Midnight Never Come (23 page)

Both of the Goodemeades were there, Rosamund catching her as she came through. “My lady,” the brownie said in surprise, then looked up at her face. All at once her expression changed; the concern stayed, but steely determination rose up behind it. “Gertrude,” she said, and the other brownie moved.

At a gesture, the rushes and strewing herbs covering the floor whisked away into tidy piles, revealing the worn wooden boards beneath. Then these groaned and flexed aside, and where they parted Lune saw more stairs, with lights blooming into life below. She had no chance to ask questions, and no mind to frame them; the hobs hurried her through this secret door, and the boards grew shut behind them.

The room below held two comfortable beds and a hearth now flickering with fire, but no other inhabitants. Rosamund led her to one bed and got her to sit, putting Lune at eye level with the little brownie. Her face still showed concern, and determination, and a sharp-eyed curiosity that was new.

“Now, dear,” she said in a gentle voice, holding Lune’s hands, “what has happened?”

Lune drew in a ragged, shuddering breath. She hadn’t thought about what to say, what story she would offer them to explain her distracted state; too much had happened, Invidiana, the seer, Michael. All her wary instincts failed. “Tiresias is dead.”

Soft gasps greeted her statement. “How?” Rosamund whispered. Her plump fingers trembled in Lune’s. “Who killed him?”

Lune could not suppress a wild, short laugh. “He did. He knew it would mean his death, yet still he spoke.”

The sisters exchanged startled, sorrowful looks. Tears brimmed in Gertrude’s eyes, and she pressed one hand to her heart. “Ah, poor Francis.”

“What?” Lune snatched her hands from Rosamund’s, staring at Gertrude. “You knew who he was?”

“Aye.” Gertrude answered her, while Rosamund pressed one kind hand against Lune’s shoulder, to keep her from rising. “We knew. Francis Merriman . . . we remember when he bore that name, though precious few others do. And if he died as you say . . .”

Rosamund finished her sentence. “Then he has betrayed her at last.”

The brownie did not have to try hard to keep Lune in place; her knees felt like water, trembling from her headlong flight, with Deven’s oath and the tolling of the bells still reverberating in her bones. Lune dug her fingers into the embroidered coverlet. “-How —”

“The jewel,” Rosamund said. “The one she wears on her bodice. We’ve suspected for ages that she laid it on him, not to speak of certain things, on pain of death. ’Twas the only explanation we could find for his silence. And we could not ask him to speak — not when it would carry such a price.”

Lune remembered the six points of blood appearing on his brow, where the claws of the jewel had touched. Never before had she seen its power strike home.

She swallowed down the sickness in her throat.
She
had asked him to speak. Forced him.

“Lass,” Gertrude said, coming forward to lay a hand on Lune’s other shoulder, so she was hemmed in by both sisters. “I would not question you, so soon after his death, but we must know. What did he say?”

His blazing, lucid eyes swam in her vision. Lune shivered, feeling suddenly closed in; the brownies let her go when she tried to rise, and she went toward the hearth, as if its flames could warm the cold spot in the pit of her stomach. “He told me to break her power. That she . . . that she had formed some kind of pact. And that it was harming everyone, both mortal and fae.”

She did not see the sisters exchange a glance behind her back, but she felt it. Standing in the hidden room beneath their home, Lune’s sense finally gathered itself enough for her to wonder. The Goodemeades helped those in need — that was why she had come to them — but otherwise they stayed out of the politics of the Onyx Court. Everyone knew that.

Everyone who had not heard their questions, had not seen the alert curiosity in Rosamund’s eyes.

They paid more attention than anyone credited.

“This pact,” Rosamund said from behind Lune. “What did he tell you about it?”

Lune shivered again, remembering his hoarse voice, desperately grinding out words through the pain that racked him. “Very little. He . . . he could barely speak. And it struck him down, the — the jewel did — before he could tell me all. She misinterpreted some vision of his.” Hands wrapped tightly around her elbows, she turned and faced the Goodemeade sisters. “What vision?”

Gertrude shook her head. “We do not know. He never spoke of it to us.”

