Page 40 of When Sorrows Come

Eira thought elf-shot would prevent Faerie from ever being anything like equal. How could it be, when one of your best weapons killed part of the population and gave the other half a refreshing nap? And maybe she would have been right, if not for my ridiculous sensitivity to the scent of magic. I’d been able to accurately identify the type of rose she’d used in brewing and enchanting the original elf-shot, and Walther was a talented enough alchemist that he’d been able to use that information to blend a countercharm that could cancel out the effects of elf-shot, no matter when it was administered. Five minutes or fifty years, it didn’t matter. If Nessa had been elf-shot, she was going to wake up.

If she hadn’t, I just hoped she hadn’t been left somewhere that would do her damage.

I stroked the wall again, whispering, “Please,” and there was a soft clicking sound, like a trigger pulling back or a latch letting go. I took a step back, not wanting to be in the line of fire for the former and not wanting to impede the latter. A previously unseen door swung open, revealing a narrow hall paneled in the same maple as the rest of the knowe.

“Do you not have any other trees in Canada?” I asked.

“Arden uses redwoods in all of her decorating,” said Quentin, and pushed the door wider, stepping into the hall beyond. I scowled as I followed him. He knew better than to take point.

Only apparently not, because here he was, leading the way deeper into the servants’ passage. I closed the door behind me, whispering a quick, “I appreciate it more than I can say,” to the knowe. The wood seemed to warm beneath my fingers, and I smiled, hurrying after Quentin.

ten

The air was stillerhere. Apparently, there wasn’t much service to this part of the knowe; that, or High King Aethlin’s servants didn’t feel the need to move around the knowe in secret all that often. The smell of limestone and creeping thistle was accordingly stronger. I pushed my way past Quentin, who made a wordless sound of protest.

I held up a hand to stop him. “No,” I said. “I understand that you feel like this is a place where you can be the one to take on the danger, because you’ve worked in halls like this and I haven’t, but her magic is so close at this point, and I don’t want to lose it because I get distracted by yours.” It wouldn’t have been a problem if his body had been his own, radiating his quiet, familiar magical signature. I could tune that out easily. The signature of this new body was less familiar. It still attracted my attention.

Frowning, Quentin stepped back and yielded the lead to me.

I put my hand on the wall to keep myself on an even keel and closed my eyes as I started walking again, following nothing but the scent. There had been nothing consistent accompanying it; the Doppelganger had dragged her here, somehow transporting her through the knowe without being seen. That implied a level of surveillance and study of the normal patterns of the staff that was frankly unnerving and meant they might have a much bigger problem than one infiltrator and one abduction.

We kept walking for what felt like forever but was probably no more than fifty feet when the scent of Nessa’s magic grew suddenly,substantially stronger. I stopped. Quentin slammed into me from behind, and I opened my eyes.

“Ow,” he said.

“Stayright here,” I said, and took three long steps forward before scenting the air again.

No limestone. Nessa’s magic didn’t extend this far. I returned to Quentin, sniffing first one wall and then the other before tapping on the left wall. “Here,” I said. “Should there be a door here?”

“I don’t know,” he protested. “I’ve never been in here before! Maybe there’s supposed to be a door, maybe not!”

“It feels like there should be a door,” I said, and I tapped again. The sound that came back was hollow. I pressed my palms against the wall. “I don’t suppose you can help me out again?” I asked. The wood grew cool under my hands, as if the knowe itself was saying no. I nodded, taking my hands away. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the doors in the main hall are hidden because the courtiers and nobles don’t want to think about the servants they don’t see. The people who clean the rooms and deliver the drinks have to be able to move privately and discreetly around the knowe. In here, on this side, there’s no reason to put that amount of work into smoothing out the seams. The architects wouldn’t take the time, and neither would the knowe. If there’s supposed to be a door here, someone is hiding it.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning you need to be quiet and let me work.”

Gwragedd Annwn are fabulous illusionists, second only to the Gwragen. That’s never really made sense to me, since we like to simplify the types of magic to illusions being Titania’s purview, but the Merrow are her descendants, and they thrive entirely in the water, and so are the Daoine Sidhe, whose strength is in the blood. Maybe being descended from the appropriate member of the Three makes things easier, rather than making them likely. I don’t know. What I do know is that the Gwragedd Annwn can weave illusions so perfect they seem realer than reality, and if Nessa’s magic was stronger here, it was probably because she had been awake and cajoled into producing her own prison.

I drew the knife from my belt, my own magic gathering around me as I stared fixedly at the wall. This time, I was going to be usingmy own blood to fuel the working, and I drew the blade across my palm, tensing my hand enough to split the skin and muscle beneath in a single smooth line. Quentin winced.

“I know you heal faster than is fair, but I really wish you’d stop cutting yourhands,” he said. “What happens when you turn yourself mostly human again by mistake and you don’t heal like it’s your job, huh? What happens when you cut a tendon and it doesn’t just snap back into place?”

I shot him a quick look as I raised my cupped hand to my mouth. “But you can make a bowl with your hand, so the blood doesn’t just run down your arm,” I said. Ease of delivery is why most of the blood-workers I’ve known have focused on the hands, even though most of them don’t make cuts as large or deep as I do. They’re not racing against their own bodies to get to the blood before their skin seals up again and locks it safely inside.

For as much as people yell at me for bleeding too much, it’s surprisingly difficult to get as much blood as I need.

Fortunately, this cut had been deep enough to bleed considerably before the skin healed over. I lowered my head and drank as deeply as I could, tasting the cut-grass flavor of my magic in the coppery richness of my own veins. I used to hate the taste of blood. I’m still not the biggest fan, given the memories and complications it brings with it when it comes from someone else, but at least these days I can appreciate how much blood is informed by magic.

I raised my head again, resisting the urge to wipe my bloody palm against my still mostly-clean dress as I closed my eyes and focused on the idea of the wall, relaxing as a twisting web of tangled purple and pale gray lines sprang into existence. It was nestled atop a deeper purple and polished maple macramé that looked... more stable, somehow, like it had been here long enough to root and settle itself. The two magics were entirely separate and distinct, which was a relief. I wasn’t going to unweave the knowe by pulling on the illusion I knew had to be keeping me from the door.

Of all the gifts of my bloodline, the ability to unweave other people’s magic seems like it would be the most useful, but it’s actually the least helpful in a crisis because it takes time and concentration; it isn’t something I can do swiftly, not like picking out a scent or borrowing the magic in someone else’s blood. Maybe I’ll get faster with practice. Maybe I won’t. Everyone needs limits.

I reached out with one hand, grasping the first glittering gray strand where it lingered in the air and giving it a short, sharp yank. It unraveled, releasing several purple strands to wave languidly in the air. I pulled on them, and then on another gray, and another, continuing to pull and twist and separate until the whole structure began to look frayed around the edges. This time I reached out with both hands, grasping what remained and yanking sharply.

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