The Nightmare Garden

“Are you telling me the truth, Aoife?”

I willed my voice not to shake. “Yes.”

“And I suppose,” Octavia said, running one of those talons down my cheek, “that you wish something in return for setting things right.” Before I could jerk away, she moved again, mounting the dais and settling back on her throne. Her movements were so liquid, it was like watching water flow under ice. “Name it, then,” Octavia said, tapping her nails against the bone arms of her throne. “All the knowledge of Fae and Thorn is at your disposal. One thousand years of magic and wisdom. I won’t have it destroyed and sealed off like a tomb. Name your price.”

I shut my eyes. I wanted to sob with relief, but I had a feeling that here, the tears would only freeze against my face. If this didn’t work, I’d likely die. I’d be just another Gateminder who’d played against the Fae and lost.

Strangely, I wasn’t afraid. I knew this was how it had to be, deep down and with certainty. I was more upset that I’d never see Dean again, never get to tell Conrad I was sorry for how our relationship as brother and sister had faltered, never get to thank Archie for trying to protect me, even if he’d done it in the most backward way possible.

I swiped at my eyes and then faced Octavia. “I want the location of the nightmare clock.”

Octavia tilted her head but didn’t speak. For once her face wasn’t impassive, and I got the idea I’d shocked her, if such a thing was possible. “And why, pray,” she said, “does a sweet half-blood girl need such a horrid thing as the dreamer’s great gear?”

“I need it to fix the Gates,” I said. “Stop the leaks, stop the disasters. Tell me how I get there.”

Octavia grinned at me. “You’re the Gateminder, Aoife. You figure it out.”

I did what was anathema to every screaming instinct then. I turned my back on Octavia, on Tremaine, and started to walk. I cringed with every step, waiting for the blow or the bolt of magic, until I reached the door; then I turned around. “I guess we don’t have a deal.”

“Wait a minute,” Octavia said, her voice echoing down the room. “You don’t just get to walk out of here, Aoife. The Fae can find you anywhere. Your blood calls to us.”

She came to me, across the throne room, and I watched her advance the way I imagined a mouse felt watching a hawk swooping down. “You have something I want, it’s true,” she said. “But then, I have something you want. Plus, you’re my prisoner until I say otherwise. So, Aoife, here are my terms.”

She reached into a pocket in her dress and pulled out a photograph. It was a tintype of a human, and I gasped when I saw the face, faded and water stained but so familiar.

“My sister, Nerissa,” said Octavia as I stared at my mother. She was young there, flowers in her hair, far too young to have even met my father yet. “And my terms: The nightmare clock for my blood. Your blood. You and your mother will return to the Thorn Land once you’ve fixed the Gates. I get my sister back, I get my Gateminder, and you get to know you didn’t destroy that filthy, smoke-ridden iron world you insist upon calling home.” She tucked the photograph away again. “It’s a good exchange, Aoife. Take it.”

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Nerissa …? She was full-blooded Fae? It was possible. She and Octavia had the same narrow faces, the same burning gazes. Octavia was fair and Nerissa was dark, but it was possible … Same father, different mothers? How had I not known from Tremaine that Octavia and Nerissa were related? Because if you had known, you’d never have done as he asked, the maddeningly logical part of me whispered.

Tremaine appeared at Octavia’s shoulder, smirk firmly back in place. “Good effort, Aoife. But your human half is always going to get in the way of striking a true bargain.”

I ignored him. I couldn’t let Tremaine lord it over me that I’d lost again. There were more important factors to consider. I wasn’t leaving Thorn unless Octavia let me—that much was plain. There wasn’t a machine here that I could trick into getting me home. My Weird was useless. Draven would kill Dean, my mother would be devoured by the wreckage of Lovecraft, and the rest of the people I cared about would fall under martial law put in place by the Proctors as the Storm slowly encroached upon the rest of the world. People like Rasputina couldn’t fight back, even with the Crimson Guard’s acceptance of magic. The world would wither and die like poison fruit.

Or I could accept Octavia’s offer, and then nothing would happen to any of them. The same uneasy balance would exist between Proctors and Brotherhood, humans and Fae. The world would go on exactly as it was. All I had to do was take myself out of the equation, agree to become Octavia’s servant and return with my mother. It wasn’t the choice a Gateminder would make, but in that moment, I wasn’t a Gateminder. I was Dean’s love, I was Conrad’s sister, I was Archie and Nerissa’s daughter. I was a half human who cared about the Iron Land even though it was sometimes dark and desperate beyond compare.

Octavia’s voice pulled me back. “Well, Aoife?”

When I thought about it, it wasn’t a hard choice at all. “I won’t fight you,” I said. “You can have me and my Weird, to do with as you like. But the only way you’re getting Nerissa is if you tell me how to find the clock and send me back to do what needs to be done to stabilize the Gates.”

Octavia looked upward, clearly thinking. It was like being regarded by a hungry, unblinking owl. “Very well,” she said at last. “And of course I can trust you, because if you attempt to void our deal, there will be nowhere you can hide from us. Closed Gates, open Gates, we will find you, Aoife Grayson, and we will pick the flesh from your bones if you betray us.”

I raised my chin. Octavia had to think she didn’t scare me, though the opposite was true. If I was going to spend my time in the court of the Winter Queen, it wasn’t going to be as a pet. “You can trust me. Unlike you, I know what that word means.”

Octavia gave another croaking laugh. “Good. As for the nightmare clock, the mad inventor Tesla didn’t just build Gates between physical realms. He started the Storm, and it will end with him.” She snapped her fingers. “Tremaine, take her back to the hexenring.”

He dragged me out of the room, his mouth set in a grim line. I hadn’t seen Tremaine angry often before, but it had always led to explosive results. “I bet you think you’re terribly clever for pulling that little stunt, ratting me out. Rest assured, when you’re back in the fold, I’m going to teach you some manners.”

I jerked my arm from his grasp and stepped into the hexenring on my own. After hearing Octavia’s revelations, after being taken from the Bone Sepulchre, I was worn out. I didn’t have the capacity for any more emotion. “I’ll never be afraid of you again,” I told Tremaine as my body began to separate from my mind, the awful vertigo of magic sinking its claws into me once again. It might not always be true, but after what had happened, I couldn’t let him think he’d won. “I’ve seen what else is out there. You’re nothing.”

Tremaine laughed, throwing his head back. “I’ll be everything to you, Aoife. You’ll see, when you return. If I can’t take the Winter Throne as a regent, then marrying its heir will do nicely.”

I stared at him, feeling a chill when I realized that he’d once again managed to outmaneuver me, but then the magic of the hexenring took me and I was flying. I caught the brief, dreamlike flashes of the other places, dark and light places, bloody places and empty places, before I landed back in the same corridor of the Bone Sepulchre from which I’d left.

15 The Machinery of Magic

THE FIRST PERSON to see me was a woman in a smart suit, who screamed loudly and promptly fainted. Girls didn’t appear out of thin air every day, apparently, even in the lair of the Brotherhood of Iron.

Casey came running, followed by Crosley and a few of the men in white. Crosley crouched down, turning my head this way and that, his flabby hands all over me. “What happened? Casey told us the most outlandish story. Are there Fae in the Sepulchre?”

Even in my dizzied state, I knew Crosley couldn’t know what had transpired between Tremaine and me. I still needed Crosley and the Brotherhood’s help, and if he knew the Fae had managed to infiltrate his base, any trust I’d earned would crumble.

“She’s crazy,” I said. “I just fainted. I’m exhausted. All those tests have taken it out of me.”

I cut my gaze to Casey, praying that she’d go along with me. She owed me—she’d been spying on me ever