Late Eclipses

by Seanan McGuire

  One of the climbing roses that crawled up the side of the hall had pulled loose from its trellis and was slapping against the rail. I took a deep breath, counted to ten, and started walking again. Jumpy? Me? Damn right. I spent fourteen years wearing fins the last time I got near Oleander de Merelands. That’s not the sort of thing you forget. That’s the sort of thing that—

  I stopped in my tracks. That’s the sort of thing that should make you too smart to go wandering around alone, in the dark, with no real guarantee of backup.

  “What the hell am I doing?” I muttered.

  The light from the ballroom didn’t quite extend to the rail surrounding the terrace. The figure standing there was almost obscured by the shadows, right up until she turned to face me. For a single heart-stopping moment, it looked like Oleander: long dark hair, slim hands, and a smile full of poison. I snapped into a fighting stance, all hesitation forgotten . . . and the woman laughed, stepping forward.

  The light shifted, revealing her smile to be sweet, if weary, and her hair to be a deep, true brown. “Am I that fearsome, or did Sylvester send you to put me out of my misery after dealing with those meddlesome ‘guests’ from Roan Rathad?” asked Luna. “I’ve dodged them for now, thank Titania.”

  “Luna?” I dropped my hands away from my knives, reeling at the enormity of my own mistake. If I hadn’t realized who she was before I drew . . . “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

  “That was my intent, given the delegation I was just meeting with. Have you seen them? Please tell me they didn’t follow you.”

  “Not that I noticed,” I said, still trying to swallow my dismay. My conviction of Oleander’s presence was fading, replaced by confusion and a pounding headache. “Has anyone passed you in the last few minutes?”

  “No, no one.” She turned to pluck a goblet from the rail behind her before flashing me a concerned look. “There were people here when I first came out, but they’ve gone back inside. October, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I’m starting to think I have.” My headache was getting worse. Where the hell were the guards? Connor was the husband of the presumptive Ducal heir. Even if they thought he was being crazy, they should have humored him and come looking for me.

  “What are you talking about?” Luna’s question dragged my attention back to her. She was frowning, her silver-furred tails beginning to twitch. She wasn’t born Kitsune, but she’d picked up a lot of the body language after wearing a Kitsune skin for over a hundred years. I never would have suspected her of being something else if I hadn’t met her parents.

  “I thought I was following someone,” I said lamely.

  “And this phantom would be . . . ?”

  There was no point in lying. If nothing else, I’d have to explain when the guards showed up—if the guards showed up. “Oleander de Merelands.”

  Luna’s eyes widened in justified dismay. “That’s impossible. She’d never . . . she’d never dare!”

  Sixteen years ago, Luna and Rayseline Torquill vanished into thin air. Our only leads pointed to Sylvester’s brother; that was why Sylvester sent me to find him. I learned a lot of things from that little errand, including what it’s like to be a fish . . . but I didn’t find the missing Torquills. They beat me home by almost three years, and I still don’t know how. Sylvester normally tells me everything. He won’t tell me that. All I knew for sure was that they made it home before I did, and that Raysel came home broken.

  “It was her,” I said, trying to sound confident. Oak and ash, could I be wrong? Did I want to be right?

  “It’s not possible. The roses would tell me.” Luna meant that literally. Her mother was the Dryad Firstborn, and Luna was essentially a Dryad of roses before she hid herself inside a Kitsune skin.

  “I just—”

  “We all make mistakes.” Luna nodded like she was trying to convince herself. “This must have been one of them. You’ve had a hard few days.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, uneasily. “I was meaning to find you anyway.”

  She glanced away. “I thought you might. Sylvester sent a messenger to the Tea Gardens to ask if there was anything we could do to help, but we haven’t heard back.”

  “Lily’s subjects are a little distracted right now,” I said. That was the understatement of the night. “Have you ever heard of anything like this? I mean, Undine aren’t supposed to get sick, are they?”

