The last time I’d been in Annwn, Tybalt had been with me. It was strange, walking there without him. I had come to depend on him so much, for backup, for support, for the way he made the world seem . . . not kinder, but easier to tackle. I could handle anything, as long as he was there to keep me from falling over.
He wasn’t here now. Mom had him, and while I trusted her not to actively torture him, she still had him locked in a cage, unable to transform or reach the Shadow Roads. Cait Sidhe are natural shapeshifters. For Tybalt, cat form was as natural as walking on two legs and having opposable thumbs. But that was when it was a choice, something he’d done to himself, and not a transformation forced on him by someone else. When Simon had transformed me into a fish, the magic had changed my mind as well as my body, adapting me to a life spent swimming through the watery depths of the pond, eating mindlessly, swimming toward the warmth of the sun. I’d been gone for years. It could have been hours, for all the awareness my fish’s mind had had of the passage of time.
Maybe that would be a mercy. Or maybe I’d get him back and find that I had a feral tomcat on my hands, unable or unwilling to transform into his human form.
Either way, I would cross that bridge when I came to it. Right now, I needed to focus on following the thin ribbon of August’s magic across the fields, toward the distant shape of one of the castles.
As we drew closer, it became apparent that I wasn’t going to get at least one of my wishes: I wasn’t going to be avoiding Riordan today. The land around the castle had been worked, the fields cleared of brush and briar and planted with crops that looked something like rhubarb, something like corn, and something like an unholy hybrid of the two. Simon looked around us and nodded, apparently content with what he saw.
“They’re settling in,” he said.
“What is it?”
“Annwn rhubarb,” he said. At my blank expression, he smiled, and said, “Roses change according to the soil they’re planted in. Apples, too. A Granny Smith is not a Honeycrisp, nor is either of them a Red Delicious. Plants have always adapted to suit the soil that nurtures them. I don’t know who decided to plant rhubarb here, but the result was a larger, sweeter crop. They used to use it for making wine, back when we had easy access to the fields. I remember drinking it at banquets when I was young, before the wine cellars were emptied and all we had was the memory of sweetness. If you wanted to pay for your impending wedding, you could do it with a scythe and a sack in this field. There are people—purebloods, older ones—who would pay anything you asked, for the chance to taste the fruits of their youth again.”
“We’re not here to steal Riordan’s crops,” I said. “We just need to follow August’s trail until we find the next turn.”
“Then we shall,” he said.
The castle Riordan had claimed as her own was coming more clearly into view. She had been repairing it since I’d been there last—or more accurately, she had been instructing her people to repair it. There was a scaffold against one wall, and the battlements were no longer quite so raggedy. Simon stopped in mid-step, putting his arm out to signal for me and Quentin to stop as well. I did, only stumbling a little as I turned to frown at him.
His eyes were on the sky, and he was smiling. Not happily. He looked like a man who had just had his worst fears confirmed, and was simply relieved to see that it was over.
“Well, well,” he said. “Treasa has been busy.”
“What are you looking at?”
Simon gave me a sidelong look. “I forget, sometimes, that your strengths are not all the same as mine,” he said. “Ask your squire.”
I looked to the side. “Quentin?”
Quentin’s eyes were also focused on the sky, but he wasn’t smiling. Instead, he had gone pale, eyes wide and glossy in dismay. “It’s an illusion,” he said. “It’s all an illusion.”
If I looked, I could see a faint glitter in the air, betraying the outlines of whatever Riordan was trying to hide. I couldn’t see the illusion itself, much less see through it. The Dóchas Sidhe may outpace the Daoine Sidhe when it comes to blood magic, but we can’t hold a candle to them where illusions are concerned.
A candle. I lifted the candle the Luidaeg had given me, and murmured, “You can get there and back by a candle’s light.” I couldn’t get there if I couldn’t see where I was going.
The flame leaped up, devouring at least an inch of wax in the process and sending the first hot line to dribble down and score the skin of my hand. I managed not to flinch, focusing instead on the increasing glitter in the air, which had frozen like frost on a windowpane. Then, bit by bit, in an almost fractal pattern, it began to dissolve, revealing what Riordan had really done to her chosen castle.
The scaffold was gone, as was the need for it: the walls stood thick and strong, shored up by great slabs of white stone, no doubt carved from the distant cliffs. They had been rebuilt until they changed a simple barrier into a barricade, making the place into a fortress. The towers were twice as high as they had seemed from a distance. They were made of the same stone as the walls, spotted with the blind, narrow eyes of arrow slits and the larger, stained glass blooms of windows.
The largest of the stained glass windows was set directly above the castle gates, where it could serve no useful purpose, since there was no way for anyone to stand on the other side and look out—not unless they were fifteen feet tall. It showed the arms of Dreamer’s Glass, the mirror split by a lightning bolt crack, with a spindle on one side and a lily on the other. The overall effect of the place was of a castle carved entirely from bone, cold and cruel and pristine.
“I guess she’s made herself right at home, huh?” I said, stunned.
“Maybe this means she’s not mad,” said Quentin.
“Maybe it means she’s going to skin us alive and use us as part of her décor,” I said. He gave me a sidelong look. I shrugged. “Two can play the ‘maybe’ game.”
“We’d best get on with it,” said Simon. He cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, “Treasa! A word, if you please?”
I turned to stare at him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting us inside.” Simon lowered his hands, looking unconcerned. “Treasa and I aren’t friends, precisely, but she’s known me for years, and she hates my brother, which makes me one of her favorite people, inasmuch as she has favorite people. I try Sylvester’s nerves. That’s all it takes to stay in her good graces.”
“Problem: she hates me, too,” I said.
He sighed. “Yes, and I can’t hold a knife to your throat and claim you as my prisoner, thanks to Sylvester’s cunning idea of a binding ritual. Stand quietly and try not to anger her, if you could possibly be so kind.”