Summer (16 page)

“As I said.” Very carefully he righted the table and replaced scattered knickknacks. “I wasn’t entirely sure until I tried, my lady.”

Siobahn turned and left him to follow her into her library. She conjured flames to the hearth with a word and sent Barker’s starlight to lurk in every corner of the room, forcing darkness away. She wondered if he would reach for the light switch. Now that she realized the extent of his madness she found herself looking for indications she may have missed, a cat searching sideways for sign of a lingering mouse.

But he ignored the switch and wandered to the bar where Malachi used to keep his fine Irish whiskey and cheap tequila. Siobahn didn’t protest when he blew dust from an unused crystal snifter and poured out five fingers of her dead husband’s expensive liquor. He drank the whiskey down in one swallow then coughed lightly.

“Subjecting the remaining exiles to forced baptism is probably unwise,” he said after a moment, sounding more like the man Malachi once relied on. “Even if the reward is passage off the island. Adam’s god has no love for our kind.”

Siobahn paused in front of her writing desk, surprised. She hadn’t really supposed the friar’s ritual of oil and water anything more than empty platitudes or ritualized human sorcery. But Barker’s hand trembled as he poured himself a second drink, making the amber bracelet on his wrist glitter, and she couldn’t help but wonder what else he might be keeping to himself.

“Surely you don’t believe that ex-convict managed to somehow gift you with a
soul?”
She laughed aloud at the very sound of the words on her tongue.

“No,” Barker answered quickly. “Of course not.”

Siobahn scoffed and seated herself at her desk. “Good. I’d hate to suppose you sentimental as well as foolish. Report, if you will. Tell me of my children. Tell me you bring glad tidings.”

Afterward, Siobahn didn’t know whether to howl in rage or in triumph. Winter had failed her again; for the third time since he’d sprung shrieking from her womb, he’d done exactly as he’d wished instead of bowing to her greater wisdom. The son she’d once had such high hopes for was finally lost to her and she refused to let herself mourn him.

“Summer will do me proud,” she declared at last, past an unwelcome lump in her throat. And then, reluctantly: “Mayhap you should have gone with them. She’s never swung a sword in her life, that one.”

He was watching the flames in the grate, thinking his own private thoughts. The fall of his hair was very red against the slant of his cheeks and she knew that once she would have found him attractive. Before Malachi. When she was still capable of seeing beauty in any man other than her prince.

“They’re safer without us,” he replied at last. “Gloriana would know the moment one of the exiles returned. She’d send what resources she has immediately in my direction, the moment I stepped through the Gate. Your quest would be over before it was begun.”

“Summer’s quest,” Siobahn corrected. She tried to imagine her shallow, delicate daughter facing down their greatest enemy and couldn’t. Summer had always loved pretty things and in
Tir na Nog
the prettiest things were deadly.

I’ve lost
, she thought, and turned her face away from Barker so he wouldn’t see her fury.

Of course he thought she was grieving her children.

“My lady.” He had a deep voice, gone deeper as he tried to reassure. “Don’t give up quite yet. Summer’s a good girl, a brave lass. She takes after her father.”

The highest compliment Barker had to give, Siobahn supposed, and laughed again at his earnest expression.

A shifting in the banished shadows interrupted her scorn and sent her once again to her feet. Barker, sensing her alarm, wheeled toward the door, speaking as he did the Warding words that conjured a bubble of silver glow about them both.

Nightingale paused halfway into the room, its noxious cloak bound and gathered at one shoulder, the smoky hem trailing about its heels.

“Oh,” it said, guileless as a child. “You’re busy.” It smiled, glancing from Barker to Siobahn and back again.

Barker went rigid and his Ward flickered dangerously. Nightingale smiled wider, showing blunt human teeth. Barker recoiled and Siobahn found his reaction very interesting indeed.

“Enter and be welcome,” she said, although in truth she wished the horrific creature would keep itself well out of sight. “Barker. Dismiss your Ward. Nightingale means me no harm.”

For three solid heartbeats Barker didn’t move.  Then his Ward vanished with an angry crack. He turned and walked away to the library windows, stared out through the rainy night at Central Park. Siobahn pretended ignorance, even as she took silent note of his every twitch and exhale.

It hadn’t occurred to Siobahn to warn him. She simply hadn’t thought, not even when she’d found Nightingale gone to ground in Barker’s quarters.  Now she was glad of the misstep. In fact, she was delighted. Barker deserved to be punished for harboring secrets and there was no more fitting punishment than heartbreak. Siobahn knew that firsthand.

“You’ve come for one of my collection, I suppose,” she said, gesturing at her shelves. “I recall how you always so loved your books when you first came to Court. Especially those old volumes of poetry. Do you remember, Barker, how he’d entertain Angus with his own verse? Make us all weep, he would.”

