All That Glows (26 page)

At last, I come to a place where I can go no farther. I huddle behind an unmarked grave and peer through overwhelming clusters of grass. Before me, in a clearing, is an entire crowd of soul feeders. Signs of a semipermanent camp litter the area, both visible and not: a smoldering clump of wood and charcoal by the foot of a larger gravestone, the unwinding structures of old spells, the pile of bones shoved into the far corner of a crypt.

I lay motionless, barely able to breathe as I watch the gathering. Real, massive Black Dogs tread a well-worn path around the camp. The grass under their paws is broken, wilted, exposing the dark, fertile soil of the cemetery’s underbelly like wounds. Green Women and Banshees form a strange, almost unintentional circle around the ringleaders, as if they don’t want to get close. The sight of them together, in peace, is unnerving. Like cats and dogs shoved together in a crate, keeping eerie harmony.

Jaida and Cari. It must be them. The two spirits, beautiful and regal in their borrowed bodies, rest on a hulking marble tomb at the center of everything, flecked by the fire’s dying light. Not a word passes in the group. They sit, as silent and almost as still as the tombstones around them. It isn’t a meeting I’ve stumbled on. It’s a messaging center.

I study them, noting the numbers of their guard. There’s no way I can slip unnoticed through that ring of restless spirits. I’d half expected Jaida and Cari to be holed up here on their own, waiting discreetly for words from the Old One. But this, the presence of so many soul feeders, shows me the truth. It’s not a single death they want. It’s a war. A war against the mortals and those protecting them.

A mournful, jarring cry calls my attention to the skies. For a fleeting moment, the white slice of moon is blocked out completely. I crouch close to the ground, praying that the bird doesn’t see me. The animal flies on, unconcerned. It lands, a ruffle of white and black feathers, and struts proudly in a little circle. A magpie. The Old One’s errand-bird.

The Banshee retrieves the scrolled message from swaggering bird, her glare unyielding and calculating as she reads. It’s the Green Woman, Jaida, who betrays her emotions. Her tongue runs along the edge of her berry-red lips, looping in a nervous repeat. Her eyes leave the paper, straying into the shadows beyond her guard. Something’s changed. Her body seems stiffer. The midnight hackles of my back bristle as her stare passes over my broken grave. Her eyes are terrible, green searchlights, uprooting every vine and blade of grass in their path.

“I’ll take care of it,” Cari tells the Green Woman, her voice as emotionless as her face. “You should accompany the bird back north.”

Jaida’s eyes snap back out of the bushes. “I’ll leave at once.”

The Green Woman is flying straight where I need to go. All I have to do is follow. My body quivers, too full of excitement and fear.

Jaida stands, her spring-green dress falls flawlessly into place. Then, with the speed of a shooting star, she’s off.

I force my paws into inching slowness, despite my urge to chase the soul feeder. It’s only when several trees are between me and their camp that I launch into the sky, melting into its velvet canvas as a sleek raven. Like the Black Dog, the bird’s form is jerky at first. My wings are tentlike and clumsy. Jaida and the magpie have a decent head start; their bobbing silhouettes are already fading into the far-off darkness. If I let them go too far, the trail will be lost.

I cast a spell: a tiny bit of magic to propel me forward. The words, the small spark of light, hurtle me through the star-spangled sky. I realize too late that this was a mistake. The spell wasn’t as subtle as I thought, for on the ground, someone was watching.

Another’s magic shoots under me, past me. It catches the tips of my feathers, singeing them into nothing. I try to move my wings, but they’re lead. My flight becomes a sickening plummet; the heavy earth lurches forward to meet me.

A clump of vines breaks my fall. I blink through this new hammock of leaves. Nothing seems hurt. Apart from the smoke wisping out of my wings, I’m fine.

“Track her!” Cari’s command carries through the night, blanketed by heart-wrenching howls.

The Black Dogs are searching, seeking to root me out of my fragile hiding place. I struggle to sit up, but nothing happens. Not even a twitch of my dark raven legs. Then it hits me. The spell, Cari’s magic, wasn’t supposed to fry me. It was meant to freeze me, to rob my muscles of their will. I’m paralyzed, trapped.

There are distant snaps, howls, and sniffs—signs of approaching hunters. Time for me to produce a counterspell is fading fast. I repeat spells frantically in my mind, feeling the force of the magic swell through numb limbs. None of them click.

