“They sully you with torn clothing, but I restore your glory,” Scouvrel said proudly. “They try to take your pride, but I elevate you to the ranks of the Sidhe.”
“Wait.” I felt lightheaded suddenly. “You don’t plan to make me Fae, do you?”
I took the clothing from his outstretched hand, studying the back of his head.
“I would not ruin you by condemning you to my hell, Nightmare. Oh no, better that you torture me with your light. I do not wish to sully you in any way. This, I swear on my soul.”
“I’m not entirely sure you have a soul,” I said cruelly.
“See? We understand each other entirely, Bewitching Nightmare.”
“I’m not convinced of that,” I said dryly. “Truth or lie, those endearments of yours are nothing more than deception. You are trying to guide my head into a snare I do not see.”
His answer came in a whisper. “Truth.”
I shuddered.
His voice turned brisk. “Dress quickly, Nightmare. My master comes with the dark.”
“The Balance?” I asked.
“Did you forget that you sold me into servitude, my dearest Nightmare? I have not forgotten. I remember every night as I am forced to work his will and not my own. And how it pains me to serve my opposite, chaos serving order and watching as all becomes neat and arranged in the most horrifying codification.”
“I should apologize,” I said, guiltily.
“I would not accept,” Scouvrel said looking over his shoulder at me half-dressed but decent, his expression deeply offended. “I prefer cleverness over compassion. I prefer a wife with a mind as bright as a glow bug to one leaking all over me with her tears.”
He leaned in close to me, inhaling as if the scent of me fueled him somehow. Oh. I’d forgotten about how the Fae fed off my emotions.
“I plan to steal the human children from this realm,” I reminded him, making my expression fierce and certain.
“Good,” he said with a reckless smile, his eyes barely inches from mine. “But don’t expect my help. My will is tied to the Balance for a half a year more – thanks to you, you horrible slave trader. Which is why I should not tell you that the rest of the mortal children are kept in this very Court. That would be a terrible betrayal. And also why I shouldn’t tell you to go find your sister’s hideaway on the Hawkside Cliffs. She keeps her secret things there. And you will want to know the secret she’s keeping. But it was not I who told you that.”
He leaned in and kissed me so quickly that I barely had time to gasp – a hungry kiss. A dangerous one. It made my blood hot. His wink only made me more shocked.
“I owe you payment for that later,” he said breathlessly.
And then he was gone before I could respond. I finished dressing, buckling the scabbard of the sword over the tight trousers and shrugging on the short jacket. How did he always have women’s clothing lying around? And how did they always fit me? I should ask more questions. But when he was near me, it was hard to remember to ask.
The moment I was finished, he crept into the room like a shadow, holding his finger to his lips. He leaned in so close that his lips brushed my ear as he whispered. “Hide behind the tapestry until I leave, Nightmare. And do not take so long next time before you come to haunt me again. I will be feeling your breath on my neck and your icy hands around my own in every nightmare I have for many nights to come.”
Before I could reply, he shoved me behind the huge tapestry, and I heard his door open with a crash. It was all I could do not to rush out and stab the Balance with the rusty sword hanging at my hip.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I waited long moments until the door slammed shut again and I sucked in a careful breath, gathering up my cage and axe handle. I owed Heldra for getting these to me. Without them, I’d have no chance at all to save the rest of the mortal children.
That they were here in this Court was beyond lucky. But I was starting to wonder about that sword. It seemed to know precisely where you needed to be – and take you there.
I was already regretting not pushing Scouvrel to tell me exactly where the children had been. The man was like that waterfall, running hot one minute and cold the next. What should I conclude from his healing me one minute and admitting that he was planning to snare me the next? Or from him helping me to find the children but refusing to heal me without a bargain in place? He made my head spin.
I shook it violently. I had no time to speculate. I had limited time to find these children and rescue them before my sister invaded the mortal world. I had to hurry. The best way to find a thing was to look.
I crept out from behind the tapestry. There was no one in this bathing room. So far, so good. Sneaking over to the bright window, I looked out and gasped.
The window was cut into a towering chalk cliff wall looming over a tumultuous sea. The last rays of sunset painted the bay a bright pink. Since I was positioned at the very center of a horseshoe-shaped bay, I could see all around the cliff walls. Dozens – maybe even hundreds – of brightly colored cloth bags hung from the cliff walls, suspended by ropes of varying lengths. What in the world could those be?
One of the nearer ones kicked and a brief outline of a human body was suddenly apparent.
No.
I’d heard about these the last time I’d been to the Faewald. These were the Fae who had been punished by being hung in silk bags until they died.
I shuddered.
Whenever I thought I knew how horrible the Faewald could be, it surprised me again.
If I snuck out of this room right now and I was caught before I could use the sword, that could be me. Carefully, I drew it from its sheath. I needed to be ready to escape at a moment’s notice.
Here we go. I lifted the torch, swiping it through the air to ignite it. So far, so good.
I strode through the bathing area to the bedroom, ignoring the white feather bed and the sudden images that sprang to mind of a dark head resting on me as I healed, and crossed to the door, inching it open as I braced myself for the squeal of hinges.
