Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson: Hopcross Jilly

by Patricia Briggs

  Samuel went to his knees, too, his eyes white and wild.

  “Not here,” I told him, and it was my turn to talk. “You cannot change here, Samuel. You have to get her, Phin, and the kids out of here. You have to—she’s not going to be in any shape to do anything. Hold on.”

  She wasn’t going to be able to free me: first her father, then werewolf, and I could take a pretty good guess at what the final shape would be because the fairy queen had no intention of letting me go.

  She who had been Daphne thought I was the proper owner of the Silver Borne. She thought that when she released Gabriel, our bargain about my safety would be over. Evidently, I wasn’t human enough to benefit from the guesting laws that prevented a fairy queen from killing the humans who came into her realm. She could kill me and get the book.

  She’d have been right had it not been for one thing. I didn’t own the Silver Borne; Phin did. When she killed me, all she’d get was a boatful of trouble—and I’d do my best to convince her of that once the others were free. All I’d have to do would be hold out until Adam came to get me.

  Of course, if Ariana managed to hold on to the last shape the fae took, it would make my life a lot easier.

  For three minutes, Ariana held on to the werewolf—and then it changed. The hound looked a little like a giant beagle: white with brown spots, rounded ears that hung on either side of its face, but there was no sign of the friendly expression that most beagles live and die with.

  Ariana looked at the hound she held, her arms wrapped around its throat and her legs tucked almost under its body. For a moment, nothing happened and, despite myself, I felt a great leap of hope. I didn’t want to be left alone with the fairy queen, who wanted to kill me.

  Then Ariana rolled away from the hound, who must have looked like one of the hounds her father had tortured her with, and curled into a fetal position, her mouth open and screaming, but the sounds locked in by terror. Samuel picked her up and crooned to her. Not saying anything, just giving her his voice. He hadn’t forgotten who the enemy was, though. His eyes were on the fairy queen.

  “Five,” said the fairy queen, sounding moderately grumpy. “I thought I might get to keep you, werewolf, too, but she was stronger than I thought.”

  Samuel snarled at her.

  I noticed that Zee’s rock, lying on the ground under the belly of the hound, who was focused on Ariana, was flickering.

  “Samuel,” I told him urgently. “Zee will be waiting. Get the kids and Phin, too—” Especially Phin. Any fae willing to use a black witch and allow her to torture another being was not someone I wanted to give more power to. We needed to get Phin out of here and safe so the Silver Borne was out of her reach. “Take them and get out of here.”

  “Can’t you help me up?” Phin asked Gabriel. He knew what we needed.

  There was a momentary pause, but when the queen didn’t interfere with Phin’s request, Gabriel helped him to his feet.

  “You,” said the queen, pointing to the fae nearest to her. “You take them to Outside and let them leave. You’ll have to carry the human man.” She looked at Jesse, then glanced at Gabriel. “Go, children, and when you are outside my Elphame, be thou as thou wert.”

  The fae she’d pointed to bowed deeply and picked Phin up with the same ease that Ariana had displayed. Not all fae are so strong. Silently, Jesse and Gabriel followed him when he started out the door.

  Samuel stopped and kissed my cheek, still holding Ariana, who was shivering in terror. “Stay alive,” he told me.

  “Planning on it,” I said. I gave Ariana, who was very deep into a panic attack, a wary look. I remembered her concern when she’d returned to herself last time, and so I added, “You stay alive, too. Now get out while the getting is good.”

  “Semper Fi,” he said, glancing down at Zee’s rock. Then he hurried after the others.

  So far as I knew, Samuel had never been a Marine. But he’d known I’d catch the reference. The Marines never leave a man behind. He’d be back, and so would Adam. All I had to do was survive.

  We all waited until the fae who had escorted them out returned. He bowed to the queen, and said, “They are Outside, safe and alive, my queen.”

