A Lovely Light, page 12
“They’re unmade. Turned back to component parts. Magic and earth and breath. I’m told—” I swallow. “I’m told it’s not painful.”
Nightingale saw her own unmade. She said it screamed and screamed and screamed. I will not tell him that.
He grabs my arms. Gently now, though I expect I’ll bear the bruises of his earlier, desperate grip. “You can’t let them.”
“I don’t intend to,” I say, keeping my voice as steady as my gaze, knowing the last vestiges of banshee magic might yet contradict me. But I’m stronger than any vision. “All you need to do is help me, and everyone will be safe. I’ll go back to Faerie, stay there. Stay there forever. I know the trick of it. Your Sierra will stay here. Everyone wins.”
Does he believe me? Hate me? His face closes and he lets my arms drop. Walks again into the darkness, as I do the same. Let him doubt if he must. I know what I’m going to do. Find this fae exile. Save Echo. Save Sierra. Save myself. It’ll be simple. No problem at all.
CHAPTER 11
How I’d love to make this story simple. Imagine it. The banshee lying there, waiting for me. A black feather on her chest. Perhaps the name, Roic, written in glittering blood. CSI Faerie, streaming this fall.
The banshee’s room was a room. A real one, with an appropriate number of chairs, a dresser, and a bed where she lay, too still. No feathers. No convenient clues, glowing to catch my attention. The banshee was pale-skinned, gaunt, her gray hair ragged. There was a smell, too. Flower sweet and rotten. I didn’t want to touch her.
“How long do you think she was here before they found her?” I asked, knowing I wouldn’t get an answer.
Nightingale stood on the threshold, her toes not quite crossing onto the banshee’s plush rugs.
“Banshees keep to themselves. I’m surprised she was found at all. People don’t come looking for her kind.”
“Why?
“They’re death prophets. Don’t know anyone who’s waiting to hear news on that front.” She rubbed her fingers together, thumb tracing the filigree of her palm.
Reminded, I looked down at my hands. Skin, for now.
“You should go. Find Peregrine. Practice your song.”
“Heh. And here I thought you were on my side.”
We stared at each other. Me, at a loss for words. Her, waiting for something. An apology? I would have if I knew what for. I’d have done a lot just to take the sharpness from her smile.
“Can I ask you something?”
She shrugged. “Can’t stop you.”
“You could.”
“Won’t, then.”
I left the banshee behind, walked back to the doorway. “Why do you keep helping me?”
“It pisses off Eteir, for one.”
“That doesn’t exactly seem like a benefit.”
“We all find our entertainment where we can.” She nodded to the still form on the bed. “And you plan such exciting dates.”
“I—”
“My turn.” Her eyes never left my own. “What are you so eager to get back for? Got some pretty lover waiting for you?”
“Eteir’s here,” I managed to say.
“And she wants to kill you, sure. But you were ready to go from the moment you arrived. So, what is it? Is the company so bad?”
I couldn’t explain. The exhaustion. The twisting knotted hunger that never went away. The weight of Eteir’s dislike. The utter stillness of the moon. In Faerie, it was so easy to love everything I’d ever hated. I wanted my Mom’s nagging, Tyson’s concern. I wanted every terrible student I’d ever had, the whole chorus of them screaming at me. A friction I understood.
I wanted to hold Nightingale in my arms while the sun rose over the mountains. I wanted to show her the blue of a daylight sky and the heat of a summer’s day.
I wanted a goddamn clock.
My eyes burned, and I turned away from her.
“It’s my life,” I said. “I want my life. I don’t belong here.”
“Right,” she said. I felt the heat of her, coming up behind me.
I didn’t move. Didn’t say anything. Neither did she. Time passed. Or it didn’t. Eventually, she stepped back again.
“Well, I guess I’ll go find Peregrine.”
“You really don’t want to, do you? Sing, I mean.”
“It’s been a long time since anyone gave a damn what I wanted.”
I turned then, but she was already leaving. And I let her.
