Night's End

  “And you found me again. But Cicely . . .” She stood back and a pained, sad smile crossed her face. “We will outlive them all. Unless we’re murdered, we’re going to outlive all of them. Did you think about that?”

  And there it was. The crux of our transformation. Except for our new families—Grieve and Chatter—we would outlive everyone we ever knew. We were headed down a one-way path to virtual immortality, and other than the vampires, anybody we’d ever known would be dust before we could even blink an eye.

  “Immortality. What a bitch, right?” I glanced at the staircase. “And Luna . . . She may go sooner than we thought. I wish she hadn’t made that pact.” But there was nothing else to say. Nothing to make it better. Sometimes, we did what we had to, even when the end result was devastating. Sometimes, we played the devil, because playing god was out of reach.

  Rhia handed me a sandwich. “Eat. You need food. What were you doing out there?”

  I bit into the roast beef with Swiss, and smiled. Simple comforts meant a lot when times were dark. Even with all the riches of my Court, sometimes the best cure to sorrow was standing by a kitchen counter, a roast beef sandwich in hand, talking to my cousin.

  Licking the mayo off my fingers, I shrugged. “Talking to the Snow Hag. She gave me advice on how to find Myst’s Achilles’ heel, but I’m not sure how to proceed.” I ran down what I needed to do. “So, I have to travel through time, in a sense. Not like a time machine, but go back in my memories—and that’s one hell of a tumble into the abyss.”

  “Yes, it is, but I can help you.” Ysandra was standing at the kitchen door. She swept into the room. “It won’t be easy, and the ritual has its own dangers, but I can help you regress to that time period. The question is are you ready?”

  I glanced at Rhiannon and swallowed the bite of sandwich in my mouth. “The question isn’t am I ready. The question is how soon can we get this show on the road?”

  And with that Ysandra led me into the living room so I could travel into the past to face down our enemy.

  Chapter 10

  Of course, as soon as I agreed, fear crept up and hit me over the head like a sledgehammer. “Myst won’t really be there, will she? I mean, whatever I see will be a memory, won’t it?”

  Ysandra let out a long sigh. “While I want to say yes, and I believe that’s the way this works, there’s always the chance that—in this life—she’ll sense something going on. Magic is nebulous. You know how unpredictable it can be, and there’s always the chance something will go wrong. But if you have to do this, and it sounds like it might be one of our best chances to find a way to defeat her, then I’m going to say that I think we should go for it.”

  Grieve entered the room. He stopped at the sight of us. “What’s going on?”

  “Ysandra can help me go into the past, to look for ways to battle Myst.” I brushed my hand across my face, weary beyond belief. “Does it matter that I’m so tired that it feels like I’m about to drop?”

  Truth was all I wanted to do was crash. I didn’t even care if I managed to get my clothes off, though sleeping in bloodstained leathers wasn’t all that appealing. In fact, now that I thought about it . . . I began to unbuckle the sides of the tunic, and as I did, the smell of dried blood wafted up, and I had to get it off.

  “Help me, I need this off now!”

  Ysandra jumped to help me, and I noticed that Rhia had already removed hers. Within a couple of minutes, I was standing there, devoid of the armor, but my corset and jeans felt sticky and ripe. The blood hadn’t soaked through to them, and I hadn’t really sweated—I really didn’t perspire much anymore, ever since the initiation—but the feeling of death clung to them.

  “Is there anything in the house I can—” I stopped as Ysandra put a hand on my shoulder. She turned me toward her.

  “Cicely, breathe. You are panicking. I think . . . So many changes in such a short time . . .”

  I wanted to protest, to be the strong Cicely they deserved. But the truth was she was right. Too much death, too much betrayal and betraying. The dominos were falling, and now there was no stopping the chain reaction. I’d been the fuse on the bomb . . . and now the shockwaves were reverberating faster than we could cope with them.

  But something about Ysandra’s touch was calming. I closed my eyes and found myself breathing in sync with her. A few moments later, the panic slid from my body, and I opened my eyes. Rhia and Grieve were watching, as Peyton entered the room.

