The Vanishing Throne (20 page)

I
SLIP IN
and out of consciousness. I could have been lying here for hours, or days. For the longest time, it's as though my limbs are weighted, too heavy to move. My entire body feels like it's burning from the inside.

During the haze, I manage to open my eyes. I stare down at my arms to find hundreds of bites healed over into scars. My skin is overly reddened—as if I spent too much time in the sun—and damp with fever. Even the brush of my fingertips is painful.

Sometimes there are people in the room, voices I recognize. I try to open my eyes, but they are so heavy. Always heavy. My lips move to ask for Aithinne, for her painful healing, but I can't speak.

Everything hurts except for when he's near.
Kiaran
. The taste of his power lingers on my tongue, the breath of his name on my lips. I could swear I hear him whisper to me in that fae language that sounds as soft and lyrical as a haunting
lullaby. I want him to say the words again, the ones he said to me before the battle.

Aoram dhuit
.
I will worship thee
.

He never says them. I almost ask him to as I wake, my eyes opening painful fractions at a time. Then I realize it isn't Kiaran sitting next to me whispering soft unintelligible words. It's Catherine.

“Hullo,” I say. The word is barely more than a croak.

Catherine raises her head, her eyes weary, as if she's been awake for hours. “Hullo,” she returns.

I take in my surroundings, trying to ignore how hot my eyes feel, how I can barely keep my eyelids open. I'm in a room.
My room
.

Everything is just as I remember it. The walls made of teak, with hundreds of tiny bulb lights placed between the wooden panels. A ship's wheel I salvaged from an old schooner that hangs on the far wall, next to a map of the Outer Hebrides. Clicking gears along the edges of the ceiling that connect to the electricity tower in the heart of New Town.

Home
.
Am I dreaming?
Was
I dreaming? My head is pounding, my vision starting to blur and blacken around the edges again.

“Home?” I ask, my lips barely moving.

I see her hesitation. Catherine takes my hand. “Shh. Go back to sleep. I'll be here when you wake up.”

I dream about home. Not my old life—tea parties and dancing and balls—just the place. In my dream I'm with my mother and we're sitting on the grass in the Princes Street gardens.

It's summer, and the flowers are in full bloom. My favorite was always the lobelia; the delicate flower covers the ground in vivid purple buds. During this time of year, the perennials are spread across the green space in beautiful splashes of color. They blanket the hillside below the castle in yellows, reds, purples, and pinks, and the grass has never been more lush.

The sun is warm on my face. My hat is tipped back so I can feel the heat of the rays. I wear a day dress of light blue, its muslin thin enough that I can feel the heavenly summer breeze.

“It's beautiful, isn't it?” my mother says. She closes her eyes, her skin glowing gold in the afternoon sun. “I miss this.”

“I do, too,” I say.

“We ought to visit the shore later. Just you and me.”

“I'd love that,” I say, a catch in my voice.
I don't belong here with you
.

Mother glances over at me. “Is there something wrong?”

“I just . . . I wish I could stay.” I rip the petals off the lobelia. One at a time.

“Why wouldn't you?”

How do I explain this to her gently?
“There's someplace I have to be. People I'm responsible for.”

Mother's laugh sends a shiver down my back like a stroke of cold, wet fingertips. “What a silly thing to say,” she says.
When she tips her hat further back, her red hair and green eyes are a little too bright. Were they always that bright? “Of course you're not responsible for anyone.”

The way she says it stirs something inside me. She sounds dismissive. Mother never sounded dismissive. “But—”

“We ought to build something new, lass. Whatever you desire. Wouldn't you like that?”

Whatever you desire. Wouldn't you like that?

“No,” I say. Something isn't right.

Sharp cawing laughter draws my attention. Ravens gather in the grass around us, hundreds of them. They weren't there before. Now their inky, flapping wings cover the ground, their beaks sharp and bright red and dripping. Blood?

Mother grasps my hand so tightly that I gasp. “I'll find you.” When my gaze meets hers, I go cold. Her eyes are black as pitch, like a starless night. I could drown in them. “Wherever you go, I'll find you.”

“Minnie?” I whisper, calling her by the nickname I gave her so long ago.
Not her. It's not her
.

As I look on, her face begins to fade away, skin peeling off until her skull is visible. With a sharp cry, I try to tear my hand from her grasp, but she holds firm.

Before I realize, the sun is gone. The sky has darkened quickly until there is nothing left but black clouds. The flowers around us wilt and die. They turn to dust. The ravens laugh with sharp squawks and flapping wings.

“Let go of me.” I'm pulling so hard that it hurts. Her grasp is so tight that her fingers dig into my skin, a bruising pressure.

