The gun was dangling forgotten in her hands. I wasn’t going to get a better chance. If I moved now, I might be able to shove her over the edge before she could hurt Quentin, even if she shot me in the process. It was my fault that he was in this mess in the first place. I had to do whatever it took to get him out of it alive. Lunging forward, I grabbed the gun out of her hand, spinning both of us around in the process. Now she was the one with her back toward the wall, and one little push would be enough to send me to down to Elliot.
Gordan screamed, landing an openhanded slap across my cheek. “Bitch! Don’t you see? They’re doing it to you, too!” Her fury was almost visible, and the air was swimming with the burning oil signature of her magic. No wonder I hadn’t been able to trace the spell that blew up my car. The smell blended into the flames. “They’ll never let you be anything but a pet! You’re their dog, their stupid changeling dog!”
“I don’t care,” I said. “I like being what I am.” I was baiting her to keep her distracted, and it looked like it was working. She wasn’t looking at Quentin at all.
She lunged. I scrambled backward. My left shoulder slammed against the railing, and a bolt of pain shot through my arm. I cried out. “They’ll kill you when they’re done with you, just like they kill everything else!” I wasn’t prepared to dodge this time, and her lunge ended with her hands closed around my throat. She squeezed, shouting, “They kill everything they touch!
I beat my fists against her, suddenly aware of how useless the gun in my hand really was. I had no way to aim or brace myself, and I didn’t know whether the chamber was blocked; if I tried to shoot her, I might blow my own head off. I couldn’t even get the aim needed to hit her in the back of the head with her own weapon, satisfying though the idea was. I brought up one knee instead, planting it in her stomach. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the desired effect: her grip on my throat tightened.
“Didn’t it bother you?” she asked, with restored calm. She knew she was winning. “Knowing you were less than they were, knowing they wouldn’t care if you died? There’s always another changeling. You’re nothing special.”
Black spots were clouding my vision, and my fists were beating more and more weakly against her sides. Suffocation feels a lot like drowning. I don’t recommend either. Gathering the last of my strength, I whispered, “Says . . . you.”
That just made her angrier. She removed a hand from my throat, delivering another slap. I didn’t care. I was too busy struggling to fill my aching lungs with air.
“Do you know the real reason I killed her that way?” she demanded. “I didn’t back her up, that’s why—even if the others come back, she won’t. She’s gone, and nothing your masters do will bring her back. How’s that for the dogs, huh? How’s that? We took down one of the kennel keepers!”
“But only one . . .” I whispered.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll kill as many as it takes.” She slapped me again, snapping my head to the side. “Why you and not me? Why did they want you? My blood’s more pure than yours! Why are you their lapdog while they keep me in the kennels? Why?”
“I don’t know,” I said. Her hands closed around my throat again, and the black spots surged back.
The sound of splintering wood made me open my eyes. Gordan’s hands loosened, losing their grip as she spun toward the source of the sound. April was standing behind her, holding the remains of a folding chair in both hands. I’d never seen the Dryad look so solid, and for once the look on her face was something more than a pale mimic of the people around her. It was bone-deep and weary, and very real.
“Let her go, Gordan,” she said.
“Go back to your computer, April,” said Gordan. “This isn’t your concern.”
“You hurt Mommy,” April said, sounding puzzled. “You said she’d come back like the others. But now you say she won’t, and I think you’re telling the truth. Why did you lie to me?”
“Go
“You killed my mother!” April brought the chair down again, hard enough that it shattered against Gordan’s back. Gordan released me, swinging at her instead. I pulled away, moving along the catwalk, stopping to catch my breath once I was out of reach. I still had the gun—a fact that Gordan seemed to have forgotten.
“April, you don’t want to start with me,” Gordan said, ripping the remains of the chair out of the Dryad’s hands and grabbing her by the hair, using it as a lever to sling her away. April yelped and slammed into the wall next to Quentin, going down in a crumpled heap. I couldn’t see her breathing, but that didn’t worry me: the impact hadn’t been that hard, and I’d never seen her actually breathe.
Gordan had turned while I was watching April fall. I didn’t see her move until she was on top of me, trying to grab the gun away. I shoved her as hard as I could before I had a chance to think. She stumbled away, falling toward the gap in the catwalk rail.
“Gordan, look out!” I shouted.
The warning seemed to startle her. She stumbled back another six inches, heels leaving the catwalk. She teetered on the edge, glancing over her shoulder and going white as she realized how far she had to fall. I dropped the gun and rushed forward, holding out my hands. “Gordan, quick! Grab hold of me!”
There was a choice there. It was a brief one, and a hard one, but it was still a choice. Faerie justice isn’t kind—there’s very little mercy in the immortal—and we both knew they’d never kill her. Death is too much of a stranger to the Fair Folk; they never kill if they can help it. If I saved her, she’d stand before a fae Court and be judged by immortal standards . . . forever.
Gordan looked at the differences between her possible fates, weighing an eternity of punishment against a moment of pain, and she chose the mortal option. In the end, her humanity won. Her arms stopped pinwheeling and dropped to her sides. I saw the moment of decision and lunged, still reaching for her hand, and for an instant she was almost, barely in reach. I grabbed for her . . .
. . . and caught nothing but air. She fell in silence, eyes open all the way down. I looked away just before she hit the concrete. It didn’t change a thing. Maybe I didn’t see her hit the bottom, but I could still hear it. She never made a sound; gravity did it for her, and the silence that followed told me that she hadn’t survived the impact.
Wearily, I moved to kneel beside Quentin, reaching for his wrist. His pulse was weak but steady; he probably hadn’t even realized he wasn’t in the futon room anymore. I lifted my head, calling, “Elliot? Can you hear me?”
There was no reply from below. I winced, offering my hand to April, and said, “It’s done now. You can get up.”
She lifted her head. “Will everything be better now?”
“No. It won’t. I’m sorry.”
“Will Quentin remain on the network?”
“I think so, yeah. Elliot, too.” It was over now. If Elliot was alive, Sylvester’s healers would wipe away the damage like it had never existed. He and Quentin would be fine. I wondered if they’d keep the scars, or if the scars they carried inside would be all that was left to remind them.
She stood slowly, asking, “Will my mother come back on-line now?”
There were no words to answer that. I gathered Quentin into my arms and rose, waiting for her to understand.
“Oh,” she said finally, and looked down. Something in her had changed, something more than her new depth of emotion. She looked, for lack of a better term, real. “Where is she now?”
How do you explain the concept of the soul to someone whose immortality is kept in electrons and wire? You can’t. So I told her the truth: “I don’t know.”
“She won’t come back? Not ever?”
“No, April, she won’t. Not ever.”
“Oh.” She vanished, the air rushing into the space she’d occupied, and then appeared again. “Gordan has left the network. Elliot has not.” Almost timidly, she added, “I secured his wounds to stop the bleeding, when Gordan was waiting for me. Was this right?”
“It was perfect,” I said. I needed the confirmation about Gordan, but I hadn’t wanted it. No death is pretty, or fair; Faerie wasn’t born to die, and neither were her children.
“Good,” she said, and looked up at me, eyes wide. “Who will take care of me now?”
“You’re going to have to take care of yourself.”
“Can I?”
