54
With Kelpie’s help, Velody dragged the ice-cold body of Garnet into the workroom, where they locked him in the skysilver cage.
‘Is there anything left of him in there?’ Kelpie grunted as they finally slammed the door closed.
‘Sadly, yes,’ said Velody, staring through the bars. ‘It would be much easier if there wasn’t.’
‘Don’t you dare even hesitate,’ Kelpie added fiercely. ‘If it takes sacrificing him to save the others, to save Ashiol or the Duchessa or even that bratty blonde flapper of yours, you do it.’
‘Yes,’ said Velody. ‘I will.’
Garnet’s eyes blazed with all the light of the sky. ‘Ah, Kelpie. You were always my favourite.’
‘I’m shocked you remember my name,’ Kelpie spat.
The others came into the room, a few at a time, gathering around the cage.
Garnet only had eyes for Ashiol. ‘It’s come to this, my cat. So sad.’
‘Don’t pretend you’re him,’ said Ashiol furiously. ‘I know what you are. The sky. The enemy.’
Garnet laughed. ‘And if I am?’
‘You’ve been doing this for centuries,’ Velody said softly. ‘Attacking us. Wearing down our defences. Why? What was it all for?’
Livilla snorted. ‘Don’t tell me you plan to negotiate with them.’
‘What else is there to do?’ said Poet, who was barely on his feet. He shivered despite the blanket someone had wrapped around his shoulders. ‘Don’t you see? We’ve never been able to beat them, not really. Now we have a chance to talk to them. Maybe that’s the only way to stop the war.’
‘War,’ Garnet repeated, still sounding amused. ‘Is that what you call it?’
‘What is it to you?’ Ashiol growled. ‘A game? Some idle amusement?’
Garnet leaned towards the bars, close enough to kiss. ‘Not play. Justice.’ His eyes glowed like skysilver. ‘You are the thieves. We hunger for what you stole.’
‘This war has been going on longer than any of us have been alive,’ said Ashiol.
‘Your kind. You stole the light from us and we want it back.’
‘Animor,’ Velody realised. ‘It came from you.’ Yes, she had known that part of it, deep in her bones. If the skysilver was a side effect of the cracks in the sky, then the animor must be as well. ‘We don’t have a history. We don’t know what happened, but it was so long ago.’
‘But we do have a history,’ Kelpie said. She shrugged and looked embarrassed when everyone stared at her. ‘At least, the Daylight Ducs had a history. The librarion in the Palazzo is full of books about the skywar: when it started, how they fought it, old rituals of the daylight. The early Ducs each had a team of lictors called the Sentinel Court to defend his body from the sky!’
‘Put that book away, sentinel,’ Poet said impatiently. ‘If there was anything important there, Lord Saturn would never have left it for daylight folk to read.’
‘I would have thought it was the perfect hiding place,’ Isangell observed.
‘Saturn and his books,’ Ashiol said, sounding scornful. ‘What good did they do him?’
‘I’m missing something again,’ Velody sighed. ‘Who was Saturn?’
‘Poet’s first kill,’ said Ashiol.
Poet gave him a venomous look. ‘Saturn was one of us, the Lord of Hawks. He worked as a bookseller with all the librarions, and gathered every scrap of history he could find — every reference, every story about the Creature Court and the skywar. He had a theory that Aufleur and Tierce and Bazeppe were built upon weak points in the world, and that the weight of the cities broke something between us and the sky. Perhaps that’s how animor came into our world.’
‘You broke the sky, you stole our light,’ snarled Garnet, pacing the cage. ‘Thought you could hide your crime.’
‘It wasn’t us,’ Velody said in frustration. ‘Centuries have passed. You’ve shattered two of the cities, and all but destroyed this one. Haven’t you punished our world enough?’
He gave her a vicious look, which, had she not known about the possession, Velody would have described as ‘all Garnet’. ‘Not nearly. Everything you have, everything you are, belongs to us.’
‘Tell us,’ Velody pleaded. ‘We want to understand.’
Garnet stretched. ‘You want to die knowing exactly why you are all monsters? I am happy to oblige.’ His voice took on a singsong quality, like he was staging a grand performance. ‘Once there was a world of light and spirit and goodness. All were loved and serene and content, except for three wicked creatures. They broke a hole in the sky, searching for other worlds, and for their punishment were doomed always to stay in that world they had discovered. Never to return home. But they were so angry and resentful that they took the light of our world with them into this place, this unclean den of nox and daylight, of humans and steel and steam and clockwork.’ His lip curled with disgust. ‘With the power they had stolen, they built cities. Three beautiful, impossible cities. Abominations.’
Velody shook her head. The story didn’t fit, even if you discounted the obvious hatred for whomever those creatures had been. ‘That’s not true. It can’t be.’