  I turned to her, mutely holding out my hands, willing her to understand and forgive me. I couldn’t say the words, but I prayed she could hear them.

  She paused, then slowly walked over to face me. “I understand. I can’t forgive you, not quite yet, but I do understand.”

  With light fingers, she lifted my hands to her lips and kissed them lightly. “My mother almost killed you. You thought you could trust her, and she turned out to be a traitor. The stakes are so much higher now. We thought we could trust Leo, and he almost killed Rhiannon. This town runs on treachery. You did what you had to. Luna will come to understand. Someday, she’ll understand.”

  “Not if she dies first.” I winced, but held my head up, remembering what Lainule and Ysandra had both taught me.

  “Maybe . . . Maybe it will take death to help her see. We can’t make choices for other people, Cicely. They have to walk their own paths, even when those paths are dark and fearsome. And Dorthea’s help? We need every hand on board. Even when those hands are shadows from the other side.” She glanced over to Ysandra. “What do you need me to do? I heard everything from the kitchen.”

  Ysandra motioned to the sofa. “Cicely, you can lie down for this. Indeed, the fact that you’re already tired will only help us take you into the trance that you need to be in. Peyton, will you get my bag?”

  Chatter suddenly popped into the room. “Just got word that the crew from the Consortium are on the edge of town. I’ve sent a contingent of men to guide them back here. Apparently they ran into an altercation a ways out and were held up. They have wounded, but no dead.”

  “How long till they get here?” I glanced at the clock, dazed. It felt like we’d been on our feet for days, but it wasn’t even midnight. So much had happened in such a little time.

  “Half an hour maybe. I’ll have some of my men get the parlor ready for them—they’ll need a place to stay.” He vanished back into the kitchen.

  “Lie down, Cicely. Rhiannon, can you get me a throw to cover her with? Something warm. Even though she belongs to Winter, she needs to keep her body temperature within reason.”

  As Rhia left the room, Peyton entered it, handing Ysandra a black bag, like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag. Ysandra opened it, fishing around until she came up with a small bottle that had an eye dropper in it.

  “This tincture will help you sleep, and it will make you vulnerable to my suggestions. Therefore, Grieve—you and Rhiannon must be in the room at all time. I don’t want there to be any questions as to what I’ve done, or am doing. Do you understand?”

  Rhiannon, who had just returned with an afghan, nodded. “Of course.” She pulled a chair up to sit near my side.

  Grieve moved to a stool beside Ysandra. “Make no mistake. If you even make a move that seems like it might hurt her, I will kill you right then and there. No questions, no regrets. Do you understand me?”

  Ysandra flashed him a mirthless smile. “Of course I understand. I also know that what I’m about to do won’t be very pleasant for her, but I will explain to you and Rhiannon every step of the way. However, when it comes time to draw her back, I may have to slap her—or otherwise startle her. Cicely, if you get caught in the trance, if you go too deep, I have to be ready to yank you out. There are no guarantees that this will work, but I’ll do everything I can to facilitate it.”

  I looked at the bottle. “Will that hurt me, with the fact that I’ve made
the transformation to Fae Queen?”

  She shook her head. “No—I know for a fact that Lainule used these herbs herself. And there are no fish products in it. There should be no reason why it would harm you, unless you drank the whole bottle. Then it might send your mind into a tailspin, but I doubt it would poison you.”

  I accepted the dropper. “How many drops?”

  “Let’s start with ten, and see where we go from there. Peyton, kill the lamps, please. And light a couple of candles.” Ysandra held my hand, gazing into my eyes. “Take the tincture, Cicely, then lie back and close your eyes.”

  I grimaced as the drops hit my tongue. “Tastes like I’m drinking toad water. Or dirt.”

  “It’s the valerian and kava kava. There are other, stronger herbs, but the valerian is pungent and ripe from the earth.” She paused. “Luna?”

  I opened my eyes and sat up. Luna was standing there, staring at the proceedings. Her gaze fell on mine.

  “What are you doing?” She turned to Ysandra. “Do you need my help?”

