An Artificial Night

looked like they’d been snatched from different armies and thrown together by an indifferent general, one who only cared that his soldiers be menacing. Their weapons were as mixed as their armor, but that didn’t matter; all that mattered was that each of them was well-equipped to kill.

The girl must have heard them, because she did something that surprised me so much that I nearly threw myself out of the bushes to shield her: no one that brave should have to die. She tripped and fell in what was obviously a staged maneuver, “accidentally” flinging the Cait Sidhe away. It twisted in midair, landing a few feet from my hiding place.

That was my chance. Praying I wouldn’t be seen, I scooted forward and snatched the cat, yanking it back into the brambles. It writhed, sinking its teeth into my arm. I’ve lived with cats for a long time. I didn’t scream or let go, but shifted my grip to the scruff of its neck, giving it a solid shake before whispering, “Tybalt sent me.” It stopped struggling. Trusting it not to attack, I gathered it against my chest and turned back to the scene outside.

The Hunters hadn’t noticed me. I wasn’t counting on that to last once they realized the Cait Sidhe was missing, but for the moment, they were focused on the girl. Weapons drawn, they formed a circle around her. She didn’t even try to rise as the nearest Huntsman prodded her with his spear, saying something I couldn’t make out. The kitten understood, because it flattened its ears, growling almost silently. Two more Riders dismounted, picking her up and sliding her onto the back of the nearest horse. A Rider mounted behind her, turning the horse back the way they’d come. Through it all, she never made a sound.

The other Riders stayed behind, fanning out in an obvious search pattern. I held my breath, but none of them approached our hiding place. They circled farther and farther away, looking behind stones and through the sparse underbrush. I clutched the kitten to my chest, trying to come up with a way out. The forest was less than a hundred yards ahead of us. If the Riders went far enough, we’d have a chance.

In the end, we didn’t need it. The horns began to sound, and the remaining Riders turned as one, galloping out of sight. The sound of hooves faded before the horns did, but eventually even they were gone. I pulled out my candle and was reassured to see that the flame had gone back to a steady blue, flickering upward. I relaxed, assuming that meant we were as close to safe as we were likely to get.

The cat squirmed loose and ran to the edge of the briar, where it stopped and eyed me suspiciously. I didn’t try to stop it. If it wanted to run away, it could take care of itself. “Go ahead,” I said. It flattened its ears and hissed. I sighed. “Okay, whatever.”

Bracing my elbows in the dirt, I crab-walked my way back into the open and stood, holding up the candle and beginning to pick thorns out of my knees with my free hand. The cat crept out after me. I watched it out of the corner of my eye while continuing to remove the thorns from my jeans.

After sniffing warily at the ground, the cat stretched and reared up onto its hind legs. The air crackled with the smell of pepper and burning paper, and the cat was gone, replaced by a gangly teenage boy with bruises covering the left side of his face. He looked like a small fourteen, dark-skinned, with glass green eyes and hair that was the same russet red as his fur. His pupils were thin black slits, and his ears were more feline than human, tipped with fringes of black fur. Cait Sidhe pureblood. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“October Daye,” I said, tucking the thorns I’d collected into my pocket. You never know what you might need later. “Yourself?”

He narrowed his eyes, looking at me disdainfully. I recognized that look; I got it from Tybalt all the time. “My name is Raj. I am—”

“You’re the local Prince of Cats,” I said, cutting him off. “Yeah, I know.”

He wasn’t expecting that. His eyes widened, wariness returning. “How did you know?”

I sighed. I didn’t have the heart to tease him—not after seeing his companion taken. “Like I said, Tybalt sent me. He’s …” How could I describe my relationship with the King of Cats? I finally settled for saying, “A friend of mine.”

Raj frowned, eyes narrowing again. “That’s not possible.”

I frowned back. I was too tired to put up with adolescent royalty. “So we’re not friends as much as we’re enemies who haven’t killed each other yet. Does it matter? He sent me to save you.”