“It,” Barker corrected, too soft, too calm, as he regarded the rain. “
It
made us weep.”

“‘Changed as he was, with age, and toils, and cares,’” Nightingale quoted softly. Then: “I am as your people made me. Much improved for the original, I’m told. Poetry has no place in war.”

“Choose your book and go,” Barker said.

Nightingale tilted its chin at Siobahn. She nodded permission and dismissal both. It shrugged and ghosted into the room to stand before Siobahn’s corner of shelves. It walked its fingers over leather spines. Siobahn kept a delicate potted orchid in a silver pot between Conan Doyle and Dickens. As Nightingale browsed Siobahn’s selection the orchid withered and turned to ash. Siobahn bit back her annoyance.

Nightingale ignored several volumes of good poetry and instead settled on Tom Clancy. It clutched the book to its concave chest and bowed first to Barker, who ignored it, and then to Siobahn.

“Thank you, Majesty.”

It departed soundlessly, trailing curls of miasma. When they were alone again Barker turned from the window and frowned at the ruined orchid.

“It did that on purpose, you realize. It has more control than it pretends.”

“I have two teenage children, Barker. I recognize a tantrum when I see one.” Siobahn crossed the room and sighed over the lost plant. “It wasn’t pleased to see you, I think.”

“Be careful, my lady. That one’s never completely forgiven your father for stealing it away.”

“None of them do,” Siobahn replied.  “Have Morris book you a room in the hotel. Nightingale’s commandeered your own, Barker, and I doubt you want to join it in dreaming.”

Her dead husband’s best warrior stiffened in insult at the demotion. Siobahn waited, pretending patience even as her knuckles turned white around the orchid’s empty pot. She could hear the rasp of his breathing, smell his distress. Surely he wasn’t stupid enough to protest, not when she’d only just forgiven him his disappearance.

He wasn’t.

He cleared his throat. “Aye, my lady. Of course.”

“Goodnight, Barker.” She stepped aside to let him pass.

He left exactly as Nightingale had, trailing silent displeasure. When he was gone she set the silver pot back between Conan Doyle and Dickens, making a mental note to send Morris out for a new cymbidium in the morning. Her knuckles ached from the clench of suppressed rage. She crossed her arms and tucked her hands in her armpits and stood in Barker’s place against the windows and looked down onto the lights of Central Park.

Hannah lay in the dirt on her back beneath the point of Summer’s sword. Summer didn’t let
Buairt
touch the changeling, not quite. The silver chain Summer had used to string the filigreed cross around her neck had broken when the cross switched back into a sword. It lay coiled in the sand next to Hannah’s fallen baseball cap.

“Please,” Hannah said. “I’m sorry. Please. It hurts.”

Summer blinked. The sword felt very light, easy in her grip. She was strong in the way of the fay, but she’d never been athletic. Her papa had put a training blade in her hand once or twice when he’d still planned to bring his children up like
sidhe
legends, before they’d discovered Summer was about as coordinated as a mule and Winter preferred video games to fencing.

Buairt
didn’t feel at all like a training blade.
Buairt
felt like it belonged in Summer’s hand and it was beautiful, the most beautiful thing she’d seen since Elle Tahari introduced resort-wear in 2013.

“Please,” Hannah whispered. Her hands flopped in the sand as she struggled to slide away from the sword, but she seemed to have lost control of her arms and legs. Summer stared down at her, but it was Papa’s face she was seeing, Malachi as he contorted on the pavement, unable to escape
Buairt’s
curse.

Then Brother Dan grabbed Summer’s wrist and wrenched the sword from her grasp. She struggled briefly, automatically, even though she’d never wanted
Buairt
in the first place. She had to grit her teeth to keep from lunging after it.

Hannah curled in on herself, nose to bent knees, and covered her ears with her palms.

“You’ve quick reflexes and I can’t argue she needed a reminder,” the friar said. He gripped the rapier’s hilt between blunt fingers, letting the blade prick the sand. “But I think you made your point.”

Summer looked down at Hannah. She felt a pang of guilt. She’d meant from the beginning to make the other girl her friend and instead here she was, no better than Darlene Francis, using the sword as a threat.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, speaking to the friar but looking at Hannah. “It’s just—you scared me. Give it to me. I’ll turn it back. It’s better when it’s changed, isn’t it? Not as bad?” She bent to catch up the broken chain and Hannah actually flinched, sliding in the sand.

“No,” Dan said. “If we’ve crossed over, the sword’s valuable. Who knows what we’ll meet in
Tir na Nog
. Better to keep it close at hand, although maybe not at Hannah’s expense. Lolo, give me the scabbard.”

