“Oh,” I said, awkwardly. “Hi. Yeah, we came here to see if it was you who’d come back, and not… someone else.”
Her eyes narrowed. “No, my mother’s beyond the gates where she belongs. I’ve come back to take my rightful place as Gatekeeper.”
“Er… good. I think.” Awkward silence, much? I’d basically killed what was left of her mother… who’d tried to kill me and my sister, and almost succeeded. Pretending to forget either of those things was impossible for both of us. Holly herself looked about as exhausted as I felt, her dyed black hair in disarray and bags under her bright blue, Winter magic-tinted eyes. “So you got your house back. Did that happen when you accepted the magic?”
“Ask your sister what the ceremony involves.” She scrubbed a hand over her forehead. “Look, I’m tired as hell and I’ve been running around for the Court all day, so if you don’t have anything useful to say, come back later.”
“You’ve been to Winter?”
“That was implied, yes.”
Damn. They actually had forgiven her for betraying them. That, or they’d had no choice, because if Winter didn’t have a Gatekeeper, war would break out with Summer.
The spirit I’d defeated had seemed to think Summer and Winter were on the brink of declaring war on one another anyway… which was another issue I’d kind of forgotten, considering all the other crap we’d had to deal with. Holly and I might not be outright enemies or even rivals, but it wouldn’t do to forget our respective Courts hated one another.
“Okay,” I said. “Just wondering, since it’s been months since you were here last. Is everything… normal here?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is anything about this shit normal?”
“Point taken. I mean, the house was in ruins, your magic was pretty much gone. You didn’t have any trouble taking it back, or…”
Her eyes flashed bright blue and the air went even chillier than usual. That’s a no, then. Months might not have passed at all. The house was as white as the snow coating the trees, sturdy and upright and gleaming with magic. It wouldn’t do to confide our own weakness to her, and hell, if the answers were within the Summer Court itself, it definitely wasn’t Winter’s business. I was too tired and drained to run an interrogation on someone who hated my guts.
“No,” she said, through gritted teeth. “This delightful curse of ours ensures that I’ll wield this magic until I die, and so will my children. Nice seeing you again, Ilsa.”
She closed the door, firmly. I raised an eyebrow at River. “I’ve had worse family reunions.”
“Her territory isn’t draining yours,” River said. “If the source is in Summer, they ought to respond to Arden’s request quickly.”
“I know they did last time, but it was nearly the end of the world. Mitigating circumstances.”
I shook my head at the door and turned away. As we walked through the field alongside the fence back towards home, I gave the Winter house one last glance over my shoulder. Normal. As though it hadn’t lay neglected for months. Holly lived there all alone. It was kind of sad, really. Her mother hadn’t left much of a legacy behind. No wonder she still seemed to nurse a strong resentment towards the Lynn curse, and our common ancestor.
“Is it true?” River asked. “The curse passes directly through the bloodline. Does that mean Hazel’s children…?”
“In theory, but I don’t think the curse is that specific. As long as both Gatekeepers belong to the Lynn bloodline, it doesn’t matter if they’re the Gatekeeper’s own children. I’m sure there have been incidents in the past of one of them dying young, or even switching sides if one branch of the family didn’t have kids.” I shrugged. “So Holly might choose not to have any children in order to beat the curse, but then if Hazel or I do… they’re liable to be hauled off to Winter.”
River didn’t say anything for a long moment. I stole a sideways glance at him, wishing I hadn’t brought up the subject of children, or even marriage. It wasn’t as though I’d ever thought much about the subject. I’d barely begun to live my life, let alone someone else’s, and Mum’s hands-off parenting approach was down to her having one foot permanently in the Seelie Court.
“Is that why you can’t move away from the Ley Line?” River finally asked.
“Wouldn’t surprise me. Any reason?”
“The terms of the vow,” he said. “They’re not usually very complicated, in words at least.”
“Why does that matter? It’s not like we’ve ever found the person who actually bound us. Unless there’s something else you didn’t tell me.”
