Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception

by Maggie Stiefvater

  “Uh—what do you mean?”

  She turned and faced me, expression slightly withering. “Use your brain, Deirdre.”

  eleven

  In my dream, Luke was sitting in his tired Bucephalus, arms crossed on the steering wheel, forehead resting on them. Barely visible in the moving darkness of the car, the torc on his arm glinted, a dull secret.

  I wasn’t in the car, but I could see the corner of his face as if I were an invisible, tiny watcher perched on the gear shift. His lips moved, his voice barely audible.

  “I am Luke.” The pause before his next words stretched into hours, lifetimes. Mist moved outside the car windows, pale, damp fingers leaving marks on the glass. “It’s been one thousand, three hundred forty-eight years, two months, and one week. Please don’t forget me.”

  The mist dragged with it a kind of slow, dangerous music, alluring, like the promise of sleep to a dying man. Luke stretched out his arm to the radio and spun the knob.

  Sound blasted out of the speakers and shook me awake. Blinking around my room, I couldn’t figure out what time it was; the light in the living room was odd. Then I realized that it was because mist pressed against the windows, and the moon reflected into every cranny. I groaned and stretched out on the sofa, working out a crick in my neck. Rye looked up at me from his post on the floor. His expression suggested that both of us would sleep better in my bed.

  “But there’s freaks up there,” I whispered to him. I sat up and stretched again, catching a glimpse of the clock on the wall: two a.m. Sleep seemed far away.

  Before I had time to wonder what had woken me out of my dream, I heard a dull tap on the window. Rye sprang to his feet. I jumped, more startled by Rye’s sudden movement than the noise. At the window, a face loomed out of the mist, nose pressed against the glass, leaving a print.

  Even as Rye began to growl, I relaxed. It was Luke. He pressed his nose against the window again, making a funny face. I held up my finger to him—just a second—and bounded into the kitchen. I paused in front of the laundry room to put on jeans and my long-sleeved T-shirt from earlier, feeling a little stupid that Luke had seen me in my slinky pajama top and crazy hair. Rye followed me to the back door, still rumbling under his breath.

  Only then did I remember what Granna had said. The little voice that always agreed with Mom and Granna and Delia whispered faerie. Playing with your emotions. Steal you away. Immune from iron. Keep away.

  I don’t know why my conscience even bothered. I had known as soon as I saw Luke at the window that nothing would keep me from going out to meet him. I had to. My heart was already pounding at the idea that he was outside, without him having to say a single word. I was pathetic, but knowing I was pathetic didn’t help me.

  I opened the back door into a silvery, foreign world. The mist hung in the air and the moonlight glanced through it, turning the landscape a shimmery blue. Luke stood just off the back steps, a long-sleeved black shirt covering his torc, his hands in his pockets, everything about him blue and light. This felt more like a dream than the one I’d just had.

  “Sorry if I woke you.” He didn’t sound apologetic.

  I shut the door softly behind me and stood on the stairs, acutely aware that Mom and Dad slept inside. I kept my voice low. “I wasn’t sleeping very well, anyway.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping at all.” He glanced around at the mist and then back at me, smiling vaguely. “In retrospect, it seems awfully selfish to wake you up to entertain me during my insomnia.”

  I crossed my arms and turned my face into the slight breeze; the night smelled wonderful, all cut grass and faraway flowers. It was a night that made you think the sun was overrated. “How do you want me to entertain you? I can step dance a little, but it looks pretty silly in bare feet.”

  Luke narrowed his eyes as if he were imagining me step-dancing. “I don’t think I need to see that. I’d rather—” For the first time, he looked uncertain, glancing away into the shifting blue light. “I know you said you didn’t want to be ‘practice.’ But you could take a walk with me, and I could pretend I was still only fascinated by you and nothing more.”

  My stomach flipped. It took more effort than I imagined to force my feet to stay on the steps. “Is it safe for me to go with you?”

  His face was unreadable, a mask to me, and he sighed. “Probably not.”