  “No. They’re not.” She took an abrupt gulp from her goblet and grimaced like she’d tasted something bitter. “Maeve’s teeth, I have no idea what convinced our steward to stock this vintage . . . Undine are born of water, they live by water, and they don’t get sick. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “Right.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. Medicine gets a lot more complicated when half the people involved aren’t technically “alive” by any normal standard of measurement. “Would your mom know anything?”

  “No, October.” Luna actually sounded amused. “Her children are plants. We drink water, we’re not made of water.”

  I lowered my hand. “I had to ask.”

  “I know. I’ll send word to Mother, see if she might have encountered this sometime in the past. It’s a long shot, but since we can’t ask my grandmother . . . ”

  “Yeah.” I laughed sourly. “There’s a quest for some other idiot: looking for Maeve so they can get medical details for all her descendants.” Our King and Queens have been missing for hundreds of years. Someone’s eventually going to have to go and find them. Personally, I have other problems to deal with.

  “I suppose that’s true,” Luna agreed, rubbing her forehead. “It’s a very warm night. The summers were never this warm when I was younger.”

  “If you say so,” I said. California has a reputation for strange weather patterns, but the Summerlands are in a league of their own. I’ve seen snowstorms in July and heat waves in December. “I’m going to be at the Tea Gardens for a while, and then . . . well, I don’t know where I’ll be after that. Check with May. If she doesn’t know where to find me, check with—check with Tybalt. He usually seems to know where I am.”

  Luna’s smile was brief and knowing. “Yes, he does go out of his way to keep tabs on you, doesn’t he? One might think he cared.”

  I groaned. “Don’t you start, too.”

  “You should be flattered. He’s a sweet man, in his way.” She paused before adding, “My daughter’s mad, you know.”

  I stared at her.

  Unheeding, Luna continued, “People think I don’t see it because I’m mad, too, in a quieter way, but madness isn’t blindness. I lived with my father. I know what she is. I can’t blame her. I still can’t help feeling she had as much choice in her madness as I had in mine, and chose the wrong path.”

  “Luna, what are you—”

  “I was afraid for her. That’s why we found her a husband. Saltmist was begging for a treaty, what with that madwoman Riordan sniffing at the borders of Roan Rathad and them so restricted from intervention, and Raysel needed an anchor.” Her eyes were far away; she wasn’t talking to me anymore. “We were trying to save her the way my parents never saved me.”

  “Luna?” I put a hand on her shoulder, jerking it away almost immediately. “You’re burning up!”

  “I don’t feel well.” She wiped her forehead again, giving me a pleading look. “Can you tell Sylvester to turn the summer down?”

  “You’re shaking.” I caught her hand. Her fingers were so hot that they felt like they might blister my skin. “Come on. We need to go inside.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, trying to tug away. “It’s just warm.”

  “You have a fever. That’s not fine.” Purebloods almost never get sick. When they do, it’s either a laughable thing, over in a matter of hours, or serious enough to be incredibly scary. Luna’s parents were Firstborn, making her blood purer than most. If she was sick, it wasn’t going to be the easy kind of illness.

  “It�
��s not?” she asked. The color was draining from her cheeks, leaving her pale—too pale. Whatever was happening to her couldn’t be entirely natural.

  “No. Come on, now. We need to find Sylvester.”

  “If you say so,” she said, and reeled, knocking her goblet to the terrace as she slumped toward me. The heat from her skin was intense. “Is there time for me to faint?”

  I slid an arm around her, propping her up. She turned wide, haunted eyes toward me. Threads of pink and yellow were lacing through her irises, eroding their familiar brown. “Oh, oak and ash,” I whispered.

  “Has my father heard us? Is he coming?”

  “Luna—” Luna couldn’t escape her father in the shape she was born in, and so she stole the skin of a dying Kitsune and fled to the Summerlands. I’d seen the colors bleed into her eyes twice, and both times she was under such stress that she almost reverted back to her original form.

  “I forgot my candle,” she said, in a voice as thin and strained as wind through the trees. Then she went limp, eyes closing. I staggered, trying not to drop what was suddenly a dead weight.

