A Little Night Muse (6 page)

Chapter 10

A ringing phone broke Josh from his restless sleep. Was
it time to feed the cows? It was always time to feed the cows. Rising in the
dark mornings of winter was tough, especially when he’d been having such good
dreams. Dreams of a woman. And such a woman...

Obviously he had been living alone too long.

He groped for the annoying cellular buzz. “Hello?” His voice
sounded slurred, as if he had been drugged.

“Josh.” It was Vaile’s crisp voice. “We’re back. What’s going
on?”

Josh pushed himself upright, blinking hard. He couldn’t very
well tell his neighbor what he’d been dreaming about. But there was something he
was supposed to tell Vaile. If he could just remember what. He rubbed his eyes.
“I can’t...”

“Did you set the
phae
wards? Have
there been any more imps? Where is the
musetta
?”

The strange words peppered Josh like buckshot. “I don’t—”

“Wake up, human!” Vaile’s shout ripped through the lingering
dream.

Human.
Phae
.
Musetta
.

“Adelyn?” Josh let the phone fall to his side as he twisted
around in the bed.

The empty bed.

His fairy princess was gone.

He jolted to his feet. “Adelyn!”

The silence of the house cut worse than sheet metal, deep yet
slow to bleed.

Not complete silence, though. The phone in his hand was
grumbling. He lifted it to his ear. “She’s gone.”

“I was afraid of that,” Vaile said. “Wolly is here, alone, and
there’s a toadstool ring, recently withered.”

“Toadstools?” Josh yanked on his clothes awkwardly with one
hand. “Why do you keep talking about mushrooms?”

“Every place, from desert to glacier, has some fungus, mold,
lichen, or moss spore that will sprout into
phae
gateways. This circle led back to the
phaedrealii
.”

“Why would she go back?” Josh scrabbled for a lost boot under
the bed. She had lied about where he put the charms last night, so that he had
inadvertently left a gap. That was the only way she could have sneaked out. “Why
would she leave?” He hated the plaintive sound of his own voice.

Vaile said flatly, “Because, like the imp, she came to betray
us.”

Grabbing his wayward boot, Josh rocked back on his heels. His
gaze went to a strange lump next to the dresser. “So the mushroom ring is how
you
phae
travel?”

“Yes. The one here looks a couple days old. She must have sown
it before you found her.” Vaile’s voice was grim. “I think she meant to bring
our enemies through.”

“But she didn’t.” Josh clung to that fact.

“Or hasn’t yet. Stay in your valley, Josh. Get the wards and
bring them in close and then don’t come over the ridge until daybreak.”

Josh swallowed. “Will you and Imogene be all right?”

“We can’t fight with iron, but we have other tricks.” Vaile’s
voice softened. “I’m sorry the
musetta
played them
on you.”

After they disconnected, Josh stomped into his boots and then
went to the living room to collect his pistol and a spear. He thrust one of the
iron-bladed knives he had assembled into his belt loop. The decorative curlicue
from the log rack wasn’t exactly sharp but it was pure iron, and the black
spiral looked wicked as hell.

Which was how he felt.

As he passed his work table on the way back to the bedroom, a
rainbow shimmer caught his eye. He paused to touch the gemstones, each one more
precious than the last. At the center was the emerald. She had left him a small
fortune. He could feed the cows on caviar and Champagne with the jewels she’d
left behind.

Adelyn had not betrayed them. The shining truth of her tears
told him something she had never said aloud. He wanted to hear it from her.

And he had words he wanted to say to her. Maybe once he’d been
the silent cowboy who’d let good things slip away because he hadn’t known to say
how much he cared. He knew better now. Words had power, a power he could
use.

He returned to the bedroom and shoved the dresser aside.

Next to the crumpled satchel that Adelyn had carried, the
mushrooms were hardly larger than his pearl buttons, but they formed a perfect
ring on the rough old wood.

Glad he’d never been good about dusting, he took a breath and
stepped into the circle. He closed his eyes and whispered, “Adelyn.”

