The Forever Court

by Dave Rudden

  Which one’s the real Greaves? Is it as simple as that?

  Why isn’t anything simple?

  “We always waded into the shallows,” Greaves said. Abigail and Darcie were rapt. “It’s practically a family tradition. I was a Knight Peregrine—traveling the world, reinforcing cadres when they needed it. That’s where I met Grey.”

  With everything else going on in his head, Denizen hadn’t thought it was possible to tense further, but tense further he did. Now the Cants were awake, stretching through him in yawns of molten gold.

  Greaves held up his hands.

  “Sorry. I know the last time I brought him up I crossed a line. I didn’t mean to. I just—you all knew him as well. I guess I just wanted to understand what happened from someone who was there.”

  “I told you what happened,” Denizen said stonily.

  Greaves looked pained. “I’m not going to press you further about that night, Denizen. You were honest with me and I respect that.”

  Denizen squirmed at the earnestness in his voice.

  “But in all our studies of the Tenebrous, all our research into what they can or cannot do, we never anticipated the Three.” The pained look on his face turned to anger. “Thralldom. That’s what Grey calls it, on the days that he can ...”

  Abruptly, he stood.

  “I should be going.”

  “What?” Abigail and Darcie said together. “Why?”

  He brushed grass from his knees. “They’ll be sending out search parties by now. Thank you for this afternoon. It’s good to get out of the office, even one as fancy as—”

  “No,” Denizen interrupted. Anger was spiking through him, anger at being manipulated by mention of Grey, and anger at not knowing if it was manipulation at all. The vault of boxes in his head shivered, flames lapping at its sides. Denizen could almost smell the burning of thousands of labels, thousands of names. “Say it.”

  When Edifice Greaves next spoke, it didn’t sound like he was talking to them at all. His eyes fixed on something beyond the garden, and he spoke as if reassuring himself of one of many possible truths.

  “Some days it’s like nothing happened at all. There’s always work to do around Daybreak that doesn’t require combat. Some days I think he’s almost ... happy to be out of it.”

  Darcie’s voice was soft.

  “And other days?”

  Greaves looked at her for a long moment, and then took out his phone. It was that, more than anything he could have said, that told the Neophytes this particular conversation was over.

  “I have been a student of war my entire life,” the Palatine said, “and you would think that fighting the same war for centuries would mean we know our enemy. But time changes truth, and every new battle brings a horrible surprise. That’s why I’m entertaining this second meeting.

  “Half the Knights I’ve brought think we should be on our guard for a trap, and the other half think we should be planning one. Being a member of the Forever Court isn’t an empty honor. Each of those creatures fulfills a role, has their own vassals—a chain of loyalty from the lowest beast all the way to the King himself. They’re important. Mocked-By-a-Husband is a herald, Malebranche a spymaster.”

  Denizen swallowed. “And ... the other one? Rout?”

  “Executioner,” Greaves said grimly. “Those creatures represent a significant portion of the Endless King’s strength. And then there’s Mercy, who we know nothing about.”

  Denizen could already see the mantle of Palatine settle back over Greaves, hiding the real—had it been real?—man from view.

  “Half their leadership in one room ... it’s a great opportunity.” Something dark passed over his face, just as it had when he’d spoken of Grey. “And I want to believe a Tenebrous is being honest with us. But it’d be a first.”

  He shrugged. “Then again, humans aren’t great at opening up either, are we?”

  The Neophytes left the garden soon after Greaves did, each one lost in thought. A part of Denizen wanted to talk to them, analyze the Palatine’s every expression, every kind word ... but what right did he have to try and instill doubt in them?

  Denizen wasn’t even sure how he felt himself.

  SIMON SNORED.

  That had never bothered Denizen. It didn’t bother him now. It meant his friend had to be asleep. Those were the kinds of noises you could only fake with a miniature brass band. He eased the covers off himself slowly, counting the honks from the other bed as though they were the timer on a half-defused bomb.

