Page 185 of Bride of the Midnight Prince

The contents of the basin begin to glow.

I should not be so enraptured, but I cannot tear my attention away as she lowers the bowl. The glow dissipates slowly. She carries the basin to a short, carved pillar. Then, as I watch, a black curtain seems to appear out of nowhere, surrounding the pillar and the bowl.

“See what mysteries of Mirror Tide reveal themselves to you,” calls Lady Nothril. Her voice echoes through the cavern. “If you possess the courage to do so.”

Immediately, several fae surge forward. The one who touches the curtain first steps inside, while the others draw back. He is gone for several minutes before he emerges again, his lips parted, a dazed look in his eye. The second goes after him.

My curiosity piqued, I sneak a glance at my pocket watch. I’ve got some time to spare. My target has already left the celebration, leaving only Pavi to contact. She gives no sign of leaving her mother’s side, so I need to kill what time I have left in hopes she will move.

I’ve got time to look into that pool.

I wait a few minutes, not wanting to be one of the first to go, but the watch ticking in my pocket propels me forward faster than I am comfortable. I try not to seem hesitant as I approach the black veil.

The cloth itself feels as fine as dust as I move it aside.

The bowl itself is smooth black, the water crystal clear with no sign of the earlier glow. I stare down into it, canting my head to one side when nothing appears but the reflection of my own glamoured face.

Cautiously, I reach out and dip one finger in the water. Ripples fan out in every direction.

Light flares.

I wince against the brightness as the scene clarifies. It is a family sitting around a humble fireplace. A mother with her three children. I don’t recognize any of them. Confused, I peer closer. The soothing timbre of the mother and the mischievous giggles of the young echo to meet me. Then a new figure enters the picture. A man in his thirties or forties. Something about him seems familiar though I cannot place him.

“Tell us again, Pa!” the children cry. The accents are from Aursailles. “Tell us the story of how you were saved from Faerieland!”

I go still with shock.

The father laughs, sitting down on the floor as his children begin climbing all over him. He looks very different from when I last saw him years ago, but now I can picture a young man from one of my first raids. “Again? I must have told you a hundred times!”

“Please!” the children cry at once.

The father lets out a sigh, a tiny grin breaking through his attempt at a serious face. “Fine. Go get your masks!”

Squeals erupt from the children, who rush out of the picture, only to return a moment later with little masks just like my own affixed to their tiny faces.

“Once upon a time, in a land far, far away,” begins the father, just as the picture shifts. The next image is of a young woman with her hair pulled back, hard at work in a kitchen, offering a shy smile to a red-eared manservant as he balances a basket of potatoes on his shoulder.Elizabeth—the girl from my last Nothril raid. The image shifts to an elderly couple drinking tea on their front porch and watching the sunset. A couple I rescued from the Ildreer Court. It melts once more into a woman I recognize at once: the woman I left behind at the Star City. She bends over cloth, a needle in her hand, in what appears to be a very human shop.

“She got out?” I whisper, not believing my eyes. “How?”

The image changes to that very night, and I see the frightened woman on the edge of the Wood. I am not expecting to see Rahk there—holding out a glowing stone to the woman and pointing toward the Path.

He got her out.

For all that he is hunting me and trying to put an end to my work,he cares too.He always has. My chest nearly caves in.

The images keep moving, flipping through dozens upon dozens of human faces, in their own human world, living their lives, working, falling in love, raising families, making homes and beautiful things with their free hands, unbound by slavery.Living.

Because I got them out.

It’s too overwhelming. I cover my mouth with my hand, my shoulders shaking with the tears I dare not cry. I blink furiously, not wanting to miss a single face, but it goes on and on, and every time I think we must have reached the end, it keeps going.

So many people.

I never kept count. I’ve always hoped they recovered from what they had been through, but I never had a way to find out where they are or how they are doing. I’ve always focused my attention on the next raid and the next and next.

I never stopped to look back at all the work I’ve accomplished.

I grip the edges of the bowl. This is my last raid. My last time to ever be in Faerieland. For the first time, that idea doesn’t feel entirely wrong. I’m just one person—there’s no way I can getevery single humanout of a world as vast and varied as Faerieland. But maybe, just maybe, the work I’ve done can be enough. Maybe these people, who now have their lives restored, are enough.

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