As soon as she was gone, I went to sit beside the banshee. Death prophet or no, she needed help. And just maybe, through her eyes, I could catch a glimpse of sunlight.
Vine wrapped houses. Hospital rooms. Weeping strangers. The man with the crown. It all started to blur together. What had I seen through whose eyes? Who were they, and why did the fae dream their lives? Why didn’t they wake?
Chairs faded, and I lost count of how many. Nightingale stopped visiting.
I was sitting in front of my mirror, trying to stare Rumor into existence, when Whisper slipped into the room, mewing to announce himself.
“Oh!” I said, getting to my feet. My usual cat instincts were best applied to actual cats, and I tucked my hands behind my back to keep myself from attempting to stroke him. “Hey. Did you need something? Is Nightingale looking for me?”
He mewed again, then turned, taking a few quick steps toward the door and looking back at me.
“Am I supposed to follow you?”
Another meow, as if that would clarify.
“Could we skip the Lassie routine?” I asked. “Just… be a person. Please.”
A stretch and a sigh, and there was Whisper the boy, staring at me through a cat’s slit pupils. His hair, usually black, was the fluffy gray of his fur.
“Sorry,” he said. “I just—Sometimes it’s easier. Especially when things get tense.”
“People are nicer to cats.”
“Yeah,” he said. “No one notices me. And when they do, they tend to smile. I like being someone people smile at, instead of yelling.”
“You get yelled at a lot?”
“Not here. Eteir’s nice, really. I mean, she’s a fae. And Nightingale says she’s only nice to us like, well, like people are nice to cats. And maybe that’s true. Maybe even more so for me. I don’t know. Does it matter? I still don’t get yelled at.”
What was I supposed to tell him while he stood there, cringing in my doorway? That he should demand respect, not condescending affection? How, when I’d been slinking through the hallways, trying to solve Eteir’s mystery, just to keep her happy? Jesus, if I could be a cat, that’d make everything a lot simpler. Eteir seemed to like cats.
“I don’t know. I guess that I’d rather be around people who are nice to me because I’m a person and so are they.”
“But you’re not a person.” There was no cruelty in it, coming from him. His brow was furrowed in genuine confusion.
“I pass pretty well. I guess that’s the point of a changeling.”
“Maybe. It’s just, any one of us would be a fae in a second if we could. Even a sorta-fae, like you. Echo, that was all he wanted. It’s what killed him.”
“Maybe I want to be a human like you want to be a cat. It’d just make things easier.” I hated the words, even as I spoke them. But that didn’t make it any less true, did it? This Whisper, this boy before me, he would never really, fully, be anything else, however much he liked to hide behind his fur. And I always held a monster, even after the scales faded. “But look, I don’t think you came here for a chat. What’s up?”
“Susaire’s envoy is here. The mermaid. Nightingale’s going to sing.”
Fuck. I could describe the banshee’s routine. What classes she was taking. Talk about the strange decorating choices of the crowned man. But I didn’t know he was fae, hadn’t seen him do anything really strange, though the kelpie’s mind ached toward him in a way I couldn’t quite explain. Each time I touched them, their thoughts grew a little clearer.
I needed more time.
“I should check on the kelpie,” I said. “I mean, if he’s Susaire’s, I should be doing what I can.”
“Eteir says to come.”
And that, of course, was the end of the argument. I stood up, catching sight of myself in the mirror. I was growing used to the filmy, barely-there dresses. This one, made when Banter caught me passing in the hall, was all butterflies in oranges and golds. Occasionally, one pulled free from the fabric and settled in my hair or flew away. Nightingale’s jacket had become like a security blanket, but now, with Eteir’s good mood more pressing than ever, I left it behind.
“Let’s go.”
Whisper nodded and started down the hallway. Before we’d gone more than a hundred feet, he was a cat again, silent at my side.
Eteir in her court were in the same grand hall, though this time, the statues weren’t monsters but bristlecone pines, cypresses, and other trees I couldn’t name. Banter, Jest, Peregrine, and Nightingale stood together in the dubious shelter of one of the faux trees. Eteir sat on a throne carved from a living redwood, each of its leaves a light, and those the only illumination, making her the glowing center of everything.