She looked across at Ashiol who stood there with his mouth in a set line. Isangell had crept forward and was holding his hand. He didn’t seem to mind.
‘Hush,’ Garnet commanded. ‘I’m not finished. The creatures peopled the cities with daylight folk, playing with them like dolls. Mayors and priests and proctors and mad Ducs. Great Families,’ he added, with a sudden grin at Isangell that made her flinch. ‘They gave them memories of a longer history, gave the world memories that these cities had always been there, that they meant something. When our people learned what the exiles had done, we came to take back the light and power. To take back what was ours.’
‘So you really have always wanted to destroy us,’ Ashiol said calmly.
‘We wanted to destroy every stone of the false cities that were built with our light,’ said Garnet, sounding almost reasonable. ‘But instead of falling on our mercy and returning what they stole, the exiles built themselves armies to defend their cities against the rightful vengeance of their people. They took creatures of this world and perverted them into Kings and Lords and courtesi. They took the silver that fell through the cracks in the sky and forged swords and knives for mortals to hold. They gave visions of the future to chosen ones and made them guide you. They built the Shadow Court, the Clockwork Court, the Creature Court, and you continue to act out their filthy work like the weapons you are.’
Topaz hung back as the adults talked to the cage. She did not care whether Garnet was from the sky or himself — she didn’t want to hear him talk. She slipped back into the kitchen instead.
One of the sentinels, the one with a missing finger, lay there under blankets, looking like a dog’s breakfast. Then there was the other body.
It looked like a woman, but was shaped from stone and root and dirt. It was wet to the touch, as Topaz found when she couldn’t resist brushing a fingertip against it.
Its eyes snapped open.
Topaz jerked back in horror, but the statue’s eyelids fluttered again and fell shut.
A large ginger tom cat wound his way through the table legs and curled up near the statue, purring.
Ashiol couldn’t stand this, couldn’t stand talking through Garnet like he was some kind of window into the sky. It made him sick to his stomach.
Velody was talking patiently about negotiation, about making some kind of deal, and every word out of her mouth was another stab to the chest. Negotiation be f*cked. He wanted to fight something.
He moved away from the cage, to find Isangell following him. She looked battered and exhausted and more like their grandmama than he had ever realised.
‘I’m glad you’re all right,’ he said in a low voice.
She gave him an exasperated look and said nothing.
Poet was circling the cage, trying to talk to the creature inside Garnet’s skin. ‘You’ve told this story before, haven’t you? Through that damned watch. Did Garnet know all this?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Garnet, smiling widely. ‘We spoke to him, many times, as we did with Saturn before him. He didn’t take it very well, it has to be said.’
‘If your argument is with the exiles,’ Delphine broke in, ‘then take it up with them, not us. If these creatures are so damned powerful, let them solve this mess. Where are they?’
Garnet met her gaze and seemed to bask in the muted glow of her skysilver dress. ‘The last one fell in battle this nox. You called him the Smith. It is of little account. You all still have what we want returned.’
‘So we’ll return it,’ Velody insisted. ‘We’ll negotiate a treaty. Are you their leader? Can you speak for them?’
‘Leader,’ their enemy said scornfully. ‘We are all as one.’
‘Then you can help us end the war,’ said Velody. ‘The Smith and the others like him are gone, so you’ve had your vengeance.’
The creature smiled with all of Garnet’s teeth. ‘Once this city is dust as the other two are dust, the war will end. The light will be back where it belongs, on our side of the sky.’
Isangell let go of Ashiol’s hand and stepped forward. ‘We can’t let you destroy another city full of people,’ she said, speaking firmly. ‘There must be some agreement we can make to save everyone who is left.’
‘You people love to make sacrifices,’ said the sky-Garnet. ‘By all means, sacrifice to us. Burn your honey cakes, wave your ribbons, build your statues. It is meat and drink to our world. But we will still eat you alive. We will not rest until every stone they placed, every weapon they forged, is destroyed.’
Ashiol was exasperated. Would these demmes do nothing but talk?
‘You can’t negotiate with them,’ he insisted. ‘Don’t you get it? We’re the weapons. The only way it will be happy is if we’re all destroyed.’
‘Ashiol’s right for once,’ said Kelpie. He tried not to resent the ‘for once’. ‘The battle or storm or whatever is still going on while we make small talk with this … random piece of cloud. It’s distracting us from the main event.’ She stepped closer to the bars, hatred all over her face. ‘Kill it and be done.’
Ashiol knew all of Garnet’s moves, and he saw this one happening before he could stop it. Garnet’s hand darted out to grasp the skysilver knife on Kelpie’s left hip, and as she shifted back on one foot to keep it out of his reach, he grabbed the other knife, the steel one, and plunged it directly into his own chest. It slid in like butter — steel could not draw the blood of one of the Creature Court — and Garnet’s face cleared. His eyes were suddenly far more hungry and alert.