“But this pact,” Lune said, looking from Gertrude to Rosamund. Their round, friendly faces were unwontedly solemn, but also wise. “You know of that, don’t you?” The sisters exchanged glances again, a silent and swift communication. “Tell me.”

A flicker of wings burst into the room before they could speak. Lune twitched violently at the motion; her nerves were frayed beyond endurance, and the fear-inspired energy that drove her this far had faded. But the little brown bird settled on Gertrude’s hand, flirting its reddish tail, and she saw it was merely a nightingale — not even a fae in changed form.

But it must have been touched by fae magic, for it chirped energetically enough, and the brownies both nodded as if they understood. They asked questions of it, too, questions that stirred more fear in Lune’s heart — “Who?” and “How many?” and “How long before they arrive?”

And then, after another burst of birdsong, “Tell us what he looks like.”

Finally Gertrude nodded. “Thank you, little friend. Keep watch still, and warn us when they draw near.”

The nightingale launched itself into the air, flew to an opening in the wall Lune had not attended to before, and vanished.

Rosamund turned once more to Lune. “They are searching for you, my lady. A half-dozen soldiers, and that horrible mountain Halgresta. They cannot know you are here, I think, but they always suspect us when someone’s in trouble. Never fear, though; we are good at turning their suspicions aside.”

“But it also seems,” Gertrude added, “that we have a visitor skulking around our rosebush. Tell me, are they aware of that nice young man you were with at the mortal court?”

“Nice young . . .” Lune’s heart stuttered. “Yes, they are.”

Gertrude nodded decisively. “Then we must take care of him, too.”

L
ONDON AND
I
SLINGTON
:
April 25, 1590

Delay had cost him any hope of keeping the silver-haired creature in sight. But she left a trail: raven feathers, shed from her gown as she fled.

Deven followed them through the cramped and twisted streets of London. The woman eschewed Watling Street, Old Change, Cheapside, instead making her way northwest by back lanes, until he found a feather beneath the arch of Aldersgate itself.

The gate should have been shut for the night, but the heavy doors hung open, the guards there blinking and disoriented.

The trail led north. Mounted now, Deven should have lost sight of the black feathers in the night, but their faint glimmer drew his eye. By the time he reached Islington, he had a fistful of the things, iridescent and strange.

The last feather he found impaled on the thorn of a rosebush behind the Angel Inn.

Light showed here and there along the inn’s back wall, and he knew they would still welcome a traveler at the front. But the woman could not have gone that way —

Unless,
his mind whispered uneasily,
she put on Anne’s face again.

The feathers rustled in his fist. Despite himself, Deven paced around the rosebush, as if he would find some other sign. The thorned branches stood mute.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose. Deven glanced up at the sky, but it stood clear from one horizon to the next, with not a cloud in sight. Why, then, did he feel a thunderstorm approaching? He drew his blade again, just for the comfort of steel, but it did him little good. Something was coming, and every nerve screamed at him to run.

“Master Deven! This way, quickly!”

He spun and saw a woman beckoning from a doorway that glowed with warm, comforting light. He was on the staircase before he realized the doorway stood in the rosebush, in the comfortable tavern before he considered that he had just passed underground, through the opening in the floor before he asked himself,
Who is this woman? And why did you just follow her?

“There,” a northern accent said with satisfaction, from somewhere in the vicinity of his belt. “I wouldn’t normally resort to charms, but we couldn’t rightly stand there and argue. My apologies, Master Deven.”

The sword trembled in his hand.

The woman who had lured him below was joined by a second, just as short, and alike as only a sister could be. They wore tidy little dresses covered with clean, embroidered aprons, and their apple-cheeked faces spoke of friendliness and trust — but they came only to his belt, and were no more human than the figure silhouetted in front of the fire, her hair shining like silver washed with gold.

“Michael,” she breathed.

He retreated a step, risked a glance over his shoulder, saw that the floor had grown shut behind him. Leveling his swordpoint at the three of them, Deven said, “Come no closer.”

“Truly,” one of the little women said, the one with roses embroidered on her apron, “there’s no need for that. We brought you below, Master Deven, because there are some rather unpleasant people coming this way, and you will be safer down here. I promise, we mean no harm.”

“How in
God’s
name am I supposed to believe that?”

