I went back into the castle. Everywhere I went there were Sidhe walking about with torches from which a heavy, reddish smoke trailed, filling the air. “What’s going on,” I asked one of them, a tall, white-haired fay named Auspir.
“Smoking out the spies,” he said crisply. “The King believes the castle is riddled with them.”
“Spies?”
“Bogles,” he said.
I started to tell him if the Bogles wanted to get into the castle, they’d do it, despite all the Sidhe could do against them. I thought better of it.
Grandaunt Joyeause came by, and I asked her what was going on.
“My dear,” she trilled, “don’t ask me! I’m always the last to be told, the last at any event. As you should well know!”
“Is it true that Oberon thinks there are Bogle spies in the castle?”
“Oh, very likely,” she said with a high flutter of laughter. “He’s always thought that, hasn’t he?”
The smoke smelled harsh and resinous and made it impossible to stay in the castle. I went out into the paddock and spent the afternoon watching the horses and writing in this book. Soon it will be time to bathe and dress for the moonhunt. I’ll take the book with me on the ride, just in case there is a pause during which I can record what a moonhunt amounts to. I wish Mama were here to go with us. It might make an opportunity for us to work ourselves back into sympathy with one another. Mothers care for their children even when the children are dying of loathsome disease, don’t they? Though perhaps there is no disease so loathsome as mortality, and that is why the old die first in the world: so they need not see their children succumb to it.
LATER: AT A HALT
This ride is a strange affair. We began by trotting over the flowery meadows of Faery. Hoof-fall and bridle-ring jingle, a quiet murmur of voices, the stars chiming like glass bells, the wind coming up to blow in our faces and make us feel we are riding faster and faster, fast as the wind itself.
Which we cannot be. Surely not. Surely not as fast as the wind! And yet the meadow goes under the hooves like a great carpet, smoothly pulled from beneath us, and we are suddenly on the heath, where contorted stones come up through the bracken and gorse to stand as enigmatic monuments upon this high plain. I smell the glamour around us, thick as smoke. Afar on one hand is the level line of the sea, glowing with dimly reflected light from the gathered stars, while far ahead on the other hand are barren hills and behind them a jagged bulk of mountains.
Our ride has brought us out into the world. The air is moist and chill. The horses’ breath steams, making clouds around their heads and ours. The rutted road winds along the flanks of the downs, its pale track vanishing into a dark fold of hills. Dry leaves skitter across the ruts. Hunched clumps of heather crouch like toads in the lee of the twisted stones. I find myself counting the months. I came to Faery in March. I returned to Wellingford in April. I returned last the following April, plus six. Likely it is October or November of that year here in the world.
The road winds, along this hill and another hill and another hill. One twisted stone and another twisted stone. One glimpse of the star-silvered sea as we come around a corner, then almost darkness for a time until we wind that way again. Silence among the riders. The horses champ and stamp, gusting their breath in great sighs, and the silent hounds run red-eyed among their legs.
At long last we come to a crossroad, with a crude cross set up on a stepped pedestal, roughly squared stones laid by an inexpert hand. Have I seen it before? It seems familiar to me, and yet not, as though I might have seen it years ago, or in some other place. Oberon has dismounted and stands next the cross, staring at the sky, at the stars to see how they move, as though what he does next depends upon their movement. Perhaps the stars make the only clock Faery can depend upon to know when the moon will rise. I sit on the pedestal beside the cross and write, while the Sidhe murmur together like voiced shadows.
Oberon calls, relish in his voice, anticipation. We will ride again. He and Mab and a whole following of fairy folk. But not Elladine.
LATER
At the road’s end is a great cavern, tall and dark as a tomb. Inside it is a fire the Sidhe have built, and behind the fire, a door. Oberon and his people are unusually quiet as they wait for the moonrise. There are so many of the Sidhe about that I do not feel I can call for Puck or the Fenoderee without endangering them. Instead I sit and write, an inveterate chronicler, recording each action. The Sidhe seem to me to be in no very contemplative mood.
Ah, now I see the first light on the eastern horizon. The edge of the moon pressing upward, a half-moon. Everyone murmurs at the rising light. As the moon comes higher, it illuminates the cavern where they are all standing, and they come out, into the pale light, leaving the fire behind them.
They murmur, I write. Now they turn toward the fire for some ritual or other. Oberon gestures. They fall silent.
The door is opening!
I see light within. A face in the light. A face I have seen before, in a tower room in Marvella, looking out at me from a mirror.
Oh, my God. My God. I’ve been a fool,
