought to write Karstor about the situation.
“Lean Joe left,” I said. “One of us will have to go to town to deliver the letter.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Exactly.”
Annalie sighed. “Perhaps I can contact him through the spirits.”
“Is there anything you can’t do?”
Her brow furrowed.
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t a good way to word that. I just meant, you’ve really become good at magic.”
“I haven’t been like other people for a long time,” Annalie said. She was looking at her hands, hands so slender and pale that the most pampered lady in Lorinar would envy them. “Karstor says I don’t use magic like trained necromancers. I guess it’s all wrong, how I do it. And really, it isn’t my magic at all. It belongs to the spirits. I just give them a connection to this world.”
“How do you keep the bad spirits out?”
“Oh, I don’t even think of it like that. ‘Bad’ spirits. There are angry spirits, but not bad ones. I guess I just know how to deal with them from all my years when they were with me, whether I wanted them to be or not.”
“Do you miss them? Being with you all the time?”
She glanced at me. “Sometimes I do. Yes. I wasn’t really sure I wanted Karstor to lift the curse at all.”
“Why did you let him?”
“I felt I might be needed. It seemed wrong to stay hidden away forever. Karstor said to me, one day, that I seemed more like a ghost than a woman. And I realized… that was true. I wasn’t dead yet, but I was acting like I was. I’d become more comfortable with the dead than the living. Living… frightens me a bit.”
What was it, exactly, about living that frightened her? I had my theories.
How funny, I thought, that she would use the same word about living that Hollin used about her. “What about when Hollin gets back?” I asked.
Her lips pinched.
I shouldn’t have said anything.
“I bear him no ill will,” she said abruptly. “But a life with him is no longer what I want.”
“Oh.” I hesitated. “I’m sorry to bring up a difficult subject.”
“Don’t be sorry.” She shook her head. “I can’t tell if he still loves me or not. He says loving things in his letters, but a lot of them sound silly. Then again, my replies are all wrong too. We’ve just… grown apart. When Hollin returns, I intend to ask for a separation, and continue learning magic with Karstor.”
My eyes widened slightly. That was scandalous indeed. “Will you marry Dr. Greinfern?”
“Well, we haven’t had a very long acquaintance, but if it would protect his reputation… He is the ambassador of magic now, so he’ll have to be careful. If he brings it up… It hardly matters to me.” She sounded astoundingly businesslike.
I wasn’t sure what to say. I gaped a bit. I admired Annalie for her power, for her serenity in the face of such adversity, but how could she be so callous about her husband’s feelings? About marriage itself?
Annalie looked briefly askance, and then leaned closer. “I mean, you do know, don’t you?”
“Know what?”
“About Karstor?” She sat back. “He didn’t say anythin
g. Oh, dear. It’s not my place, then.” She looked slightly anguished. “Of course you mustn’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t.” What on earth was it now?
“Karstor and Garvin had a particular relationship,” she said. She flushed a bit. “He does not care for women.”
I jerked in my chair. He had been broken up over Garvin’s death, but… men often seemed to place more importance on their friendships than on their wives, here in Lorinar, what with all their clubs and leagues and things. In Tiansher, men and women mingled more, shared the same entertainments. “But he’s-I mean… he’s a politician!” I finally finished.
Annalie’s lips quirked. “Well. Obviously neither of them would have gotten so far if they hadn’t been extremely discreet. Nevertheless, you understand now, there is nothing between us.”
I stared at the woodstove. I thought of Hollin coming back to the news that Annalie wanted a separation. His family was gone; he’d be all alone. Would he turn to me…?
I didn’t want Hollin Parry in that way, though. I could forgive his deceits, but I could not forget them, and I certainly couldn’t forget Erris.
“Nim, don’t despair,” Annalie said. “Just because Erris isn’t here, doesn’t mean he isn’t somewhere. The spirits told me you should go here. They told me Ordorio would know.”
“Don’t.” I shook my head. “What can I do about it anyway? How can I even get to the fairy kingdom, or move through it, without Erris? It’s too much! I can’t keep doing this. I need help, and Ordorio isn’t here. I’m starting to wonder if he’s imaginary.”
“He’s just abroad.”
“With my luck, he’ll drop dead on the ship back. He must be at least fifty, and traveling around in all these other countries in the cold…”
“He won’t drop dead.”
“Stop being so reasonable!” I shouted, shoving my chair back from the table.
But nothing I said fazed Annalie. She was utterly calm in her black dress, looking at me with a serene sympathy I couldn’t bear.
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