  “Can you keep your personal feelings out of the way? I could use someone to sing the song of spinning time.”

  I wanted to protest—Luna hated me. It had to affect the spell. But Ysandra patted my hand when I reached for her. “Give her leeway, Cicely. Luna is not your enemy, even if—”

  “Even if I hate what you did.” Luna finished the sentence. “I can sing the song for you. I won’t do anything else.”

  Grieve let out a little growl, but she turned to him. “Your wife is our only hope against Myst. Do you really think I’d do anything to fuck that up? Give me a little credit. I may have little to lose now, with the bargain I’ve pledged, but do you really think that I’d make such a bargain if I didn’t think we needed the help? If I didn’t believe this war was worth dying for? Sit down, Lord Grieve, and let us do our work. Cicely is willing to go through this ritual. She knows what we have to gain from it.”

  I wanted to ask how she knew about it, but the tincture was making me dizzy. I lay back again, moaning slightly. But then Ulean was there, by my side.

  Luna, is she safe? Will she sabotage this rite?

  No, she is not your enemy, Cicely. I found out who it is—but . . . Cicely? Cicely? Can you hear me?

  And then, there was a rushing of wind as the world around me began to fade. I couldn’t hear Ulean anymore, but only Ysandra’s voice, droning on and on from a distance. In the background, Luna began to sing, in a language I didn’t understand, but she kept a steady cadence, and I thought I could hear a drum accompanying her. Her voice grew almost shrill, more insistent, as the drums rose in volume, and then I was hearing voices echoing in the drumbeat.

  “Listen to me, Cicely, and follow my voice. Follow my thoughts—follow the thread. Can you see the thread of my voice on the slipstream? Can you catch hold of it, focus on it? Let it lead you along.”

  I searched the currents, and there—there it was, a silver cord rippling with every word she spoke. It wrapped around me, like a snake, like a lasso, and another tendril rose up to beckon me on. I began to follow, seeing myself in a deep woodland covered with snow. It was not the Golden Wood, though, but darker and deeper—an ancient winding path.

  “Follow me down the path. Follow my voice, let it lead you into the past. Let it lead you through the years. See them fly by, the past speeding forward, becoming your future. See time streaming quickly, a blur of motion, as you journey through your past. Back to when you were a child, then to when you were a babe in arms, and then . . . before you returned to this world.”

  I wanted to dance, the song was leading me on as much as Ysandra’s words. The music became a focal point, and it seemed to open up the path, making it easier to skate past the years, to travel into history.

  And then I saw through my eyes as a child. The world was so new, and yet I had been here before—I could feel the connection to the spirit world out of which I had just emerged. And then—

  “Go back, go back, and let the path lead you into the time before time. To the time when this life was only a flicker of possibilities.”

  And I was no longer Cicely, but a soul wandering the currents, wading through the slipstream. The wind blew past as I walked through the mists, searching for . . . searching for . . . who was I looking for? I lost track of my name, lost track of my goal. I was floating, wandering, beyond the scope of anyone I’d ever been, too far from the person I would become.

  “Hear me—don’t lose track of my voice. Pay attention to my words. Let them lead you back through the gray time, through the time of mist and shadow and uncertainty. Keep moving. You are crossing the path of transition. You must go beyond. There is another door coming up. Go through that door.”

  The voice was familiar, but I was no longer clear about who was talking, or the singing that echoed from beyond the veil. But up ahead, a door beckoned, and I slowly, cautiously, opened it. There, on the other side, I saw a young child. She was playing with flowers in a meadow, sitting next to a pond. I stepped into the world, but something felt off. Leaning down, I reached out to touch her chubby fist, which was holding a bouquet of freshly picked daisies.

  “Who are you?” I whispered.

  She gazed up at me and, with eyes no longer those of a child’s, she shook her head. “We came back too soon. He’s not here. We have to go now, to look for him.” Before I could stop her, she picked up a fat mushroom—red with white spots. I wanted to tell her, Don’t eat that, it will poison you, but the words died in my throat.

