She wasn’t drowning this time, at least. But the darkness—the silence—the utter abandonment all pried at Valentine’s mind. She struggled against the seaweed that constrained her body, but it held like steel bonds. She drew upon the shard of the Deeps in her soul, railing against the realm itself—to absolutely no avail.
Her complete impotence made her want to scream.
It was one thing, Valentine had realized, to be tortured and left to rot. But it was another thing entirely—a much worse fate, in fact—to count down precious seconds, knowing that each one brought someone else that much closer to their doom.
Slowly, Valentine’s desperate anger faded away into defeated exhaustion. Time slipped away from her, no matter how she tried to keep track. And what did it matter, anyway? Time in Arcadia passed differently than in the Lower World. For all she knew, the year might nearly be up already.
Valentine closed her eyes against the thought. Her crucifix burned in her pocket. It was so tempting to give away her despair again, to bury it deep within the ivory. But she held stubbornly onto those bleak feelings, knowing that this time she deserved them.
I fell in love with him, she thought. I let him fall in love with me… or whatever silly impulse that was. I knew this was where it would end, but I let it happen anyway.
Crying in the Deeps was very unsatisfying, Valentine thought dimly. Tears just joined the rest of the brackish water, impassively swallowed up by the rest of the realm. She found herself crying anyway.
No use, she thought dully. Being upset won’t change anything. I need to leave. It’s impossible—but I still need to do it somehow.
When Valentine had been much younger, and freshly-captured, she had flailed about with her magic over and over, searching in vain for a way to loosen her bonds. Now that she was older and more experienced, she suspected that Capricorn magic held few possibilities toward her freedom. There was plenty of salt surrounding her to use as an anchor, but the Deeps were full of death and decay by their very nature—the weeds around her would only devour her magic hungrily if she tried to wither them.
That left the Deeps themselves.
Valentine summoned up the shard of Arcadia inside her—slowly now, and with great deliberation. This time, she felt for the dark tendril that connected to her soul, following it passively to let her awareness seep out into the waters surrounding her.
As long as she didn’t struggle, the Deeps were content to let her touch them. In fact, there was something oddly loving about the realm’s smothering embrace, for all the suffering it had forced upon her. Faerie realms did not know human emotion—they simply were. But Valentine was familiar to the Deeps, and the place had burrowed its way so deeply inside her that it welcomed her presence in any sort of capacity.
The Deeps were broad, and black, and impossibly vast. Valentine still remembered staring out over the ocean from Hull, wondering how something could possibly be so large and so unknown. But if a mortal ocean had seemed large and alien to her, then the Deeps were something else altogether—sometimes, she suspected they were literally endless.
Valentine swallowed and tried to calm herself. It felt impossible… but she had far too much time to waste on the concept, and she’d worn herself down so far that her tired body helped the process somewhat.
The Deeps waited, with their infinite patience.
“…let me go,” Valentine murmured to the faerie realm. “You know me. You’re part of me. I’m part of you.”
A dark, quiet consciousness brushed across hers, like the shadow of a passing leviathan.
Valentine froze, unable to move.
Dead water, rotting faces, fingers reaching desperately toward a faraway surface—
Valentine jerked back from the impressions instinctively. Her stomach heaved, though there was nothing in it to toss up.
I’m not part of that, Valentine realized shakily. All these years, and at least I’m still not… that.
But the Drowned Lord was. He embodied everything that made the realm what it was. That was why he was able to command it, wasn’t it?
Valentine shivered at the thought. The shard of the Deeps that she held in her soul was terrible… but the whole of the realm itself could easily swallow her up.
The crucifix beckoned once again, promising to hide away her fears. But while it had been a necessary crutch for years, it wasn’t what she needed now. Every time she’d used it, it had sapped her motivation, allowing her to settle into a quiet hopelessness. This time, Valentine ignored it. Instead, she screwed her eyes more tightly closed, and clung to a warmer memory.
“I’ll simply miss you, is all,” Percy’s voice whispered to her.
She hadn’t forgotten a single detail of that moment, with Percy’s arms wound around her—his lips on her neck—his soft voice against her skin.
Some things, Valentine decided, were worth the risk.
