Bones of Faerie03 - Faerie After (18 page)

Matthew took my stone hand in turn. He’d have no protection in Faerie, not with Caleb’s leaf gone, and the seeds might not protect him, either, because there was nothing in his shifting magic that could sense the life within them.

I pulled away from them both to feel for the seeds in my pocket. Gifts of protection, but not for humans, not unless our own magic helped us. Even then our magic could only do so much. The true gifts were only for the faerie folk who ate these seeds long ago.

We didn’t know that. I took a seed from my pocket, feeling its green life as I turned it between my fingers. There was only this seed and one more, plus the one
Allie held. If we ate them as Mirinda had, would Rhianne’s gifts come to us, too? If they didn’t, I’d lose what protection I had, but the risk might be worth it, for Matthew’s and Allie’s sake.

Elin’s eyes narrowed. “Where did you get that? I saw a seed before, the one you gave Caleb. There was no chance to question you then.”

“It’s from my tree.” I tightened my hold on the seed. Matthew moved close to me, sensing, as I did, the threat in Elin’s tense stance.

“And what do you plan to do with this seed?” Her voice took on a hard edge.

No matter that she’d saved us, I doubted Elin would want us having the same protection as her people.

“Your intentions are not hard to guess,” Elin said. “But you cannot imagine any quia seed would share its power with humans. It is deepest blasphemy for you even to hold one.”

“What power?” Matthew asked.

I was tense, too, alert for any sudden move Elin might make. “Faerie power came from seeds like this.”

“Like glamour?” Matthew rubbed the scar at his wrist.

“Not only casting glamour,” I told him. “Protection from glamour, too. And seeing in the dark. Hearing over distances. Long life.” It was long life, and the
way Rhianne’s hold on death stood behind it, that had brought this crumbling to us. I should want nothing to do with such things. Yet eating the seeds would not increase Rhianne’s hold on death. That was already done, unless I found some way to undo it. If the quia seeds worked for us at all, they would merely grant us a share of the power whose price we were already paying.

“The seeds might well kill you,” Elin said. “I would, before I’d share my power with a human.”

“No, I don’t think so.” Allie turned back to us. “Not quickly, anyway.” She held out her hands. By the moonlight, I saw broken pieces of shell. “Because if the seeds were going to kill us, I’d already be dead.”

Chapter 16

“A
llie!” I looked her over for any sign of harm, but in the dark, I couldn’t tell.

“Someone had to go first.” Allie rubbed the pieces of shell off against her pants. “And if I’m going back to Faerie, I need to know I’ll be safe this time. I can’t have anyone taking me over, not ever again. Besides, if I’m going to live—and it’s clear enough I am, because otherwise everything Caleb did would be wasted—the more protection I have, the better.”

“How do you feel?” Matthew’s face pinched with concern.

Allie smiled, a small, pleased smile. “Good. Really good.”

“
What
do you feel?” The edge remained in Elin’s voice.

Allie’s smile grew. “I see colors, even though it’s
nighttime. I feel small shifts in the ground beneath our feet. I hear—”

I saw the change in Elin’s stance an instant before she lunged for the seed I held. We fell to the ground together as my sweater constricted, squeezing the air from my lungs. My sleeve constricted around my flesh hand, questing fibers trying to push between my fingers, to pry the seed free. Matthew leaped at us, shifting as he landed on Elin’s back, fur flowing over his skin, teeth growing just in time to dig into her shoulder.

“Elianna!”
I forced breath into my chest and my words.
“Stop!”

Elin froze, my magic holding her. I pushed her to her feet as I stood. Matthew moved to sit beside her, snarling.

Allie brushed fingers along Elin’s shoulder, which bled through her cloak. In a flash of silver light, the bleeding stopped. Elin’s cloak fluttered restlessly about her, but otherwise she did not move. She could not move. My magic held her, a cold thread stretched taut between us. “It is rather convenient,” she said, “that I have made vows not to harm you, but you have not once suggested you might offer similar vows in turn.”

I used my teeth to tear my sweater free from around my fingers. “Would you deny us every last protection from your people?”

Elin gave a brittle laugh. “I stand trapped before you as surely as a cat in a tree, yet you continue to speak of
your
safety. Your people did much the same during the War. Do you think yourselves the only ones who know fear?”

I wouldn’t forgo this protection just to make Elin feel safe. I slammed the seed against my stone hand. It cracked easily enough. Matthew growled, and his ears perked forward, a warning.

Elin couldn’t stop me now. I used my teeth to peel the bits of shell away. The shell was bitter, but the seed within dissolved to syrupy sweetness as I chewed, sliding easily down my throat. I felt the green life in it still, but missed the exact moment when that life became part of me, adding its power to mine until I could no longer sense it, any more than I could sense my own shadow.

Color crept into the night world: the green of Elin’s cloak, the red of Allie’s hair, the brown of Matthew’s pants and sweater where they lay on the ground. Matthew pressed his ears back against his head. Did he remain afraid the seeds would hurt us? “It’s all right.” I smelled damp earth, crisp leaves, droplets of water in the humid air, and behind it all a staleness that said none of this could last. I offered Matthew the final seed. He wouldn’t care so much about the shell as a wolf.

He shook his head. Silver light flowed over gray fur,
and then he was human, shivering, gathering up his scattered clothes. I heard the chatter of his teeth, the River’s steady flow, the soft breath of someone watching from the forest—the same watcher Elin had heard at the crossroads?

“You can let me go,” Elin said. “It’s too late for me to stop you.”