Lolo, Summer saw, was more interested in what might be beyond the cave mouth than Hannah’s wellbeing. He was dancing from foot to foot, quivering in excitement. He dug into the pocket of his jacket and plucked free a fist-sized roll of brown leather. Summer’s stomach clenched. Morris had done a neat job sewing the rubies back into place and the leather really didn’t resemble human skin, but she still couldn’t look at the scabbard without feeling frightened and sick.

Dan didn’t seem to have the same problem. He took the roll from Lolo and pulled the soft scabbard over the sword. It went on a bit like a loose sock and Summer recognized it for what it was: decoration, fashion, except for the part where the sorcery of mortal flesh and blood somehow blunted the blade’s powerful curse.

A stiffer piece of notched hide was attached to the top of the scabbard. While Summer gaped, Brother Dan unfastened his own narrow belt, tugged it free of his jeans, and slotted it through the scabbard. Then he crooked a finger at Summer.

“We’ll knot it around your waist for now, I think. Lorenzo, stop fidgeting and help Hannah up, please.”

Hannah whined in protest. Summer was busy watching Dan’s hand as he looped the belt around her waist and deftly knotted it in place. It was like being mauled by a gentle bear. He smelled of sea salt and a little bit of clean sweat and of something that made Summer think of Christmas.

The belt was some sort of canvas webbing, striped in red and blue and yellow and far too preppy for an old friar, but it was just flexible enough that they managed to make it work, even if the very tip of the scabbard banged against Summer’s heel.

“You’ll get used to it,” Dan said. “Keep one hand on the hilt and you’ll soon figure out how to keep it from catching.”

Lolo had somehow managed to coax Hannah upright. He let the changeling lean on his shoulder and stared at Dan like he’d just then noticed something fantastic. Summer had seen Lolo look like that once before, when he’d stepped into The Plaza’s golden elevator.

“What’s a priest know about swords?”

“Not a priest,” Dan corrected patiently even though he must know Lolo was only making the mistake to piss him off. “And I wasn’t always a Franciscan.”

Lolo scoffed. “They don’t let you have swords
in prison
.”

“You’re right,” Dan agreed. “But they do have cable. I watched a lot of movies. Learned all sorts of things thanks to Hollywood.”

“You’re shittin’ me,” Lolo retorted.

For once Brother Dan didn’t bother correcting Lolo’s language. Instead he shrugged and looked only at Summer.

“Well,” he said. “
Niña.
Are you ready?”

Summer wasn’t, not at all.

She made her mouth smile and then she nodded, because really she didn’t have any other choice.

Lolo was the first one through the mouth of the cave and he was quickly back again, holding a hand up in warning.

“Watch it. We’re up high. Like, right up with the moon, and the moon’s a fingernail, which isn’t right at all.” He scrabbled in a pocket, humming in triumph as he retrieved his penlight. “Dark out there. Summer, can you do like Win? Make a light? And you’re right,” he was babbling in unconscious excitement as Summer and Dan and even Hannah stared, “it smells like flowers.”

Summer could Gather starlight, although she had to gnaw on her lip in concentration before the shining globe appeared overhead. But after that it was easier, the globe swelled and expanded just as she thought they might need more light, and it was almost as good as city street lights. She felt a surge of pride.

“Lorenzo’s right.” Dan said from just beyond the cave. “Come, there’s a ledge, but it’s narrow.”

Summer didn’t mind heights, and she was glad of it, because when she edged after the friar and got her first glance of
Tir na Nog
it was a a lot like stepping out onto Rockefeller Center’s observation deck. Her heart jumped into her throat, not in fear, but in awe.

Fairyland’s version of the Cornwallis Cave opened not onto gently sloping sand and restless seas but onto a very narrow stone balcony, surely no more than four feet wide, and beyond that emptiness. The crescent moon illuminated racing clouds, fat and silver, and behind the cave, high rolling hills. Summer’s light was brighter than the moon and when Summer sent it dancing like lazy fireworks above her head the mountainside revealed itself in stark black and silver silhouette.

There was a path, a switchback trail dropping sharply from the ledge and also rising in more gentle curves up and past the cave mouth. Summer thought they were very high up, but the mountain grew on past the cave and the uppermost trail followed swells and curves until it undulated out of sight. The lower path disappeared at the edge of Summer’s light where the mountainside spread away into darkness.

“We’re at the top of the world,” Lolo breathed, impressed. “It’s like Everest or something.”

“No,” Hannah said, surprising them all. “Taste the air, mortal. It’s warm and soft. I smell growing things. We’re closer to earth than clouds. It’s only the night distorting the horizon.” And then she conjured her own light with an indolent twitch of long fingers and sent a second globe orbiting Summer’s.

“Foothills,” Brother Dan agreed. “Sizable foothills, but not palisades. I hear water.”

Summer heard it, too. Not the rush and recede of ocean waves but the steady roar of a river. It sounded distant still, beyond and below their ledge.