Adelyn had thought her first steps back into the
phaedrealii
would be triumphant, on Raze’s arm. Or if
not triumphant at least minus the Queen’s death mark on her name. Instead, she
was sneaking in through the same back corridor where she had been tossed out by
EveStar.

Doubt slowed her steps. Was she right about the Queen’s
handmaid? Had those vague words meant what she’d thought?

EveStar had said other
phae
left,
never to return. Adelyn had assumed that meant they died hunting the Hunter. But
no, they left because they wanted to. And they had never returned because they
found something else. Something better.

Thanks to Josh, the veil had been lifted and she finally
understood. In the
phaedrealii
, she had existed only
to inspire others. In Josh’s world, she could make things with her own two
hands. She could make cornbread and clean dishes. She could make something of
herself.

She could make love.

She clenched her fists, trying to hold onto the memory of
Josh’s callused palms across hers.

But now thanks to
her
, that valley
sanctuary was threatened, and
phae
like herself who
needed a place would find the way closed.

Maybe she should have stayed in the valley while the battle was
fought around her, but she had stayed in the
phaedrealii
, too afraid to leave. Too afraid to even inspire
herself. This time, she wasn’t going to stop with an inspiration; she was going
to make a path for others like her.

Assuming she wasn’t simply snuffed out like a bad idea.

She made her way blindly down the corridor, stumbling in the
dark without the light of the wisps. Once, she had kept them close as an
affectation, because everyone looked beautiful by wisp-light. But now she
thought maybe the pretty light had kept her from having to acknowledge the
shadows at the heart of the
phaedrealii
.

She couldn’t pretend anymore.

As she reached the more commonly used corridors, the lingering
glow of passing
phae
lighted the walls. She wrapped
one of her veils loosely around her face. Not much of a disguise, but boring
enough not to intrigue any
phae
who might seek to
unravel a more elaborate illusion. She needed to find EveStar and see if her
hunch about the handmaid was right: Someone was pointing discontented
phae
to the Hunter’s valley. But now they needed her
secret key.

She passed two elaborately ornamented
phae
, dripping with jewels and nodding feathers. The Queen must be
in one of her expansive phases. That could be good, if everyone was distracted
by her generous mood. Or they could be trying to placate her because she was
surly.

Despite her divorce from the court, Adelyn felt her heart
stutter in remembered anxiety at the mere thought of the Queen’s moods, good or
bad. She felt like an interloper in her old veils, decorated only by the leather
belt with its carved copper buckle.

“Sweet muse!” The bellow—or so it seemed to her—brought her
whirling around. “You have returned. Did you find the Hunter?”

“William, hush.” She hurried toward him. “Do you want to get me
killed again?”

He had the grace to flush, as only a human could, but the
gesture did not soften her as was the knack of certain other human males.

She stared hard at William, wondering at his allegiance. The
Queen had stolen him away from the world, but he had never seemed to miss it.
Josh would never let himself be imprisoned, not when he had his valley. No
illusion would ever satisfy him.

She took some peace knowing no matter what happened to her,
Josh would be there, with his cows and Wolly and the stars under whose light
they’d made love.

She shook off her mournfulness. First things first, as her Josh
would say. “Have you seen EveStar?”

“Everyone has been summoned to the throne room. The Queen is in
a mood.”

Adelyn almost smiled. William had been in the
phaedrealii
long enough to not even name the moods
anymore. “I guess that is where I need to go. You’ll have to be my
disguise.”

William wrinkled his nose. “You have your glamour.”

“But none so good as the Queen’s own lover. You owe me this.”
Most courtiers avoided William and other humans within the
phaedrealii
. For good reason, as she could attest. Certainly no one
would expect to see
her
with him.

They joined the throngs heading for the throne room.