Whisper nudged my ankle, and I started forward, toward Eteir. She was in conversation with a fae I didn’t recognize, but immediately guessed as Susaire’s mermaid, with her dress of silver scales and long green hair. She smiled at me, and I saw beyond the perfect features, to the creature beneath. If a mermaid is a sort of fish, then that fish is a shark, sleek and sharp-toothed, and powerful.
“You keep odder company than I was told,” the mermaid said. “I have not seen a changeling in the flesh before.”
“A temporary arrangement while one of my mortals returns to the dying lands.”
“They wander loose?”
“When I bid it. This one is on an errand. As is her changeling, in turn.” She nodded to her left. “Come stand, changeling. I would have you see this.”
“My own mistress does not hold with keeping mortals.” The mermaid’s sneer was as perfect as her smile, just disdainful enough without crossing the line into rudeness. “To always keep a dying thing around, she finds it unsettling.”
And so do I, she did not say. But we all heard it, anyway.
“Is that what she says?” Eteir shook her head in delicate disbelief. “I find a little mortality refreshing. It reminds my people to be grateful for what they are.”
“On that subject, I’m charged to visit my lady’s injured servant.”
“Indeed. And you’ll be pleased to hear that I have given my every energy to discovering the cause of his malady.” Eteir looked directly at me as she spoke. “I am sure we will know what is behind this unpleasantness soon.”
“Given his current state, my lady is not inclined to wait.”
A murmur from the gathered fae, worried or disapproving, I couldn’t say.
“What harms him haunts my own people as well. A banshee in my service has since fallen into a similar sleep. You may tell your lady that I fear some rival wishes me ill.” Her gaze flicked to Peregrine, though she said nothing.
I, too, stayed quiet, though I was sure Eteir was casting blame where it didn’t belong.
“I see. That does complicate matters. My lady wishes no hostility between neighbors. You know she prefers peace.”
“Indeed, and when that peace came at a cost, I paid it.” Eteir’s smile lacked any warmth. “Am paying it. I hope I can count on that friendship continuing.”
“We hope the same.”
“Now then, in honor of that friendship, did I not promise you entertainment? Your journey has been long.”
“I do find myself hungry after such a trip.” The mermaid looked past the fae, to where Nightingale and the other humans stood, and showed her teeth.
“My people are preparing a feast. And while we wait, a little music. Peregrine, of the Raven Court, has agreed to play for us. And my own Nightingale, once numbered among Roic’s birds as well, will join him.”
“How novel.”
Eteir clapped sharply. Nightingale and Peregrine both stepped forward at the sound, Nightingale hanging back a bit, hands shoved in her pockets. Her filigree twitched, nervous little flickers of motion.
“You’ve got to have someone else who can sing,” I said. The words came out a bit closer to a whisper than I intended. Still, those star-bright eyes turned my way.
“Do you intend to tell me how to run my court, little changeling?”
“No. I just—” The word “unmake” ran in circles through my thoughts. I hadn’t held up my side of the bargain yet. She could kill me just for the fun of it. Hell, the mermaid would probably call that a better show. “I could sing.”
For the record, I could not sing.
“Ready when you are, boss,” Nightingale said loudly, calling Eteir’s attention away.
“Are you now?” Eteir asked, her words warm with amusement. “You’re certain you don’t want the changeling to take your place?”
“Looking forward to doing my bit.” Nightingale’s salute was sarcastic, but it seemed to do the trick. And I’d made an idiot of myself for nothing.
“Very good.”
Eteir raised her hand, and Nightingale and Peregrine were lifted with it, standing on a stage of glass that floated above the room, spinning and dipping, but never bringing them within reach of those who watched. The fae laughed and applauded calling for a song. Even the mermaid seemed amused.
Nightingale and Peregrine didn’t seem to mind the height, waving down at the crowd. As if this was only to be expected, just one more day, one more game to play. I think I imagined Peregrine with some strange, renaissance instrument. A lute or maybe a harp. Instead, a guitar formed in his hands, the silhouette of a raven flying across its face. Nightingale sat at the edge of the crystal stage, her feet dangling.