All three cringed, and one of the women gave a muffled squeak — the one with the daisies on her apron. “Now, now,” the rose woman said, a trifle more severely. “That isn’t very gentlemanly of you. Not to mention that we shouldn’t like to see our house pop up out of the ground without so much as a by-your-leave, or an apology to the folk above. We are fae, Master Deven; surely you must know what that means.”

Ominous thudding answered before he could; all four of them looked up. “They’re at the rosebush,” the daisy woman said, and then a snarl reverberated through the chamber, deep and hard, like thunder in an ugly storm.

“Open, in the name of the Queen.”

The two short ones exchanged glances. “I am the better liar,” the daisy woman said, and the rose woman answered, “but they will be suspicious if they do not see us both.” She fixed Deven with a stare that was no less effective for coming from a creature so small. “You will put up your sword, good master, and refrain from invoking certain names while in our house. We are protecting you from what’s above, which is good for both you and us. Once we have gotten rid of these nuisances, we shall answer any question you have.”

“As many as we know the answers to,” the daisy woman corrected her. “Come, we must hurry.”

Upon which the two of them whisked off their aprons, mussed their hair, yawned theatrically, and hurried up the stairs, looking for all the world as if they had just been roused from bed.

The floor stretched open to let them pass, then shut again, like a cellar without a door.

Deven said, half to himself, “What . . .”

“Hush,” the silver-haired creature hissed. She had not spoken since uttering his name, and now her attention was not more than half on him; she still looked upward, listening as heavy boots clomped across the floor.

“Where is she?” The voice he had heard before. It made Deven feel as if his bones were grinding together.

“I beg your pardon, Dame Halgresta —” The words were punctuated by a yawn. “We had just retired for the night. Would you like some mead?”

A clanking splash, as of a metal tankard being knocked to the floor. “I would not.
Tell me where she is.
”

The other sister: “Who?”

“-Lady —” The deep voice cut off in a noise something between a growl and a laugh. “Lady no more. The bitch Lune.”

Deven glanced across the hidden room at his involuntary companion. The silver-haired woman shivered unconsciously, her hands rising to cup her elbows. Upstairs, the two sisters parried the stranger’s questions with a masterful blend of innocence, confusion, and well-timed misdirection. No, they had not seen the lady — beg pardon, the woman Lune. Aye, of course they would say if they had; were they not the Queen’s loyal subjects? No, they had not seen her in some time — very rarely at all, since she went to the mortal court.

At that, finally, the fae woman looked across the room at him. Her eyes shone unmistakably silver, no common gray . . . but the set of them was familiar, from many a fond study.

Neither of them dared speak, with danger so near above. Instead they stared at each other, until the fae woman — Lune — broke and turned away.

He had not listened to the rest of the conversation above. More heavy footsteps, lighter voices trying to press the departing visitor to take some sweetmeats, or ale for the ride back to the city. Then silence, and the feeling of oppression lifted.

Deven decided to risk it. Crossing the floor, he approached Lune as closely as he dared, and in a voice pitched to carry no further than her ears, he said, “What has become of Anne Montrose?”

The pointed chin lifted a fraction. Her voice equally soft, Lune said, “She was always thus, beneath the mask.”

He turned away, realized the sword was still in his hand, sheathed it. And then they waited for the sisters to return.

“Dame Halgresta’s gone,” Rosamund said to Lune, when they came downstairs again. “I presume you listened? They know nothing of Francis’s death; someone saw you flee the palace, is all. Be careful, my lady. She very much wishes to kill you.”

Gertrude nudged her sister in the ribs while tying her daisy-flowered apron back on. “Manners, Rosamund. Now that we haven’t got that awful giantess breathing down our necks, we should take care of our guest.”

“Oh! Of course!” Rosamund made a proper curtsy to Deven. “Welcome to our house, Master Deven. I am Rosamund Goodemeade, and this is my sister Gertrude. And this is the Lady Lune.”

Ever since she and Deven had lapsed into silence, Lune’s attention had been fixed on the fireplace, the safest target she could find. Now she said wearily, “He knows.” She turned to find the brownies wide-eyed and a little nervous. Relaxing her arms from their tight positions across her body, she added, “He drove the glamour from me when I was on my way here.”