“Jin isn’t strong enough to massage out the cramp,” I said, feeling suddenly numb again. “She can’t get him to change back.”
“No. But you might, were you at your normal strength.” He gave the hope chest in Arden’s hands a meaningful look.
The last time I’d used a hope chest, I had entered a strange fugue state where a version of myself had offered me a choice of two knives, one that would turn me mortal and one that would turn me fae, and invited me to be the guest of honor at a stabbing. I had responded by grabbing both knives, driving them into my own stomach, and staying a changeling. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience. I didn’t care. Lunging forward, I snatched the hope chest out of Arden’s hands.
Nothing happened. I froze, staring at the treasure in my hands. In my gauze-swaddled hands. I wasn’t touching the wood. I could fix that. Awkwardly, I tucked the hope chest under one arm and started yanking at the fabric on my right hand with my teeth, trying to unwind it.
“October.”
I looked up.
Sylvester was holding his sword out, blade turned sideways to make it clear that he wasn’t threatening me. “Use this,” he said.
Mutely, I nodded, and before he could pull back, I slashed my hand across the edge of the blade with a ferocity born of desperation and too many years spent learning how to be practically invincible. The gauze parted easily. So did the flesh on the other side, metal slicing to the bone in a sensation that was as agonizing as it was familiar. I had been here before. The mansions of pain were no longer a mystery to me, and might never be again.
Sylvester blanched. Arden turned away. Neither of them said a word. They knew why I was doing this. The kitchen was an island of silence, and I was the only thing that moved.
My left hand was still wreathed in gauze, but that didn’t matter: one would be enough. Ignoring the pain, I slammed my bleeding palm down on the hope chest.
Heat lanced up my arm, immediate and burning. It wasn’t painful, although it should have been. It was less like a forest fire, and more like the soothing, cleansing warmth of a hot pack against a strained muscle, turned up to a thousand. I gritted my teeth. The visions hadn’t come on yet. Maybe that meant they weren’t going to. The last time I’d done this, there had been goblin fruit and Firstborn blood in my system, making everything harder, divorcing me from myself. Here and now, I knew exactly who I was, and I knew exactly what I wanted.
What I was, I thought, as loudly and fiercely as I could. Make me what I was.
I could feel the hope chest responding to my demand, a distant, quizzical presence. It wanted more details. That was why it had given me the visions the last time, I realized: because it didn’t know how to communicate with me. It was too old, and too strange, and I was too young, and still too human. The edges of my vision started to blur as the hope chest began forcing a fugue state over me.
No, I thought fiercely. No visions. Make me what I was. I pictured myself as I’d been when this all began, the color of my hair, the slope of my ears, the position of the watermarks in my blood. Sometime in the last several years, my mental image of myself had changed from the half-and-half girl I had always been, moving to match the more fae creature I had become. I still wanted to keep what was left of my mortality for as long as I could.
And if this was the end of it, if I couldn’t guide the hope chest well enough to preserve it, that would be fine, too. I could save Tybalt. I could save my bruised and breaking heart. What was a little humanity when compared to that?
The hope chest grew even hotter, flame lancing through my fingertips and up my arms. Now it did hurt, becoming an all-consuming burn that was almost enough to make me drop the wood. I refused, holding on tighter and closing my eyes, blocking out all distractions.
I am Oberon’s granddaughter, I thought. He made you before he made me. Now do as I say.
The heat intensified. I think I screamed. I couldn’t be sure. Every cell in my body was carbonizing. My blood was a river of lava twisting through my veins, scorching everything it came in contact with. I didn’t feel the hope chest leave my hand, but I heard it hit the floor a split-second before I landed next to it, falling hard to my knees and catching myself with my hands to keep my face from hitting the floor.
It didn’t hurt. My palms had just slammed into the kitchen’s stone floor, and while the impact was jarring, there was none of the pain I would have expected from landing on a slashed-open palm. I opened my eyes. The hope chest was lying on its side. My right hand was covered in blood and my left hand was covered in gauze, but when I lifted my right hand off the floor and turned it over, my palm was unmarred.
I sat up slowly, breathing hard, and unwound the gauze from my left hand. There were no scratches or punctures on my palm and fingers. I flexed my hand. Still no pain. Barely daring to hope, I reached up and felt the slope of my ear. It tapered to a point, not as sharp as Sylvester’s or my mother’s, but so much sharper than it had been. It felt like it was mine again.
I looked up. Sylvester’s sharp intake of breath confirmed my transformation. Grabbing the hope chest—which was only warm now, not burning; I wasn’t asking it for anything, and the humanity I still possessed was mine to keep—I rose, as easily as if I had never been hurt.
“Where’s Tybalt?” I asked.
Arden held out her hands. I surrendered the hope chest to her without protest, but my eyes stayed on Sylvester, waiting for him to answer me.
“He and Jin are in the garden,” he said. “I can take you there. Your Majesty.” He turned to Arden, offering her a shallow bow. “You have my eternal gratitude for what you have done today. This is a service to my house and to my heart, and it will not be soon forgotten.”
“Sir Daye is a hero in the Mists,” said Arden. “I did less than my throne still owes her.” She looked to me. “Go. Save him. I know you can.”
I couldn’t thank her, and so all I did was nod and turn to Sylvester, waiting.
I didn’t have to wait for long. He sheathed his sword and started walking, leaving me to follow. I glanced to the table where May, Jazz, and Quentin were seated. May shook her head. She wasn’t moving. I couldn’t blame her.
“Quentin, stay here,” I called. “If anything happens, find me.”
“Sure, boss,” he said. There was an almost painful relief in his face—not because I was leaving him behind, but because it was starting to seem like this might be almost over. We might actually survive this.
Sylvester’s stride was always long, but now he was hurrying, racing from the kitchen to the hall, forcing me to hustle to keep up with him. We were in our second parlor, crossing the knowe with remarkable speed, when I realized what he was doing. He was trying to keep me from asking questions.
I grabbed his arm. He stumbled, apparently not expecting that, and turned to gape at me.
“What?” I demanded.