  I took a deep breath, and a few seconds later Zee’s stone was just another gray rock among the roots in the floor of the cave. They’d made it with almost two minutes to spare by my rough count—though probably Zee had held the opening until he saw them.

  “My bargain is done,” the queen told me.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “You will exchange the book for your life.”

  “Nope.” I shook my head. “I’ve considered it—and decided that it is not going to happen.”

  There were no humans to protect anymore. Just me. Worry over what the witch might do if I freed her made me hesitate before I pulled my gun—and it was one hesitation too many. I reached under my T-shirt, and two of the queen’s people grabbed my arms. The gun fell on the ground, and the fairy queen kicked it aside—well out of the witch’s reach.

  “You misunderstand,” she told me. “I will take your life, and you will give me the book with your death.”

  “I thought I had to own the book before that worked,” I said in a puzzled voice.

  The fairy queen stared at me. “Did you give the book to someone before you came down here?”

  “Not the way you mean it,” I answered.

  “How would you mean it?” she said softly.

  “Why would I answer that?” I asked. The fairy queen gave a sharp nod, and the witch reached out and touched me.

  I CAME BACK TO MYSELF LYING ON THE BED WHERE Phin had been. At least it smelled like Phin, but the room was made of roots and dirt rather than marble. I was confused for a moment, but then I woke more fully and realized that I’d never seen it without the glamour—just smelled it.

  My whole body hurt, though I had no additional bruises. I’d held out as long as I could, to give Samuel and Adam time to make everyone safe. I didn’t know if it was long enough. I’d expected to be dead when it was over. But I could work with unexpected results—even if it involved using a chamber pot. That had to be what the white porcelain vessel under the other bed was. The fairy queen had a kitchen with fridges and everything and didn’t have a bathroom? I considered it a minute and decided that maybe she just didn’t have a bathroom for prisoners.

  After a very long time that was probably no more than an hour after I woke up, the door opened, and the queen walked in with two female attendants, and two male.

  The first man was the fae who had seen Samuel and the rest out. He was tall, taller than Samuel, with seafoam eyes. For the first time, I realized he was the water fae who’d broken into the bookstore. The second man was short by human standards but not oddly so. His skin was green and rippled like the waves of an ocean at sea. Like the fairy queen, he had wings on his back, though his were grayish and leathery and less insectlike.

  One of the women was carrying a chair. She was nearly human in appearance except that her eyes were orange and her skin pale, pale blue. The second woman was covered, head to toe, with sleek brown hair about two inches long, and her arms were a third again as long as they should have been. She was carrying a narrow silver ring just big enough to fit around my neck.

  At the sight of the silver ring, I tried to run. The tall man caught me and sat me in the chair while the woman who’d carried it in tied me into it: wrists, elbows, and ankles.

  Then they put the silver collar around my neck.

  Once she has them in thrall, only she can release them.

  “It took me too long to find your secrets, Mercedes,” she said. “Phin was the owner, but Ariana has him safely guarded in the reservation, where none of mine can get him. You gave it to your friend, but he has given it over to the werewolves, and we cannot go there either.”

  How long had I been out, and what had I told her? I didn’t remember all of it, and that worried me.

  The fairy queen was
wearing a different dress than she had been. This one was blue and gold. Did that mean it was a different day? Or just that she’d gotten things on her dress and had to change?

  “They have left me only vengeance for now.” Her eyes gave that weird flutter. “Eventually, they will not guard the Silver Borne as diligently, and I will have it. Until then, I’ll take what I can get. I hope you enjoy your victory.

  “Mercedes Athena Thompson,” she said, putting a hand on my forehead. Look at me.

  The “Look at me” part was inside my head. It reminded me of the way Mary Jo’s voice had entered my head in the bowling alley. Maybe without that experience, the queen’s voice wouldn’t have seemed so clearly foreign.

  You want to serve me. Nothing else matters.

  Adam mattered.