  She held my gaze, deliberately, slowly putting the fungus in her mouth and chewing. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll find him again. I promise.”

  And then she clutched her stomach, and I felt myself being drawn back toward the door. She stood up, leaving her body behind, and ran toward me, running through me—into me—and I felt her essence merge with mine, and we turned to exit the door.

  Together, the girl and I moved back into the slipstream—only she was part of me now, and I realized I’d left her behind because she’d seemed so minute, so splintered off. But truly, when I examined her thoughts, young as she was, she was bright and joyful and fiercely brave for her age. She knew what we had to do, and she took my hand, deep in my heart, and promised me that it would be all right.

  “What was your . . . my name?” I couldn’t just call her “little girl,” especially when she’d been a part of me.

  “Violet.”

  We continued through the slipstream, through the winds that were now howling, stirring up the wild mist rolling past like a thick blanket. It smelled of mildew and mold, of graveyards and dusty bones and hopes left in dark closets to wither and die. By now I could no longer hear the voice guiding me, but the song continued, the song of time, the song of spells, the song that spun the thread of my days.

  “There.” The little girl’s voice echoed. “A door.”

  I turned to see a dark door, cloaked in shadow and dusk. This was our destination. This was our goal. What I was seeking lay beyond. I held tight to her hand. “This is going to be scary. I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

  “I don’t think you’re going to like it. You’ve run from it every time you’ve found it before. The story behind it scares you.” Violet didn’t seem afraid, though, and that confused me.

  “Why aren’t you frightened? There’s something dark and dangerous behind there.” I hesitantly put my hand on the knob.

  “It’s only dangerous if you let it overpower you. You have to be the one in control. I’m not afraid, because I’m already dead. There’s nothing behind there that can hurt me.” Violet’s logic made terrible sense, but it didn’t do much for me.

  “But I’m not dead yet—what’s there can hurt me.”

  She laughed then, both at me and with me. “Silly goose! You’re not even born yet. Come to think about it, I’m not even born yet
. How can something from the past hurt us when we aren’t even alive?”

  Her logic made an odd sense. I tried to work my head around it. When I touched lightly on the thought, I knew she was right. We were traveling into the past. How could the past hurt us when we were mere flickers of what might be? But when I tried to reason it out, to wrap my mind around the concept, I lost all sense of reality, and everything became a blur. I decided to take Violet’s advice.

  “Okay, then. I guess we just go in. Do you know what I’m looking for? I seem to have lost my memory.”

  Violet shook her head. “No, but you’ll know when you find it. That’s how these things work, right? Otherwise, why would you be here?”

  Pausing, I mulled over her words. “Seems good to me. Let’s go then.” And with that I put my hand on the shadow-cloistered door and opened it. And as Violet and I went tumbling into a world of snow and ice and silvery spiderlike beings, she blended into me and became a part of my heart and soul.

  Inhaling deeply, I opened my eyes and realized I was seeing through someone else’s body. And yet, the body felt incredibly familiar. I wasn’t sure who I was, or why I was here—wherever here was—but there was something I was searching for, and I could only discover it in this place, in this time. The memory of a song lingered, and the memory of a voice guiding me down a long hallway encased in mist, and there was the whisper of a little girl echoing in my head, but other than that, I had no clue as to what I was about or where I was.

  I looked around. I was standing outside a hillock—a Barrow of sorts, and it was covered in deep snows. The trees surrounding it were weighed down with heavy blankets of white, their branches frozen to the ground. The air was clear, so clear it hurt my lungs, and the sky was that pale eggshell blue of dawn, but a storm was coming in—I could feel it in my bones. The energy of the storm was bringing heavy snow and snow-lightning, and it promised a renewal, recharging with its fury.

  As I spread my arms wide, welcoming the coming fury, my stomach rumbled, and I realized that I was aching, so thirsty and hungry I was. A cunning swelled up, a desire to seek, to chase, to hunt, and I cast my eye around for possible prey. As I scouted out, following a faint scent that I caught on the wind, I saw him. He was tall and lean, and his clothing was barely enough to keep him from turning blue.