She looked at me, or I thought she did. But it must have been Eteir, or perhaps the mermaid. Because she winked, blew a kiss, and began to sing.
I should remember the song. I should be able to hum a few bars, maybe sing the chorus, and I’m sure there was one. I can tell you that it was no song I knew. That when Nightingale sang, her voice lost all its sly cruelty, was warm and sweet and impossibly sad. I can tell you she sang of heartbreak or maybe death, and that the mermaid wept openly. That the gathered fae danced, and did so with such impossible grace, it passed beyond beauty into something terrifying. The stage spun, and the air filled with glittering lights, birds of fire who dipped in and out of the dancers, leaving trails of sparks.
None of that mattered. Because as Nightingale sang, the filigree lifted from her skin. It uncoiled itself from her fingers, and it took her with it. The music pulled the loose thread of her, and she came undone, dissipating like smoke, one finger at a time, then her hand, and when she’d finished singing, the filigree resettled to outline the shape of an arm that wasn’t there.
The stage settled back on the floor to raucous applause, while the mermaid wiped away furious tears.
“Aren’t they lovely when they sing?” Eteir asked.
“I suppose to some there may be appeal.” The mermaid’s gaze lingered too long on Nightingale’s skin. “Now, what did you say about feasting?”
“Indeed, our celebration of your coming only yet begins. Let us go and eat.” She rose from her throne, then turned to look at me. “And once the festivities end, I have promised this changeling a meeting. I imagine it will resolve much, in one manner or another.”
So. This was it. Final interview, and I still had no clear answers. But I had something. More than she’d have without me.
Not enough.
I watched them leave, and with them, many of the fae who lingered closest to Eteir’s throne. When the last was gone, I stepped down from the dais, heading toward Nightingale. As I walked toward her, a butterfly stepped free of my skirt and flew to land on her outstretched hand. It crawled through the filigree to where her wrist wasn’t, settling in the hollow there. She hardly seems to notice.
“He’s not angry, you know,” Peregrine was saying as I approached. “I think he was hurt for a while, but he loves you. He wants you back.”
“Neither of those things are true,” Nightingale replied. Her filigree flexed like fingers, and the butterfly took flight, disappearing into the darkness.
“I wouldn’t lie to you.” Peregrine’s hurt sounded genuine. The guitar he’d been playing had yet to dissolve back into glitter or whatever, and his fingers danced lightly over the strings.
“Of course not.” Nightingale gave him a light shove with her good hand.
“Well, then? Why not?”
“Because you would lie to you. You see what you want to believe. I don’t mean anything to Roic. None of us—” She looked away, noticed me. Her smile seemed an effort. But it was something. “There you are! What’d you think of the show?”
What had I thought I would do? Run to her? Take her in my arms and comfort her? Her smile was as wicked as ever, and she showed no signs of collapsing into artful hysterics.
“You’re all right?” That, at least, I had to ask. She hadn’t wanted to sing; I was sure of it. She had come apart, singing.
“Oh, this?” She lifted her absent arm, wiggling the filigree where her fingers weren’t. “I told you, didn’t I? Magic is poison. More so for me than most. And music, at least like they want to hear it, is magic.”
“She’ll be fine. It happens to all of us. Me, I go all close-to-nature.” He leaned down and touched the ground, and a flower bloomed from the spot. “Gets weird if I start walking just after a song. But it’s nothing to worry about.”
“It’s fine until it isn’t,” Nightingale muttered, no longer quite so dismissive. “I wish you’d be more careful.”
“What? Not play? In Roic’s court?”
“One day, you’ll set down roots.” She traced a fine coil of filigree with her good hand. “It used to be just this. And only when I sang. And then it didn’t go away. Just grew and grew. That’s when I left.”
“But you came back. Changed your mind. Might as well continue the trend.” Peregrine’s tone was gently wheedling, somewhere between teasing and begging. “C’mon, I’m stuck with Quetzal these days. I miss you.”
