An Artificial Night

Someone grabbed Katie’s reins. She reared, startled, and I fell.

I went limp, almost glad that I didn’t have enough control to catch myself or fight. Maybe I couldn’t run away, but that didn’t mean I had to save myself. Death would be better than survival in slavery.

“No, you don’t!” said a cheerful voice, grabbing me out of the air. An elbow slammed into my solar plexus, knocking the wind out of me, and we went tumbling through the light, into the circle that it defined. My captor twisted as we fell, making sure to cushion the blow when we hit the ground. Considerate kidnappers—that was a nice change. It was a pity I was too busy screaming to appreciate it. The light burned. It was like being shredded alive and reassembled by countless unseen hands, none of which were being very careful. Other voices were screaming around me, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out the light. It didn’t help.

The eyes of the Ride kept feeding me images, showing the parade of children and Riders quailing from the fury of our mad god. I saw myself falling in the arms of a green-robed figure while smaller shapes held the reins of my horse, fighting her as she bucked to get free. Other children were falling, pulled down by figures of their own who dragged them into the light and wouldn’t let them go.

And I could see the woman standing at the circle’s edge, hands held in front of her, palms turned downward. She wasn’t tall, but something about her made her seem almost as vast as Blind Michael. Her hair fell in dark curls, like the waves of an angry sea; her eyes were white as foam, and she wore a gray robe stitched with patterns of mingled white and black that made the shared eyes of the Ride turn away. Only Acacia didn’t look away: she knew her, named her and showed her to me with a delight that was close to rejoicing. The Luidaeg.

Something woke in me that remembered how to hope, because I recognized her as soon as I knew her name—the sea witch, Blind Michael’s sister, who sent me to him in the first place. There were figures in the darkness behind her, but none of them mattered; the Luidaeg would save me if anyone could. I owed her, after all. She needed me alive to pay my debts.

I landed on my captor, shivering as the pain faded. The woman beneath me must have had an easier trip through the light than I did, because she was already stirring. Bully for her. She flipped me over as soon as I was breathing again, keeping her arms around my waist and pinning my legs with her knees.

“Sorry,” she said, in an almost familiar voice, “but I’m not letting you go.”

“That’s okay,” I managed. “I don’t think you’re supposed to.” The scene was still playing out behind my closed eyes, and I didn’t know who I wanted to win. I wanted to be free, but Blind Michael’s spell was strong. He still had my loyalty.

“What is the meaning of this?” demanded Blind Michael. The remaining procession shuddered behind him. Someone in the back whimpered and was silenced. All eyes were on their lord, and on his sister.

“Tonight is All Hallows’ Eve, and the faerie-folk Ride,” the Luidaeg said. “The Ride has rules, little brother. Did you forget? You can ignore them, but you can’t unmake them.”

“You have no right,” he snarled, and every word was like a knife in my heart. I threw back my head and screamed. I wasn’t the only one: all the children that had been pulled from their horses were screaming with me.

“Shhh,” hissed the woman above me. “Get past the pain. Grit your teeth and get past it. You can do it—I know you can.”

The Luidaeg waited for the screaming to stop before she said, “I have every right, little brother. Every right in both the worlds.”

“You aren’t allowed to interfere!”

“Not within your realm. We set those rules when we came here, and I’ve abided by them, even when it hurt to obey them, even when I saw you destroying everything you’d ever loved. I followed the rules. But you’re not in your realm now, little brother. You’re in mine.”

“My passage is allowed! I took nothing of yours!” This time his words were blows, not daggers. I whimpered.

“Didn’t you?” The Luidaeg’s voice was soothing, smoothing away the bruises her brother left behind. “You bargained for one you knew was under my protection; you couldn’t even wait for her candle to burn down. You took her while she still belonged to me.”

“All children are mine! The children are always mine.”

“Amandine’s daughter wasn’t a child when you took her. She’s not yours.”

“Mine!” he screamed. This time it wasn’t just the fallen that cried out: all the children writhed in pain, some of them falling off their horses as they tried to make it stop.

It hurt enough to fracture the spell that bound me, giving me control of my own body, but not my mind. It couldn’t destroy the urge to return to my lord and master. I was too pinned to move, and so I sobbed, beating my fists against my captor’s shoulders. I wasn’t escaping that easily, and secretly, I was glad.

“Not yours!” the Luidaeg snapped. The wind rose around her, churning her hair until she seemed to be the sea itself taking physical form and come to kick some serious ass. “Never yours. The Ride has rules, Michael, and you broke them first!”

“It’s not fair!” There was no fight in his words this time, just the petulance of a man who’d never been denied in all the centuries of his long, long life.

“Family, friends, and blood-tied companions have the power to break a Ride. They broke our mother’s Ride, when the Carter woman stole her sacrifice.” She didn’t sound angry; resigned and almost sorry, but not angry. “They broke hers. They can damn well break yours.”

“Who would come for her?” he snarled, rallying.

Behind me, a voice shouted, “Tybalt, King of Cats. My claim precedes yours.”

“Cassandra Brown, student physicist,” shouted another voice. “Give me back my aunt!”

“Quentin, foster of Shadowed Hills. You will give me back my friend and my lady!” I could hear hooves beating the ground in tandem with his words. He was the one who grabbed Katie’s reins. Oh, oak and ash. Little hero.

“Connor O’Dell! She’s my friend and you can’t have her!” Connor has always been that great cliché, a lover, not a fighter, but there was no fear in his voice. He was taking me home or he wasn’t going home at all.

They’d come for me? All of them? Titania wept. I didn’t know whether I should laugh or cry. Challenging the Firstborn is never wise, not even when you have one of their number on your side, and you can never be really sure whose side the Luidaeg is on. It’s usually her own.

I didn’t think there was anything left that would surprise me. Then the woman pinning me shouted, “May Daye, Fetch!”

Opening my eyes, I found myself staring into a mirror. “May?” I squeaked. The split vision of the Ride was starting to fade, leaving me looking out of only my own eyes.

Familiar lips split in an unfamiliar smile. “In the too, too solid flesh,” she said.

“What the hell is going on?”

“We cast our compass ’round,” she said, looking past me. “Now we’ll pay for it.”

I craned my neck to follow her gaze. Blind Michael had dismounted. He walked to the edge of the circle and stopped, glaring. The Luidaeg was barely three feet away from him, shielded only by the light.

“Little brother, you’ve lost. Go home,” she said, gently. “Take the children you still have, and go. We won’t follow. I’ll keep Amandine’s daughter from chasing you, and when you Ride again in a hundred years, no one will remember this but you and I.”

“There are rules,” he answered. “I can try to take them back again.”

“You can, if you accept that you might lose them, and more, if you try,” she said. “Can you accept that fact?”

“I can.”

“Oh, Michael. You always were a fool.” The Luidaeg shook her head. “Start your games. Any who releases their quarry are lost; the rest are free to go.” She turned, her gown eddying around her in a wave, and May braced herself above me.

“May, what—”

“You rode the white horse. Now we’re finishing the song.” There wasn’t time to say anything more. Blind Michael turned toward me, raising his hand.

Transformation burns. I barely had time to realize I was being changed before it was done, and the weight of Blind Michael’s magic was forcing my mind to conform to my new shape. May was suddenly huge, pinning me to the