Valentine reached out for the Deeps once again. She threw her mind into that chthonic vastness, keenly aware that it was older and more powerful than she would ever be, even after a hundred more lifetimes. She grasped at the power there, daring to tug at its reins, to demand its attention and its compliance.
I have somewhere to be, she thought. I have someone to see.
The realm turned its attentions to her fully, then… and it crashed upon her like a tidal wave.
Deep, abiding darkness, strangling weeds, the yawning of a great abyss upon the tiny speck that was her soul—
Valentine choked on brackish water, grasping for sanity within the only bright memories she had left.
That charming, foolish smile of his. “Save a waltz for me the next time that we meet.”
The brief, gentle warmth of his hands against her throat, as he healed her broken voice.
The feel of his body against hers, his lips trailing up her neck. “My beautiful Valentine,” Percy whispered in her ear.
A tiny thread of strange awareness shivered through the faerie realm. The dark, foreign presence that closed in around her hesitated in confusion.
Valentine pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes… and realized that the seaweed around her wrists had loosened ever-so-slightly.
As alien as the Deeps was to her… there were things, Valentine realized, that it found alien about her in return. For just a moment, the Deeps had no sense of what to do with her. It tried to retreat, like some clumsy behemoth… but it couldn’t escape the touch of Valentine’s thoughts. It was a part of her.
A strange, unfamiliar feeling bubbled up from within her soul. It took Valentine a few seconds of wondering to realize—it was hope.
The Deeps shrank back once more, clearly uncomfortable with her change in attitude. She clawed at the strangling seaweed with her fingers, tearing it away in ribbons—her heart beat madly in her chest as she did. I can get free, she realized. I can leave. I can… I don’t know what I’ll do after that, but I’ll figure something out.
Another presence weighed in upon her suddenly, however, and she froze with wide eyes.
The Drowned Lord. He’s coming. What if I caught his attention, he’ll see what I’ve done—
But for all that Valentine had made progress wrenching free of her prison, it must not have been enough to catch the Drowned Lord’s awareness. She felt no wrath in the press of his mantle… and it surely would have been there if he had known what she was doing.
As the Drowned Lord’s dark figure approached, he gestured toward Valentine, and the bonds around her loosened further of their own accord. By the time his black eyes settled upon her, she was able to move almost freely.
Valentine met his gaze, her mind racing with fear. Is the year over? Please don’t let it be over—
“I have an errand for you after all,” the Drowned Lord rasped at her. He sounded vaguely displeased at the idea.
Valentine pressed her lips together, shoving down the panic that had threatened to overcome her. “What sort of errand?” she asked carefully.
The faerie lord’s eyes narrowed. “Someone has called in a very great debt,” he said. “You will go and speak with La Voûte. Whatever reasonable task he asks of you, you must accomplish it for him on my behalf.”
La Voûte. Valentine blinked quickly, unable to hide her recognition. Percy. He was involved with La Voûte. This must be something to do with him.
The Drowned Lord gave her a sharp smile. “Yes,” he said. “I do not believe that this timing is a coincidence. But please, Valentine. If La Voûte asks you to help the Atheling… then by all means, do so. Our deal still stands.”
Valentine swallowed roughly. “As you command,” she mumbled.
As Valentine slogged through knee-deep snow in Montreal’s Old Port, she realized that she had no idea what month it was.
Perhaps, she thought, La Voûte would spot her that answer for free, since it wasn’t exactly a secret.
The lawyer’s office was cloistered down a quiet side-street, next to an upscale café. The sun had already set, but that didn’t mean much this far north, in the middle of winter—depending on the month, it could be as early as four in the afternoon. There were lights on in the office, and the door opened to her touch, so Valentine assumed that she had managed to drag herself there just before the end of business hours.
There were Scorpio wards on the door to La Voûte’s office—something Valentine had discovered on one of her previous visits. These wards, Valentine reflected, were much more intricate and dangerous than the ones that Cecilia Atheling had at her office. Apparently, there are things that even an Atheling can’t buy, she thought grimly. She wondered what terrible secret La Voûte had traded for the expertise, and whom he had contracted for it.
Either way, Valentine was here as a guest, and not as an intruder. She opened the door and stepped through it, accepting the invisible web of power that settled sickeningly around her body. Using her magic beneath that web would be both very difficult and excruciatingly painful. It would be better by far if she didn’t need to use her magic at all.
