Once Broken Faith (37 page)

As always, using my magic openly sent a little thrill through me, like I was getting away with something. My powers had never been suppressed, although I'd considered it a few times. There were always underground alchemists working in San Francisco—lean, hungry fae who thought they were going to rival the sea witch one day. They would have been delighted to sell me blocking potions, keeping me from accessing the powers I got from my parents and hence potentially giving myself away. And they would have remembered my face, filed away the scent of my magic, maybe even gone to the Library of Stars to compare it to the census.

The fae world is an easier place to be anonymous than the human world. There's no question of that. But that doesn't mean it's
safe
.

Nolan lifted his head, blinking at me in confusion. He
only seemed to have two expressions at the moment—confused and bewildered, which were subtly different. I couldn't have distinguished them on anyone else, but he was my brother, and his face was so much like mine that it was like looking into a mirror.

“Ardy?” he said blankly.

“Hey,” I said, smiling to cover my increasing distress. Madden had been back to normal within seconds of waking. Dianda had come to swinging and ready to murder people—which, for her, was also back to normal. So why was Nolan taking so long to recover?

He'd been asleep so much longer than they had. This was probably perfectly normal. Master Davies had just forgotten to warn me, that was all.

“Where are we?”

My smile froze, turning rigid. “Nolan, we're home. This is home. We got it back.”

His confusion wasn't going away. If anything, it was getting deeper. “Home?”

“Come on.” I stood, pulling him with me. He stumbled in the process of getting his feet under him, but in the end, he did it. I had to take that as a good sign. It
was
a good sign, wasn't it? Wasn't it?

Nolan let me pull him through the portal, which closed behind us with a faint pop. He looked around the new room, eyes skipping over the bed, wardrobe, and writing desk without recognition. He turned to me, and in the same blank tone, asked, “Where are we?”

“Home,” I repeated. His tone might be staying the same, but mine wasn't: the desperation was creeping in around the edges, coloring everything I said. Something was really wrong. “This was your room when we came to visit Mother at Court, remember? That's your bed.” Like all Coblynau furniture, it was enchanted to grow with its owner; the bed he'd slept in as a child was still long and wide enough to cradle him now that he was an adult.

“Bed,” Nolan breathed, showing his first sign of
recognition since he said my name. He pulled away from me, less walking under his own power than staggering drunkenly to the bed.

I watched in horror as he collapsed onto it, falling facedown into the pillows. “Nolan?”

He didn't respond.

“Nolan!” I ran to his side, rolling him over, so his face was turned toward the ceiling and he wouldn't suffocate. His chest was rising and falling like a normal sleeper's, without the slow, drugged tempo of the elf-shot. I shook him. He didn't open his eyes. I shook him harder, and still, he didn't open his eyes.

“Nolan?” My voice cracked, becoming young and shrill in my throat. I felt like the girl I'd been when I found him in the bushes, the arrow in his chest and blank serenity on his face. I hadn't felt like her in years. She'd been so innocent. She'd truly believed, deep down, that we'd suffered enough; that the world would start being kinder. The world still wasn't being kinder.

I took a step backward, my hand sculpting an arch in the air behind me and opening a portal to the veranda. Madden was there, going over the household records and trying to figure out what we had too much of versus what we didn't have enough of. It was one of his tasks as Seneschal, at least until I hired a Chamberlain—something I'd been in no hurry to do. Madden knew me. Madden
understood
me, and that was something I couldn't put a price on.

Madden wouldn't judge me.

Taking one last look at my slumbering brother, I whirled and fled through the portal, stumbling from the sweet-scented air of the bedroom into the cool Summerlands night. Globes of witch-light lit the veranda, bobbing a few inches below the living, mossy canopy that kept the area dry even during heavy rainfall. Madden sat at the largest of the three round tables, a pair of comically small spectacles balanced on the tip of his nose. His
head snapped up when my foot hit the floor; by the time I had reached the table, he was on his feet, arms up to catch me.

“Ardy, what's wrong?” he demanded.

Hearing my nickname from one of the two people in the world allowed to use it brought tears to my eyes, where they hung, stinging and hot, refusing to fall. “Something's wrong with Nolan,” I said, burrowing into Madden's arms, allowing myself a split-second where I wasn't a queen; I was just Arden Windermere, the girl without a kingdom, without a crown, without a brother to comfort her. “I woke him up, but he's not awake. He barely knows me. He barely knows where he
is
.”

“Where is he now?”

“In his room.” Madden knew where that was: he'd helped me prepare it once we knew it was both possible and permissible for me to wake my brother. We'd wiped away dust and cleared away cobwebs, and—for a little while—I'd allowed myself to dream of a future where things started going right for me. My lips twisted into a bitter line as I continued, “Asleep. Again. He was awake less than five minutes before he passed out. What did I do
wrong
?”

“I don't know.” Madden didn't do anything to soften his words. He didn't need to. He was my best friend and my seneschal and the only person who'd known who I was before October came along and ruined everything. He'd never cared that I was a princess, and now he didn't care that I was a queen. He just cared that I was his Ardy, and I was in pain.

There are people in my Court who think he's disrespectful, and maybe I'd agree with them if I'd grown up as the girl they want me to be. But I didn't, and I find his willingness to be my friend before he's my subject more refreshing than anything else in the world.

I pulled away from him, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. “I need to talk to the alchemist,” I said. “Where is he?”

