An Artificial Night - BK 3 (47 page)

“Hey, baby. Hey, Stace.” I put the packages down and hugged my best friend, hard. She shivered and hugged me back.

“I’m so glad you came,” she whispered.

“You couldn’t keep me away.”

All the kids came home, at least for Mitch and Stacy, but that wasn’t enough, and it never would be. Losing those children at all—I still can’t imagine what I’d have done if someone had taken Gillian away from me like that. As it was, time had taken her from me, and that’s at least a little easier to understand.

The first time I came to check on the kids after everything settled, I told Stacy everything. I thought she was going to haul off and hit me when I told her about May, but she surprised me: instead of reacting with anger, she drove me back to Shadowed Hills, walked up to my Fetch, and said hello, just as polite as you please. May saved my life more than once. That made her part of the family, no matter where she’d come from.

“Hey, guys? Ever heard of holding the door?” May came in behind me, her own presents more sensibly tucked into a plastic shopping bag. She was wearing a forest green skirt that fell almost to her ankles and a pink T-shirt that read “Ladies’ Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society.” “Not that I mind waiting in the cold or anything, but it’s manners.”

Stacy let go of me and smiled. “Sorry, May.”

“Oh, it’s no big deal. It gave me a chance to say hello to your neighbors. Who are very friendly, but have the ugliest dog in the world.” She put her bag down on the table, circling around to kiss Karen on the forehead. “Hey, sleepyhead.”

“Hi, Aunt May.”

The kids adapted fast to the idea of having two aunts—for one thing, it meant more presents, and even though she looked like me, it wasn’t hard to tell us apart. My Fetch had a style all her own: a style she’d strewn across my entire no-longer-spare bedroom. She showed up on my doorstep three days after Quentin said good-bye to Katie, looking sheepish and carrying the few belongings she’d managed to collect in a cardboard box. What was I supposed to do? She wouldn’t have existed if it weren’t for me, and so I let her move in. It was nice to have someone to pay half of the rent, even if I wasn’t sure exactly what she was doing for work. Sylvester helped her get a legal identity; as far as the state of California was concerned, I’d always had an identical twin sister.

Bet Amandine would be surprised to hear that one.

I sat down and was promptly rewarded by having Andrew crawl into my lap. “Hey.”

He pulled his thumb out of his mouth. “Hey.”

“You good?”

“M’good.” He replaced the thumb.

Andrew was doing better than Jessica; he was sleeping through the nights and had stopped drawing disturbing pictures. His parents said I’d taken care of the monsters, and that was good enough for him. He was still young enough to believe that heroes could make all the problems go away. I miss that feeling.

Tybalt’s kids seemed to be doing well. Raj had come to visit several times, much to Quentin’s annoyance; he even brought Helen with him once, treating her like she was made of glass. I wondered what his parents thought of that—interracial dating can be sort of a sore spot with some of the purebloods, and Raj was supposed to be King someday. Oh, well. Not my Court, not my problem.

The King of Cats himself hadn’t spoken to me since Blind Michael died; it had been almost a month, and there was still no word. That was fine. Things had been too confusing for me toward the end, and there are some complications I just don’t need.

Connor hadn’t called me either, and that was fine, too.

“So, Karen, you’re twelve today?” May flashed a grin. “Congrats.”

Karen nodded almost shyly. “Yeah, I am.”

“Toby!” Mitch hugged me from behind. “Glad you could make it.”

I leaned back, grinning up at him. “I wouldn’t miss it. Isn’t this a small party?”

“Just family,” Karen said. I looked at her, and she smiled. “It seemed right.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It does.”

The Luidaeg hadn’t been able to tell me where Karen’s oneiromancy came from; it shouldn’t have been in her bloodline, but it was. Karen seemed to be recovering well, at least. She was quieter than before, but not by much, and she was happy. That was what I cared about. Everything else was just extra.

Luna had been to Blind Michael’s lands to visit her mother at least twice that I knew of. Only they weren’t Blind Michael’s lands anymore; they were Acacia’s, and according to Luna, they were blooming. Something good had come out of everything that happened. Try telling that to the parents whose children never came home. The fae parents were few enough, and they could almost understand; there are always risks to living outside the Summerlands. But the human parents would never know, and for that, I was sorry beyond all measure. I succeeded in doing what I set out to do: I brought my children home. Why did it feel like a failure?

Quentin could’ve answered that for me, if I’d dared to ask. He’d dropped his entire mortal identity, leaving it all behind for her, and he hadn’t even tried to create a new one—I guess it would’ve been cheating. He gave Katie up once—thanks to the Luidaeg’s spell, she didn’t even remember that he existed, and he wasn’t going to push it by trying to be close to her as someone else. That showed a lot of guts and a level of maturity he shouldn’t have had to live with yet. He was growing up. Poor kid. Without a mortal existence to occupy him, I was seeing a lot more of him, and hanging out with a teenage boy was certainly proving to be an education. He could almost make baseball seem interesting, for one thing, and I was getting used to finding him asleep on my couch every Saturday morning. The landscape of my world was changing and somehow I didn’t mind at all.

Lily cried when I came back to the Tea Gardens. She hadn’t expected to see me again, and I couldn’t blame her. The Luidaeg was right when she said I was trying to die; I just hadn’t been able to see it until it was right on top of me. I still wasn’t sure I could fix it, but at least now I knew it was there. That was something. So Lily and I drank our tea and spoke of inconsequential things, and she smiled until I thought her face would crack. I started visiting her once a week after that, and bringing Quentin and May with me, when they’d come. It wasn’t fair to play games with the hearts of people who loved me. And they did love me—I had to admit that, or nothing would ever make sense again.