“Bonjour-hello,” said a dark-haired woman behind the desk, as Valentine stumbled through the door. The secretary didn’t bother to look up from the little French children’s book she was reading as she spoke. Zoe Carter, Valentine reminded herself, with a glance at the placard on the desk. Not for the first time, Valentine thought what a fragile, mousy-looking thing La Voûte’s secretary was. There was a deeply distracted quality to the young woman that suggested she wasn’t quite all there.
Valentine stood in the doorway for an extra moment, dripping on the wood floors. Slowly, she cleared her throat.
Zoe snuck her eyes tremulously up from the book she was reading. She winced as she saw Valentine. “Oh. Um. Miss Valentine.” Her voice wavered unsteadily on the words, and Valentine wondered if she was afraid. “He’ll be with you in… just a moment. He’s got a client.”
The door to the back office opened, just as Zoe finished the word client. The man that stepped out from La Voûte’s office was familiar to Valentine. His white-blond hair and vivid green eyes marked him unmistakably as a creature of Arcadia. Had Valentine opened her Witchsight, she knew she would have seen the Briars seeded within his magic, whispering on a warm, phantom breeze.
Simon Leclair, the Wanderer of Arcadia, came up short as he saw Valentine standing in La Voûte’s office. He’d had an easy smile on his face before—but that smile now flickered away into a carefully neutral expression. Valentine felt a hint of magic rise warningly from him, even without her Witchsight… but the wards here smothered Simon equally, and he stopped himself just in time to avoid a painful fate.
“…Pallid Valentine,” Simon observed quietly. “I had not ever expected to see you here.”
Valentine forced a sharp smile onto her lips. “You’re behind th’ times, Wanderer,” she said hoarsely—and she realized that her voice had suffered again. “I’ve been here ‘afore. Th’ Lady of Briars isn’t th’ only one who has business wi’ th’ lawyer.”
This revelation made Simon visibly uncomfortable. He stepped slowly free from the office doorway, sidestepping past Valentine in a strange way. It took Valentine a moment to realize that he had placed himself very subtly between her and the little secretary behind the desk.
A shot of irritation went through her at that.
I’m not going to attack some office mouse just to get my kicks, she thought. What kind of villain does he think I am?
The memory of the rotted faces that kept her company in the Deeps floated back to her, and Valentine looked away suddenly, discovering an acute discomfort in herself.
…maybe that’s not entirely unfair, she admitted to herself.
“Come in, please,” said a man’s voice from inside the office. “I’m under the impression your business is time-sensitive. Am I wrong?”
Valentine turned away from the warlock behind her, and headed inside.
La Voûte—better known to the mortal world as Dorian Moreau—had gotten to his feet behind his desk. As Valentine walked in, he stepped past her to shut the door.
The words tall, dark, and handsome could have been coined to describe Monsieur Moreau. He had sharp, strong features and piercing gray eyes, with a dusky complexion. His black hair was neatly slicked back, as it had been every time Valentine had come to see him, and his suit was carefully-tailored. How he managed to keep it so free of wrinkles was probably a secret she didn’t want to pay for.
“I will admit,” Monsieur Moreau observed, as he made his way back around the desk to sit down, “this is probably within the top ten strangest things I’ve ever been asked to do.”
Valentine stared at him blankly.
Monsieur Moreau’s gray eyes flickered up toward her. “Sit,” he said. “Please.”
Valentine moved slowly to sit down in the leather chair just in front of his desk.
Monsieur Moreau nodded to himself and pulled out a file folder, sliding it across the desk toward her. “We will deal with my favor in a moment,” he said. “But I have promised to see to other business first. I will need you to sign everywhere that I’ve marked. Use your primary writing hand, please, and be sure to spell your name exceptionally correct. Faeries can be very exacting on such details, as I am sure you are well aware.”
Valentine frowned at the folder. She opened it gingerly, uncertain what to expect. Inside was a small stack of legal paperwork, each page marked with a small sticky tab in multiple places where she supposed she ought to sign.
Her eyes flicked over the words… and she found herself momentarily speechless.
Monsieur Moreau raised his eyebrows. “I am given to understand, from the expression on your face, that you were not expecting to be married today.”
Valentine opened her mouth to respond—but it took her a few extra moments to find her voice. “You’d be understandin’ correct,” she managed dazedly.
