Page 35 of When Sorrows Come

“But you’re moving in there,” said Quentin.

“Believe me, I’ve noticed, and I’m not thrilled about it at the moment, so just give us a second to figure out what to do, okay?”

The Ellyllon had broken several strands when he knelt next to the fallen Candela. I offered him my hand. “Come on, get up,” I said. “Tybalt?”

“As always, I am your faithful servant,” he said, and when I pulled the Ellyllon to his feet, Tybalt was right there to sweep the startled healer into his arms. “You may want to hold your breath,” he said, politely enough, and hurled himself into the nearest patch of shadow, dragging the healer with him.

If his passing broke any further trip wires, their arrows didn’t hit anyone—namely, me. I held perfectly still, looking at the gleaming lines all around my feet, exquisitely aware of how precarious my position was. At any moment, I could set off a trap and be sleeping for a long, long time. And this was only the first room!

Even if the High King’s own seneschal didn’t warrant more than a glorified hotel room, I had to assume there were at least two more rooms here—the bedroom and the bathroom. And there would probably also be closets, and any one of them could be trapped from here to Mag Mell, and she could be in any of them, assuming she was here at all. Nothing said she’d been taken inside the knowe. Maybe she’d been abducted out in the mortal world, where she would have been less protected even in public. Thanks to the night-haunts and the Doppelganger’s use of her magic, I was reasonably sure she was still alive, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

Tybalt and the Ellyllon reappeared in the hallway outside, Tybalt shoving the Ellyllon at May before diving back into the shadows. That was my cue. Careful of the remaining strands, I stooped and lifted the fallen Candela into my arms, positioning us both to keep her from breaking any more pieces of what I could only reasonably call a web as I straightened. She dangled limp and loose against me, and her Merry Dancers slowly began to descend from ceiling level, drifting closer.

“My fiancé is going to come get us,” I said. “He’s going to take us into the shadows, and we’ll be right back. If you come downhere, you can come with us, or you can go into the hall, and we’ll come to you.”

The Merry Dancers dropped faster, coming to circle around my head. I smiled at them. That was what I’d been expecting. No one I know of has ever intentionally separated a Candela from their Merry Dancers; no one knows what it would do.

As expected, Tybalt stepped out of the shadows behind me. “Ready?” he asked briskly.

“I am.” I turned, taking a deep breath as I offered him my hand. He took it, looking wryly at the woman in my arms, and shook his head.

“Always on a quest for heroics to be done,” he said fondly as he pulled me toward him.

He shouldn’t have done that.

As he opened the doorway to the Shadow Roads, my ankle hit one of the unbroken strands and it snapped, flinging another tiny arrow across the room. He heard the sound as surely as I did because he froze, hand tightening on mine.

Then the arrow struck his calf and he toppled forward, into the open gateway to the Shadow Roads, pulling me, the Candela, and her Merry Dancers all with him into freezing, airless nothing.

nine

I’d always believed therecould be no light in the Shadow Roads, but two things registered at the same time: I was falling, and I could still see, thanks to lambent glow coming from Caitir’s Merry Dancers. I’d dropped her when I lost my balance, and she was lying sprawled on whatever served the Shadow Roads as ground, the Merry Dancers circling wildly in the air above her. They looked distressed. I didn’t know how I could know that, but I did.

I could see, but I was freezing, and I couldn’t breathe. I looked down at Tybalt, his hand still clasped firmly in mine—even drugged into an enchanted sleep, he hadn’t let me go—and saw that he was breathing normally, protected by the natural magic of the Cait Sidhe.

I couldn’t just borrow his power and use it to navigate us out of here. There was too much chance, given the weakness my line was heir to, that I would immediately transform into a cat and be unable to change myself back, or to drag two human-sized bodies out of the darkness with my teeth. Plus, I had to admit, the idea of seeing the memories of the man I was about to marry when he had, once again, every reason to be disappointed in me, was... unsettling, at best. I know Tybalt loves me. I know I frustrate him more often than I should. I didn’t need to have it confirmed.

That left Caitir. Candela have access to the same space as the Cait Sidhe, they just travel through it faster and for shorterdistances. I crawled toward her, pulling my knife with one increasingly stiff and unresponsive hand. She had elf-shot in her blood, and I would have to be careful of that, but as long as I stayed awake long enough to open a door, it would be all right. It would befine.

My first cut was shallow and drew no blood. My second was deeper, and I was rewarded with a sluggish trickle of blood that smelled, although probably only to me, incongruously of lemons. I bent and pressed my mouth over the cut, sucking as hard as I could without actually allowing myself to take a breath. My lungs were already beginning to ache.

Caitir’s memories rose up, threatening to overwhelm me. She/I had been honored to be given a directive by her King, to be asked to do something as important as checking on the well-being of his seneschal, Nessa, who was a beloved figure among the courtiers, always fair, always balanced in her judgment. She/I had only been with the High Court herself/myself for a few years, not long enough to build a reputation, but long enough to know she/I wanted to continue to serve—

I forced the memories away, becoming singular once more, and focused on the lemon-bright sweetness of her magic. It was lemon and raspberry, an oddly flavorful combination. I swallowed again. No, not lemon; lemon verbena, which made a little more sense. And as I identified her magic, I understood it, and what it was created to do.

Raising my hand, I traced a circle in the air, and was delighted to see the hallway appear, May and Raj holding Quentin back as he tried to throw himself through the open door to Nessa’s quarters, Jazz standing a few feet behind them, watching helplessly. Out of all of them, she was the one who might have been able to enter safely, as long as she did it in her raven form. And was very, very careful.

And I didn’t have time to focus on that right now, since I still couldn’t breathe, despite the magic I had borrowed from Caitir. The Candela didn’t linger in shadows long enough to need to breathe there, apparently. I scrambled back over to Tybalt, slinging his arm over my shoulders and hoisting him along as I rose into a half-crouch, suddenly grateful that I’d never been overly attracted to tall men. Step by step, I dragged him toward the portal I had opened, unsure whether my growing sluggishness was cold,hypoxic shock, or the elf-shot in Caitir’s blood beginning to do its work.

The fact that I hadn’t fallen asleep instantly meant it was unlikely to be elf-shot, which usually works in an instant, but maybe the stuff is different when ingested orally and on purpose. Faerie is confusing sometimes, and alchemy is finicky enough to make conditional potions.

I reached the portal and shoved Tybalt through, leaving him to fall in a heap on the hallway floor. The sound made everyone turn. Quentin made a strangled sound at the sight of me standing framed by a circle of borrowed magic against a background of absolute darkness.

I stuck my head out into the hall, where the warmth of normal air was like a slap to the face, and took a deep breath, filling my aching lungs with much-needed air. “We have an elf-shot Candela in here,” I said, quickly. “She’s alive, and I’m using her magic to maintain this portal. Give me a second and I’ll get us both out.” I took another breath, already regretting what I was about to do, and pulled back through the portal, turning toward the Candela.

I felt, rather than heard, the moment when the magic I’d borrowed from her blood ran out and the portal slammed shut again. I grimaced, shuffling toward her, the cold making it increasingly difficult to move. It would be so nice to lie down, just for a few minutes, and let my legs recover...

And I would freeze to death, and so would she, and even if my magic resurrected me to suffocate again, hers wouldn’t. She’d die, and she’d take her magic with her, and we’d never get out of here.

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