“You? Save us?” He laughed bitterly. No child should ever laugh like that. “Come back when you’re older.”

“What?” The disorientation rushed back, trying to keep me from putting the pieces together. Unfortunately, ignorance was becoming a luxury I couldn’t afford. Fighting the impulse to ignore what Raj had said, I looked down, already nearly sure of what I’d see.

Just once, it would be nice to be surprised.

Most people know the shape of their own body. They may have little illusions about it—how thin they are, how fat, how good they look in that black velvet dress—but the essential topography is ingrained. The length of a hand, the texture of skin, the slope of a breast; it’s all there, and when it changes, it usually does it slowly enough that your mental map changes with it. I’ve lived with myself for a long time now, and the years I spent as a fish just made me more aware of the shape I’m supposed to be. I lost myself once, and that made me pay a lot more attention when I got myself back.

The body I was wearing wasn’t mine—or rather, it wasn’t mine anymore and hadn’t been for a very long time. I’d been whittled down, curves smoothed away. I turned to the hand that held the candle, finally really looking at it. The fingers were too short, and the nails were too broad. Not an adult’s hands. Reaching up, I felt the outlines of my face, still round with the remains of baby fat, and pulled the band from my hair. The strands that promptly fell across my eyes were an indeterminate ashy blonde, the color my hair had been until the time I was about twelve. Putting what I could see and feel together, I’d have guessed my age at somewhere between eight and ten, probably on the higher end of the scale. It was hard to tell. Changelings age oddly; I was a child for a long time.

Raj’s eyes remained narrowed as he watched my slow self-examination. He was frightened but hiding it well; I hoped my own fear was as well concealed. I doubted it.

“Oberon’s balls,” I muttered, and flinched from the sound of my own thin, too-high voice. How did I miss that before? Easy: the Luidaeg made me. “Luidaeg, what did you do? ” The answer to that was pretty easy, too. I just didn’t want to think about it.

Blind Michael was a child’s terror. The Luidaeg said that there were three ways to reach him, that one would kill me and that one was hidden … but the third way had to be open to children of all races and types, or he wouldn’t be able to take them. She’d done what I asked. She’d found a way to get me into Blind Michael’s lands. It just didn’t come with full disclosure. Silently, I resolved to kick her ass after I got home and she’d given me back my real body. Assuming I made it home in the first place.

Raj’s eyes widened and he looked around wildly, like he expected the Luidaeg to appear and make things worse than they already were. “Why are you calling her?” The royalty was gone; suddenly, he was just a frightened teenage boy with no way home.

“Because she’s the one who did this to me. I think she thought she was helping. ‘You can get there and back by the light of a candle.’”I kept talking, too angry to stop. “Why don’t people ever say things the way they mean them? ‘You can get there, but if you lose that candle you’re screwed, and by the way, you’re going to have to be nine. Hope that’s not a problem.’ ”

“What?”

“Hang on … sorry.” I sighed, forcing myself to calm down. “Let’s try this again. Tybalt really did send me. I’m here to rescue you. The Luidaeg turned me into a kid so I could get on the road, but if you’ll just trust me, I—”

He stared at me. “You’re insane! You’re working for Him!” It was clear from his tone of voice that he wasn’t talking about Tybalt.

“No, I’m not! It’s just that—”

“They took Helen, and you didn’t stop them!” His voice was getting louder. I glanced around, wondering how far sound carried on the plains. “You’re already His! You want to take me back! Well you can’t! I won’t go!” He turned toward the forest and took off running.

“Raj, wait!” I bolted after him, and I might have caught him—panic is a great motivation—but he had an advantage I didn’t. The air shimmered around him, and I was suddenly chasing a half-grown Abyssinian. Four feet are more stable than two and faster over short distances. His lead was increasing rapidly.

And far behind us, the hunting horns began to sound.

Raj reached the edge of the wood and leaped, vanishing into the trees. I followed him without a pause.