It was a marriage application. Her name—Valentine Ellis—had been filled in on one side. Percival Wessex had been filled in on the other.
“Perhaps I should have instructed you to start with this, then,” Monsieur Moreau said dryly. He tugged a small envelope out from the bottom of the stack. Neat, familiar handwriting spidered along the outside of it, addressed very simply: My dear Valentine.
Valentine snatched the letter up breathlessly, peeling it open with shaky fingers. Monsieur Moreau watched on patiently, without interrupting.
My dear Valentine, the letter said.
I feel just dreadful approaching the matter this way, but your lord has been exceptionally meticulous in keeping you from me. If I could speak with you, I would say so much to you—or I would try, I suppose, until you insisted on cutting me short. Paper is terribly impersonal, so I will not try to write it all down here. Instead, it will suffice to say for now that I love you, and I would like you to marry me so that I might have you back and say all of those things to you in-person.
I realize that your previous marriage was problematic, to say the least. I appreciate the difficulty that this request must place upon you—and I hope you believe me when I say that I tried very hard to figure out an alternative approach. In the end, this was the most obvious solution, and I find I am too worried for your state of mind to wait much longer.
If you would take any pity upon me at all, please send back some short response. The last I saw of you was not pleasant, and I will admit I have gone a bit mad thinking of it in the interim.
I hope to see you soon.
-Percy
Valentine read the letter more than once, though she knew the man across from her probably had more important things to do than to watch her read. Every word was a fleeting, indirect link to Percy, as distant as he still was. Just holding the paper sent such a sudden craving through her soul that she found herself blinking back irrational tears again. Thankfully, La Voûte did not comment on those.
“You will be signing, then?” he asked instead.
Valentine glanced up at him sharply. “I don’t understand,” she said hoarsely. “What’s this mean?”
Monsieur Moreau pointed at a small velvet box to her left, on the desk. Valentine picked it up and opened it, with a knot in her throat. Inside was a very old, dignified-looking golden ring that she suspected many generations of hands had worn.
“Faerie contracts are notoriously technical,” said Monsieur Moreau. “Mr. Atheling has accurately surmised that the best way to win such a negotiation is to craft his own victory conditions. Once you sign these papers, an argument shall be made that this is the ring that binds you.”
Valentine stared down at the ring. “I’m not supposed to help him,” she said slowly. “Would this count?”
Monsieur Moreau shrugged. “Mr. Atheling came up with the idea on his own, and engineered to get you here on his own account. I’ve prepared him to argue the matter based on precedent, when the time comes.”
Valentine frowned. “Argue to who?” she murmured.
“That, I cannot tell you,” Monsieur Moreau said coolly. “Not unless you intend to trade a secret to me for the knowledge.”
Valentine closed her fingers around the ring. It was cool and weighty in her palm. The idea of marrying again did terrify her, even if it was for all the right reasons. But to save Percy’s soul—it wasn’t even a choice.
“Give me a pen,” she muttered roughly.
La Voûte paused. “I’ll have to go through a few things with you first. They’re mostly just formalities, but I wouldn’t want to leave an opening for argument.” He leaned back into his chair. “Firstly—you are not required to sign these documents. You affirm to me that you have chosen to do so, of your own free will?”
Valentine nodded tightly. Monsieur Moreau quirked an eyebrow at her, and she realized that he intended her to respond aloud. “I do affirm that,” she muttered.
La Voûte nodded approvingly. “And will you please affirm for me that you are not currently otherwise married, or bound in a common law marriage?”
Valentine froze.
Sidney, she realized. He’s still alive.
Monsieur Moreau waited for a long moment. As it slowly became clear that Valentine could not answer him, his eyebrows raised again.
“Well,” he said. “That does complicate matters.”
Valentine breathed out slowly, pressing her face into her hands. She didn’t want to imagine the sort of strings Percy had pulled to get her here already. Even if he were able to deal with this particular snag—and she had no idea how—he would need to engineer another way to get the paperwork in front of her once it was handled. And now, he’d lost the element of surprise. The Drowned Lord would no doubt ask Valentine everything that had transpired in La Voûte’s office as soon as she returned to him.
Then I can’t return, she thought.