  If I didn’t make it out of here alive, he’d think it was his fault. That if he’d been in better shape, I’d have brought him with me, and he’d have saved the day. He’d take responsibility for the world if someone (like me) wasn’t around to shake him up. So I had to survive—because Adam mattered to me.

  The fairy queen had continued to talk in my head, but I wasn’t paying attention to what she said.

  “Whom do you serve?” she asked aloud, pulling her hand away from my head. Not as though she were interested in the answer.

  “ ‘Choose this day whom you will serve,’ ” I murmured. “ ‘But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’ ” It seemed appropriate to quote Joshua at her.

  “What?” she asked, startled.

  “What were you expecting me to answer?” I asked, feeling a little let down. Some of the very old fae react poorly to scripture, but this one didn’t seem to mind—not the scriptures anyway.

  “Bring her to the hall,” she said, her eyelashes beating her cheekbones with the force of her temper.

  The men picked me up, chair and all, and hauled me back to the hall. I had only vague memories of what had happened to me there at the hands of the witch—my mother once told me that childbirth was like that. All that pain, then nothing. But if my mind had blocked out the worst of it, my body seemed to make up for it. As we got closer and closer, my stomach clenched, and I broke out in a sweat. By the time we made it into the hall, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the men carrying me could smell my fear.

  They brought me right up to the throne before setting me down.

  “What did you do?” the queen hissed at the witch, who shrank back from her. “What did you do that she resists me?”

  “Nothing, my queen,” the witch said. “Nothing that would allow her to resist you. She is only half- human. Perhaps that is the problem.”

  The queen released her and stormed back to me. She took a silver knife out of her belt and cut my arm right over the bite Samuel had given me. The bite marks were still fresh- looking, so I hadn’t lost a lot of time.

  She rubbed her fingers in my blood and put them in her mouth. Then she cut herself and dribbled three drops into the open wound on my arm.

  She was going to use old magic to bind us together. This was the stuff the wolves got out to make someone pack.

  I had a sudden panicky thought. If she got me, could she get to the pack through me? Zee had been worried about her enthralling the wolves.

  “My blood to yours,” she said, and it was too late to do anything about what she was doing. “My silver, my magic, our blood makes you mine.” Because it was done.

  A fog rolled over my head.

  I struggled and struggled, but there was nothing to struggle against; it was only fog that seemed to cover everything and muffle my thoughts.

  15

  AFTER STRUGGLING AND STRUGGLING, I FOUND MY- self alone, standing on a great barren field of snow. The cold was so great that it froze my nose when I breathed in, but, although I was naked, I wasn’t uncomfortable.

  “Mercedes,” Bran’s voice was breathless. “Here you are! Finally.”

  I turned all around and couldn’t see him.

  “Mercedes,” he told me, “I can talk to you because you are part of Adam’s pack and his pack is mine, too. But you need to listen because I can’t hear you. All I can do is show you what I think you need.”

  “All right,” I told him. It felt lonely knowing he couldn’t hear me. Lonely because it wasn’t Adam who’d found me there in the snow. I shivered though I still wasn’t feeling the cold.

  “The biggest weapon in the arsenal of a fairy queen is enthrallment. As a member of a pack, you should be all but immune to that. But yours is a special case, and I am told that no one thought to teach you how the pack magic should work for you. Apparently my son and Adam, who should know better, assumed that it would all be instinctive because that’s how it works for a wolf. When Adam found that it was not the case, he chose to wait so he could find out who had been messing with you—instead of making you safe.”

  “There were complications,” I told him sharply. I didn’t like to hear him being critical of Adam. I’d known what he was doing and approved of the way his mind worked.

  A pause followed, and I had the distinct impression of surprise.

  “I’m sorry for offending you,” he said slowly. “That I know you are offended is . . . interesting.” I got the impression of a shrug, and he continued with his message. “You should know that thrall magic is not so different from the pack bonds, Mercedes. The pack bonds are not built to subdue individuality to the Alpha or enforce behavior of any kind. A pack needs all its differences, and we find strength in that: a lot more strength than one stupid fairy queen who is stealing magic and using a witch. You understand me?” His fury shook my whole being, he was so angry.