“It’s a woodling. I feel her. She’s close. Keep searching!”

I want to close my eyes and stop my ears, to shut out the snarls of my hunters. Words, fragments of spells rush through my head with panic too extreme to control.

It’s over
, a despairing voice cries out in my thoughts. If, when, Cari catches me, she’ll be sure to silence me. Unmake me.

Crack.
Dry twigs break so close they sound like the snapping of bones.

No. I must live. For Richard.

His face rises up beyond my parched, glazing eyes. With it, in the last possible moment, comes the spell.
Áhredde. Áhredde. Áhredde.
A wingtip twitches. A clawed foot curls into itself. I shake free. Howls of my pursuers carry like wind, whipping against my ear. They aren’t far—I have to move fast.

Flying is out. The Banshee’s magic will only rip me out of the sky again. I need to be close to the ground, faster than the dogs. So I slip into the skin of a fox: fur of fire and nimble, dancing paws.

There’s no time to grow comfortable in this new shape. I dash out of the underbrush, tearing free from the thin, scratchy vines. My feet carry me fast, making quick, instinctive turns to throw the snarling Black Dogs from my trail. Their breaths fall, hot and heaving against my tail, as I dart ahead. As hefty and large as northbound wolves, they can’t slip through the same gaps my fox form can. I gain a few meters by ducking, leaping, and weaving through the labyrinth of Highgate.

My heart pounds, a frantic reminder of my preserved life. It isn’t only the dogs giving chase. Banshees and Green Women blot the skies. I’m surrounded on all sides, except the path directly ahead, running for my life.

Finally the cemetery gate swims into my exhausted eyes. I push past exploding agonies in my muscles, run for it. The fox’s slim frame fits perfectly through the bars. I’m on the other side, breathless, but I don’t stop running. A simple gateway won’t hold the angry soul feeders. I’ll only truly be safe in Buckingham, under the protection of the Guard.

My legs won’t last. The left one limps from an encounter with a gravestone. It won’t be long until I collapse. Flying is my only choice; I must enter the skies so thick with hostile spirits. I can’t even breathe right as I lope back into human skin. My body lifts off the ground in a rush of forced magic, shooting me down the street with the speed of a race car.

London whips by. Every blurred block saps a little more of my magic. At first, I treat the blocks of buildings like gravestones, slipping in and out of them to lose my pursuers. But the toll is too much.

Just before the river, my magic falters. I land softly on the street and pick myself up, wobbling on barely recovered feet. The old cramps return. I cry out in pain, but I can’t stop. Stopping means death.

I hobble down the sidewalk, sticking close to the many buildings I pass. After two blocks of this painlanced race, I begin to despair. There’s no way I can keep this up all the way to Buckingham.

Then I see it. My blue-and-red savior: a sign for the Underground. My leg bones jar against each other as I push into a final, desperate run. I half slide, half tumble into the station entrance and collapse by a Cadbury vending machine, limp and without breath.

But at least I’m underground. My powers seep back through the once-white grout of the station’s tiled walls. The only other people who trot down the steps are a slightly intoxicated, giggly couple and a gang of strangely dressed teenagers. I gather every ounce of energy that trickles back into me, until finally I have enough strength to make it to the trains. I push myself onto unsteady feet, shuffle through the turnstile and trek down the remaining sets of stairs to the trains.

It’s no secret that the Frithemaeg are stationed at Buckingham. I’d hoped, in my furious flight, to beat the soul feeders back, to reach the shelter of the gates and the Guard before they did. That chance died with my broken steps. In all likelihood, they’ve set an ambush around Buckingham, waiting for me. I can’t go back there. Not yet. For now I’ll stay on the train, making endless loops underneath London, saving my strength. I sit, rest my head against the window. The station falls behind in a streak of light as the train snakes off into the many wormholes of the Underground.

Twenty-Six

M
y joints are unhinged, cramped together only by muscles as tight as rubber bands when I walk down the platform, toward the station’s exit. So many people rush past me, flooding the trains. It must be after dawn. The soul feeders are least likely to attack me in broad daylight. Now’s my chance to return to Buckingham, to tell Breena what I’ve seen.

