I jerked awake. The dull, stone room swam around me. Every muscle in my body ached. My heart pounded. Hot sweat cooled against my skin until, at last, the truth of it began to settle in. I had defeated Mab. In her own territory, with iron.
I blinked through the dark, but nothing felt real. The haziness of the dream still clung to me like smoke after a bonfire, but I was awake.
I scrambled out of the bed, and that’s when the pain hit. Tiny stabs at the soles of my feet. Bigger ones at my legs. And something ripping at my shoulder. I bit down on my knuckle and waited for the pain to fade away. After a minute, it softened enough for me to look at it. My feet were filled with tiny rips. Splinters from an old ladder, only there was no actual wood to cause the wounds. Thick scratches wound like veins down my legs, already scabbed over where the drones had grabbed me.
The damage was real. They’d really hurt me. For just a moment, the thought wrapped around my chest like a python, but it loosened with the realization that it was real. They’d hurt me. That meant I’d hurt them, too. It meant Mab was dead.
I stumbled to my feet, not even bothering to pull on socks before I shoved my feet into my boots and pulled on my jacket. The shadeling stirred in the shadows by my bed, but I didn’t wake it. It deserved to sleep peacefully.
Hard to say what it meant that I could slip out at God-even-knows what hour of the night without triggering a single alarm, and maybe I should have been a little more concerned about living there, but for the moment, it suited me.
The night air nipped at my exposed skin, but it was a peripheral feeling, like a growling stomach when you weren’t really hungry. I hobbled into the woods on burning, stinging legs. Everything blurred around me. If anything lurked between the trees, I had no reason to fear it. On a night like this, I was invincible.
“Gwen,” I called, squelching my way into the shallows of the pond. The cloudy night offered no glimpse of the village under the surface. Water seeped into my boots and bit at my feet. I splashed farther. “Gwen! I need you. It’s important!”
Under all my splashing came the soft sound of pouring water, like a little brook somehow making itself known above a waterfall. Gwen rose from the pond, hands clasped together, her face pinched as the water ran down her face in thin rivulets. It was the first time she’d ever been anything less than perfectly composed. I must have just woken her.
“It’s very late,” she reminded me crisply. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
“It was Mab,” I gasped. “She came to me in a dream. She was the one behind all of it, but I stopped her.”
Gwen’s eyes widened, her hands flying to her shift to grip it tightly.
“Come, sit on the bank, this water is too cold for you,” she instructed, gliding over to the muddy grass. I trudged behind her, my boots squelching with every step. I plopped down on the grass beside her, my wet nightgown sticking to my shins, and for the life of me I didn’t know if the little shivers that ran down my back were from the cold or the excitement.
“My mum’s been reaching out to me in dreams. It wasn’t the gray lady, it was Mum. And she kept saying the same things over and over in Welsh and I looked in the book and they were spells—”
“Bryn!” It was the closest Gwen had ever come to a biting word. “I told you not to try it.”
“It’s okay. My mum—”
“Your Welsh is poor. You don’t know enough to speak those spells. You don’t know the cost.”
“But I did it!” I flexed my palms, fighting off the chill that tried so hard to settle into the bones. “And I saw Mab. But I won! I tricked her into a steel mill. I trapped her under molten iron. No Fae can survive that. Especially not one who lives in dreams like she said she does.”
Gwen pursed her lips and glanced away. “I believe you may have wounded her,” she murmured. “But I cannot imagine her being so swiftly defeated. That is a fool’s fantasy.”
“I buried her in iron, Gwen.” I grabbed her hand and brought it to my scratched legs. “She did this to me. What happened in that dream was real, and I buried her!”
Gwen’s eyes darted toward me, bright and fearful in the night. The cool feeling of water washed over my legs. I caught my breath as my skin knitted itself back together, leaving behind only faint, red lines to suggest anything had been wrong at all. When it was done, Gwen nestled her hands in the folds of her shift and gazed over the water.
I scooted closer to her. “Tell me that, even in a dream, that wouldn’t be enough to kill anything. Especially a Fae.”
“It should,” she mused. “But was it not also a dream that told you what spell to use?”
“I…” My stomach clenched. I didn’t want to think too much about it, but there was that other bit of information Mab had given. But if she was gone, maybe I wouldn’t have to think too hard about the implications. “I think my mum knew how to reach out through dreams. That’s why I can believe it was her. Mab said that she belonged to her and learned from her. Like a changeling, only Mab seems to think she owns our bloodline or something.”
Gwen went still. Pale as she was, for just a moment, she looked like Lot’s wife. A lovely, silent pillar of salt. A stronger shiver ran down my spine. I pulled my knees up to my chest, not daring to speak.
After what felt like forever, Gwen lifted her chin to the cloudy sky. “The woman in gray stood before a red banner with a gold dragon.”
I frowned. “Yeah. Wait. Do you think she’s the one who promised us to Mab? Maybe her bloodline didn’t die out after all. Maybe … maybe it’s us.”
“It doesn’t matter. Her power is nothing now. And you have bigger concerns.” Gwen turned to face me. “Samhain is still coming. I cannot believe Mab is gone, but even if she is, whatever plans she put into place may still come. The Seelie court will not help you here. Be cautious.”
She leaned forward, pressing her cool lips to my forehead. Something like ice washed over me in waves, flooding from the burning spot where her lips touched my skin. My teeth began to chatter.
“W-what was that?” I gasped, finally giving in and wrapping my arms around myself.
“Protection,” Gwen murmured, but her words came out stiff and unsteady. “Keep your head down, Bryn. But for now. Go home. Be warm. And do not do this again. I will have to speak to my sisters.”
I stumbled to my feet as Gwen crept back into the water. The last I saw of her was her frown before the pond closed up over her head. Uncertainty curled in my gut. I think that was Gwen’s equivalent of being pissed at someone … but she’d get over it. She’d felt my legs. She’d seen the damage. She couldn’t ignore it.
I staggered back through the woods, my skin a ripple of gooseflesh in the crisp air. The cold dragged at me like an anchor and very nearly stole my breath. Gwen might have been nice enough to give me some sort of magical blessing that felt like hot cocoa or fuzzy blankets.
Back in the convent, I couldn’t bundle up quickly enough. My wet, muddy things were banished to the corner where all of my dirty clothes had been slowly accumulating while I changed into a pair of threadbare long johns complete with faded pictures of reindeer stamped all over them and some truly garish and deeply comfortable wool socks. Warmth began to creep back into my bones, but I couldn’t get comfortable just yet. A buzzing energy kept me on my feet. Somehow, the shadeling still slept soundly at the foot of the bed. The whole world might have changed tonight, and nobody even knew.
I slipped into the hall and padded as silently as I could from room to room. Dad lay sprawled across his bed. A to-do list was taped to the wall next to him, half the items scribbled out in blue pen. Maybe, with Mab gone, the next order of business would be to force the Unseelies to back off completely and take his curse with them. It’d be nice to lighten his load.
In his room, Jake was bundled up and sleeping with headphones on. I could faintly detect some movement on his phone as the song changed. Jake stirred for a moment, but didn’t wake.
As I pushed Ash’s door, however, I was met with a flurry of movement. A history book flew to the ground as a light was shoved under a pillow. I wasn’t sure how clever he thought he was being, but I couldn’t bring myself to be annoyed by it at that moment.
“If you need help with homework, just tell me,” I said. “You don’t need to stay up all night.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m asleep” came the muffled voice from under the covers.
I smiled and closed the door.