  I sighed, too, and then I joined him at the base of the steps and held out my hand. Luke looked at my outstretched fingers for a moment, and then up at my face.

  “You did hear me say probably not, right?”

  I nodded. “I don’t care. I’ll go with you.” I was going to stop there, but the words tumbled out. “Isn’t that what you do? Tangle me up so I don’t know which way I’m going and then steal me away?”

  He stared at me.

  The silence forced words out of me. “Granna told me what you are.”

  He stared for another long moment, and when the words came out, they were forced. “What—am—I?”

  I almost said “faerie,” but I remembered and swallowed the word. “One of Them. She’d seen you before. That’s why she hates you. She’s making something to keep you away from me.” The words were falling out; I couldn’t seem to shut up.

  Luke’s body had gone completely stiff and his voice was tight. “You think I’m one of Them?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t care. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t care what you are.” I stepped back, biting my lip. I’d just tipped every bit of emotion out of the box that I, as a Monaghan woman, was supposed to keep locked away.

  Luke’s hands were tight fists by his sides. “I’m not one of Them.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “I can’t tell you. Or anyone. I could sooner fly.”

  Inspiration blossomed, sudden and brilliant. “You can,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. Let me try and read your mind.” It was such a simple, perfect idea. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? In my head, I saw the image of me shimmering out of James’ mind. If I could see that by focusing for one second on his eyes, how much more could I do if I really tried?

  I could see the resistance on his face. If he really was what Granna said, he would never agree. Maybe he wasn’t what Granna said, and he would refuse anyway. I wasn’t sure I would want my mind read, and I didn’t have anything to hide.

  Luke looked into the mist again, and then closed the distance between us, his voice low. “You can do that?”

  “I think so. I sort of did earlier today.”

  He chewed his lower lip. It was endearing, like a little kid trying to make a decision. “I don’t know. It’s so—”

  “Private?”

  “Yeah.” He took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay. Let’s do it. But not here. Someplace safer.”

  The mood had changed; suddenly we were on the same side again. I looked out into the slanting blue light, wondering who or what we had to be safe from now. And what counted as a safer place. Surely he didn’t mean to drive to the city again. Maybe a church? The nearest church was ten minutes away if we drove.

  “There’s a cemetery near here, isn’t there?” Luke’s voice broke into my thoughts. “I thought I saw one.”

  I nodded. “Do you mean the one just behind our house? The old one with the big monument?”

  “It’s got an iron fence around it, doesn’t it?”

  I frowned. “But no gate.”

  “Doesn’t matter. They can’t go underneath an iron archway. It’s got one of those, hasn’t it?” He pressed his fist to his forehead. “God, I can’t believe I’m doing this. You don’t know how stupid this is for me.” He unclenched the fist and held his hand out to me. I took it and he clutched it tightly. “Dumb as dumb.”

  Together, we walked through the back yard, into the silvered trees, and down the worn deer trail that led to the cemetery. Around us, the air glowed and moved, changing and swirli
ng, touching us with invisible cold hands, hanging in the trees like gauze, glimmering on the leaves like precious jewels. There was nothing human in this night but me and Luke, holding tightly to each other’s hands, surrounded by magic thick enough to touch.

  I felt watched.

  Luke never let go of my hand, but he never let down his guard, either. Everything in his posture indicated tension; watchful power wound tight enough to snap. After seeing what he’d done to that cat, it was hard to imagine the enemy that would be able to overcome him. Unless he was the enemy.

  The iron archway of the old cemetery appeared abruptly among the periwinkle trees, and Luke pushed me through it quickly, jumping in after me as if just barely escaping grasping jaws. I looked back through the archway and blinked as a barely glimpsed shadow passed beyond the arch and disappeared into the mist. Slow goose bumps rose on my arms. I thought about asking Luke what he thought the shadow might have been, but I didn’t really want to know. It was easier to be brave without knowing.