‘Right then,’ he said. ‘That’s better. We can talk.’
‘What are you up to?’ Velody demanded.
Garnet met Ashiol’s gaze and raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
Ashiol sighed. ‘This is the real Garnet,’ he said.
Poet nodded in confirmation.
Kelpie’s face didn’t change. ‘Not an improvement,’ she sneered.
‘This won’t work for long,’ Garnet said quickly. ‘There’s something about steel — it mixes up their signals. Back when they were speaking to me through the watch, putting a steel blade to my skin would shut them up for nearly an hour sometimes. It was the only way to get a decent sleep.’
‘Why should we believe you?’ Velody asked.
Garnet gave her his best ‘bored now’ expression. It twisted in Ashiol’s stomach like the knife was sticking into him instead of his oldest friend. ‘If you can’t contribute anything useful, little mouse, keep your mouth shut. The f*cking army on the other side of the sky has been grooming me for years for this moment. This day. As long as they’re inside me, they don’t need to break paths through the sky any more. They can come through me.’
‘So if we kill you,’ said Kelpie helpfully, ‘it’s all over.’
‘A sweet thought, sentinel,’ Garnet sneered. ‘But whatever they are is well and truly tangled up in my body. They took my animor and put something else inside me. Something valuable. We need power, dearlings, raw animal power, enough to beat them back and seal the sky over for good. There’s only one way to get that kind of power.’
‘The sacred marriage,’ Velody said breathlessly.
Garnet snapped his fingers at her. ‘See, I knew you had to be smarter than the rest of them. It’s really the only explanation for why they like you more than me.’
‘That’s what happened last time,’ said Kelpie, waving her damned book. ‘The old mad Duc married a flock of ducks or whatever, and the skywar went away. Only it didn’t. We know it didn’t. It shifted into the nox and the Creature Court were left alone, the only ones who could see the danger.’
Poet snatched the book from her and threw it against a wall. ‘Don’t you get it? The book doesn’t matter. Our history is false. Our whole f*cking city is false. Nothing matters.’
‘That’s hardly a useful contribution,’ Delphine snapped, picking up the book and handing it back to Kelpie. ‘Why not let them make the sacred marriage? Better to try something than to die whining.’
‘They didn’t do it right,’ Garnet said. ‘Not the mad Duc. No one since the very first Powers and Majesties.’ His eyes flicked in Ashiol’s direction.
Ashiol swallowed.
‘How is it done?’ Velody asked, all businesslike. ‘Is it documented in any of these books? Do the Seers know?’
‘The Seer is a pile of firewood in the kitchen,’ Ashiol snarled.
‘No,’ Isangell said. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. But the Seer is in my head right now.’
He stared at her. After everything else that had happened today, that shouldn’t be the thing that broke his brain. ‘Heliora?’
‘Heliora and Rhian both,’ Isangell admitted. ‘The Seers know all about the sacred marriage. They also say they’re not the only ones. Better to ask the King who tried and failed.’ She frowned, not understanding what she was saying.
Velody understood, though. In that moment, at least. Ashiol could see the surprise and disappointment cross her face.
‘You knew all along about the sacred marriage,’ she said, staring at him. ‘When Garnet stole your powers …’
‘That was what he was trying to do,’ Ashiol agreed. ‘He found the books Poet was hoarding. We stole one — Saturn had pieced together how the sacred marriage worked, what it was supposed to do. Garnet offered —’ His voice broke on that. He could not continue.
Garnet was gripping the bars tightly, his knuckles almost white. ‘I offered to share,’ he said. ‘I was losing you. I had lost everything else, and I offered to share. We would be Power and Majesty together. But you still couldn’t trust me.’
He had the balls to sound upset about it. Ashiol wanted to punch him.
A shock wave from outside shook the nest.
‘I tried,’ Ashiol said between his teeth.
‘You held back, lover. You wouldn’t give me everything. That’s what the sacred marriage is, Velody-my-sweet. You pour everything of yourself into the other vessel. Exchange animor fully. But even with everything I was offering, he held back.’ Garnet smiled horribly. ‘So I took it from him instead.’
‘You didn’t give me the chance,’ Ashiol said. ‘It was only a moment.’
‘That was enough.’
‘A split second of hesitation!’ Ashiol roared at him. ‘After everything you’ve done to me, that was the unforgiveable act?’
Garnet gazed at him, mouth twisted. ‘Yes,’ he said simply.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ Velody said suddenly. She looked from Garnet to Ashiol, throwing up her hands in frustration. ‘The sacred marriage can’t be about you and me, Ashiol. I’m not the one you have to work things out with.’
Garnet began to laugh.
‘You can’t be serious,’ Ashiol demanded.