Nightingale saw her own unmade. She said it screamed and screamed and screamed. I will not tell him that.
He grabs my arms. Gently now, though I expect I’ll bear the bruises of his earlier, desperate grip. “You can’t let them.”
“I don’t intend to,” I say, keeping my voice as steady as my gaze, knowing the last vestiges of banshee magic might yet contradict me. But I’m stronger than any vision. “All you need to do is help me, and everyone will be safe. I’ll go back to Faerie, stay there. Stay there forever. I know the trick of it. Your Sierra will stay here. Everyone wins.”
Does he believe me? Hate me? His face closes and he lets my arms drop. Walks again into the darkness, as I do the same. Let him doubt if he must. I know what I’m going to do. Find this fae exile. Save Echo. Save Sierra. Save myself. It’ll be simple. No problem at all.
CHAPTER 11
How I’d love to make this story simple. Imagine it. The banshee lying there, waiting for me. A black feather on her chest. Perhaps the name, Roic, written in glittering blood. CSI Faerie, streaming this fall.
The banshee’s room was a room. A real one, with an appropriate number of chairs, a dresser, and a bed where she lay, too still. No feathers. No convenient clues, glowing to catch my attention. The banshee was pale-skinned, gaunt, her gray hair ragged. There was a smell, too. Flower sweet and rotten. I didn’t want to touch her.
“How long do you think she was here before they found her?” I asked, knowing I wouldn’t get an answer.
Nightingale stood on the threshold, her toes not quite crossing onto the banshee’s plush rugs.
“Banshees keep to themselves. I’m surprised she was found at all. People don’t come looking for her kind.”
“Why?
“They’re death prophets. Don’t know anyone who’s waiting to hear news on that front.” She rubbed her fingers together, thumb tracing the filigree of her palm.
Reminded, I looked down at my hands. Skin, for now.
“You should go. Find Peregrine. Practice your song.”
“Heh. And here I thought you were on my side.”
We stared at each other. Me, at a loss for words. Her, waiting for something. An apology? I would have if I knew what for. I’d have done a lot just to take the sharpness from her smile.
“Can I ask you something?”
She shrugged. “Can’t stop you.”
“You could.”
“Won’t, then.”
I left the banshee behind, walked back to the doorway. “Why do you keep helping me?”
“It pisses off Eteir, for one.”
“That doesn’t exactly seem like a benefit.”
“We all find our entertainment where we can.” She nodded to the still form on the bed. “And you plan such exciting dates.”
“I—”
“My turn.” Her eyes never left my own. “What are you so eager to get back for? Got some pretty lover waiting for you?”
“Eteir’s here,” I managed to say.
“And she wants to kill you, sure. But you were ready to go from the moment you arrived. So, what is it? Is the company so bad?”
I couldn’t explain. The exhaustion. The twisting knotted hunger that never went away. The weight of Eteir’s dislike. The utter stillness of the moon. In Faerie, it was so easy to love everything I’d ever hated. I wanted my Mom’s nagging, Tyson’s concern. I wanted every terrible student I’d ever had, the whole chorus of them screaming at me. A friction I understood.
I wanted to hold Nightingale in my arms while the sun rose over the mountains. I wanted to show her the blue of a daylight sky and the heat of a summer’s day.
I wanted a goddamn clock.
My eyes burned, and I turned away from her.
“It’s my life,” I said. “I want my life. I don’t belong here.”
“Right,” she said. I felt the heat of her, coming up behind me.
I didn’t move. Didn’t say anything. Neither did she. Time passed. Or it didn’t. Eventually, she stepped back again.
“Well, I guess I’ll go find Peregrine.”
“You really don’t want to, do you? Sing, I mean.”
“It’s been a long time since anyone gave a damn what I wanted.”
I turned then, but she was already leaving. And I let her.
As soon as she was gone, I went to sit beside the banshee. Death prophet or no, she needed help. And just maybe, through her eyes, I could catch a glimpse of sunlight.