  “Inside?” I suggested, barely whispering. Luke followed my gaze over to the massive marble monument in the center of the cemetery and nodded. We picked our way between headstones and tall gray sycamores, the dead listening as our feet walked across them. I had never thought that I would feel safer inside a cemetery than outside.

  The monument towered before us; icy white in the mist. It was like a three-sided tomb, and inside was a statue of a man cradling a child. They too were icy white marble, larger than life, frozen solid in a dark blue sea. I scrambled into the monument without pause, feeling safer in its shadows, and Luke followed me.

  I sat in the far corner, the marble wall cold against my back, and watched Luke take a handful of nails from his pocket. He laid them carefully in a straight line across the mouth of the monument, all pointing in the same slanted direction, before sitting in the opposite corner from me.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “The direction of the gate. The nails will move if someone tries to come through by force. If They come through such a narrow hole, their—essence—will push the ends around.”

  I stared at the nails, unmoving on the marble. “I thought you said They couldn’t go under the archway.”

  Luke’s face was pale. “Most of Them.”

  I didn’t want to think about that. I whispered, “Do you still want to do this?”

  He jerked his chin in another nod. “What do I have to do?”

  I bit my lip, feeling suddenly doubtful. What if I’d been wrong about what happened at the Sticky Pig? Maybe I couldn’t really read minds. Maybe it had been a delusion. Maybe we’d braved a midnight journey with something following us just to sit in a cold marble tomb and stare at each other.

  “Dee,” Luke said softly. “What do I have to do?”

  I looked up; his pale eyes glinted in the chilly darkness. “Let me look at your eyes.”

  He sighed and pulled his knees up to his chest, linking his arms around them. His voice was small. “Don’t think less of me.”

  Then he fixed his eyes on me. For a moment I could focus on nothing but how nice it was to just be able to unabashedly stare at his face, looking at the straight, narrow line of his nose, the uncertain line of his lips, and the pale eyebrows lowered over his ice-flecked eyes.

  A brilliant white bird flapped over his head, startling me. As I jumped, it vanished like smoke in the wind.

  Luke was already on his feet. “What?”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I saw a bird. It surprised me.”

  He grinned, a little nervous. “I was thinking of a bird.”

  We returned to our positions, and I began again. “Try something else.”

  Even though I knew to expect something, I still started when the clover dropped to the floor between us.

  “Clover?” I asked.

  Luke nodded.

  But I wanted more. Not twenty questions. I wanted the whole enchilada. “Think of nothing.”

  He looked uneasy. “Nature abhors a vacuum.” But he nodded to show he was ready.

  This time, I began to feel the sensation of seeing into his mind. My forehead between my eyes felt warm as I began to focus, and as the shimmering medium grew in the space between us, I felt a bit of pressure; hesitation. Luke was letting me in, but only barely.

  A low, breathy note sounded, but this time I didn’t jump. I could tell now that it was coming from within the shimmer that was Luke’s mind. The flute continued, wending a familiar march around the image of a broad green plain studded with boulders the size of men. The image swept away like grains of sand and in its place was a dark bar, musicians packed elbow to elbow, the frenzied music pounding out some sort of eternal heartbeat. Faster than before, that image was gone, replaced with a set of car keys jangling into the door of a car. Just as fast, another image appeared: me, walking into my first day of high school. Another: a young man with a streak of gold in his dark hair, clapping Luke on the shoulder.

  I felt Luke shiver, leaning against the opposite wall. Images kept flashing before my eyes. Luke curled in a small dark space, shuddering with cold. A fiddler playing a reel, Luke’s familiar flute finding counterpoint. A beautiful woman grasping Luke by the back of his neck as he fell to his knees. White lines flying beneath the tires of a car.

  And faster still, a slide show on high speed. A wickedly beautiful knife. A young man, falling onto his face in a wet street, a knife jutting from his side.

  Another man, in strange clothing, his neck warm and pulsing life between Luke’s hands, gasping and falling. A searing pain in Luke’s chest.