“There’s two other clauses that matter,” Valentine said quietly. “If I die, or if th’ Drowned Lord can’t produce me, then th’ wager’s nixed.”
Monsieur Moreau frowned. “Mr. Atheling mentioned that the subject might come up,” he said bluntly. “He has expressed a very strong displeasure at the idea of evading this wager through your death. It does rather defeat the purpose.”
Valentine licked at her lips. “Then th’ Drowned Lord can’t hand me over when th’ time comes. I’ve got to be outside his power.” She set aside the ring in her hand reluctantly. “I’ve never been able to get loose of my contract. Wouldn’t ‘ave needed this wager otherwise. But maybe there’s some other way to get outside his reach.”
La Voûte considered this for a moment. “…I could know of a way,” he said. “But no knowledge comes free in this office. You would need to give me a secret in return.” Valentine thought she heard a flicker of apology in his voice as he added: “I am bound by my magic. I cannot circumvent the rule.”
So La Voûte does have a heart, Valentine thought dimly. Imagine that.
She shook her head. “I don’t have any secrets that belong just to me,” she said quietly. “I know plenty about th’ Drowned Lord, but I don’t figure that counts.”
La Voûte pressed his chin into his hand. She saw him thinking.
“…you have one thing,” he said finally. He reached out to tap the tear-stained envelope in front of her. “I do not know the contents of this letter. Given Mr. Atheling’s instructions, I suspect that the information there is of a sensitive nature.”
Valentine had to bite down her immediate, knee-jerk response, which was far from polite. Nonetheless, her hostility must have shown on her face, because La Voûte held up a hand.
“I know of nothing else,” he said. “But perhaps you have a different thought in mind.”
Valentine closed her eyes.
It’s not like I can take it with me, she thought. And if the Drowned Lord catches me, he’ll know everything soon enough anyway.
“Fine,” she ground out, opening her eyes again. “Take th’ bloody letter.” She shoved the envelope across the table toward him. “What you know better be worth it.”
La Voûte met her eyes. A strange, empty feeling extended out from around him, winding around her soul. Valentine had expected him to read the letter… but she felt its contents weighed within her mind, judged against some esoteric measure. The knowledge of the letter didn’t leave her mind… but she knew somehow that it had been seen and duplicated, as a conscious debt settled into her soul.
“You want to know how to escape the Drowned Lord without breaking your contract?” La Voûte asked. She knew he was confirming, for the sake of whatever magic lived within his soul.
“Yes,” Valentine rasped. “Tell me.”
Monsieur Moreau straightened in his chair. “I know of no faerie warlock who has ever won their own freedom,” he said. “But faerie lords have been known to buy and trade their servants. If you were able to convince another faerie lord to buy your contract, this would suffice to remove you from the Drowned Lord’s power.” He paused significantly. “You would need significant leverage in order to force a bargain of that sort. Fortunately, I know where it is you should start.”
Valentine sucked in her breath. “And where would that be?” she asked.
“The Lady of Briars has spent the last five years searching for a woman named Elaine Halstead,” La Voûte told her.
Elaine Halstead. The name set Valentine’s memory running back to the assignment that had led her to Percy. Lord Blackfrost had been searching for the same woman.
“Why?” Valentine asked. “What is it wi’ that woman?”
Monsieur Moreau frowned. “You may know her better as the White Rose of Blackfrost,” he suggested. “You warlocks do so love your nicknames.”
Valentine snapped up straighter in her chair. “She’s th’ witch that killed th’ old Lord Blackfrost,” she said. “Murdered him at th’ center of his own realm, an’ walked right out again.”
La Voûte nodded. “Many people—many faerie lords, in fact—would like to know just how it is she accomplished that feat. But Miss Halstead disappeared most effectively after her return from Arcadia, five years ago. Blackfrost and the Briars are old enemies, and the Lady of Briars would no doubt love to know how to remove a second Lord Blackfrost, if necessary. There has been speculation that Miss Halstead also stole something of great value on her way out of Blackfrost. If that’s so, then it’s possible you could sell what she holds to any faerie lord at all.”
Valentine chewed at her lip. “Five years an’ th’ Lady hasn’t found her,” she said. “Why do you figure I’d have any more luck?”