  He wasn’t angry with me, though, so it wasn’t my concern.

  “I understand,” I told him, even though he couldn’t hear me. Or mostly couldn’t hear me.

  “I’m going to show you something,” he said. And suddenly in the white snow there was a silver garland. “This is one of your pack bonds,” he told me. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him walking beside me as we followed the garland. We stopped by the end, and there was a rock tied . . . enveloped in a soft cage of silver. The rock glowed a warm yellow that was very welcome in this cold place.

  “Christmas garlands and a rock?” he said, a smile in his voice. “Why not an ornament?”

  “Wolves aren’t fragile,” I told him. “And they’re . . . stubborn and hard to move.”

  “I guess that imagery works as well as anything,” he allowed. “Do you know who this is? Can you feel how worried she is for you?”

  “Mary Jo,” I said. And once he’d pointed it out to me, I could feel it, too. Could feel that she was looking for me, running on four feet to use her nose to its best advantage. She wasn’t hot on the trail—and I had the impression of miles traveled and miles to go stretching out both ways in weary infinity.

  “It is not usually so clear,” Bran said, pulling me out of Mary Jo. “Partially it is because I am with you—and I am the Marrok. Another part is that the fairy has locked you into your own head—I can tell that by the quality of my contact with you. That she has done this is an unforgivable offense”—once more I felt him try to contain his anger—“but that will give you strength here you would not otherwise have had.” He paused. “The connection between you and me is stronger than it should be, too. I’m not getting words back, but there is something . . . No use getting distracted with the why of that now. We have other tasks.”

  He took me to another silver garland and had me tell him whom it belonged to. After the third, I could find the strands myself without his guidance. The fourth was Paul’s. He was running with Mary Jo—and just as anxious to find me. He still didn’t like Warren, though. I could see that his garland and Mary Jo’s were intertwined and connected to all the other garlands, too. One by one we walked by the rocks that were the wolves in the pack.

  Bran held me at Darryl’s, when I would have hurried on because I wanted to find Adam.

  “No,�
� he said. “I want you to look here for a bit. Can you find Darryl’s connection to Auriele? It’s different from the pack bonds.”

  I looked and looked. I found Auriele’s rock nearby, but I couldn’t see anything. Finally, in desperation, I picked up Darryl’s rock and saw that it moved Auriele’s, too—as if they were tied together . . . and then I couldn’t understand how I’d missed the blazing gold rope between them, it was so obvious. Maybe I’d been looking too hard for a silver garland and instead their bond was very different—softer, stronger, and deeper. Unlike the pack bond, it wasn’t tied onto the rocks; it originated in one and ended in the other.

  Bran took me by the elbow. “Okay, quit playing with them. You’re making Darryl unhappy. I have another one to show you.”

  He led me to the center of all the strands of silver.

  All but buried in the pack magic was a very, very black rock. It radiated anger and fear and sorrow so strongly it was hard to go near it.

  “Don’t be frightened,” Bran said, and there was a rough affection in his voice. “Adam has been frightening quite enough people lately. Look and tell me what you see.”

  This was Adam? I ran up to the rock and put both hands on it. “He’s hurt,” I said, then corrected myself. “He’s hurting.”

  “Where is your mate bond?”

  It lay in the snow, a fragile and worn thing. There were a lot of places where it had been roughly knotted, just to keep it together.

  “Hastily made in need, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” the Marrok said, “but that was compounded by rough handling by a bunch of idiots. Most of whom should have known better.”

  I could see that around the knotted places, the rope was worn, as if a dog . . . or a wolf had chewed on it until someone had tied it to keep it from breaking.

  “Henry isn’t in the pack anymore,” said Bran. “Just in case you hadn’t noticed. I’ve brought him to my pack for a little one-on-one. In a few months, I might let him go out on his own again. Most of that mess is his doing.”