Page 57 of Heir of Autumn
Aurelia clenched her teeth as she redirected her giant leaves all about her, each moving like a shield to deflect the phial missiles. But there were far too many. Even the Queen of Autumn’s power was no match for a very, very persistent kraken.
Three of the phials slipped through the cracks, striking Queen Aurelia in the chest, shattering against the hardened material of her gown, brittle and tough like armor. Wispwater splashed against her chest, her neck, her face.
The queen grunted in anger, beating at herself like she was putting out flames, roaring as if the Wispwater was burning her like acid. I reached for Sylvain’s hand when he tried to run for her, gripping his wrist tight.
“No, not yet,” I told him. “Let the Wispwater take effect.”
Her momentary distraction was all it took. Her leaves fell, exposing her to the full fury of the kraken’s attack. One by one the phials crashed and broke all over her body, drenching her in Wispwater. Queen Aurelia gurgled and sobbed, fingers raking through her hair as she fell to her knees, her skin no longer mottled and dry, the luster returning to her hair and her eyes.
I didn’t stop Sylvain when he ran this time, when he sprinted over broken glass and puddled Wispwater to reach his mother. The Queen of Autumn was soaked in the stuff, as drenched as if she’d just stepped in out of a rainstorm. But she was going to live.
The kraken blinked at me, then shrugged with every tentacle. The pile of phials was depleted. All out of ammo. Perfect timing, too. One by one the guardians vanished, their physical forms returning to the gemstones embedded in my medallion. I ran my fingers over the jewels, gripped the amulet tight. I whispered my thanks, conveying my relief through a long exhalation of breath.
I glanced over at Sylvain, his mother in his arms, the pair of them sitting in a puddle of broken glass and spilled Wispwater. Again, wounds could be healed, the Wispwater replenished. But even the most powerful of Earth’s mages couldn’t truly bring the dead back to life. Not as they once were. I had to imagine that, as with the art of alchemy, the fae had taken different routes to arrive at the same conclusion. With enough rest, perhaps even more exposure to the waters of the Wispwell, Queen Aurelia was going to be okay.
Still, something had caused the Withering to actually affect the fae themselves this time. Didn’t Dulcifer say that it had never done so before? What could have caused the plague to cross over from infecting plant life to sentient beings? This had been as sudden and unexpected as the Sister of Infinite Sorrow’s transformation.
I knelt, picking up a couple of Wispwater phials that had miraculously survived being handled by the kraken, the glass lightly fractured, yet somehow unbroken. And then I saw it, beneath and slightly behind the queen’s wooden throne, something I couldn’t have spotted if I hadn’t gone down on my knees.
A square of something beige, almost brown. What was that? An old piece of parchment?
“What is that?” Satchel asked, flitting closer to inspect the thing.
“Be careful,” I hissed, reaching out to caution him, feeling foolish when I remembered my hands were literally full with the business of collecting the unbroken phials.
“It’s no big deal,” he said, tiptoeing over shards of glass and little puddles of Wispwater. “Whatever it is used to be magical, but it’s dormant now. The magic is spent.”
That wasn’t very encouraging at all. I wanted to believe that it was just a piece of stationery — a memo slipped among some documents the queen had to go over, a scrap of paper with some scandalous court gossip. Magic hinted at other, more menacing possibilities.
Satchel held up the square, tilting his head left and right. In his hands the parchment was about as big as a painting. From where he stood I could only make out the vague scrawl of writing. He flew back and passed it to me with a shrug.
“Take it,” he said. “I can’t make heads or tails of it.”
“Neither can I,” I said, slipping it into my pocket before anyone could notice, but not before taking a quick peek. I couldn’t decipher the sigils and letters, but a horrible, nagging part of me suspected the writing was of human origin.
But in the Verdance? How?
Queen Aurelia gasped, then let out a hoarse, dry cough, as if the last of the Withering had finally left her body. Some good news, at least. Sylvain gripped her tight, burying his face in her hair.
“Yvette,” Aurelia croaked. “I remember — no. What have I done?”
“She’s all right, Mother,” Sylvain said, stroking Queen Aurelia’s hair. “She is safe. You’re safe. And that’s all that matters.”
“Aww, look at them, Locke,” Satchel said. “Just a boy and his watery mother.”
“Yeah, it’s sweet.” I chuckled against the sudden twinge of sadness in my chest. “I wish I had a watery mother.”
Satchel pressed the tiniest kiss against my cheek, then hugged my face. He made it work, somehow. I smiled. Maybe I didn’t have a mother anymore. But with Satchel, Sylvain, and all the rest of our friends, at least I had a family.
24
We leftthe Verdance not long after, but only after making doubly sure that everyone was fine. Dulcifer worked with the court physicians to tend to any injuries sustained by the palace fae, Princess Yvette and Queen Aurelia most of all.
“Take care of him,” Yvette told me, smiling weakly from her bed.
“I will,” I promised.
“Oh,” Sylvain said. “He takes care of me quite well, if you catch my meaning.”
