Briar Queen (43 page)

J
ill Scarlet, who had been Rose Govannon Sullivan before the Wolf; Leander Cyrus, who had met an ancient mermaid; Hester Kierney, who had been tricked; Moth, who had been Alexander Nightshade before a curse; Jack, who had only wanted to be human. Each loss was more unbearable than the last.

As Finn rode in the back of Phouka's Mercedes with Lily, Anna, Christie, and Sylvie, she watched the snow fall over the holiday lights and decorations of Main Street. She couldn't cry. Her tears hurt, because, due to the elixir, they were like diamond dust now. No one spoke.

She would not let go of Lily's hand.

As Phouka drove the Mercedes down Finn's street and Finn glimpsed her da shoveling snow on the front path, she wanted to cry again.

The car stopped. Finn, her voice hoarse, said, “Lily, wait—”

Lily shoved open the car door. Finn slid out with her, trying to catch her, but Lily was already running up the path, her black gown fluttering around her legs. “Dad!
Dad!
”

He turned. The shovel dropped from his hands. He looked as if he'd been struck by some invisible force.

Lily halted with Finn beside her.

Then their father was striding toward them. He pulled Lily into his arms,
whispering her name over and over, his eyes bright with tears. “Is it really you?
Is it really you?
”

And as Sean Sullivan dragged Finn into the embrace, Finn closed her eyes and held on to the family Jack had returned to her.

JACK FELT THE WILD HUNT
on either side of him as he walked the path of pins and needles, of briars and thorns. He wasn't afraid of ending.

He glanced back over one shoulder, thought he saw a spark of light, caught a fragrance of the spring that would soon reach the true world, overwhelming, for a moment, the scents of nightshade and dust around him.

She was safe.

He turned and smiled and continued on, into the dark.

            
Lily told me there's a word in their language that sounds like the Irish one for “butterfly”—elvaude—and it means “one of us, becoming one of them.” There is no word in their language for one of them becoming one of us
.

Finn set down her journal, a book of scarlet leather embossed with a golden butterfly, similar to the book of maps she'd found in the Black House haunted by Ellen and Roland and once the home of Jack and Reiko. Perched on the window seat in her room, she gazed out at Christmas Eve, the dazzle of holiday lights on snow. She heard her sister and her da talking downstairs in the kitchen as if Lily had never been stolen away.

It was Lily who had told the story, about her death having been faked by a nomadic cult who had kidnapped her in California. When their father decided to call the police, Lily had told him she wouldn't be able to identify anyone because they'd drugged her. And that had resulted in their father setting down the phone and taking Lily to the emergency room—where Lily had had to speak, perfectly poised, with two police officers.

That night, huddled in Finn's bed, Lily had cried softly for Leander, and Finn, who still wasn't able to shed tears for Jack, or anyone, had held her and whispered something she remembered from Shakespeare's
The Tempest,
“‘
Nothing of him
that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea-change, into something rich and strange
.'”

There had been a lot of midnight talks between them since then.

Her da called her for dinner and Lily echoed him. Finn smiled. She walked out of her bedroom and closed the door.

A DRAFT SWEPT THROUGH THE ROOM,
riffling the pictures on the bulletin board—the Leica photographs of glowing orbs: of a ghostly young man and woman in antique clothes; of Finn and Moth seated on a giant, metal toadstool; of Finn and Jack on the train that had brought them back to the true world.

The photograph of Finn and Jack glided from the bulletin board and fell on top of her last journal entry:

            
Jack saved me twice. He saved Lily. Now it's my turn to save him
.

P
houka Banrión sauntered along the path in Tirnagoth's garden, her hands in the pockets of her coat. Snow and chrysanthemums glimmered in her copper-dark hair. She wore white, the Fata color for sorrow, although she didn't know how to mourn anymore, only how to perform the motions.

She bowed her head.
Jack
. She owed him and Finn Sullivan.

“Was that not a clever trick?” A voice spoke from above. “You see how she uses their natures against them?”

Phouka looked up at the figure crouched on a branch of the holly tree near which she stood. “Absalom. Why did you give Anna Weaver that umbrella of winter wood?”