Vine wrapped houses. Hospital rooms. Weeping strangers. The man with the crown. It all started to blur together. What had I seen through whose eyes? Who were they, and why did the fae dream their lives? Why didn’t they wake?
Chairs faded, and I lost count of how many. Nightingale stopped visiting.
I was sitting in front of my mirror, trying to stare Rumor into existence, when Whisper slipped into the room, mewing to announce himself.
“Oh!” I said, getting to my feet. My usual cat instincts were best applied to actual cats, and I tucked my hands behind my back to keep myself from attempting to stroke him. “Hey. Did you need something? Is Nightingale looking for me?”
He mewed again, then turned, taking a few quick steps toward the door and looking back at me.
“Am I supposed to follow you?”
Another meow, as if that would clarify.
“Could we skip the Lassie routine?” I asked. “Just… be a person. Please.”
A stretch and a sigh, and there was Whisper the boy, staring at me through a cat’s slit pupils. His hair, usually black, was the fluffy gray of his fur.
“Sorry,” he said. “I just—Sometimes it’s easier. Especially when things get tense.”
“People are nicer to cats.”
“Yeah,” he said. “No one notices me. And when they do, they tend to smile. I like being someone people smile at, instead of yelling.”
“You get yelled at a lot?”
“Not here. Eteir’s nice, really. I mean, she’s a fae. And Nightingale says she’s only nice to us like, well, like people are nice to cats. And maybe that’s true. Maybe even more so for me. I don’t know. Does it matter? I still don’t get yelled at.”
What was I supposed to tell him while he stood there, cringing in my doorway? That he should demand respect, not condescending affection? How, when I’d been slinking through the hallways, trying to solve Eteir’s mystery, just to keep her happy? Jesus, if I could be a cat, that’d make everything a lot simpler. Eteir seemed to like cats.
“I don’t know. I guess that I’d rather be around people who are nice to me because I’m a person and so are they.”
“But you’re not a person.” There was no cruelty in it, coming from him. His brow was furrowed in genuine confusion.
“I pass pretty well. I guess that’s the point of a changeling.”
“Maybe. It’s just, any one of us would be a fae in a second if we could. Even a sorta-fae, like you. Echo, that was all he wanted. It’s what killed him.”
“Maybe I want to be a human like you want to be a cat. It’d just make things easier.” I hated the words, even as I spoke them. But that didn’t make it any less true, did it? This Whisper, this boy before me, he would never really, fully, be anything else, however much he liked to hide behind his fur. And I always held a monster, even after the scales faded. “But look, I don’t think you came here for a chat. What’s up?”
“Susaire’s envoy is here. The mermaid. Nightingale’s going to sing.”
Fuck. I could describe the banshee’s routine. What classes she was taking. Talk about the strange decorating choices of the crowned man. But I didn’t know he was fae, hadn’t seen him do anything really strange, though the kelpie’s mind ached toward him in a way I couldn’t quite explain. Each time I touched them, their thoughts grew a little clearer.
I needed more time.
“I should check on the kelpie,” I said. “I mean, if he’s Susaire’s, I should be doing what I can.”
“Eteir says to come.”
And that, of course, was the end of the argument. I stood up, catching sight of myself in the mirror. I was growing used to the filmy, barely-there dresses. This one, made when Banter caught me passing in the hall, was all butterflies in oranges and golds. Occasionally, one pulled free from the fabric and settled in my hair or flew away. Nightingale’s jacket had become like a security blanket, but now, with Eteir’s good mood more pressing than ever, I left it behind.
“Let’s go.”
Whisper nodded and started down the hallway. Before we’d gone more than a hundred feet, he was a cat again, silent at my side.
Eteir in her court were in the same grand hall, though this time, the statues weren’t monsters but bristlecone pines, cypresses, and other trees I couldn’t name. Banter, Jest, Peregrine, and Nightingale stood together in the dubious shelter of one of the faux trees. Eteir sat on a throne carved from a living redwood, each of its leaves a light, and those the only illumination, making her the glowing center of everything.