  Careful. Clothes folded under his pillow (so as not to open the closet), a note set on his covers (where it could easily be seen):

  CAN’T SLEEP

  GOING TO THE LIBRARY

  He’d written it earlier (so as not to wince at the loudness of pens) and anyone would agree that it was a very Denizen note to leave.

  He’d swiped A Record of the Pursuivants that morning and slipped it into a coat pocket so, if Simon did come down looking for him, his story would hold up.

  Denizen had basically thought of everything.

  What if she doesn’t—?

  Shut. Up.

  Greaves had left Denizen with a lot to think about. His response had been to not think about it at all, and instead consider every angle of this midnight excursion.

  He’d timed it perfectly. It was exactly the hour his window had imploded the night before.

  If I’m wrong ... if I scared her off ...

  He could just go back to sleep.

  It was a thought that followed him as he crept out onto the roof and fell momentarily through the frigid black of another world. It was why he’d planned every action so meticulously, taking into account every single variable, every single contingency.

  Because the one thing he couldn’t plan for was if she didn’t show up.

  As he’d now been to the other embassy’s back garden, he could picture it and so travel there directly. Denizen wasn’t sure what happened if you tried to use the Art of Apertura to go somewhere you hadn’t been, but he really did not want to find out.

  Darkness thrilled away from his limbs as he stepped out of the shadow. His heart clattered unmusically in his chest and, perversely, a part of him wanted Simon’s voice to ring out. It meant he’d have to turn back. He wouldn’t have to talk. He wouldn’t have to expose himself. It was a battle he wouldn’t have to fight.

  “Hello?”

  The garden seemed unchanged from the night before. There was a little plot of flowers at the back, and some folded chairs where some employees had obviously set them out to enjoy the sunshine.

  And ...

  If he focused, if he really concentrated, Denizen could feel the slightest hint of the Tenebrae. Something in the gleam of the streetlights. A tremble in the petals of the flowers.

  Open and honest.

  “I’m sorry,” Denizen said to the empty air. “Last night you talked about Grey and I ... I lost it. Ever since they took him away, every time I think about him, I get so ... I get angry. And guilty. Because the Three were hunting my family, and I got him hurt.

  “And I ...” His voice broke. “I got D’Aubigny killed. And sometimes I miss Grey more, because I knew him better, and that makes me feel terrible. And she just seems to be unchanged, and when I’m around her my skin feels two sizes too tight, and either I snap at her or she snaps at me.”

  Denizen took a deep breath. “My anger is changing me. It’s making me something I don’t think I want to be.

  “And the fire helps. And that’s dangerous, because it’s so hard to control, and ... and sometimes I’m angry at you too. Because you made it harder. And then you left.”

  He trailed off. “So, yeah. Um. Again. Sorry.”

  No.

  Her voice was soft as she unfolded against the dark of the garden, but she held Denizen’s eyes with a gaze so strong he couldn’t look away.

  It is I who should apologize. We were burdened with a desperate moment, and I was not thinking of what wou
ld happen when the moment had passed. You find it hard.

  “Yes,” Denizen said.

  It was absurd that he’d never admitted it before—not to Simon, not to Abigail, not to Darcie. Not to Vivian—though she had tried to warn him.

  Well. She’d given him a knife. And an unhelpfully cryptic denouncement of their Order’s leader. Her trying had sort of given him a headache.

  “The Cants want to be used,” Denizen said. I’m not changing the subject. I’m not. “I can feel them. My head is full with them. Ever since that night I can tell exactly what each one will do, but there’s ... there’s more to them, isn’t there? I feel like we’re using them wrong, like if I just fitted them together in the right way ...”

  The fire in his stomach crackled and climbed, and it was an effort to stop him showing her what he meant, letting the Scintilla Scythe bleed into the Anathema Bend, into the Staccato Gap and the Art of Apertura—letting them wind and whip and build ...

  No. Denizen raised cold walls in between him and its eagerness, and finally the flames fell away.