“Maybe we should wait here until the sun comes up,” Summer suggested. “The trail will be easier in the daylight. At least here we’ve got shelter.”

“Sounds good, but I’m not sure we want to stay.” Lolo tugged at Summer’s sleeve. His knee bumped
Buairt
and Summer felt the vibration of the blade against her thigh. “Look.” He pointed.

Tall grass and small plants grew in pockets along the trail and in the slope around the cave. The grass looked thick and sharp, wide as Summer’s thumb, black and white in the night. The plants were jagged and bore tiny spines and strings of fat flowers. Summer thought they must be some kind of dwarf cactus. The sleeping flowers gave off a heavy, sweet perfume like honeysuckle.

There were bones scattered in the grass. Old bones, Summer realized, white in the starlight, except for where they were brown and splintered. Not animal bones, because there was a humanoid skull, partially hidden in the grass, and a hand, four fingers and a thumb still attached, caught against a cactus.

“I don’t think we should stay around here,” Lolo offered. “Look, there’s more over up there, on the hill. That skull looks chewed on. And that’s a femur.”

“Maybe whatever chewed on it is down below,” Hannah argued. “Maybe we’re safer here
.
Back in the cave,
at least until dawn.” She twisted her ponytail in one hand, tugging.

“Is it a graveyard?” Summer suggested hopefully. She’d counted five skulls, now. “Maybe it’s a graveyard.”

“There’s no char,” Dan replied. He plucked at his lower lip. “The
Tuath De
burn their dead.” He grimaced and Summer thought again what an ugly man he was. “No, this is a feeding ground. Lorenzo’s right, that skull’s been gnawed. The bones further up the hill look yellow.”

“So?”

“Newer,” the friar explained. “Fresh. Not yet sun-bleached. I think we’d better move on.”

Summer agreed. She couldn’t help but imagine something large and hungry watching them from the grassy rise above the cave. A bear, or a big cat, or something worse. She gripped Sorrow’s hilt and took the first step off the ledge and onto the crooked path. When her foot crushed the grass a burst of honeysuckle perfume rose and made her sneeze. The path wasn’t as steep as she’d supposed, but the empty air all along the outside made her shiver and lean away from the edge as she picked her way.

She didn’t mind heights, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t afraid of missing her step in the night and falling off the mountain.

Lolo edged along behind Summer. The friar took up the rear and Hannah walked between. They traversed the first three tight switchbacks in silent concentration until Lolo, as usual the first to grow restless, asked,”Were they going out or in, do you think?”

“What?” Hannah sounded short of breath even though they’d been walking downhill and Summer thought it had been barely ten minutes since they’d started.

“The bones, the dead people. Which way were they going, do you think, before they were eaten? In or out of fairyland? I mean, they must have been using the Gate, right? I mean, because there’s nothing else up here.”

Hannah didn’t reply. Summer shook her head and for once even Brother Dan didn’t offer up a suggestion.

It didn’t take long for Summer’s feet to start complaining, and soon after that her knees. In spite of Dan’s assertion that they were descending foothills and not an actual mountain, the zig-zagging path was steep and muddy. Summer’s fashionable tennies were practical in the city, but they weren’t meant for hiking, and she could feel the blisters forming. The mud and the grass made things slippery. More than once she almost fell. Just like Dan had predicted, she had to crook
Buairt
at an angle to keep the sword from catching in the grass or in the cactus-plants.

They’re getting bigger
, Summer thought when she had to turn almost sideways on the path to keep from catching a shoulder on glossy leaves. The spiny plants grew straight out of the hillside, crowding the path.

Lolo swept his pen light back and forth as he walked. The little torch was brighter and better focused than the two globes of starlight bobbing overhead, and when the narrow beam caught on round red flowers Summer saw the furled petals were beaded with drops of clear fluid. Once Lolo stretched out curious fingers but the friar stopped him with a sharp sound.

“Strangers in a strange land,” Dan warned. “I’d be cautious if I were you.”

“They don’t smell dangerous,” Hannah muttered, but Summer hadn’t missed the way the changeling edged around leaves and thorns and walked worryingly close to the path’s edge, as far away from the plants as possible. “Darlene kept some similar plants in pots in the kitchen, before she died. She called them bromeliad.”

Summer didn’t care much about plants unless they were especially beautiful. If the specimens on the hillside were any indication, bromeliad were ugly, and she didn’t know why anyone would want to keep them in pots. As they trudged further down the trail, the moon sunk in the sky and her feet began to scream in protest. The air grew warmer and the hillside became a carpet of bromeliads pressed so close together they might have been one plant. The high grass became sparse and the honeysuckle perfume gradually faded. The ground became more a sluggish stream than a path, a thin muddy puddle between the plants and the cliff’s edge.