“Anna wasn't targeted or suspected. Unlike Finn or her comrades.” Absalom grinned. “You think Lot saw that coming?”

“I don't think he saw the umbrella coming, or the
Tamasgi'po,
or the sword that took off his head. How you orchestrated Serafina Sullivan obtaining those things . . . you are a devil.”

He shrugged with false modesty. “Honestly, it was only because our heroine did what she was supposed to.”

“And if it hadn't rained? You don't think Lot would have found Anna's insistence on bringing her deadly umbrella a little suspect?”

He shrugged.

“And there is the matter of her sister,” Phouka continued. “Whom Serafina believes you betrayed to Lot.”

Lithe and careless as a cat, Absalom jumped down before her. In his fur-lined jacket and worn denim, his orange hair falling over his face, he looked like any teenage boy—except for the eyes. He could never get those quite right. “It was part of my master plan. You do realize Lily Rose doesn't remember her death? Funny thing about memory . . . it can be so inconvenient at times.”

“What”—Phouka took a step toward him—“have you
inconveniently
remembered?”

The devil light flickered in his golden gaze. “I've remembered who Moth really is.”

She shut her eyes for a moment, thought better of it. Carefully, she said, “Go on.”

“I first met Moth before I cursed him in your time, Lizzie.”

“Don't call me that.”

“Long ago, Moth was born among the Laplander tribes, a creature who could pretend to be anyone he wished. A mortal witch. A human freak of nature. Some believed his father hadn't been human. Then one of us made him into a Jack.”

“Which one of us and how long ago?”

“You recall Hans Christian Andersen's poignant tale ‘The Snow Queen'? Well, the cold bitch was real—she's the one who taught Seth Lot stitchery. Anyhow, later on, Moth the Jack stole something from me—that was during the Renaissance, and I was quite peeved.”

“What did he steal?”

“I'd rather not say. It's embarrassing. So, when I met Moth as a Jack—Alexander Nightshade—pretending to be an actor in Shakespeare's theater—and plotting against you, by the way—I took his memory and cursed him so that, whenever he kissed someone, he turned into a bug.”

“So you just left a dangerous creature like that around like a discarded toy all chock-full of magic, for the Black Scissors and Seth Lot to find?”

Absalom looked glum. “I didn't expect Lot to find Moth and what Moth stole from me. I didn't expect the Black Scissors to turn him into a key.”

“Absalom.
What is Moth?”

“Our first mistake.” Absalom's mischief vanished and the age returned to his eyes. “Our first Jack.”

Fear was a rare experience for Phouka. “Where is Moth now?”

“When our cracking-clever Finn kissed Moth, her lips were glossed with the
Tamasgi'po
. I'm afraid the terror we came here to watch for has been under our noses all this time—and he's just woken up and remembered what he is.”

Phouka whispered a name that shivered the unfamiliar element of dread through her. “Harahkte.”

IN THE NIGHT RADIANT WITH SNOW FALL,
a lean figure in a black hoodie and jeans stood outside of Tirangoth's gates, gazing at the hotel. He raised a hand to idly caress the roses blossoming unnaturally around him. The roses blackened, flaked away, drifted over a birch tree where an insect that should not exist in winter hovered like an eye.

As a smile glinted in the shadows beneath the figure's hood, the brass dragonfly, unseen, flickered urgently away into the dark.

THE PROFESSORS

“I Know Places”
—Lykke Li

“White Winter Hymnal”
and
“Terrible Love”
—Birdy

“King and Lionheart”
—
Of Monsters and Men

“For You”
—Passenger

“Team”
—Lorde

“Northern Lights”
and
“Depuis Le Debut”
—30 Seconds to Mars

“Tomorrow”
—Daughter

“Keep the Streets Empty for Me”
—Fever Ray

“The High Road”
—Joss Stone

“Human”
—
Christina Perri

“House on a Hill”
—The Pretty Reckless

“By the Evening”
—Benjamin Booker

“Darkness, Darkness”
—Robert Plant

“Silhouette”
—Owl City