  They’re not for this world, Denizen, Mercy said. You see what it does to you.

  “We call it the Cost—scar tissue,” Denizen said, staring down at the iron that stained his hands. “The price we pay for changing the world in a way it wasn’t meant to change.”

  Your world’s response to a fire it was never meant to feel. She drifted closer. Though not everything is the worse for being scarred, Denizen. Not always.

  She cast a glance at Seraphim Row.

  I’ve always thought you Knights brave.

  “What are the Cants?” Denizen asked. “It’s so frustrating. I know what they do, but so little else ... and I can’t ask or ...” Or they’ll ask me about you. “What were they in your world?”

  Her expression flickered, not in the human sense of muscles and sinews, but like a winter sun obscured by cloud. What do you know about the Tenebrae?

  Of all the ways Denizen had thought and hoped this conversation would go, he hadn’t expected an exam.

  “It’s another world next to ours. You come here, you build a body from whatever’s around, and you’re—”

  Wrong. That was the word he had been about to use, and he felt ashamed for it, even as the leaves behind Mercy rustled and shifted, though there was no breeze to move them. Light fell from her to drizzle the grass with unburning flame.

  “You’re different,” he finished lamely. “You don’t fit here.”

  No, she said, we really don’t. She raised a hand, and they both watched threads of lightning spark between her fingers. But as to the rest ...

  The Tenebrae is not a world, Denizen. Not as you would think of it. It is the space between worlds—the yawn between realms, a sea that washes on many strange shores.

  She said it so casually, like the existence of other universes was something she took for granted. The look on his face made her laugh.

  I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be surprised. You can’t see them from here, can you? You brush up against the Tenebrae, and you think that’s all there is. Oh, there are so many, Denizen. They crowd our sky, shine at us from every angle. The things you can see if you’re brave enough to swim close to the edge.

  Denizen couldn’t help himself. “Like what?” he said excitedly.

  She eyed him slyly. Well . . .

  Frown No. 6—Insistent, which was probably improper to use on a visiting dignitary. “Oh, come on. You have to tell me!”

  Fine, she said, mock-scowling. Imagine reality after reality, laid upon each other like a great spinal column of broken glass. There are baby realms, just cold and stars and hope. Her own voice was hushed now, as if awed by the immensity of what she described. There are old and haughty places where great minds spin, wearing planets like the scales of snakes. There are galaxies spun from music, a single shimmering chord.

  Denizen was rapt.

  I could show you someday, if you liked. A thoughtful frown crossed her face. You breathe … oxygen, right?

  She laughed again, a sound like raindrops, if raindrops knew how to dance. Denizen shivered at the sound.

  With so many universes, the light of so many stars beating along our skin … We are changelings, Denizen—never bound to one shape, but finding many. Her face darkened. Or having them found for us.

  “Wait,” Denizen said. He desperately wanted to get back to the bit where she smiled again. “What do you mean, ‘found for us’?”

  The air turned dead and cold. The Tenebrae rode the air like a thousand mingled scents, at once faint and strong enough to fur the throat.

  Nothing about us is set, Denizen, she said. Not like this world, with its rigidity. We are border things, and what we see changes us. What we do and what is done to us. You met the Opening Boy?

  The weakest of the Three—it had helped Denizen, desperate to die after the cruelties inflicted by its masters.

  He might have been something different, before the Man in the Waistcoat closed his claws on him. So too the Woman in White. Those two had run together so long they had become dual aspects of the same creature. And Father sent Pick-Up-the-Pieces, didn’t he? When I was missing?

  “Yes,” Denizen said. He was still wrapping his head round what she was saying, but it did make sense. Sort of. A bit. He’d already known the Tenebrous were able to slough their shapes, and the older they were, the better they were at it ... “Grey and D’Aubigny fought it—um ... him.”

  He was much diminished by that battle, she said. What did he look like, when he fought?

  “Cats,” Denizen said. “Sort of.”