He shook his head. “No, of course not. Does the title automatically pass on, then?”
“What, when the Gatekeeper dies?” I forced my thoughts to go in the direction of the deceased Winter Gatekeeper rather than the unthinkable. “Yes, it does, but it doesn’t have to happen that way. If the Gatekeeper decides to retire, then they can choose to voluntarily give up the circlet. The Sidhe encourage it, to be honest. They want the Gatekeepers to be at the peak of their power and strength.”
We came within sight of the Summer house. The smell of burning drifted from an open window. “Shit.” I didn’t see smoke, but picked up the pace all the same. “Tell me it isn’t fire imps.”
“It’s not the faeries,” River said.
It wasn’t. I found Morgan in the kitchen, a burned pan in the sink. At least it wasn’t actually in flames. “Hazel went to shower. She wants someone to cook, so…”
“You decided to set the kitchen on fire.” I sighed. “Look, we might not have functioning magic, but honestly.” I opened various cupboards looking for something edible. “It’s not like we can call for takeout to be delivered here.”
A thoughtful look crossed his face. “If we’re still linked up to Edinburgh, technically…”
“You’re not supposed to use the Paths for that,” I said. “Mum would be appalled.”
“She also wouldn’t want us starving to death.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Don’t be melodramatic.”
“What’s going on?” Hazel said from the doorway.
“Our brother thinks we should use your highly secret and dangerous magic to order a takeaway delivery from Edinburgh. Did you leave the Path open?”
“Yes. You’re right, Mum would kill us. Let’s do it.”
I sighed. “You have zero faith in my domestic skills, don’t you?”
Everyone looked at River. “Can you conjure up a decent meal using your faerie magic?” asked Hazel.
“Unfortunately not. I’m a bodyguard, not a chef.”
“Two votes for the Path. I’ll make the call.” Morgan left the room. “Is the house phone still in here?”
“Yeah, it is,” I said. “Is drawing more people to our house a good idea?”
“Humans are fine,” Hazel said. “Did you sense anyone at Winter’s place, anyway?”
“Holly,” I said. “It’s her. Not… the other one.” Like a weird superstition, I couldn’t bring myself to say her title aloud. Like our distant and deceased Aunt Candice was listening.
“Oh. So she did take the job.” Hazel nodded. “You spoke to her?”
“Tried to. She said she got accepted to train as Gatekeeper and something about a ceremony that you’d know about. Didn’t really want to talk much.”
“Damn. Did she drain all our magic to rebuild her house?”
“Nope,” I said. “Arden was there as well, but he flew off to ask the Court for an audience rather than coming back here with me. He implied that Summer might know why our power’s being drained.”
All eyes went to River again. He frowned. “It’s the first I’ve heard. I haven’t actually been in Summer since I resolved my last mission, which is why I don’t have a direct invitation to go back. But the magic around the gate doesn’t seem to be functioning any more than your defences are.” River took a step towards the door. “I can take up my old bodyguard job, if you like.”
“There’s no need,�
�� I said. “Three of us are necromancers who can pick up on any intruder who isn’t a wraith.”
Wraiths couldn’t be detected until they were directly on top of us, but the salt barrier ought to keep them from getting close to the house. Few enemies could even find our house thanks to its rootless nature, hovering in the gap between worlds. But Hazel looked uncharacteristically nervous. She wasn’t used to being underpowered. I’d spent enough years in her position to feel sorry for her despite the small vindictive part of me who thought having a day without her magic might make up for years of her being the only Lynn sibling with any at all.
I pushed the thought away. Hazel had never been smug about being the one chosen and not me, though admittedly, she’d also been mostly oblivious to how shitty it’d been to be mistaken for her, or worse, targeted by the Gatekeeper’s enemies. Morgan might be the oldest, but once it’d become clear he wouldn’t have magic, he’d mostly been left alone. Being the Gatekeeper-in-Training’s once-identical twin had been hazardous and depressing at once, depending on the day.