“Uh.” Madden looked at his wrist. His watch—a cheerful, brightly-colored thing with Mickey Mouse printed on the strap—was charmed eight ways from Sunday to keep mortal time even when we were in the Summerlands. It's a necessary affectation. He still works at the Borderlands Café, slinging mochas and looking sad when Jude asks whether he's heard from me. He doesn't like lying to her any more than I liked disappearing from the face of the world, but his position leaves him with time to interact with the human world, and mine doesn't. Even when I'm not doing anything, I'm being a queen, and being a queen means staying where my people can find me.

“It's almost midnight,” said Madden. “I'm pretty sure there aren't any classes at midnight, but I don't know. I did all my college stuff online.”

“He's not in the knowe?”

“No.” Madden looked deeply regretful. “He went back to work this morning while you were asleep. You had the potion, you had your brother, and you'd said you didn't want any of us there while you woke him up.”

“Do you know where his office is?”

“Yes, but—”

“Where is it?”

Madden frowned. “Ardy, I don't think this is the best idea. You should send someone. Send me. Send Lowri. She has a car.”

“She has a rusty piece of junk that needs about twenty thousand dollars' worth of work before it'll be shitty enough to sell for scrap,” I said. “I'm going. Where's his office?”

“He's in the UC Berkeley Chemistry Building. I
really
don't like this.”

“Something is wrong with my brother.” I grabbed a fistful of air. It writhed against my fingers, protesting my intentions. Tough. I twisted it into a human disguise, throwing the features of the woman I'd spent so many
decades pretending to be over my own. The weight of her was comforting. I'd been Ardith Heydt for years; longer, really, than I'd been Arden Windermere. I was better at being a bookstore clerk than I was at being a queen.

The one thing we'd always had in common was our brother. Nolan, who'd been the focus of my life since his birth, regardless of which version of me—lost princess, retail worker, or newfound queen—I was allowing myself to be. I straightened, forcing myself to breathe.

“Madden, you have the knowe until I return. If anyone needs me, try to fix whatever their problem is, and if you can't, tell them to come back tomorrow. I'm busy for tonight.”

He sighed. “All right. Just be careful, Ardy. I don't want you to get hurt.”

“Too late for that,” I said. “Years and years too late for that.”

A sweep of my hand opened a window between the balcony and a copse of trees on the UC Berkeley campus. I touched the tip of my ear, verifying that my illusion was solid, and stepped through.

The air in the mortal world was thicker, flavored with gas fumes and pesticides and pollution. I breathed in deeply, filling my lungs. This was what home was supposed to smell like. This was where I belonged.

Stupid duty. Stupid bloodline. Stupid inheritance.

It was late enough that the campus was virtually deserted. Somewhere in the trees an owl hooted, protesting
my sudden appearance; something rustled in the bushes, too small and quick to be human. That was a relief. Somehow I didn't think High King Aethlin would be too thrilled if his newest and least-prepared queen was the one who betrayed the existence of Faerie to the human world. We'd managed to stay under the radar for centuries. I wasn't going to be the one who gave us away.

When nothing else moved, I started walking. My skirt wasn't the smartest choice for the tree-peppered UC Berkeley grounds, but my illusion was cosmetic only; it hadn't changed the structure or length of my clothes. Transforming them would have taken too much out of me, especially when I was transporting myself—and hopefully, soon, Master Davies—between Berkeley and Muir Woods. My range is average for one of the Tuatha de Dannan. I can manage a hundred miles on a good day, if I'm aiming for a target that isn't super precise, like “somewhere in the trees on campus” or “in Muir Woods,” as opposed to “this exact square foot of clover.” I can do three or four jumps a night if they're that distance, and a lot more if they're not. But my power is as limited as anyone else's, and there was no sense frittering it away on unnecessary tactile transformations.

The campus was like a midnight dream, quiet and verdant and intermittently lit by flickering energy-efficient streetlights. Pixies darted overhead, not many, but enough to make it clear that I wasn't alone. As always, I wondered if they recognized me, or if they cared. Pixies aren't smart enough to know who's in charge—or maybe they're smart enough to realize it doesn't matter. As long as they have wings, they can get away, and they don't have to get sucked into the bullshit we mire ourselves in. Maybe the pixies are secretly the smartest things in Faerie, and the rest of us will never know.

I hadn't been to UC Berkeley in years. My last visit had been during the early nineties, when Madden had lured me away from the used bookstore where I was
working long enough to come to a place named the Bear's Lair and hear a scrappy young mortal band called the Counting Crows play a set. They'd been out of tune; the lead singer had been so drunk that he'd barely been able to stay on his feet for the last three songs; it had been one of the best nights of my life. We'd laughed and cheered and sung along, even though we didn't know half the lyrics, and it had been perfect. I'd been avoiding campus ever since.

When you live a life like mine, you learn that it's best to leave the good things alone. If you give the world a chance to ruin them, it'll take it. Every single fucking time. Case in point: I was alone, and there was no music, and no beer, and no beautiful mortal men to watch admiringly with my best friend. There was just me, and the silence, and the knowledge that this night was going to overwrite the one I'd treasured for so long. That was just the way it was going to be. Again. Always.

The chemistry building was locked. That wasn't a problem. I peered through the glass, confirming that no one was inside before I waved my hand in the air and opened a portal. I stepped through and the door was behind me, glass unbroken, lock unpicked. It was an elegant, impossible solution to a very mortal problem. Even if I'd been here to rob the place—which I wasn't—and even if they'd decided to spring for cameras, no security guard would have believed the footage. The illusion I was wearing would keep them from tracking me down to ask how I'd done it, and Faerie was not going to be revealed by what looked like a glitch on the tape.