‘I mean it,’ Velody snapped. ‘It’s up to you and Garnet. I’ll be defending the city while you talk in circles and try to tear each other to pieces.’ She turned and headed for the kitchen.
Ashiol ran after her. She had obviously gone insane.
‘You can’t be suggesting that Garnet and I make the sacred marriage. The sky will infect me, too.’
‘Will it?’ Velody’s eyes were luminous in the low light of the kitchen. ‘The sky couldn’t have taken him over unless she let it. Maybe he thought he was strong enough to handle it; maybe he really did think it was necessary to keep them believing he was on their side. But it was his choice. You have a choice, too. You spend your whole life trying to let other people decide for you. I won’t do that, not now. Sort it out, Ashiol.’
‘Stop saying that!’
‘I need to fight the sky,’ Velody said furiously. ‘The city is coming down around our ears and we are running out of time. I can’t perform the sacred marriage with you because you’re never going to give me everything you have. You won’t even give me a piece of you.’
He kissed her then, caught her face in his hands and kissed her as hard as he could. She kissed him back, and they leaned into each other. Ashiol felt her animor pulsing against her skin and against his, but they were both holding back, preserving what they had.
‘It’s not about you and me,’ he said in a low voice.
She shook her head. ‘How could it possibly be about you and me? If the sacred marriage is really about uniting the Creature Court, then it’s all of us. Every single one of us.’
Ashiol drew away, and went back into the workroom where Garnet stood in the cage.
‘You were wrong,’ he said quietly. ‘My hesitation wasn’t because I didn’t trust you, or because I was trying to hoard my power. I didn’t want to be Majesty to your Power. I didn’t want to share your rule. I was happy to be ruled by you, always, but you never believed me.’
Garnet stared at him as if seeing him for the first time, and then held his hand out through the bars. ‘Save the f*cking city,’ he said hoarsely. ‘It’s all we’re good for.’
Ashiol clasped his hand and felt animor flooding his fingers. It wasn’t Garnet’s, nothing like it, but it was stronger than anything he had ever felt before. It came faster and faster, like rushing water and a fierce alien light. He was dizzy with it, power heating every inch of his skin. Garnet’s gattopardi stretched inside him, along with Ashiol’s own black cats. There was a nameless creature there, pulsing with the voice of their enemy, but the cats and the gattopardi surrounded it, not letting it take control of his body.
Ashiol stumbled away from the cage and towards the kitchen.
Poet caught him as he leaned against the staircase, and placed a slow kiss on his forehead. ‘Let’s not do this by halves, kitten,’ he said, and Ashiol felt a new surge of animor press inside him. He was almost bursting with power now, his head full of white rats as well as the other creatures.
Left without power, Poet looked surprised and then oddly relaxed. ‘It’s over for me, then,’ he said. ‘Good luck.’
The enemy animor that Ashiol had taken from Garnet was a smaller piece of him now, a shock of cold inside his thudding, heated body. He stood in the kitchen doorway, breathing. The enemy voice thudded inside his head, but he kept it at bay. Ignoring what he did not want to hear was one of his greatest skills.
He looked down and saw the brown-skinned demme, Topaz. She was holding the old ginger tom that Ashiol had left here with Velody so long ago. One of the many cats that were always drawn to him when he was in Court shape. Old Tom filled her skinny arms, all bulge and fur.
Yes, that.
Ashiol reached out and placed his hands on the cat, giving the enemy inside his animor a sudden push out of his body and into that of Old Tom. The cat yowled and glowed fiercely with all the colours of skybattle before Topaz released it and it went running across the floor.
Kelpie brought her swords around in two sweeping arcs, cutting the cat in half before it reached the door. The steel blade made no mark, but the skysilver blade cut true. The cat’s body burst into blue flame and burned there for a moment.
‘I really hate you for making me do that,’ said Kelpie.
‘Add it to the list,’ said Ashiol.
He reached a hand out solemnly to Topaz, who nodded and took his loosely in hers. Suddenly his head was full of fire and rage and the cool skin of salamanders.
One by one, the children came forward, either to him or Velody, and gave them their animor.
Livilla caught Velody in a gleeful kiss, handing over her power as easily as breathing. ‘Since the world is ending,’ she said with an odd smile.
Shade went to Velody, as did Clara. Bree hesitated before coming to Ashiol as Topaz had done. There was no one left to share what they had. There were so few of them left.
Ashiol looked at Velody across the kitchen. ‘A city to save, you say?’
She almost laughed, but caught herself. She was glowing with power, brighter than he had ever seen her.
‘This is better,’ she said finally. ‘A marriage really should be about the whole family.’
He took two strides across the kitchen and grabbed her again. She wrapped her arms around his neck and they sank their animor into each other, giving everything.
For once in his life, Ashiol did not hold back.