An Artificial Night

Horses, I thought numbly. Faerie children are his Riders, and the human-born are his horses. I’d been warned, but somehow knowing that it was real made it worse. There are few things I can think of that are worse than unwilling transformation.

Quentin stopped beside me and tensed, taking a sharp breath. I put a hand on his arm, keeping him where he was.

“We’re taking this slow, Quentin. All right?” He blinked at me, expression betraying no understanding. “All right?” I repeated. He nodded. I relaxed marginally, taking my hand off his arm. “Good. Follow me.” I started down the length of the room, keeping close to the wall. Quentin followed, his footsteps sounding dangerously loud even through the muffling straw.

Now we just needed to figure out which stall Katie was in without opening every door. Filling the stable with panicked human children would be a fast way to bring the guards down on our heads—if they weren’t already en route.

Blind Michael’s lands followed their own rules, but those rules had been consistent and thus technically fair so far. What worked once should work again, unless the rules had changed, and changing the rules was cheating. I raised the candle, saying, “How many miles to Babylon? It’s three-score miles and ten. Can we find what we seek by the candle’s light and still get out again?”

The flame blazed upward. I jumped, nearly losing my grip. I think I would’ve dropped it if I hadn’t internalized the rhyme so intensely: I could get there and back, yes, but only by the light of a candle. If we lost that light, none of us would be going anywhere. Slowly, the flame shrunk, becoming brighter until it was nothing but a small, nearly blinding spark. The wax was melting twice as fast as it had been before. Damn. We needed to hurry, or the wax would run out and our problems would get a lot worse.

“Toby, what—”

“We’re just gonna follow the candle.” I stepped forward and the flame dimmed, almost going out. I stepped back, and the flame brightened again. Quentin followed as I walked to the mouth of the stable, and we began making our way down the middle of the room, both of us watching the candle.

We were halfway to the back wall when the flame turned red. There was only one door nearby. It was rough wood behind a gate of wire and brambles, just like all the others. I walked over to it, reaching out and trying the handle. It was locked.

“I can’t break this with a knife, and I don’t have my lock picks. We need to find a key.” I let go of the handle. A loop of thorns immediately snarled my fingers, holding them in place. “Oh, crap.” I pulled, trying to free my hand. The brambles tightened. “Quentin, it’s got me.”

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked, eyes wide.

“Get me loose!”

“How?”

“Cut it!” The thorns burned cold, freezing all the way down to the bone. “Fast!”

Quentin jerked the knife from my belt and swung it toward the briar. I gritted my teeth, doing my best to hold still. Having a killer thorn bush attack my hand was bad; accidentally losing a couple of fingers would be worse.

Then the blade hit the brambles.

The vines themselves seemed to scream, a thin, keening noise that came from everywhere and nowhere at once as they tightened, writhing and burying themselves more deeply in my hand. I shrieked before I could stop myself, crying, “Quentin, stop!”