  Ah, she said with a strange tone of fondness. A hunting form. She saw the look on Denizen’s face. But that is what I mean. Our purpose, our surroundings, a given name ... they can influence us. Make us change. Our obsessions remake us.

  Denizen frowned. “What do you mean, our obsessions?”

  Her voice came hesitant then. Almost ... nervous, for the first time since they had met.

  Nothing. I do not wish to ...

  “No,” Denizen said. “What?”

  She didn’t look at him, her words instead directed up and into the clouded sky.

  In a certain light, your mother and the Woman in White look very much alike.

  Sudden revulsion gripped Denizen’s throat. Do they? He tried picturing the Woman’s gaunt, lupine features, but all that came to mind were scalpel limbs and a face of clicking, hungry gears.

  I do not know whether that was the Woman’s choice, or simply a response to a thought that ruled her mind. We are ... terribly impermanent things.

  She glanced at him once again.

  And so we come to the fire.

  “It’s so bright,” Denizen said, desperately relieved that the topic of conversation had changed. “And I’ve been in the Tenebrae. It’s so dark and cold ... They don’t make sense together.”

  They never did, she said. But it warmed us for a time. We live in the shadow of stars but are not touched by their heat, and their light is so far away that it simply reminds us just how much in the dark we are.

  It was our sun, Denizen.

  Light beat against the thin cage of Denizen’s chest, as though it recognized her words. As soon as she said it, he knew it was true. A fire that fed on itself, that burned eager and clean and smokeless, hotter and brighter than the world could take. It made sense. No wonder the Tenebrae was so frozen and empty. He had their sun inside him, the whole Order did, and its passage scorched them black.

  Mercy was looking up, her face thoughtful. Denizen wondered if she could see the stars through the sky’s caul of cloud.

  Sun is your word, she said, and something in her voice had changed. Her light changed too—sharper and colder, her features running like ice-flecked water. Denizen’s stomach lurched, and he was reminded of the first time he had seen her, the artillery roar of her rage.

  For us, it was the light we crowded round, the glow that warmed us. And then ... it was stolen, Denizen. It
was taken. And without it ...

  Her eyes flared.

  What could we become in the dark but monsters?

  “SHE’S WHAT?”

  Abucad Croit settled his hundred-dollar tie against his thousand-dollar shirt, gazing up at Eloquence with a pinched look of disdain. It was the only expression Uriel had ever seen his uncle wear. Years of focused displeasure at the world had solidified Abucad’s features into a permanent grimace.

  Perhaps that was understandable, considering the path his life had taken.

  “She’s speaking, Uncle.”

  The path to the castle gates was littered with shrapnel from Eloquence’s descent, jutting from the dust like ragged teeth in a rotting jaw. Uriel had been perched on a shard for hours, watching the sun rise over the valley mouth. He was the only one who’d volunteered to meet the new arrivals.

  All the others had stayed inside. With Her.

  “This is why the old man called me out here?”

  Disdain sharpened to disgust. Abucad looked even more like Grandfather now—the same dagger cheekbones and cadaverous frame. Their statues would be identical, Uriel thought, should that honor be given. Saying that Abucad Croit did not get on with his father would have been a laughable understatement, had either man ever smiled.

  Grandfather’s resemblance to Abucad made the young man at his side even more disconcerting. Uriel didn’t know his name. Strange in itself—Uriel knew everyone’s name, everyone that mattered—but the stranger resembled Grandfather as well, though softened by youth and fat. His eyes were fixed on the ruptured battlements, like he’d suddenly realized he’d taken the wrong turn in a fairy tale and had no idea how to get back.

  “What did you bring him for?” Uriel bared his teeth at the stranger, and was rewarded by a flinch. Pathetic. If this was what Outside did to people, you could keep it.

  Abucad sighed. “Because, unfortunately, this place still has a hold over some of our Family’s more ... traditional members, and I thought my son should be aware of it.”