The Mirrored Shard (30 page)

Archie and Valentina were in charge of the Brotherhood now, but that was only half of my problems solved. There was still my mother, and everything she represented.

I set my chronometer to wake me when it was just light, the first streaks of milky sunlight catching the granite cliffs around Arkham, setting them to glittering as if they were alive.

A bowl of fog still rested in the garden and the orchards around Graystone, and danced across the waters of the pond like it was a spirit seeking a place to rest.

I bypassed the garden, the pond, the hedge maze and the barn, and walked on to the apple orchard.

I remembered the first time I’d come here, how scared I’d been to walk through these grounds. I could sense the malevolent force lurking.

This time, when I came upon the small ring of mushrooms in the center of the apple trees, I stepped in without hesitation.

My Weird flared, and I got the sense that the twisted, ancient hulks of the apple trees had taken an interest in my presence, that if I watched long enough, I’d see the gnarled branches uncurl and beckon to me.

Instead, I focused on the energies swirling around me. The
hexenring
was different from a man-made Gate, but it worked on the same principles.

I shut my eyes and reached for that place inside that connected me to the universe, to the places beyond the stars that only the Weird could touch. I felt the tug, the pain in my head, and when I opened my eyes I was in the Thorn Land.

My accuracy was getting better—I’d come through within sight of the Winter Court, inside a
hexenring
by the side of a crumbling farmhouse. When I reached the gates of the court, the Fae moving around the courtyard stopped what they were doing and stared at me.

I stared back, suddenly no longer as nervous.
They’re afraid of me
, I realized. That was a new feeling, and I let the surge of power ripple up and down my spine.

“Don’t just stand there,” I said when the closest Fae held my gaze a bit too long. “One of you go find Tremaine.”

He scurried away, and I stayed where I was. The courtyard had eternally falling snow that blanketed the ground beneath the silver branches of dead trees. Ripe red fruit still hung from them, in spite of their desiccated state, and crystals dangled, suspended above my head. Occasionally they collided and chimed, giving the ever-blowing wind a voice.

Tremaine appeared from the archway that led deeper into the palace, a blot on this ethereal space. His waistcoat was a deep blue, the color of the night sky, and contrasted with a silk shirt in the gradient red of an angry sunset. His
crystal buttons and black cravat were impeccable, but his face was a mess of anger and uncontrolled rage.

My mother came in on his heels, starting to say something to placate him, but I held up my hand.

“What I have to say is important, so you better shut that shark mouth of yours and listen,” I told Tremaine.

He shot me one of his infuriating grins, so smug I was sure he had to practice it in front of the mirror to get it so perfectly right. “Come back to threaten me? I wouldn’t think I was in such a position, were I you.”

I glanced from side to side and saw the guards of the Winter Court moving in. My mother took a step forward. “Stop! You stop this at once. That’s my daughter!”

The guards drew back, lowering the short gladii they carried as weapons. I returned Tremaine’s smug look. “I guess the sister of the Winter Queen has a little more pull than some sneaky regent that nobody actually likes.”

I heard snickers go around the courtyard. There was nothing the Fae enjoyed more than a good show—the bloodier, the better—and I intended to give them just that.

Tremaine’s cheeks grew two blooms, crimson fire-flowers of rage that told me I’d managed to throw him off balance. “How dare you come back here and hurl insults at me after what you did!”

“I’m not staying long,” I told him. I saw my mother flinch, but I could deal with that after I’d said what I’d come to say.

“I’m not Fae,” I told Tremaine, raising my voice so everyone gaping at us could hear.

Tremaine’s mouth curled cruel and sharp as a fishhook. “Tell me something I don’t know, Aoife.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” I shot back. “I know that you want me on your side so much you can taste it. I know that with a power like mine, you could destroy the Summer Court and get what you’ve always wanted—the favor of your queen. Real power. That’s what I have, and it’s what you want so badly it burns in your blood.”

There was only silence now, except for the wailing of the wind. The entire Winter Court was waiting. On a high balcony, I saw a flutter of white and red as the queen appeared, staring down at us. A bright-eyed cardinal sat on her shoulder, also staring. I wasn’t silly enough to think she’d missed a word of what Tremaine and I had said. Octavia didn’t get to be Winter Queen by being unobservant.