No squeal. Well and good.
I slipped into the room beyond and gasped.
The room was enormous. Bigger than Skundton. Whatever tree, or trees, it was built under must have the most spectacular root system imaginable. Roots hung down like hair from the earthen ceiling so high above that my second sight couldn’t pierce all the way to the top. Large roots tangled down what I could only think of as cave walls and a spiraling ramp had been carved into the thick earth all around the sides, the roots carefully tied into clumps and clusters that served to hold the ramp in place and direct them to support rather than destroy the structure cut into the white chalk.
Doors opened all along the ramp – doors just like Scouvrel’s – and lanterns hung along the ceiling over the curving ramp. Though ceiling was the wrong word because when I looked across the vast space to the other side of the spiral I could see that the walkway spiraled up and up so that each layer of doors stood over the next walkway and layer, making the lanterns appear like a thousand fireflies.
In each of them, a small magical creature like a miniature dragon fluttered inside. So brightly they shone, that I could not look at them for more than a second. And each was its own strange hue – some only white, others blue or purple, aqua or yellow and still others black and yet somehow made of light. I shook my head. Just as the Faewald was full of horrors, it was also full of wonders. Between each door along the ramps were carved shelves and the shelves were so full of bound books that they did not just fill the shelves but had also been wedged on top of other books in any way possible so that one would almost have to fight to pull a single book from a shelf.
Knives hung everywhere: suspended from the ceiling on chains so that they dangled point-first over my head, driven into the walls between the books and along the frames of the doors, decorating the tops of the dragon-lanterns, forming the uprights of the railing that rimmed the spiral ramp and tangled in the roo
ts of the trees
I examined the nearest shelf and my eyes fell on a large black-bound book. I drew it out and opened it and bright blue light flooded my gaze. Surprised, I slammed it shut.
“Studying our sins?” an amused voice asked.
I spun, gasping. I’d been seen.
The walkways were busy. Fae strolled together, lost in conversation or sat on benches along the banister lining the ramp, reading books or sipping from steaming hot cups of tea. Golems shuffled eerily between them carrying books back to the shelves or silver trays of tea.
They seemed to part for my questioner, but none of them looked at him. None of them looked at me.
“How can you see me?” I asked, shocked.
He had been the first Fae I’d ever seen and I would be lying if I said I didn’t hate him.
Cavariel smiled that smile I’d found so heart-poundingly gorgeous the first time I’d seen it. It made me feel ill now. He seemed to flex something and his dragonfly wings shot out of his back to flitter in the hanging lights.
“I have a little trick up my sleeve, too,” he said with a smirk, pushing up the sleeve of his doublet to show me a silver bracer studded with cabochon rubies. “It makes me invisible. And apparently, it shows me other invisible people. How fitting. After all, you were always the invisible sister, weren’t you? Or at least, that’s what Hulanna always said.”
I felt the blood draining from my cheeks.
“What are you going to do?” I asked him.
“The Court of Knives is a good place to find penitence. I’m sure the Lord of Silk will help you do that if you ask.”
It was a threat. And I did not care for it.
“I’d rather not,” I returned tightly.
He shrugged. “Then maybe all I want to do is talk.”
“I doubt that,” I said. “As mired as you are in games of power, you must want more than that.”
He looked around carefully, but no one was paying us any attention. Not with Fae everywhere plotting and whispering just like we were. He leaned closer.
“And here I was led to believe that mortals cared very much for their young,” he whispered and the feel of his breath on my ear made me gag.
And yet.
“You know where mortal children are in this place?” I whispered back.
His smile twisted my guts, “Bargain with me and I’ll show you where they are. One conversation for my guidance. One chance to get to know each other. We’re family after all.”
“Are we?” I countered. “Has my sister finalized your marriage?”
“Years ago,” he drawled. “And what a lovely time we’ve had, and yet I find I grow tired of her ruthless ambition and single-minded focus.”
“Bring me to the children, immediately, without revealing me to anyone else, or harming or killing them when we arrive, or harming or killing me along the way and I will talk with you along the way,” I offered.
“It is agreed,” he whispered, and his smile had a note of insanity to it and of anticipation that made me sorry that I’d offered at all. “Follow me.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
I followed Cavariel through the spiral down, down, down past more Fae than I’d ever seen before. More antlers and bright eyes, more dark sneers and mischievous grimaces. We passed a white tiger in a cage who shot a paw out through the bars and tried to snatch me up. I batted his paw away with the rusty sword.
“Mousey, mousey,” Cavariel said dryly. “So many mouseys under the hill.”
“Mouseys?” I asked, letting my tone grow equally dry.
“Who but a mouse would hide in a hill? Hide under the Lord of Silk, hoarding up crumbs, when all the rest of the Faewald goes to war?”
“Who?” I asked.
“That’s the riddle,” he said gleefully. He wasn’t what I expected. He stole a cup of wine from a table beside someone’s elbow and tossed it back, reaching into his doublet to pull out a little round silver compact and from it to pull a pinch of inky blue dust and snuff it up his nose.
I tried to ignore his strange behavior. How long had it taken my sister to accommodate to these strange ways? Maybe she had liked them from the start.
