Spike stayed near the back of the procession, whining and rattling its thorns as it urged us to keep moving. Blind Michael couldn’t miss us forever. Worse, my candle was still melting; it was barely half the size it was when the Luidaeg gave it to me, and I didn’t know how much longer it would last.
Raj wandered up to the front after rotating the litter-bearers, glancing back over his shoulder. “Where are we going?” he asked, voice low. “Everyone is getting tired. We’ll have to make Helen walk soon.”
Sometimes you have to admire the bloody-minded selfishness of cats. It was obvious that he didn’t care about most of the kids, but Helen was his. He wanted her to be safe.
I was too tired to lie. “I don’t know.”
“We can get there and back by the light of a candle.” I shrugged. “We have the candle. Now we just need to find the way out.”
“Didn’t you get a … a … a tracing spell, or a map, or something?”
“I got a candle.” The instructions said to get “there and back again.” That meant I needed to exit where I’d started, if I was going to exit at all, and that meant the plains.
“What if it’s not enough?” he asked. Jessica raised her head, eyes wide. I glanced around. Several of the other children were staring at us, expressions troubled. He was scaring them.
Right. I glared, saying, “That’s enough. Raj, please don’t make this worse than it is. I’ll get us out of here. I promise.” Me and my big mouth. Promises are binding; I need to learn to stop making them. The Cait Sidhe looked at me for a long moment before turning and walking back to Helen’s litter, posture telegraphing his displeasure. I couldn’t blame him—I wouldn’t have been any happier in his place—but we needed to keep moving.
We walked for what felt like hours before the landscape began becoming more familiar. The rocks began to look less random and more like landmarks. I stopped when I saw the first footprints. Waving the group to a halt, I knelt, studying the ground. “Quentin, Raj, come here.”
Quentin reluctantly handed Katie off to one of the litter-bearers and walked over, reaching me just as Raj did. “What’s up?” he asked.
I indicated the footprints. “Are these mine?”
“They smell like you,” Raj said.
Quentin’s answer took more time as he looked from my reduced feet to the marks in the dirt and back several times. Finally, he nodded. “Yes.”
“Good.” I rose. This was where I’d entered Blind Michael’s lands. If there was a way out, we’d find it here. “We rest here.”
The children dropped where they were, forming loose circles as they flopped on the stony ground. Quentin led Katie to one of the larger rocks, helping her settle. The tail was a problem; she wasn’t aware of its existence, but she couldn’t sit on it without hurting herself. Quentin finally reached around and moved it out of the way, pulling his hands away from the silky hair like he’d been burned.
Katie smiled glassily. “Will we be home soon?” The changes were continuing; thin lines of white hair now ran down her cheeks like a parody of sideburns.
“Sure, Kates. Sure.” He gave me a pleading look. Of course. Leave it to Toby—she needs another ulcer.
My candle was dwindling, still burning a steady blue. We were safe, but for how much longer? I was afraid to risk another invocation.The two I’d done already had used up most of the wax, and we couldn’t afford a failure.
Oh, well. Third time’s the charm, especially in Faerie. “Luidaeg?” I said. “Luidaeg, if you can hear me, we’re scared, and I don’t know how this works. We need to come home now. I’ve got the candle, Luidaeg, you said I could get there and back …” The flame sputtered and turned crimson, surging upward. I jerked it away from myself, nearly dropping it, and a hunting horn sounded in the distance.
More horns followed, and more, and more, until the air rang with them and the sound of hoofbeats began to rumble through the ground. Blind Michael’s men were coming, and my candle couldn’t cast enough light to hide us all.
And everything started to happen at once.
The children jumped to their feet, clustering around me in uniform silence. They knew that screaming would destroy any chance of escape. Not that silence was going to save us: the hoofbeats were getting closer, and there was no place to hide. It was finished. It had to be.
I looked at the candle in my hand and at the knife at my belt, and wondered how many of them I could kill before the Riders took us.
“Aunt Birdie! This way!”
I turned toward the voice. Karen was standing behind me, pointing toward the nearest briar. Her robe was dark with dust. “Karen?” None of the others had turned. It was like they couldn’t hear her calling.
“You have to hurry! Go through the thorns—you’ll need the blood!
I was raised a daughter of the Daoine Sidhe; we listen to the dead, and there’d be time to grieve after I’d gotten everyone else out alive. I grabbed Jessica’s hand, tucking Andrew up under my arm, and sprinted for the briar, calling, “This way!” There was a pause, and then the shell-shocked children followed, hauling each other along as they hurried to catch up.
The horns were getting closer. Blind Michael’s men were faster, armed, and on our trail, while all I had was a candle and the word of the ghost of a girl I hadn’t seen die. Not great odds.
I skidded to a stop at the edge of the briar, searching for an opening. There didn’t seem to be one. Karen said we needed blood; fine. Blood was something I could manage. I thrust the hand that held the candle into the branches, ripping my skin in a dozen places. There was an instant of perfect silence, like the world had stopped. Maybe it had.
And a door opened in the air.
The Luidaeg was on the other side, white-eyed and frantic, with ashes in her hair. Her panic barely registered in the face of my own. “Hurry!” she shouted in an eerie imitation of Karen’s tone. “You let it burn too long!”
I didn’t pause to think. I pulled my hand out of the thorns, grabbed Andrew and shoved him at her, then pushed Jessica after him. Raj and Quentin seemed to get the idea, because they started herding the children toward the door. Katie and Helen were among the first. Then the Riders came over the hill, and there was a mad rush as children raced for freedom. In no time at all, it was just Raj, Spike, and me, standing on the wrong side of a door between the worlds.
“Toby, come on!” shouted Quentin, reaching back toward us. I looked over my shoulder, shoving Raj into his arms. The weight of the Cait Sidhe knocked Quentin backward, leaving me with a clear escape route. Spike jumped after him, hissing as it went.
That was it. “Toby!” the Luidaeg shouted. I jumped, reaching for her—
—and a hand grabbed my ankle, dragging me back. I screamed, scrabbling for purchase in the thorns.
“The candle!” the Luidaeg called. “You don’t need it anymore!”
The candle? I twisted around and flung it away as hard as I could, catching a glimpse of darkness and horns as it hit the Rider holding me. He let go of my ankle, falling back with a scream. Then the Luidaeg had me, pulling me through the hole in the world. Everything went dark. There was a boom, like something sealing itself, and the light returned in a flash.
I was on top of the Luidaeg in the middle of her kitchen floor, surrounded by frightened, crying children. I blinked at her, trying to figure out what had happened.
“Are you done, or do you need a nap?” she demanded. “You’re heavy. Get off.”
“Sorry.” I pushed myself away from her, wincing as I put pressure on my sliced-up hands. The kitchen seemed too large, and the children were still too close to my height; leaving Blind Michael’s lands hadn’t broken the spell. Swell. “Is everyone here?”
“All of us,” Raj called, helping one of the others stand. “We’re all here.”
“Alive,” added Helen. I looked around anyway, reassuring myself. The kids were frightened and crying, but none of them looked any worse than they had on the plains. Katie was seated in one of the few intact chairs with Quentin behind her. He was stroking her hair, wincing when his fingers hit a patch of white. My spell was holding;