“After this, you're on borrowed time, Falconer,” she tells me. Her voice drops until it's unrecognizable. She pulls me close, whispers in my ear. “I'll see you again soon.”

I wake with a start, groaning at the pain. It feels like my entire body is on fire. I claw at the blankets, at my skin. It
hurts
.

“
Aileana
.” Hands gently push at my shoulders. “It's all right. You're all right.” Catherine.

I open my eyes to find her leaning over me. She looks even more exhausted than she did the last time I awoke; I wonder how long she's been here now.

“Too hot,” I rasp.

Catherine frowns, pressing her palm to my cheek. “You're still running a fever. Give me a moment.” She reaches for something. I hear water splash before she holds up a wet cloth. She folds it over and places it on my forehead.

The cold water breaks through the heat and I sigh with relief. “Thank you.”

She takes my hand again. “Better?” My response dies on my lips when I notice where I am. So that part wasn't a dream. I'm in my bedroom.
Home
.

My head falls back against the pillows and I stare up at the gears along the ceiling, the lights above me. I'd seen that part of the wall caved in with a hole in it. The furniture rotting. This place doesn't exist anymore, not as it once did. It's a heap of rubble, destroyed by the fae. And what remained
of the room I adored so much—that I lovingly designed with my mother—was completely leveled by the
mortair
. But here it looks so . . . perfect, surely I can't be imagining this.

I touch my fingers to the counterpane, so much like my old one, the silk flattening beneath my palm. “Is this real?” I whisper.
Am I still dreaming?

I'm not. My arms are still covered in healed-over fae bites, the skin red and angry.

“That depends on what you consider real,” Catherine tells me. She presses my hand to the wooden frame of my bed. “Does this feel real to you?”

The grooves under my fingertips do. So do the designs carved into the headboard. I raise my head just enough to see the way my fingers press to the wood; I feel the texture of it, even as a pounding headache forms at my temples.

Finally it hurts so much that I have to lie back again. I shut my eyes against the pain. “Where am I?”

“You're still in the pixie kingdom. I'll tell you everything when you're better,” she says. “Aithinne will be back soon to heal you again.”

My lips feel so dry. “What's wrong with me?”

“She said the old venom in your blood is reacting badly to the new.” I feel Catherine's fingertips on the scars at my wrist. “From these?” she asks.

She asks the question lightly, but I note how it sounds like she's holding back emotion. “Aye,” I say, moments from sleep again. “From when I was in the
Sìth-bhrùth
.”

“I'm sorry I wasn't there for you,” she whispers.

I tighten my hand in hers. I can't tell if she's talking about what happened with Lonnrach or the wisps. I can only manage three words: “I'm sorry, too.”
I'm sorry this is the world I left you with
.

The next time I wake I feel sharper, more alert. When I look over to see if Catherine's still there, I'm surprised to find Gavin is sitting in a chair beside the bed, reading a book. He looks up when I stir. “You look better.” He closes his book and sets it aside.

Someone has changed my clothes. I'm wearing a clean white raploch shirt that's about twice my size and trousers that fit only slightly better. My injuries are all healed from Aithinne's work. The lighter bites hardly left any outline at all; the deeper ones are still small, barely more than circular marks between Lonnrach's bites.

Unfamiliar scars wrap around my wrists. From the shackles, I realize. When the wisps attacked, I had strained against them so much that they cut into my skin. I hadn't even noticed.

I set my jaw. “Where's Catherine?”

“She's been with you for days now,” Gavin says. “It was my turn.”

“What if I don't want you to have a turn?”

Gavin looks away. “I know you're angry.”

“You really don't know how I'm feeling.” I stare down at the scars again. I managed never to resist against the ivy in the mirrored room. I never had a reminder of that. Now I do.

Gavin winces when he notices the scars. “I should have told you about—”

“You didn't tell me about the wisps, either,” I say sharply. “If you had, I would have told you they can tell from my blood that I'm a Falconer. My energy is just as intoxicating to them as a Seer's, Gavin.”

Guilt flashes in his gaze. “I didn't know about that.”

“Because you didn't
ask
!” He opens his mouth to speak, but I'm too fast. “Derrick told you I was different and that being a Falconer would make it worse. You lied to him about going easy on me, didn't you? You tried to kill me.”

Gavin steps back. “
No
.
No, I didn't. I swear I didn't.” He looks like he's about to reach for me, but his hands drop to his side. “Because you're a Falconer I wasn't certain if you could handle the pain of their bite better than a human. For god's sake, Aileana, I've seen you fight before with injuries that would have killed anyone else.”

I shove the blanket off my legs. “I'm not particularly in the mood to hear your excuses.” When I move to stand, Gavin grasps my wrist. “You're not well.”