Late Eclipses

bed and walked to the window. The Cheshire cat moon grinned down on me like a beacon.

I fumbled with the latch until it came loose, and then pushed the window open, leaning out on my elbows until my face was in the wind. “I don’t want to do this again,” I said. “It’s not right, and it’s not fair, and I don’t want to. You shouldn’t be allowed to make me do this again.”

The moon didn’t answer. I didn’t expect it to. “I’m a hero. That’s what Faerie made me, and I think my father would be proud. I don’t want to make this choice again, because there’s no right choice for me. But there is a choice that’s right for the people who count on me to be there when they need me.”

“Does that mean you’re going to decide?” Amandine asked, behind me.

“I don’t think ‘none of the above’ is an option.”

“No, it isn’t,” she said. “What do you want? What’s your choice?”

“I choose the evil I know.” I turned to face her. “I can’t be a hero with no one to save, and I can’t run out on them just because I’m scared. I already walked away from this world once. I don’t get to go back.”

“So you choose Faerie?” she asked. The blood-androses smell of her magic was rising around us. This was my last chance to back out. But what would I be backing out on? You can’t rewind reality. Choosing to stay human wouldn’t change history; it wouldn’t unmake anything I’d ever done, or seen, or been, and I wouldn’t want it to. Faerie may not always have been the kindest place to live, but it was still my home. I owed it to Gillian, to May, to Dare, and Tybalt and January and all the others not to say that my life had been a mistake. Not when it had been so intertwined with theirs.

“Yes,” I said. “I choose Faerie. Take me home.”

Amandine’s smile was ripe with sorrow. “This may sting,” she cautioned, and kissed my forehead. There was a moment of stillness, of perfect rightness and serenity.

Then the pain came.

I screamed, dropping to my knees. This wasn’t elf-shot pain; this was something new, something even worse because it was so intrusive. I screamed again, and my voice echoed like it was the only sound in the world. The pain kept increasing, building to a fevered pitch that shook me all the way down to my bones. It was worse than dying; dying ends, but this pain seemed to be settling in to stay forever. The room was dissolving around me in streaks of watercolor black and gray. The dream landscape couldn’t survive this much turmoil.

Dream. That was the answer; that was the way out of this. I had to wake up. My eyes were already open, but that didn’t matter. Not in a dream.

Concentrating as hard as I could through the pain, I ordered myself to wake up.

And I opened my eyes.

TWENTY-FIVE

THE PAIN FADED BY INCHES, leaving me numb. I tried to flex my fingers, moving carefully in case the pain decided to come back. They obeyed. I lifted a hand, shielding my eyes as I cracked them cautiously open. The light burned at first, but the glare faded quickly, leaving me squinting up at a pale purple sky.

I gradually realized that I was leaning against something soft. Hand still shielding my face—just in case—I tilted my head back until I saw what was supporting me: Connor. His eyes were wide and grave, making him look like a little kid whose Christmas prayers had been suddenly, impossibly answered.

“Is … ” I rasped. I licked my lips to wet them and tried again: “Is Luna okay?” Connor nodded. “Thank Maeve. Did anybody get the number of that truck?”

Connor didn’t smile. He just kept staring at me.

I frowned and lowered my hand. The world danced a drunken reel around me, spinning to an irregular beat. I’ve never been a fan of motion sickness. “Dammit,” I muttered, sitting up a little. “Luidaeg?”

“Why … Toby, why are you calling for her?” asked Connor.

“Isn’t that how you fixed me?” It was the only thing that made sense. The Luidaeg brought me back from the edge of death once before, after I’d been shot with iron bullets. If anyone could deal with elf-shot, it was her.

The thought seemed to be a signal for the pain to come surging back. This was a new sort of hurt, dull and throbbing, like an all-over bruise. It felt like I’d just finished running a marathon. I groaned, slumping against Connor.

“It wasn’t the Luidaeg,” said Sylvester. I squinted as I turned toward the sound of his voice. He was standing a few feet to my left, his fingers clenched white-knuckled around May’s upper arm. May didn’t seem to mind how tightly he was holding her; she was just staring at me, eyes gone as wide as Connor’s.

“It wasn’t the Luidaeg,” Sylvester repeated. “I would have sent for her, if there’d been time. But there was no time.”

I used Connor’s shoulder for balance as I levered myself into a sitting position. Every move awoke another cascade of aches. My head hurt, my legs hurt—pretty much everything that could hurt, hurt. Pain does nasty things to my patience. “Does somebody want to tell me what the hell’s going on? Starting with, I don’t know why I’m not dead?” Purebloods sleep. Humans and changelings die. It’s in the rules.

Sometimes life seems to take an obscene pleasure in throwing me curve balls.

“You have to understand, there just … there was no time.” Sylvester was almost pleading. “I didn’t know she’d come. Once she did, I couldn’t refuse her.”

“You died, Toby,” said May. Her voice was matter-offact, entirely out of synch with her shell-shocked expression. “Your heart stopped, and you died.”

I stared at her before twisting to face to Connor and demanding, “Tell me what they’re not saying.”

“The rose goblins ran away when you fell, and they came back with Amandine.” His eyes searched my face, looking for a sign that I understood. “Sylvester and I were … you were having some sort of seizure, and we were holding you down. She pushed us out of the way when your heart stopped.”

“I was fading,” said May. “But she told me to stop, and I did. She just said ‘stop,’ and I was here again. She yelled at you to choose. She yelled until you started breathing again, and now, you’re …” Her voice faltered. Barely above a whisper, she added, “I’m not your Fetch anymore. I can’t feel you.”

I raised my hand. She stopped talking.

If I thought about it—really focused—I could almost remember hands holding me down, and shouting, all of it filtered through dream images of a little girl’s room and a second Changeling’s Choice. I dropped the hand I’d used to signal May to silence and wiped my lips. My fingers came away smeared with blood. I looked at them without any real surprise. I didn’t bother tasting the blood; I already knew which of my memories it held. Nothing but a little girl’s bedroom, and a choice she was only supposed to be offered once.

“It’s always blood and roses with you, isn’t it, Mother?” I murmured. I was starting to understand. It fit with too many things, going back too far, to be ignored. I just didn’t want to believe it. The balance of your blood is the one thing that shouldn’t change … but if that’s true, why did Oberon make the hope chests?

The hope chests were made to turn changelings all the way fae. At that moment, they represented a final chance to reduce the magnitude of the lies my mother told me. I seized the possibility for all that it was worth. “Did she have a hope chest?” I asked.

“You know she didn’t,” said Sylvester. The resignation in his voice was almost impossible to bear. “It was the only way to save you. She didn’t ask for consent, and I didn’t stop her. I’m sorry, Toby. I couldn’t let you go.”

May’s hair grew to match mine overnight, like the sudden growth of a thorn briar around a castle meant to sleep for a hundred years. Would it grow again if she cut it now? Somehow, I didn’t think so.

“Connor, help me up.”

He nodded, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and guiding me gently—almost tenderly—to my feet. It took several minutes of teetering before I was stable. Connor held me the whole time, and didn’t let go even after I could have stood on my own. I was quietly relieved. I had the feeling I was going to need the support.

“Toby—” Sylvester began.