  “Luna?” There was no reply. I lowered her to the terrace, fumbling for a pulse. “No. No, not you, too. Don’t die. Please don’t die.” I slid her head into my lap in the vague hope that it might help her breathe, and looked frantically up and down the terrace. There was no one in either direction.

  Taking a deep breath, I tilted back my head and screamed for help.

  TEN

  I’D BEEN SHOUTING FOR A GOOD FIVE MINUTES when a tipsy Hind staggered out of the ballroom. She had a champagne flute dangling precariously from one hand, and was already starting to scold me for making too much noise when she realized what was happening in front of her. Her cloven hooves clattered as she staggered to a stop.

  The sound barely registered; it was her champagne flute shattering against the terrace floor that snapped me out of my panic, like the breaking glass somehow flipped a switch inside my brain. I sat up straight, ordering, “Go inside and send the first person you can find wearing the Duke’s livery to me,” in my best “I am a Knight of this Duchy, do not fuck with me” tone.

  I turned my attention back to Luna as the Hind turned and fled. She was still breathing, but her fever seemed to be getting worse, and that couldn’t possibly be good. I reached for her goblet, intending to use whatever was left of its contents to cool her down, and paused.

  Purebloods almost never get sick. Oleander’s weapon of choice was poison. The two weren’t necessarily connected, but did I really want to take that chance?

  I was staring at the goblet like I expected it to turn into a snake and bite me when a wonderfully familiar voice demanded, “Tree and thorn, October, what in the name of Oberon’s honor is going on out here!”

  There’s just one man in Shadowed Hills—maybe just one man in all of Faerie—who can say things like “in the name of Oberon’s honor” and sound like he believes what he’s saying. Not even Luna’s condition was enough to quash my relief as I twisted around to face him. “Etienne. Root and branch, I’m glad you’re here.”

  Etienne stopped and stared.

  I had to admit that the scene was strange; not even the weird training exercises he put me through when I was new to my knighthood approached finding me on the ground in a ball gown with an unconscious Duchess in my lap. Rendering Etienne speechless has been a goal of mine for years, and under any other circumstances, I might have savored the moment. Sadly, this was neither the time nor the place to enjoy my little sideways victory.

  “Luna has a fever. She won’t wake up.” I was trying to be as clear and concise as possible. Maybe that way, I wouldn’t start crying. “We need to get her inside.”

  “Sweet Maeve,” he breathed. “What happened?”

  “Not yet. Explanation time comes after getting-Luna-inside time. Please.” I couldn’t keep my voice from cracking on the final word.

  That was enough to galvanize him into action. “Stay where you are,” he snapped, before wheeling to run back into the ballroom.

  I stayed where I was.

  I didn’t have to wait long; it seemed like only seconds before he returned with three people in tow. I knew two of them—Tavis, a Bridge Troll who entered Sylvester’s service about six months after I did, and Grianne, a thinfaced Candela who rarely spoke without prompting. The third was unfamiliar: a tall, thin man with grayish skin and moon-white eyes. I took note of them and dismissed them in the same breath, turning back to Etienne.

  “We need to—”

  “I know what we need,” he said, cutting me off. “Tavis, take her.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tavis rumbled. All Bridge Trolls are big, but Tavis is a veritable mountain, nearly ten feet tall. His shoulders don’t fit through most human doorframes. He shambled toward me, offering a genial, worried nod as he lifted Luna from my lap. “Evenin’, Toby.”

  “Hey, Tavis.” I caught his elbow as he straightened, letting him lift me to my feet. I stepped back and pulled my silver knife in the same motion.

  Etienne raised an eyebrow. Grianne frowned. Tavis didn’t even blink. It was the one I didn’t know who stiffened and started forward, stopping when Etienne placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “Peace, Garm. I’m sure Sir Daye wouldn’t have called for help if she merely wanted witnesses to assault.”

  “Got that right.” I bent, starting to hack off my skirts just above the knee. A moment’s work left me with an armload of velvet and a “dress” that was more like a tunic with delusions of grandeur.

  “Then what is she doing?” demanded Garm.