And me? Somewhere along the line, I’d faced the facts I’d been running from for a long time—maybe since before the Tea Gardens. Before everything. I’d finally run out of places to hide from the truth. I’m a hero. That means certain things. I probably won’t live to a ripe old age, Sylvester being sort of the exception as heroes go, but I always knew that. I never expected to live forever. Maybe admitting it to myself was all I needed to do. The rest came from there.

It’s a long, hard road to Babylon, but you can get there and back by the light of a candle. You just have to light it for yourself.

“Here comes the cake!” shrieked Jessica. Stacy dimmed the lights, and I turned to see Anthony and Cassandra walking into the room, holding opposite sides of a large white sheet cake. Everyone started joyously shouting the words to “Happy Birthday.” Even Spike chirped along with the melody. I didn’t sing. I looked from face to face instead, watching my kids—watching the people who had become my family—celebrate being alive, being together, and making it through another year.

“Blow out the candles, baby!” urged Stacy. Karen leaned forward and blew. The candles guttered and died, winking out like stars.

They weren’t needed anymore.

We were already home.

 

 

 

I
OPENED MY EYES TO A WORLD MADE entirely of flowers. Entirely of white flowers, no less, morning glories and white roses and the delicate brocade of Queen Anne’s Lace. I blinked. The flowers remained.

“Okay, this is officially weird,” I murmured. A faint breeze stirred the flowers overhead, sending loose petals showering down over me. There was no perfume. Even when the wind was blowing, there was no perfume. I relaxed, suddenly understanding the reason for the bizarre change of scene. “Right. I’m dreaming.”

“That was
fast
, Auntie Birdie,” said an approving voice to my left.

I sat up, shaking petals out of my hair as I turned. “Given how often you people throw me into whacked-out dream sequences these days, it’s becoming a survival skill. Why are you in my dreams tonight, Karen? I’m assuming it’s not just boredom.”

My adopted niece looked at me gravely. She was kneeling in the grass, petals speckling her white-blonde hair and sticking to her cheeks. Her blue flannel pajamas made her look out of place, like she’d been dropped into the wrong movie. Karen is the second daughter of my best friend, Stacy Brown, and oh, right—she’s an oneiromancer, an unexpected talent that decided to manifest itself when she was captured by Blind Michael. She sees the future in dreams. She can also use dreams to tell people things she thinks they need to know. Lucky me, I’m a common target.

Good thing I like the kid, or I might get cranky about having my dreams invaded by a twelve-year-old on a semi-regular basis.

“There’s something you need to see,” she said, and stood, walking away into the flowers. Lacking any other real options, I stood, brushed the flower petals off my jeans, and followed.

She had an easier time making it out of the impromptu bower than I did; she was lower to the ground, and could duck under branches that slapped me straight across the face. Finally, swearing under my breath, I pushed the last spray of gauzy white irises aside and stepped into the open. My breath caught as I saw where we were, and I froze, wondering abstractly if I could actually pass out in a dream.

Amandine’s tower stood tall and proud in the dim Summerlands twilight, the stone it was made from seeming to glow faintly from within, like a lighthouse that never needed to be lit. Low stone walls circled the manicured gardens, providing a delineation of the borders without doing a thing to defend the place. Amandine never seemed to feel she needed defending, and when I was living with her, I was still too young to realize what a strange attitude this was in Faerie.

“Karen,” I said, slowly, forcing myself to breathe, “what are we doing here?”

“Just watch,” she said.

So I watched.

Dream time isn’t like real time; I don’t know how long we stood there, looking at my mother’s garden. Being there, even in a dream, made my chest ache. I spent half my childhood in that garden, trying to be something I wasn’t. It’s grown wild since Amandine abandoned her tower, and I’m glad. It’s the only reason I can bear to go there.

“There,” Karen whispered, taking my hand. “Look.”

Someone was approaching via the eastern gate. I narrowed my eyes, squinting in that direction, and went cold as I realized that I knew the woman starting down the garden path. Black hair, golden skin, pointed ears, and eyes the bruised-black of the sky between stars. Oleander de Merelands. I automatically tried to push Karen behind me. “Ash and elm,” I hissed. “Karen, get down.”

“Dream, Auntie Birdie,” she said calmly. “Just watch.”

Thrumming with tension, I forced myself to stay where I was, watching Oleander like a mouse watches a snake. Not a bad comparison. Oleander de Merelands was half-Peri, half-Tuatha de Dannan, and all hazardous to your health. She was there when Simon Torquill turned me into a fish; she laughed. Even knowing the things they say about her—the rumors of assassinations, the fondness for poisons, the trafficking in dark magic and darker services—that’s the thing I can never seem to forget. She laughed. Where Oleander went, trouble followed.

She walked straight past us, not even glancing in our direction. I relaxed slightly. This was a dream; she couldn’t see what wasn’t really there. She proceeded down the path to the tower door, where she raised her hand and knocked, calmly as you please.

A minute or so later, the door opened, and my mother—Amandine of Faerie, greatest blood-worker of her generation—stepped out onto the tower steps. My breath caught again, for entirely different reasons. I haven’t seen my mother in years. Not really. She slipped away while I was in the pond, and I wasn’t prepared for the sight of Amandine in her prime.

Her elegantly braided hair was white gold, but unlike Karen’s, which looked faintly bleached, it was the simple, natural color of some unnamed precious metal. Her eyes were the same smoky gray-blue as morning fog. They widened slightly when she saw Oleander standing there, before narrowing in outrage.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “You are not welcome. I grant you no hospitalities, nor the warmth of my hearth.”

“Why, Amy, aren’t you the high-nosed bitch these days,” Oleander replied, her own voice thick with loathing. “
He
sent me. Someone thought he should know you’d come home again, and now he’s wondering after your welfare.”