Except for the unchanging steel seat at its center, the throne
room became whatever the
phaedrealii
conjured. At
the moment, it was a ballroom of matte white marble, thinly lined with black
traceries. Hundreds of fluted columns towered upward, their peaks disappearing
into a slowly roiling haze. Above the throne itself, a giant hollowed globe of
marble hung as a chandelier. The undefined glow illuminated the room from the
center, sucking the color from everything below it until even the glorious hues
of the
phae
were cast with the pall of dread.

“Oh, this is a mood all right,” Adelyn murmured. “You are
taller than I am. Do you see EveStar?” Normally the handmaid flitted both ahead
of and behind the Queen, always in motion, preparing the way and picking up the
pieces afterward.

“I don’t—Wait.” William rocked up onto his toes. “She just came
in. The Queen won’t be far behind.”

Which gave Adelyn only a few moments to contact the handmaid.
But she hesitated. “William, is this really where you want to be?”

His gaze slid away from her. “Do you know how long I have been
here?”

She shook her head. “You know time does not always pass here as
you might imagine.”

“I can’t go back now.” He let out a shuddering breath. “It will
never be the same for me.” His eyes were dark but swamp lights moved within
them. Haunted eyes.

Adelyn touched his arm before she slipped away. He had made his
choice.

And so had she.

Amid all the wide skirts, high collars, and towering
headdresses, she felt small and insignificant. Not a sensation a
musetta
knew well. She embraced it since no one looked
her way. She wove between the courtiers and edged up behind the fluttering
handmaid.

“EveStar,” she said quietly, nudging back the veil around her
face.

The handmaid recoiled. “What are you doing here? Didn’t you
find—” She bit her lip. “Come.” She whisked Adelyn behind the hulking steel
throne.

“I don’t have time to lie and dissemble and tease—” Adelyn
started.

“Well then, you are no
phae
,”
EveStar snapped.

Under other circumstances, Adalyn might have laughed. But she
held herself straighter and looked the other
phae
in
the eye. “Are you a friend to the runaways?”

“The rebellion, you mean?”

The proud anger in the handmaid’s voice actually made Adelyn
relax a notch. “Why are you the Queen’s handmaid when you want to be free?”

Bitterness hardened the elegant golden
phae
to something steely, sword-like. “I might never be free, but I
can still be a guide. Why did we survive the Iron Age, just to retreat here
within our own illusions?” EveStar gripped her hand. “Is that why you came back?
To hide again? I thought you understood we need to find another way.”

Adelyn grimaced. “I didn’t understand at first. Not at all. But
you can’t keep sending
phae
as you have. That way
will be closed.” Her fault. “The Hunter’s valley is under attack.”

EveStar swayed a little. “Then it is over. For all of us.”

“No. I brought you a new way in.” Adelyn took a deep breath. “I
have cuttings from the valley ferns that will take
phae
around Vaile’s wards. But the spores aren’t ready yet. You’ll
have to sprout them here, in secret.”

EveStar tightened her grip. “I will. But you have to—”

“Arise all and bow to our steel-born
Queen!”

“Quick,” EveStar hissed. “This way.”

Hand in hand, they scuttled away from the throne as the Queen’s
goblin chamberlain stepped past the place they had just been.

Adelyn grimaced. With everyone facing the throne, there was no
way she and EveStar could sneak out. They would draw too much attention. They
could only bow their heads as ordered. No need to arise, of course, since there
were no other seats in the room besides the steel throne.

The Queen swept into the room in a wave of black tatted lace.
The diaphanous darkness floated around her, supported on the will-o’-the-wisps
caught in the net. Their wistful little lights twinkled mournfully and cast
stark shadows across her white cheeks, leaving her eyes in pools of unrelieved
black.

Adelyn’s fingers curled into fists and she felt EveStar’s nails
dig into her hand in matching, silent outrage. If the wisps were confined too
long, they would fade to nothing.

The Queen mounted the three steps to the throne and turned to
sit. From the base of the steel throne, the black occlusions in the white marble
spidered outward. The wisp-lace drifted too outward, trying to escape.

She was beautiful beyond all
phae
.
The voracious power of her illusions made her both: beautiful and queen. No
other
phae
could stand up to her in either
category.