  A woman, her shrill cry cut off as a blade sliced her white skin. Hands gripping three iron nails until they left red in his palm.

  Another young man, his neck stabbed as neatly as the big cat’s. A girl my age, life gasping out with each breath, crimson around her.

  The savage knife ripping shred after shred in Luke’s arm, cutting at the golden band. Lying in a pool of blood and self-destruction. A white bird flapping in blood. Rising out of the blood. Another body. Another. Hands covered with red.

  All I could see before my eyes was red, rising with increasing vertigo. I collapsed onto the cold marble, my breaths too slow and far apart. The wounds on my arm stung.

  “Enough.” Luke’s voice, barely audible, came from across the floor. He was slumped against the wall, paler than white. His face, colorless and miserable, turned away, and I saw a single tear made of blood drip down his cheek, leaving a red stain behind it.

  I knew then that I had done more than read his mind.

  twelve

  I lay on the marble forever while the gravestones outside marked time, the moon’s shadow moving around them, lighting the other side of their worn surfaces and illuminating Christian names that hadn’t been used in decades. Cold crept through me, passing from the marble into my veins. Every moment that I lay on the cold stone, hoping and dreading that Luke would pull me from the ground, images of death flew through my head. No. Not just death. Murder.

  I didn’t know what to think, so my brain just stopped. Then I could sit up. I looked across the dark tomb to where Luke made a light shape on the marble, a strange pale character in an alphabet I didn’t know. His cheek lay against the wall as he stared out into the night, eyes dull. There was still a dried blood trail where the single strange tear had traced its way along his cheekbone and found a path along the edge of his jaw. I followed his gaze out to the headstones and watched the mist, ever thickening, creep around their bases.

  Graves. How appropriate.

  I thought about asking him if he’d really killed all those people. But then I remembered him saying, Do I scare you?

  He’d really killed them.

  So he wasn’t a faerie. He was a murderer.

  I looked back at him, huddled there so miserable and regretful. Anger boiled in my throat, sudden and hard to swallow. I wondered what twisted logic let him look so torn up over the deaths, now—and then would let him do it aga
in.

  “So, that’s your secret?” I snapped. Luke’s head didn’t turn. “You’re not a faerie—you’re just a serial killer?” I should have said “one of Them” instead, but I didn’t care at that point. Supernatural beings seemed the least of my problems.

  Luke was perfectly still, just another marble statue in the monument.

  Somehow his silence just made me angrier. I found I could get to my feet, and I did, staring down at him from across the ever-widening space between us. “Were you going to kill me, is that what it was? Save me from Them so you could stab me in peace and quiet?”

  He still didn’t move. But he asked, his voice dead, “Aren’t you afraid?”

  “No! I’m pissed.”

  Finally, he looked at me, and his eyes silently begged for understanding. But how could there be understanding for this? It wasn’t wild sex or drugs or a mammoth collection of Britney Spears posters that I’d uncovered in his mind. It was a trail of bodies. Real people, the life cut out of them as quickly as that wild cat’s. It was maybe the one thing I couldn’t forgive. I’d opened up my tightly sealed armor and let him in—and now it hurt.

  “So, all those times you asked me if I thought you were sketchy or whatever—it’s because you’re a killer? A murderer?”

  His voice was flat. “It’s not like that.”

  I hugged my arms around myself. “Oh, how is it, then? They just accidentally got stuck on your knife? Let me guess. It was self-defense. That girl I saw, she was going to kick your ass.”

  He shook his head.

  He wasn’t even denying it. “How many? How many have you killed?” As if that mattered. As if it were like a math test, where the number of wrong answers affected your score. He was a killer, no matter how many bodies he’d left behind.

  “Don’t make me remember.”

  “Why? Does it hurt? Don’t you think it hurt them more?” Luke looked like my words cut him, but he had no right to mercy. “How many?” I snapped.

  “Don’t make me remember.”

  My anger shook my voice, which was wild and out of control. “You asshole. You let me believe you were the good guy. You made me trust you!”