“I’m also not human,” I pressed on. “Thorn is in my blood as much as Iron. I can’t live in the Iron Land or I’ll go mad. Nor can I live in Thorn, because I’m not one of you. I can’t live the life of a Fae. I’ll grow old while you all stay exactly the same.”

“I assume you have a point,” Tremaine snarled. “Make it, why don’t you?”

“I propose a truce,” I pressed on. “I will be a citizen of both lands, ruled by neither. I’ll do favors for you, Tremaine—
when I feel like it
—and in return, you stop. Stop trying to trick me, stop grasping for power, stop trying to manipulate Octavia and my mother.”

He surprised me by not immediately shouting. A calculating look stole across his face and one hand tapped his velvet-clad leg. Then, as quickly as the wind whipped fallen leaves across the courtyard, he stepped within arm’s length of me and extended his hand. “You have a bargain.”

This was it, then. A Fae bargain was serious business, and he’d made it in front of everyone, even Octavia.

I took a step of my own and gripped his hand. It was cold and smooth, like snakeskin, and I could feel the incalculable strength behind his grasp and see the flash of the silver blade he kept spring-loaded in his sleeve. I wasn’t naive—I knew if we hadn’t had an audience, that blade would have found a new home in my still-beating heart.

“You’re not as stupid as you look,” Tremaine muttered. “You better hold to what you say. I will be calling in your so-called favor.”

“I’m not the one who has a problem with lies,” I said. I pulled him close, so close that we could have felt each other’s heart beating. “And if you
ever
get up to your old tricks,” I whispered in Tremaine’s pointed shell of an ear, “if you ever try to deceive me or use me or use someone I love to harm me, I will show you things so much more ancient and hungry than you are that your mind cannot contain them. And they will devour you. And the last thing you hear will be my victorious laughter. Are we clear?”

Tremaine pulled back and regarded me, not with a sneer but with a degree of circumspection I’d never witnessed before. “Now, that,” he said, a smile forming, “that was the tongue of a Fae speaking.”

He dropped my hand and threw me a lazy salute. “Well played, Aoife. Enjoy wallowing in the mud with your humans.”

“Oh,” I told him, “you know I always do.”

As Tremaine stalked back into the palace, my mother
came to me and threw her arms around me. “Don’t stay away too long,” she mumbled into my hair. “I’ve only just gotten to know you.”

I squeezed her just as hard, feeling how small and frail she was under my grasp. But it was misleading—she wasn’t frail. She was the strongest survivor I knew. She had weathered the years of iron madness and the machinations of Tremaine. She’d be alive long after Archie and Dean and probably even Lovecraft itself were gone.

Often, when I was young, I’d try to see something of myself in my mother—nose, eyes, hair, voice. I’d never seen anything, until this moment. The strong will that drove us was the same. I might get my stubborn nature and inquisitive mind, my green eyes and my insane hair from Archie, but the will to live, to survive at all costs, came from Nerissa. Her Fae blood was her gift to me, and I carried it in my veins no matter what was on the surface.

“I love you, Aoife,” Nerissa said softly, and then stepped back. Her eyes glimmered, but the tears didn’t fall to crystallize on the snow. “Run along, now. I imagine your brother’s waiting.”

“I’ll be back,” I told Nerissa. “I won’t leave you.”

Nerissa didn’t say anything. She simply swiped at her eyes and then turned away, the pain clearly too much.

As I walked out of the courtyard, I raised my eyes to Octavia on her balcony. The cardinal took flight, a bloodred blot on the white sky, and as the Winter Queen watched it, she gave me a terrible and predatory parting smile.

*  *  *

I stepped out of the
hexenring
in the orchard disoriented and with my head pounding, as usual, and looked for a stump or a rock to sit on for a moment to collect myself.

“Having fun with your little Fae friends?”

I screamed and nearly jumped out of my skin. “Dammit, Conrad! What’s wrong with you?”

“You’ve been skulking around all week looking like you were ready to take off,” he grumped. “I followed you to see if you were running away.”