Morgan sprawled on the sofa, opened a beer bottle and took a swig. “What? It’s been a long day.”
“Yeah.” I fell into the armchair next to him. If I half closed my eyes, I could pretend this was like old times, when the two of us had watched movie marathons while Mum and Hazel were off serving the Seelie Court or doing magical training. Of course, Morgan himself was usually running around causing trouble, but things had been a hell of a lot less complicated then.
“Don’t mess up the house,” Hazel said. “We’re leaving it exactly as we found it, for when we bring Mum back.”
Nobody argued about how impossible that seemed, though Morgan wore a sceptical look, and River, the only one of us who hadn’t sat down, shifted imperceptibly backwards.
Hazel looked sharply at him. “Is there anything you haven’t told us? Where exactly was she?”
“I told you everything I know. Your mother wouldn’t tell me the nature of the quest she was sent on, and it’s difficult for me to say where she was when the Vale arranges itself according to the person who enters. I didn’t spend long there, only enough for her to give me the order to come and guard the Gatekeeper. I knew nothing of your family before we met—I didn’t lie.”
Nope. You just omitted information. But re-treading the same arguments would get us nowhere.
“Mum knew about the book,” I said. “Either Grandma told her, or—hell, she knew Great-Aunt Enid. That must be it. But she didn’t know it’d choose me.” My head hurt. “Was it Summer who destroyed my house after all? Or Holly’s people? She didn’t want me to get hold of the book. Arden, though…”
“I think he did want you to get hold of it,” said Hazel. “He didn’t want a war, no more than we did.”
I sighed. “Yeah, well. Looks like we might be getting one either way.”
3
Despite my exhaustion, being in the same bedroom where I’d once been attacked by a wraith didn’t encourage restful sleep. After waking from my seventh consecutive nightmare, I walked downstairs to find Morgan sitting in front of the blank TV screen, like he used to do when I couldn’t sleep as a kid and came downstairs to find him wandering drunkenly around after being kicked out of the village’s only pub at midnight.
“Hey.” I sat down at the other end of the sofa, pulling Grandma’s old hand-knitted throw over my legs to warm them.
He grunted. “This place hasn’t changed at all.”
“It’s run by the Sidhe. They don’t like change much.” It must be seriously weird for him to be back at the house, even with Mum absent. I looked out the window, spotting River sitting on the porch. He’d accepted Hazel’s offer of a guest room and then gone outside to act as bodyguard anyway, apparently.
“Not for long,” he said. “The Sidhe don’t give a crap what happens to us, even Mum.”
“I know that,” I said. “God only knows why they sent her into the Vale, if not to avoid putting their own lives in danger. We’re immune to magic, not wraiths, or skin-eating faeries, or—”
“Stop it,” he said. “Knowing that won’t change anything. She can survive it. We might not.”
His tone was such a total contrast to his usual bravado that I stared at him. “What, you seriously don’t think we should go after Mum?”
“Frankly, I think she’ll toss me out of the Vale herself.”
I shook my head. “No, she won’t. Not when she finds out we single-handedly saved Edinburgh. Give it a chance.”
“I don’t think so.” He paused. “Might be this new power, but I get the feeling I’m supposed to do something else with it. Something in this world, not Faerie. Same with you. That talisman of yours isn’t faerie-made, is it? Humans made it. Our ancestors.”
I couldn’t get used to Morgan speaking coherently, let alone making so much sense. “Guess it’s true, but the Sidhe gave us this magic, and it’s their symbol on the book. They were definitely involved, even if it isn’t their magic.”
“Yeah, that part makes no sense. You can’t trap necromancy in a talisman… can you?”
“If I knew that, I’d know how they do it to Summer and Winter magic,” I said. “I don’t think it’s true, though. Summer and Winter Sidhe… their own life is effectively tied to their talisman. If they lose their talisman, they’re weakened. But that’s because their power comes from the talisman. Necromancy—if anything, it comes directly from the spirit world.”