“Faerie lords and their servants are not well known for their grasp of modern technology,” Monsieur Moreau told her blandly. “I assume you have associates who might be willing to help you in that respect. At the very least, Elaine Halstead is a target which you may safely pursue without breaking the terms of the wager. You shall have to leave the matter of your spouse in other hands for now.”
Valentine nodded slowly. It’s something, at least, she thought. It’s more than I had before.
“Give me th’ pen anyway,” she told him. “For somethin’ else—not th’ paperwork.”
La Voûte frowned—but he passed her a heavy fountain pen, which she took to the back of the envelope.
Percy had asked for a response. Valentine wasn’t at all sure what to say, but she wouldn’t leave without writing him something.
She paused with the nib on the paper. After a breath, she wrote:
I’m fine. Save a waltz for me.
It wasn’t poetry, but she suspected it would make him smile anyway.
She folded up the envelope and handed it back to La Voûte, along with his pen. “That’ll go to Percy,” she said roughly.
Monsieur Moreau stowed the envelope in his suit pocket. He flipped the file folder closed again, and pulled it back across the desk. “In which case—it seems we come to the matter of my favor.” The lawyer stroked at his chin with a hint of worry. Valentine’s hackles raised warningly. There’s something wrong here, she thought. He’s uncomfortable… and he’s letting me see it for some reason.
“I’m bound to help in whatever way you see fit,” she said shortly. “Th’ Drowned Lord was clear on it.”
Monsieur Moreau met her eyes carefully. “Do you have any other secrets to sell me?” he asked.
Valentine shook her head. “I warned you. I gave you what I had.”
He sighed and rubbed at his forehead. “My favor is this, then: for the next hour, you will use no magic whatsoever. Further, there is a car idling just outside the office by now. You will leave, and you will get inside of it.”
Valentine narrowed her eyes. “…that’s all?” she said, when he failed to continue.
“That’s all,” Monsieur Moreau confirmed bleakly.
Valentine chewed at her lip. “…Percy didn’t pay for this particular favor,” she guessed. “Someone else did.”
La Voûte remained silent behind his desk.
Valentine rose from the leather chair. Slowly, she stretched the stiffness from her limbs. “Don’t worry, Frenchie,” she told him. “The Deeps ‘ave done worse to me than anythin’ you could fit in a car.”
That got her an arrogant scowl. “Frenchie?” La Voûte repeated archly.
Valentine smiled grimly. “Just makin’ sure you won’t miss me if somethin’ happens,” she told him.
She turned and stepped back outside into the waiting area of the office.
The first thing she noticed was that Simon Leclair had lingered significantly, though he no doubt had better things to be doing. He was currently leaned against the front desk, chatting amicably with La Voûte’s secretary—though perhaps chatting was a generous term, given the distant look on her face, and the monosyllabic nature of her responses from behind her novel.
Does he have something to do with this favor? Valentine wondered. But Simon shot her a careful look as she passed, and she dismissed the thought abruptly. The Wanderer of Arcadia wasn’t to be taken lightly, but neither was he the sort to start trouble where there was none before. He’d seemed genuinely surprised to see her earlier; he was probably just making sure she didn’t do anything too terrible on her way out.
“Madame Valentine,” Simon’s voice called quietly, just as she reached the door.
Valentine turned to regard him with a flat expression. There was a note of reluctant concern in his face that she had never seen before.
“…you don’t look well,” Simon observed finally.
Valentine cocked an eyebrow at him. “You’re normally a better conversationalist,” she said. “If you want to help, you can tell me th’ date.”
Simon frowned uncertainly. “…it is December twentieth,” he said, in a slow, stilted tone. She heard the hint of suspicion beneath the words—as though she might do something nefarious with the information.
It hasn’t been long at all, Valentine thought to herself. At least, not in the Lower World.
She nodded dismissively at him and headed back out the door, into the night.
The Wanderer is so bloody soft for a warlock, Valentine thought, not for the first time. The Lady of Briars didn’t have a reputation for softness—she’d once put a whole castle of people to sleep for a hundred years, in a fit of spite—but somehow, the Wanderer of Arcadia had kept his humanity intact within her service.
Valentine had only the briefest moment to envy that, before the black sedan in front of her opened its side door.
“Pallid Valentine, was it?” Cecilia Atheling’s voice floated out from the back of the car. “We have a great deal to talk about, I think. Please have a seat.”