Whisper nudged my ankle, and I started forward, toward Eteir. She was in conversation with a fae I didn’t recognize, but immediately guessed as Susaire’s mermaid, with her dress of silver scales and long green hair. She smiled at me, and I saw beyond the perfect features, to the creature beneath. If a mermaid is a sort of fish, then that fish is a shark, sleek and sharp-toothed, and powerful.
“You keep odder company than I was told,” the mermaid said. “I have not seen a changeling in the flesh before.”
“A temporary arrangement while one of my mortals returns to the dying lands.”
“They wander loose?”
“When I bid it. This one is on an errand. As is her changeling, in turn.” She nodded to her left. “Come stand, changeling. I would have you see this.”
“My own mistress does not hold with keeping mortals.” The mermaid’s sneer was as perfect as her smile, just disdainful enough without crossing the line into rudeness. “To always keep a dying thing around, she finds it unsettling.”
And so do I, she did not say. But we all heard it, anyway.
“Is that what she says?” Eteir shook her head in delicate disbelief. “I find a little mortality refreshing. It reminds my people to be grateful for what they are.”
“On that subject, I’m charged to visit my lady’s injured servant.”
“Indeed. And you’ll be pleased to hear that I have given my every energy to discovering the cause of his malady.” Eteir looked directly at me as she spoke. “I am sure we will know what is behind this unpleasantness soon.”
“Given his current state, my lady is not inclined to wait.”
A murmur from the gathered fae, worried or disapproving, I couldn’t say.
“What harms him haunts my own people as well. A banshee in my service has since fallen into a similar sleep. You may tell your lady that I fear some rival wishes me ill.” Her gaze flicked to Peregrine, though she said nothing.
I, too, stayed quiet, though I was sure Eteir was casting blame where it didn’t belong.
“I see. That does complicate matters. My lady wishes no hostility between neighbors. You know she prefers peace.”
“Indeed, and when that peace came at a cost, I paid it.” Eteir’s smile lacked any warmth. “Am paying it. I hope I can count on that friendship continuing.”
“We hope the same.”
“Now then, in honor of that friendship, did I not promise you entertainment? Your journey has been long.”
“I do find myself hungry after such a trip.” The mermaid looked past the fae, to where Nightingale and the other humans stood, and showed her teeth.
“My people are preparing a feast. And while we wait, a little music. Peregrine, of the Raven Court, has agreed to play for us. And my own Nightingale, once numbered among Roic’s birds as well, will join him.”
“How novel.”
Eteir clapped sharply. Nightingale and Peregrine both stepped forward at the sound, Nightingale hanging back a bit, hands shoved in her pockets. Her filigree twitched, nervous little flickers of motion.
“You’ve got to have someone else who can sing,” I said. The words came out a bit closer to a whisper than I intended. Still, those star-bright eyes turned my way.
“Do you intend to tell me how to run my court, little changeling?”
“No. I just—” The word “unmake” ran in circles through my thoughts. I hadn’t held up my side of the bargain yet. She could kill me just for the fun of it. Hell, the mermaid would probably call that a better show. “I could sing.”
For the record, I could not sing.
“Ready when you are, boss,” Nightingale said loudly, calling Eteir’s attention away.
“Are you now?” Eteir asked, her words warm with amusement. “You’re certain you don’t want the changeling to take your place?”
“Looking forward to doing my bit.” Nightingale’s salute was sarcastic, but it seemed to do the trick. And I’d made an idiot of myself for nothing.
“Very good.”
Eteir raised her hand, and Nightingale and Peregrine were lifted with it, standing on a stage of glass that floated above the room, spinning and dipping, but never bringing them within reach of those who watched. The fae laughed and applauded calling for a song. Even the mermaid seemed amused.
Nightingale and Peregrine didn’t seem to mind the height, waving down at the crowd. As if this was only to be expected, just one more day, one more game to play. I think I imagined Peregrine with some strange, renaissance instrument. A lute or maybe a harp. Instead, a guitar formed in his hands, the silhouette of a raven flying across its face. Nightingale sat at the edge of the crystal stage, her feet dangling.