  “Hopefully? Being paranoid.” I knelt to wrap my severed skirt around Luna’s goblet before standing again. “Where are we taking her?”

  “Jin is meeting us at the Ducal chambers.” Etienne gave the bundle in my hands a sidelong look. “Will you accompany us? I’m certain the Duke will have questions.”

  I nodded. “Does he know?”

  “My Dancers are retrieving him,” said Grianne. Her voice was soft as wind rattling through tree branches, and just about as human.

  Each Candela is accompanied by two or more balls of self-aware light called Merry Dancers. They can be sent on simple errands—like fetching a Duke—but if someone extinguishes a Candela’s Dancers, the Candela dies. Not exactly what I’d call a fair trade for never needing to call a page.

  At least Grianne’s Dancers meant we didn’t need to wait around. We gave the area one last glance before starting down the terrace, Luna in Tavis’ arms, the possibly poisoned goblet in mine.

  Etienne dropped back to walk next to me as we climbed a narrow stairway to the battlements, where we could cut across to the Ducal quarters. Garm stuck to him like a second shadow. I stayed quiet, waiting for one of them to start the conversation. My throat hurt, my head hurt, and I wasn’t in the mood for small talk.

  Fortunately, Etienne’s never been in the mood for small talk. “I need your report, Sir Daye. What happened?”

  “One of two things,” I said. “Either the Duchess has come down with a sudden cold, or she’s been poisoned. I’m voting the latter, in case you wondered. Why the hell didn’t you come sooner? I told Connor to call the guards.”

  Etienne eyed me. “No one called for the guards. The first I heard of the situation was when I was summoned to the terrace.”

  My throat went tight. “Etienne, has anyone seen Connor?”

  “Not in some time.” He paused, eyes widening as he caught my meaning. “Grianne, has the Duke been summoned?”

  Grianne cocked her head, like she was listening to something the rest of us couldn’t hear. Then she nodded. “Yes, sir. He plans to meet us at the Ducal chambers.”

  “Good. I have a new task for you.”

  “Sir?”

  “Master O’Dell is missing. Find him.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Grianne, and bowed before turning and flinging herself off the edge of the walkway. There was a flare of greenish-white light, and she was
gone.

  “Never get used to that,” muttered Tavis.

  “Try hanging out with the Cait Sidhe,” I said. “They do something similar, but they skip the fireworks and just sort of show up.”

  Tavis grimaced. “Charming.”

  “Yeah.” I looked to Etienne. “I told Connor to call the guards because I thought we had an intruder. Now that Luna’s sick, I’m sure of it.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Who?”

  “Oleander. She’s back.”

  Silence greeted my announcement, finally broken when Tavis asked, “Can someone get the door? My hands are full.”

  “I have it,” said Garm, pushing forward in an obvious hurry to put some distance between us. He opened the door in the battlement wall, holding it open for Tavis and Luna to pass through. Etienne nodded for him to follow. Lips drawn into a disapproving line, Garm went.

  I took a deep breath, turned to face Etienne, and waited.

  “Support your claim, Daye.”

  “I smelled her magic in the ballroom.”

  “While no one else caught any trace of her?”

  “You know that doesn’t matter. I’ve always had a good nose for spells.” Mother used to say having a nose for spells was connected to having a nose for blood.

  “Fair.” Etienne continued to study me, eyes grave. “October . . . ”

  I didn’t want to hear what he had to say until I’d seen Sylvester. “Let’s go catch up with the others,” I said briskly, and stepped through the tower door. Reality did another dip-and-weave as I crossed the threshold, this time disorienting enough that I had to catch myself against the wall and duck my head, waiting to see if I was going to vomit. My stomach seemed determined to join my head in its rebellion against the tyranny of not being in pain. Gritting my teeth, I forced the nausea down one sickening inch at a time.

  “October?” asked Etienne, from beside me.

  “It’s not normally that bad,” I managed. Understatement of the night. Travel through the knowes hasn’t been that bad for me since I was a kid. “Where are we?”

  “We’re here,” Etienne replied.