An Artificial Night

Something in his words clicked. I straightened, hoping he wouldn’t hear the excitement in my voice. “I’m your prisoner. That’s not fair.” He was a child’s terror, and that implied a certain reliance on games. More important, it implied a dependence on being fair. Children don’t care about good or evil; all that matters is that you play fair and follow the rules. If Blind Michael followed children’s laws, he’d have to play fair with me, or winning wouldn’t count.

Root and branch, I hoped I was right. Blind Michael nodded, turning sightless eyes toward the trees. “It’s not, and games must be fair,” he said. “Shall we have a wager, then?”

“What kind of wager?” I asked cautiously. The fae may not have souls to gamble with, but there are other things that we can lose.

“My Hunters cannot see you while you hold my sister’s mark.” He gestured toward my candle. Bingo. They couldn’t focus on me directly. The children still could. That’s why he was watching me through them. “I’ll give you a head start before I loose my Hunters. If they can find you, if they can catch you, you belong to me, forever. If you can free your children …”

“If I can free them, you don’t follow us out of your lands.”

“Agreed. The children you have claimed can go with you, if you can escape me.”

I had to be missing something, but there wasn’t time to argue. “Deal.”

His expression sharpened. “So run, little girl, as far as your candle will take you. You have until I order my Hunt to follow, and my patience is not long.” He settled back in his throne. “Go.”

There was a rustling behind me. Turning, I saw that the children had moved aside, opening a clear path to the plains beyond the line of trees. I took off running without a backward glance, clutching the candle close to my body to shield it from the wind. Blind Michael’s Court howled and catcalled behind me, trying to break my focus. I just kept running until I was through the crowd, through the trees, and the sounds of the Court vanished behind me. I was suddenly on the plains where I’d started, surrounded by empty wasteland and miles away from my goal.

Only now Blind Michael’s entire Court knew I was here. And they would be coming after me. Just great.

TWELVE

THE LANDSCAPE HADN’T CHANGED since my arrival in Blind Michael’s lands; even my footprints were intact, marking my point of arrival. I turned to face the distant mountains. That was where Blind Michael and his Court were waiting, and that was presumably where he was holding the kids. Somehow my panicked flight had carried me back to the start of my journey, with no ground lost or gained … but now Blind Michael knew I was coming. I had to go back to his Court, steal my children, and escape, all without being seen.

Planning has never been one of my strengths—I’m better at leaping before I look—and I know when I’m outmatched. Blind Michael was bigger, meaner, and stronger. I needed to have some sort of plan before I approached him again, or I was going to wind up joining the misshapen throng that haunted the Children’s Hall. I suppressed a shudder. Death would be better than transformation and eternal enslavement to a madman who thought he was a god, and that was probably exactly why he’d do his best not to let me die. People like that like to keep their toys, no matter how broken those toys get.

That just meant I couldn’t let him catch me. I turned away from the mountains, looking toward the forest. It was closer than the mountains. I could reach the edge of the trees in less than an hour, if I hurried.

“Blind Michael said the woods belonged to his consort,” I muttered, thinking of the yellow-skinned woman. She hadn’t looked very friendly. I’m normally willing to forgive first impressions, but if she was Blind Michael’s consort, I probably didn’t need to. The Luidaeg’s spell hid me from her. I doubted that made her an ally. “Let’s not go that way.” “Don’t go to the wood” was the first part of a plan. Now I just needed a way to get back into Blind Michael’s Court, rescue the kids, and get them out of his lands without being caught by any of his legion of heavily armed, extremely faithful servants. Why is nothing ever easy?

My candle burned a reassuring blue as I started toward the mountains. I found myself moving in an uneven line, always staying in easy reach of cover. It wasn’t a conscious decision, and it was still the best idea I’d had all day. The Riders couldn’t see me very well—the Luidaeg’s spell made sure of that—but they’d spotted me when I drew attention to myself. Walking straight for Blind Michael’s throne would probably count as drawing attention.

The sky was somehow managing to get darker, and a thick mist rose from the ground as true night approached. At least my candle was burning as steadily as ever, the wax still refusing to melt. That was for the best. Being trapped here without the Luidaeg’s gift to protect me would be a bad thing. A very, very bad thing.

The hours passed slowly, marked by the darkening sky. My legs ached, and my knees were burning, but I didn’t seem to have gained any ground; the mountains were as far away as they’d been when I started. I turned around, suddenly suspicious.

The forest hadn’t receded at all.

“Oh, Maeve’s bones,” I moaned. Of course the land was working against me. We were deep enough in the Summerlands that the entire Islet was like one gigantic knowe, bound to the will of its owner. Blind Michael’s word was law here, and he didn’t want me to get away.

I stomped my foot, fighting the urge to scream. Maybe it was childish, but if you can’t be childish when you are a child, what’s the point? I’d been walking for hours. My headache wasn’t going away; if anything, the long walk without water or aspirin had made it worse. It felt like little men with jackhammers were trying to rewire my brain. My knees hurt. My legs hurt. I was so thirsty that swallowing scraped the back of my throat, and all I wanted was the chance to curl up somewhere and sleep until everything was better. I forced myself to take a deep breath. There had to be a solution, somewhere. I just needed to force myself to see it.

I walked to the nearest bramble thicket and dropped to my hands and knees, crawling inside. I stopped once I was past the first row of thorns, staring. I wasn’t the first one to use this as a hiding place; someone had cut away the branches on the inside, opening a path. The cuts didn’t look fresh, and the ground was undisturbed— whoever created this hidey-hole hadn’t been back in a long time. Looking more closely, I saw that the brambles had been twisted so that they’d grow back into the main body of the briar, making the shield of thorns on the outside thicker and more secure. No one would be able to see me from the plains. Those same careful cuts made the narrow tunnel self-sustaining. It could probably go unused forever.

That decided me. Secret places in bushes and quarries are generally the property of children, and this one had likely been cultivated by some long-forgotten child who’d managed to escape the Hunt, at least for a little while. If it was at all like the hiding places I shared with Stacy and Julie when I was a kid, no adult had ever seen it: they could walk right by and never realize it was there. I crawled deeper, careful of the thorns.

The path wound inward until it met the main trunk, where it widened to become a clear bubble of open space. Whoever made the path also dug a shallow dip in the soft earth, making just enough room for a small person to sit upright. Any vague hopes for alliance were dashed when I saw that indentation judging by the way the brambles encroached on its edges, whoever created this little hiding place had been gone for a very long time. Just another casualty of Blind Michael’s lands.

I scooted into the scrape and braced myself against the trunk, relaxing slowly. I just needed a little rest and time to think before I had to start moving again. Holding my candle away from the dry wood all around me, I closed my eyes.

I was only supposed to be there for a few minutes. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. That part just came naturally. And I dreamed …

The world was blue and gray and amber, ringed by mist that never fully lifted. Sometimes it retreated into the stones, sometimes it hovered among the trees, but the mist itself was eternal. Smudged charcoal lines defined the landscape, sketching the outline of endless plains broken only by mountain’s stone and dying forest.

Dying? No, living. The mist retreated as I moved closer, leaving behind a wood I didn’t recognize. The trees were lush and healthy, green and gold and springtime yellow. Willows stood sentry, reaching out with hungry fronds to grab intruders. This was Blind Michael’s land. It changed, but the heart of it remained the same. The heartbeat of the land …