I sat down on one of the massive stones that had at one point composed the foundation of the cider house and massaged my forehead. I couldn’t have another dustup with my brother. Not now, not while I was still shaking from the memory of the Winter Queen’s smile.

“And would you have stopped me if I was?”

Conrad shrugged. “I don’t want you gone, Aoife. I just don’t understand why you do the things you do.”

“I can’t ever explain it,” I said. If I told Conrad the truth, I’d lose his trust forever. Still, the urge was almost overwhelming. “I just …” I sighed and rubbed my forehead. “I have a lot to make up for.”

“You don’t owe me a thing, Aoife,” he said. “If anything, I owe you. I tried to kill you. I hurt you, and you’re the only one who’s ever stuck by me.”

“Don’t take that weight,” I said, almost too quickly. “Don’t blame yourself for that, Conrad.”

“I don’t,” he said, giving me a wan smile. “I just don’t want you to think you’re the bad guy, Aoife. No matter what you do, I’ll still be your brother.” He sat next to me and pulled out a letter on good paper that smelled of woodsmoke and
rich ink. “Now that we’ve cleared that up, any chance my little sister will celebrate with me?” He handed the envelope over and watched as my eyes danced across the letterhead.
Miskatonic University Office of Admissions
.

Dear Mr. Grayson
,

We are pleased to offer you admission to our undergraduate class starting in the fall term of 1956
.…

“How did this happen?” I said, feeling a curious mixture of sadness and surprise bubble in my chest. I was happy for him, but he hadn’t even hinted that he was thinking of leaving. “You didn’t apply anywhere,” I said. “You didn’t graduate from the Academy.…”

“Archie pulled some strings and made sure my transcript was filled out by private tutors,” he said. “I imagine next year he’ll do the same thing for you.”

“But a
university
?” I said. “Back among all those people yammering about Rationalists and heretics? People who think we should be burned alive for what’s in our blood?”

“Miskatonic isn’t like that,” Conrad said. “Archie went there. It’s a place where they value real science and real reason, not that frightened screeching that comes from the Bureau of Proctors. Besides,” he added, “the Bureau might be on the way out, if the past few weeks are any indication. There’s all kinds of hearings, high-ranking types are being arrested.… The world’s changing. I want to be part of that.”

“I can’t believe you’re leaving us,” I said softly. What
would I do without Conrad? We might fight all the time, but I needed him. He was the stable one, the rock. Without him, I would be anchorless.

“Look, Aoife,” Conrad said. “I’m not you. I don’t have the ability that you and Archie do, and I never will. I don’t understand what makes either of you tick. This is my chance to fit in, to finally make something of myself that’s not just being the third wheel dragging the rest of my family down.”

He put his hand over mine. “You don’t need me. Your destiny is this big thing, big as the stars, and mine is here, weighted down by iron. That’s all. That’s all I was ever trying to say.”

He shoved the letter into his pants pocket and got up, starting back across the orchard. I watched him go, feeling as if someone had ripped out some essential organ and cast it away. Then I jumped up. “Conrad!”

I ran and caught up with him when he stopped. “I need you, stupid,” I said, giving him a shove on the shoulder. “You’re my
brother
, for crying out loud. My
family
.” The tears started, and I let them come. “The only family I had, for a really long time. You’re the one who protected me, even when you went mad. You’re the one who wrote me that letter, Conrad. You saved me from myself. I can’t …”

I was going to say more, how I couldn’t ever thank him enough for that, even if he was stubborn and curt and sometimes mistrustful, but he grabbed me and pulled me into a bear hug. “Stop crying,” he muttered. “You can be such a girl sometimes.”

“Easy for you to say,” I said. “Big college man.”

He gave a small laugh. “Going to try, anyway. I figure if I stay on campus and come back here, I can stave off the iron madness.” He started walking again, and I fell into step beside him.

“Did you ever think you’d be destined for a quiet life?” I asked.

“Did you ever think you’d have anything but?” he asked me with a grin.

“Good point,” I told him, and we shared a silence that was unstrained for the first time in months as we walked back toward home.

Cal and Bethina were sitting around the aethervox when I entered the kitchen. I cleaned the mud off my shoes and hung up my jumper, and they still hadn’t moved.

“What’s all this about?” I said.