Which meant there was a good chance it wouldn’t function in Faerie at all. River had said it wouldn’t, back when I hadn’t known that was the type of magic I had. Shit. That could cause problems. It shouldn’t surprise me that death magic didn’t work in a realm where nobody died, but the Sidhe could die. Which meant their immortality had never been permanent to begin with.
Morgan cleared his throat. “You should know… Hazel went out earlier.”
“What do you mean, ‘earlier’? It’s barely light outside.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the window. “Think she went to the grove, but she told me she’d throw me over the fence if either of us tried to follow her.”
“Dammit, Hazel.” She probably would, too. Unlike the two of us, Hazel had had personal combat training from experts used to going up against faeries and could throw a man twice her size over her shoulder. Losing her magic had hit her pretty hard, and she was probably taking the house’s magical drought as a personal insult.
“She’s fine, Ilsa. Oh, and your faerie’s awake.”
“He’s not a faerie. Or mine.” My gaze went to the window before I could stop myself, to be greeted with the view of River just out of sight, blade in hand, cutting down invisible enemies. He moved so swiftly and gracefully, it was impossible to see him as human. Morgan snickered, and I glared at him.
“Don’t let me stop you admiring the view,” Morgan said.
I threw a cushion at him. “I’m going to make coffee.”
After an appropriate amount of caffeine, I felt a little better, even though it looked like the only food we had in the house was stale bread and leftover takeout. I skimmed through the talisman book to avoid looking at River. The curtains were partially drawn and he probably didn’t know I could see him. That, or he was tormenting me on purpose with memories of his hands on my bare skin, his muscular body pressed against mine. And lying about my mother the whole time.
“I’ve never seen you mope over a guy before,” Morgan observed.
“I’m not moping. I’m reading this book.”
“You’re projecting like hell.”
I backed away from him on the sofa. “Stay out of my head, Morgan. I thought you had the mind-reading thing under control.”
“I do. You’re the one whose mental shields are totally screwed. You kept waking me up with your wraith nightmares all night.”
“I’m not psychic. Aren’t you wearing the iron band?”
“It fell off while I was asleep.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I can
pick up on you and Hazel, just nobody else. Oh yeah, and she’s back.”
The door slammed open and Hazel stomped in from the hall, dripping melting snow all over the floor.
“Are you okay?” I rose from my seat, alarmed.
“Obviously.” Hazel kicked her shoes off. At least she could walk in a straight line today.
“What were you thinking?” I said. “If those redcaps were still around—”
“They weren’t. No evil Aunt Candice, no monstrous redcaps. I don’t think Holly even has servants. Pity that. No wonder Arden was hanging around to keep her company.”
“What did she say to you?”
“Told me to piss off,” Hazel said. “I went for a look at the Winter gate.”
“And?” said Morgan.
“And her magic’s working. Ours isn’t. I don’t get it.”
“Mine works fine,” River said, entering the room behind her. “But my source isn’t tied to this house.”
No. It’s in your talisman. Which must be hidden close by, since he wasn’t carrying it. He’d clearly just showered, his blond hair damp and falling into his eyes, and he’d changed from his necromancer coat to a light shirt and trousers that looked faerie made. He’d effortlessly switched from necromancer mode back to faerie mode, and once again, I couldn’t help observing how easily he seemed to fit into both worlds.
“Neither is mine,” Hazel said. “It’s from the Court.” She touched the mark on her forehead, biting her lip. “If anything happened to Mum, it’d get stronger, not weaker, because I’d inherit the magic. The circlet is still clearly marked as hers.”
She’d been wearing Mum’s spare one for weeks, but even the heir’s magic had nothing on the Gatekeeper’s. Worry grew inside me. If Mum was losing her power in a similar way, did that mean she was more at risk in the Vale? We need to get her out. But to do that, we needed—
The window blew open and Arden flew in, a scroll clamped in his beak. He landed on Morgan’s head, who yelled in alarm, wildly snatching at the raven. Arden let out a caw of laughter, and took flight again.
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