I tried to ignore the other spectacles as we worked our way to the belly of the cave – the mermaids carried in saltwater filled clam shells almost as wide as the spiral ramp, borne on the backs of golems. Flightless birds ridden by winged Fae which bugled like elk. Unicorns prancing with feet high as if dancing.
I shivered at the sight of those – I knew their secret. But I tried to ignore them all to puzzle out Cavariel’s riddle. Did he mean that those gathered here were the ones who didn’t want to go to war with the Court of Mortals and that the Lord of Silk ruled over them?
“Why does the Lord of Silk rule the Court of Knives?” I whispered when only golems were nearby.
“Swish swish, slash slash, he cut the others’ throats. A bag of silk, a long steep fall, they fled this life – one and all!”
Well, that was interesting.
“And everyone who isn’t here is going to war?” I prompted.
“Well I am here, and I am most certainly going to war. Outside the lions roar – their battle is to come. Inside the mousey’s hide. They do not like the fun.”
I nodded. So, this was everyone who wasn’t planning to fight my people. There were a lot of Fae here – but given the numbers Scouvrel had revealed before, this was maybe one in ten of their population. I felt cold sweat breaking out over my body. The rest were going to overrun Skundton like a kicked antheap.
And I didn’t know anymore if that was a bad thing or a good thing.
Obviously, it’s a bad thing, Allie. You don’t want Fae and their cruelty spilling over into the mortal world.
But how was that different than Olen and Sir Eckelmeyer? It wasn’t.
Even so, it was up to mortals to clean up mortal messes. Being invaded by the Fae as a solution was like hiring a lion to guard your sheep from wolves. All well and good while he hunted the wolves, but the moment they were gone, he’d turn and tear the sheep to pieces.
“Tell me, mortal sister,” Cavariel asked, “Has your husband confessed his crimes to you yet? Has he told you he planted the idea of freedom in the ear of the Lord of Silk and that he then slew his predecessor and slaughtered half his court, tying those who objected in bags of silk and hanging them off the cliffs?”
“He did not,” I said coolly. Had Scouvrel really been behind that?
“Did he tell you that it was he who first came to me with the Sooth’s words and that together over a pinch of Inkdeath, we hatched the plan to break through to the mortal world and lure a mortal back? That your sister would never have come to this place but for him? That I would have remained in my Court of Cups, enjoying wine and feasting and displays of art instead of marrying a bloodthirsty mortal with conquest in her eyes?”
“Don’t pin this coming war entirely on my sister,” I said smoothly. “You lied to her. You seduced her. You stole her from us.”
“And didn’t I do a wonderful job of it?” he purred. “When I gave her The Glory I made her twice the terror of any other to ever walk our Courts. I gained a reputation that day. And I plan to build on that reputation.”
He spun me against the wall so suddenly that I forgot to gasp. He pressed his body to mine and whispered in my ear. I shuddered, pushing against him, but he was too strong to hold back.
“I could offer you more power than she has, mousey. Break your marriage bond to the Knave. It’s not yet completed. Forsake him and cling to me and I shall marry you, too, and make you greater than your sister.”
“You don’t even like me,” I growled. “You picked my sister for her fair face and rejected me for my plain one.”
He laughed. “And wasn’t I the fool. It turned out, I needed you both. Come, I will offer you a bargain that will make your soul weep with gratitude.”
“You lie,” I said evenly, slipping from under his arm.
“I
t would be to your benefit to listen to me, Alastra Hunter.” His voice was silk, his eyes like molten honey. “Your sister seeks your death. Your husband the sacrifice of your soul. Only I still want to save you.”
“I’d be a fool to trust you,” I said, keeping a careful distance from him now that I was free.
He stopped in front of an ornate door.
“You’d be a fool to trust anyone else,” he argued. “Think on it, mousey. Think how I could make you rise.”
He winked and opened the door.
And as soon as he did, I forgot all about my sister and my husband because rising from a sea of cots, twenty children of various ages looked up at me with sleepy eyes.
I yanked the door shut behind us, my heart suddenly racing. I’d found them – really found them. These must be all the children not with my sister and I could get them free.
“You look like Goodie Hunter,” a young voice said, and I gasped as little Petyr stood up from his nest of blankets. I’d found him.
“Your mamma sent me to get you,” I said to him and then I spun and fixed Cavariel with a steely gaze. “Bargain with me again, Lord of Cups”
“I don’t think so. Our bargain is now complete.”
He opened the door, quick as thought, slamming it behind him. I grabbed the handle, but somehow he’d locked or barred it. Behind me, one of the children began to cry.
I spun around. “Shhh, no tears, little ones. All is not lost.”
I lifted my cage and thought of them as small and then, while they were still calling out in alarm, I drew the sword and cut through the air.
“It will be okay little ones, I told them as a tear formed in the air, and I grabbed the edge and tore it, opening enough space to slip through.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nervous energy filled me as I stepped from the tear into the mortal world again. My vision blurred as I went back to the spirit world here, only the torch I held helping with my blurring, dark vision. I held it up a little higher.
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