Cold Days

Chapter Fifty-three

Two Queens of Faerie lay dead.

Long live the Queens.

Everyone was shocked, still.

I turned to the retinues of the fallen Queens and said, “Let Fix go. Now.”

They released the smaller man, and he went at once to Lily’s side, his face still wrenched with grief.

“You will put down anything you took from my friends,” I told the fae in a level voice. “Then you will withdraw as far down the hill as the wall will allow. If I see any of you try anything violent, you will never leave this island. Am I understood?”

I didn’t look like much, but Mab was looming right over one of my shoulders, and Demonreach over the other, so they took me seriously—even the rawhead. They all moved away, breaking into two groups as they went.

“Harry,” Karrin said. “What just happened? Is Molly all right?”

I stared hard at Mab. “I don’t know,” I said to Karrin. “Can you and Justine get them both into the cottage? Just . . . make sure they don’t swallow their own tongues or something.” I looked over at Justine. “How you doing, Mac?”

Mac gave me a weary, shaky thumbs-up.

Justine looked up from tending to him. “I don’t think there’s too much bleeding. But we need to get this dirt washed off of him.”

“There’s a pump by the door to the cottage,” I said. I looked around and frowned at Demonreach. “Hey, make yourself useful and help them carry the wounded inside.”

Demonreach eyed me.

But it did so, lumbering forward to pick Molly and then Sarissa up, very carefully, the way a person would carry an infant, one in each arm. Then it walked over to the cottage, carrying them. Karrin, meanwhile, went to Justine, and between the two of them, they were able to get Mac on his feet and hobbling into the cottage. I went and managed to drag Thomas over my shoulder. I toted his unconscious form to the cottage, too, and told Mouse, “Stay with him, boy.”

Mouse made a distressed noise, and looked over at Molly. He sat down on the floor halfway between the two of them, and looked back and forth.

“Just have to have a little campout until dawn,” I said. “We’ll take care of them.”

Mouse sighed.

“Harry,” Karrin began.

“Gun,” I said quietly, and held out a hand.

She blinked at me, but she checked it, engaged the safety, and handed it over.

“Stay here,” I said, moving toward the door.

“Harry, what are y—”

“Stay here,” I snarled, furious. I took the safety off and left the cottage to stalk over to Mab.

As I crossed to her, her black gown and hair became storm-cloud grey, then silver, then white again.

“Yes, my Knight?” she asked me.

I started walking around the base of the tower, away from the cottage. “Could you please come this way?”

She arched a brow but did, moving over the ground with the same approximate weight as moonlight.

I walked until we were out of sight of the cottage and the fae down the hill. Then I thumbed back the hammer on the little gun, spun, and put the barrel against Mab’s forehead.

Mab stopped and regarded me with luminous unblinking eyes. “What is the meaning of this?”

“It’s still Halloween,” I said, shaking with exhaustion and rage. “And I am in no mood for games. I want answers.”

“I have turned villages to stone for gestures less insulting than this one,” Mab said in a level tone. “But I am your guest here. And you are clearly overwrought.”

“You’re goddamned right I’m overwrought,” I growled. “You set me up. That’s one thing. I walked into it with open eyes. I get it, and I’ll deal with it. But you set Molly up. Give me one good reason not to put a bullet through your head right now.”

“First,” Mab said, “because you would not survive to finish pulling the trigger. But as threatening your life has never been a successful way to pierce your skull, I will provide you with a second. Miss Carpenter will have difficulty enough learning to cope with the Lady’s mantle without you handing her mine as well. Don’t you think?”

Right. I hadn’t thought about that part. But I wasn’t feeling terribly rational.

“Why?” I demanded. “Why did you do it to her?”

“It was not my intention for her to replace Maeve,” Mab said. “Frankly, I would have considered her a better candidate for Summer.”

“You still haven’t told me why,” I said.

“I meant Sarissa to take Maeve’s place,” Mab said. “But one does not place all one’s hopes with any one place, person, or plan. Like chess, the superior player does not plan to accomplish a single gambit, a particular entrapment. She establishes her pieces so that regardless of what her enemy does, she has forces ready to respond, to adapt, and to destroy. Molly was made ready as a contingency.”

“In case something happened to your own daughter?” I asked.

“Something had already happened to my daughter,” Mab said. “It was my intention to make Sarissa ready for her new role, much as I made you ready for yours.”

“That’s why you exposed her to all of those things alongside me?”

“I have no use for weakness, wizard. The situation here developed in a way I did not expect. Molly had originally been positioned with another purpose in mind—but her presence made it possible to defeat the adversary’s gambit.”

“Positioned,” I spat. “Gambit. Is that what Molly is to you? A pawn?”

“No,” Mab said calmly, “not anymore.”

That rocked my head back as surely as if she’d punched me in the nose. I felt a little bit dizzy. I lowered the gun.

“She’s a kid,” I said tiredly. “She had her whole life ahead of her, and you did this to her.”

“Maeve was always overly dramatic, but in this instance she was quite correct. I could not risk killing her if I did not have a vessel on hand to receive her mantle—and the lack of the Winter Lady’s strength would have been critical. It is one of the better plays the adversary has made.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” I said.

“I do not,” she said. “I do not see how what I have done is substantially different from what you have been doing for many years.”

“What?” I asked.

“I gave her power,” she said, as if explaining something simple to a child.

“That is not what I have been doing,” I spat.

“Is it not?” Mab asked. “Have I misunderstood? First you captured her imagination and affection as an associate of her father’s. You made her curious about what you could do, and nurtured that curiosity with silence. Then when she went to explore the Art, you elected not to interfere until such time as she found herself in dire straits—at which point your aid placed her deep within your obligation. You used that and her emotional attachment to you to plant and reap a follower who was talented, loyal, and in your debt. It was actually very well-done.”

I stood there with my mouth open for a second. “That . . . that isn’t . . . what I did.”

Mab leaned closer to me and said, “That is precisely what you did,” she said. “The only thing you did not do is admit to yourself that you were doing it. Which is why you never availed yourself of her charms. You told yourself lovely, idealistic lies, and you had a powerful, talented, loyal girl willing to give her life for yours who also had nowhere else to turn for help. As far as