A Local Habitation

Holding my breath, I jerked the knife across my hand.

The blade was sharper than I thought. I dropped it, swearing. It didn’t matter; my part of the bargain was fulfilled. Blood was already welling up, running in hot ribbons down my arm. I unwrapped the mandrake shakily with my right hand, letting it roll onto the floor before cupping my hands together, letting my blood pour over it. The root writhed, soaking up the blood as fast as it fell. Drinking it in.

“My name is October Christine Daye, daughter of Amandine, and I am here to petition for your attentions,” I said, concentrating. The air hummed with the copper and cut grass scent of my magic as the flowers piled around my ritual circle burst into blue-green flame. The candles lit themselves, and the overhead lights crackled, sending out sprays of sparks before going dark. A stabbing pain hit me behind the eyes. Magic-burn. I was going to pay for this night’s work. I just hoped it would be worth it.

The room began to fill with thick, sweet smoke as the flowers burned. I kept letting my blood fall across the mandrake, trying to ignore the way the temperature was dropping, despite the fires. “I’ve brought you blood and flowers and salt from the sea. All our Courts together here support my plea.” The mandrake whimpered. I raised my hand, bringing my bloody fingers to my lips and kissing them. “I bring you life.” Reaching down, I pressed my fingers to the mandrake’s “head.”

The root stopped writhing, opening eyes like chips of summer ice. Before it could dodge or squirm away, I grabbed Dare’s knife and drove it through the mandrake’s body. The mandrake screamed, outer layers peeling away until a tiny, perfect duplicate of myself was writhing naked on the point of the knife. I slammed my hands flat against the floor, gritting my teeth as I said, “If I could speak with you for a moment . . .”

The room went silent. The mandrake stopped screaming, staring past me in terror, and even the crackle of the flames faded and died. A low buzz crept into the silence: the beating of the night-haunts’ wings. I raised my head, barely daring to breathe.

They filled the room, hovering all around my circle. The ones near me had shapes I could name; they were all the races of Faerie, united by their shadowy pallor and their frail, fiercely beating wings. They dissolved into shapelessness as they drew farther away, becoming deep shadows and the fluttering sound of leaves on the wind. I gasped.

The figure at the front of the flock was Dare.





TWENTY



“DARE?” I WHISPERED. It couldn’t be Dare. Dare was dead. I watched her die. And at the same time, it was Dare, because it couldn’t be anyone else.

She was too slim for it to be intentional, underfed and scrawny. Her hair was vivid blonde, contrasting with her apple green eyes. Silver clips tipped her ears, and she wore a gown of dust and cobwebs, making her look like a deposed, despotic princess. The wings were new, blurred shapeless by their constant motion—the wings, and her height. Dare was small before, but now she was Barbie-sized, diminutive enough to stand in the palm of my hand.

There were other familiar faces in the crowd, similarly reduced and remade—Devin was there, as was Ross, the quarter-Roane changeling who died in Golden Gate Park—but most were unfamiliar, smudged to obscurity by the closeness of their fellows. I didn’t see any of the people who’d died on the grounds of ALH Computing.

Dare watched impassively as I stared at them, wings beating hummingbird-fast. I wanted to leap to my feet and hold her in my arms and never let go. I wanted to beg her for forgiveness. I stayed where I was.

“You called. We came,” she said. “What do you want?”