She looked at me, or I thought she did. But it must have been Eteir, or perhaps the mermaid. Because she winked, blew a kiss, and began to sing.
I should remember the song. I should be able to hum a few bars, maybe sing the chorus, and I’m sure there was one. I can tell you that it was no song I knew. That when Nightingale sang, her voice lost all its sly cruelty, was warm and sweet and impossibly sad. I can tell you she sang of heartbreak or maybe death, and that the mermaid wept openly. That the gathered fae danced, and did so with such impossible grace, it passed beyond beauty into something terrifying. The stage spun, and the air filled with glittering lights, birds of fire who dipped in and out of the dancers, leaving trails of sparks.
None of that mattered. Because as Nightingale sang, the filigree lifted from her skin. It uncoiled itself from her fingers, and it took her with it. The music pulled the loose thread of her, and she came undone, dissipating like smoke, one finger at a time, then her hand, and when she’d finished singing, the filigree resettled to outline the shape of an arm that wasn’t there.
The stage settled back on the floor to raucous applause, while the mermaid wiped away furious tears.
“Aren’t they lovely when they sing?” Eteir asked.
“I suppose to some there may be appeal.” The mermaid’s gaze lingered too long on Nightingale’s skin. “Now, what did you say about feasting?”
“Indeed, our celebration of your coming only yet begins. Let us go and eat.” She rose from her throne, then turned to look at me. “And once the festivities end, I have promised this changeling a meeting. I imagine it will resolve much, in one manner or another.”
So. This was it. Final interview, and I still had no clear answers. But I had something. More than she’d have without me.
Not enough.
I watched them leave, and with them, many of the fae who lingered closest to Eteir’s throne. When the last was gone, I stepped down from the dais, heading toward Nightingale. As I walked toward her, a butterfly stepped free of my skirt and flew to land on her outstretched hand. It crawled through the filigree to where her wrist wasn’t, settling in the hollow there. She hardly seems to notice.
“He’s not angry, you know,” Peregrine was saying as I approached. “I think he was hurt for a while, but he loves you. He wants you back.”
“Neither of those things are true,” Nightingale replied. Her filigree flexed like fingers, and the butterfly took flight, disappearing into the darkness.
“I wouldn’t lie to you.” Peregrine’s hurt sounded genuine. The guitar he’d been playing had yet to dissolve back into glitter or whatever, and his fingers danced lightly over the strings.
“Of course not.” Nightingale gave him a light shove with her good hand.
“Well, then? Why not?”
“Because you would lie to you. You see what you want to believe. I don’t mean anything to Roic. None of us—” She looked away, noticed me. Her smile seemed an effort. But it was something. “There you are! What’d you think of the show?”
What had I thought I would do? Run to her? Take her in my arms and comfort her? Her smile was as wicked as ever, and she showed no signs of collapsing into artful hysterics.
“You’re all right?” That, at least, I had to ask. She hadn’t wanted to sing; I was sure of it. She had come apart, singing.
“Oh, this?” She lifted her absent arm, wiggling the filigree where her fingers weren’t. “I told you, didn’t I? Magic is poison. More so for me than most. And music, at least like they want to hear it, is magic.”
“She’ll be fine. It happens to all of us. Me, I go all close-to-nature.” He leaned down and touched the ground, and a flower bloomed from the spot. “Gets weird if I start walking just after a song. But it’s nothing to worry about.”
“It’s fine until it isn’t,” Nightingale muttered, no longer quite so dismissive. “I wish you’d be more careful.”
“What? Not play? In Roic’s court?”
“One day, you’ll set down roots.” She traced a fine coil of filigree with her good hand. “It used to be just this. And only when I sang. And then it didn’t go away. Just grew and grew. That’s when I left.”
“But you came back. Changed your mind. Might as well continue the trend.” Peregrine’s tone was gently wheedling, somewhere between teasing and begging. “C’mon, I’m stuck with Quetzal these days. I miss you.”