Elin and our watcher would both have to wait. I kept holding the seed out to Matthew. I couldn’t protect him from glamour, but the seed could. “I’m okay. Allie’s okay. Truly.” I felt fine. Better than fine.

“No.” Matthew drew on pants and boots. There was a sheen of sweat on his chest. I smelled its salty tang.

Why would he refuse? I could see so much, smell so much. I felt stronger, more alert than I’d ever been. “Take it.” I needed Matthew to take the seed. I needed him to be safe. “Please, Matthew.” My words turned soft and urgent.

Something sleepy slid across Matthew’s eyes. He reached slowly for the seed, as if he moved through deep water. Once he ate it, everything would be all right. He lifted the seed to his lips, but his soft eyes remained on me, his expression trusting as a child’s.

The seed was in his mouth before I realized what was happening. “Stop!” I released the connection between us, a connection so subtle I hadn’t felt it slide into place.

Matthew shuddered and spit the unbroken seed to the ground. It hadn’t been him wanting to eat that seed. It’d been me, using glamour to make him do what I wanted. Elin threw back her head and laughed, the sound wild as an autumn storm. Our hidden listener’s breathing slowed, as if to better watch us all.

The sleepy look had left Matthew’s face, replaced by something more stark. Fear. “You don’t want to make me do this, Liza.”

I didn’t—and I did. I wanted to protect him. Him most of all, of all those I sought to protect.

I glanced at Allie. Her eyes were wide, and I knew she understood what I’d almost done. I had precious little ability to protect anyone I cared for. The knowledge was cold and hard inside of me. I watched Matthew crush the seed beneath his boot. He didn’t trust me, not with this.

I felt the spark of life in the seed flicker out. He was right not to trust me.

Elin kept laughing. “So you see, Liza. You are no better than us after all. We all seek power, and we all fear its lack.”

Matthew flung the crushed seed into the forest, but his shoulders remained stiff, watchful.

“Foolish wolf,” Elin said. “Someone else might well have wanted the power you so lightly cast aside.”

Matthew looked at me, a question in his eyes.

I didn’t know how to answer it. Part of me longed to make him gather the pieces of crushed seed up again, in hopes that some power might remain in them. “You have no protection now.”

I heard his breath speed up, saw the small pulse that pounded in the side of his neck. He was still afraid, afraid of me. I smelled his fear, a sharp tang in the humid air. Had the faerie folk always smelled my fear, too?

“I understand why you and Allie ate the seeds.” Matthew’s voice was the one steady thing about him. “I know too well what glamour is like, and why you want to be safe from it.”

He knew it better than me. The Lady had held him under glamour for so long. “Then why—”

“Because I don’t want to use glamour on anyone else, not now, not ever.”

I flinched at his quiet words. “I’m—” But I couldn’t say I was sorry, because I wasn’t sure I was.

“You wouldn’t have to use it.” Allie twisted a lock of hair around her fingers, and I knew she felt as uneasy as me. “I don’t plan to.”

Matthew looked at Elin. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I
know
I’m not better than you.” He pulled his shirt back on. “I know the things I’d do if I had this power. That’s why I can’t take it.”

I wanted to be sorry—that wasn’t enough. I wanted to pull him close, so close that I could pretend everything was all right. I reached for him. He reached for me, and something sleepy crept back into his eyes.

I drew a sharp breath. Was that sleepiness only him wanting to hold me in turn, or was it something more? How could I ever know if his wants were truly the same as mine, or whether I just wished them to be?

I jerked my arms back to my sides. I couldn’t know, and that meant I had to set my own wanting aside. “I don’t want to hurt you.” I’d sooner draw my own blood than his.

“I know,” Matthew said, his eyes clear once more. But he didn’t reach for me again.

“Caleb and Karin never used it.” Allie stuck out her lower lip. “We can learn not to use it, too.”

“You think glamour can be turned off at will, as easily as hooding a hawk sends it to sleep? I do not know how much practice it took for my mother and uncle to cease using glamour so completely. I only know they used it freely enough when I was young.” No laughter in Elin’s words now. “Let me go, Liza. Entertaining though this may be, we have work to do beyond the Arch.”

“Be free,”
I said, releasing my magic’s hold on her. Then, “Why didn’t you say someone still followed us?”

“As I recall, we had a few more pressing concerns.”
Elin moved to put a hand to the Arch’s surface. “Now, I cannot speak for the rest of you, but I intend to do all I can for my mother.” She stepped into the metal and was gone.

Right. First we’d save Karin, or fail to save her. Everything else would come after. I walked to the Arch as well. Allie grabbed my stone hand. I reached for Matthew with my good one. His steps were so much louder than Allie’s and mine.

He hesitated, just for an instant. As his fingers closed around mine, I saw the apology in his gray eyes.

“Maybe you should stay behind.” My whisper sounded loud in the night. “I’m not the only one you’ll have to worry about in Faerie.” It was much more dangerous for him to go there than me now.

Matthew shook his head, no doubt in that gesture. “I came this far to find you. I’m not leaving you now.”

“All right.” We’d deal with this later, too—somehow. I looked into the Arch.
Faerie. Show me Faerie
.

The visions were reluctant to come, like fire to wet wood. It took a long time before I saw—

Karin, rocking back and forth as she crooned to what remained of the First Tree, while in the near distance, other dead tree stumps crumbled to dust—

Nys, standing in a stone cavern set with gems of all colors, faerie folk gathered around him. At the room’s
center was another standing stone. He walked through it, and the others followed, holding to one another as surely as Allie and Matthew and I did—