The Guard is bristling. Their faces are as pale as marsh lights, arms shake with uncast spells when I approach the palace. I halt several meters away, watch them with care.

“Your signature, sister,” a chestnut-haired youngling calls out. I think her name is Lydia.

“Of course.” I don’t dare move as the sign slips from my fingers into the air. These Fae are too tightly wound, ready to explode.

My shimmering gold bird is enough to make them relax. I take in their row of expressions: tired, grim. “What’s wrong?”

Lydia looks past me, into the lush tree line of Saint James’s Park. “We were under siege last night. Banshees, Green Women, Black Dogs . . . all of them were out there. They left at sunrise. No doubt they’ll be back.”

So I was right not to return in the darkness. It only would’ve ignited the beginning of what I now know is an inevitable war.

“But the royals are safe?”

“Yes.” Another youngling nods. “The king and the princess are both here.”

Which means Breena is too. A shudder threads sickness through my bones. After not listening to her warnings and failing so miserably—how can I face her and admit I was wrong? I should have returned with her.

“Also there—” Lydia pauses, digs her slippered foot deeper into the chunks of gravel. “There was an attack. At least, we think there was.”

An attack? I feel my blood slowing with my heart. “What happened?”

“G-Gwyn was unmade,” the Fae says, unable to still the tremor in her voice. “There were traces of battle magic on the edge of the grounds. None of us felt the spells until it was too late. When we got there, Gwyn had already slipped away.”

Lydia’s pretty face has turned a peculiar shade of green. I look at the others, staring at me with wide, whitened eyes. Fear glosses over them, quick and catching.

“And the attacker?” I ask.

They shake their heads as one.

“No sign,” Lydia offers. “It could still be in the palace.”

My mouth is dry, resisting all attempts to swallow. “And no attack was made on the king?”

“None. He’s safe. For now.” There’s defeat in the youngling’s words. I can only imagine, after last night, the multitudes stretched out: dark, beautiful waves of monsters lapping at Buckingham’s gate. How many hundreds of gruesome endings played out in the young Faes’ minds as they waited for the attack?

But really, isn’t there only a single ending? I close my eyes, try to blot out the images of shadowed hordes and gravestones. Right now we’re alive. And it’s my job to keep things that way.

The Guards step aside as I pass the palace’s perimeter, their auras tingling and flaring against mine as I pass. So fresh and untested. Now that I know what we’re up against, I don’t see how we can protect the crown as we are. We can’t stay here, not with an assassin loose in Buckingham’s halls, not with the city crushing, draining, squeezing any strength we have left.

The king’s office windows yawn open to the warm gusts of morning breeze. I approach loudly, trying to make enough noise so Richard won’t start at my appearance. Ferrin’s head pops out from behind the curtain. Her curious expression morphs into a shock so gaping it causes me to look down.

“Lady Emrys, what happened to you?”

My dress is in black, lacy shreds, all intact fabric splayed in dirt. Heavy, red welts and bluish beginnings of bruises color my arms. A glance into the windowpanes shows my face a mess of scratches. My hair is irreconcilable, draped in knots and tangles over my shoulders.

“Rough night.” My whisper is hoarse, like sandpaper. Either Richard doesn’t hear it, or he’s feigning ignorance as he hunches over his desk, fountain pen looping over creamy stationary. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

I hover in the open window long after Ferrin and Helene leave for the perimeter. My body feels so mortal: aching and falling apart as it leans against the window jamb. I don’t even know if I
can
move. All of me is so, so tired. Tired of running, of fighting, of having to choose.

Richard turns slowly. Rum-gold sunlight drips over his face. I have only a moment to admire it. So many curves and edges. In his jaw, nose, cheekbones, brow. The perfect balance of softness and strength.

But then he sees me, and the horror dawns. Eyes widen, taking in the signs of my narrow escape. His lips are pressed so tightly they turn white.

“It’s okay, the others are gone,” I tell him.

“Good God, Emrys! What the hell happened to you?” He jets from his chair, leaves it spinning as he comes over, hands outstretched. They hover just over my skin, too afraid to touch.

I’m stunned still by his reaction. My window reflection must have glossed things, made the wounds lesser than they are. Suddenly everything—the bystander’s death, Breena’s anger and abandonment, the run for my life—explodes in my chest. Warm, salty tears pour out.