The air was different here. Tighter on my skin, like wading underwater, but too thin to suck in a lungful. My vision swam as Mab dragged me soundlessly through a dark land of night. Gwen had been taken somewhere else, but she hadn’t looked frightened. I shuddered to think she was somehow already used to this place. Bright eyes followed us, shining like headlights in the dark. With every breath, a burnt honey smell clogged my nose and throat. My knees trembled, but Mab’s iron grip kept me on my feet.
“This will be your room,” her saccharine voice cooed. “Gwen is next door if you need to call on her. I’ll fetch you when I’m ready to teach you your duties.”
At last, the steel grip loosened, and I dropped back. Plush down pillows and silky furs caught my fall. Dust puffed around me, filling my lungs. I wheezed until, at last, I managed to suck in a sharp breath. Spots of darkness and color danced before my eyes until the room solidified around me.
Silvery walls undulated like crooked trees all grown together, but when I reached out to touch them, the smooth, firm texture of bone greeted me. I jerked back, wrapping my arms around my middle as the sickening taste of Mab’s pumpkin seeds flooded my mouth. This was only temporary, but I didn’t get to leave until the job was done.
I pushed myself up onto my jelly legs and staggered around the room, my bare feet silent against the earthen floor.
I forced myself to touch the bony walls again, to feel for anything that might function like a handle, but one twisting column was much like another. No door. No windows. No escape. My prison had only the pile of pillows and, in the far corner, a shallow clay bowl decorated with pictures of berries and ivy.
I crept forward, ready to dart away if the contents turned out to be something sinister. But the bowl held what looked like a liquid mirror, reflecting the intertwining bone-branches that made up the ceiling of my prison. Mercury. It had practically been set up for scrying. Why would Mab leave something so potentially useful to me?
No. Not Mab. This was the sort of thing Gwen would do.
Bracing myself against the wall, I lowered myself to the ground. Best to get my bearings while I was here.
A shiver stole down my spine. The mercury in the bowl trembled, ripples dancing up to the rim. I sucked in a shuddering breath and leaned down. “Ash and Jake?” More ripples. Tiny shadows danced across the surface. settling into a clear picture. The boys sat on the ground next to a police cruiser, shock blankets wrapped tightly around their shoulders. They looked dirty and miserable, but safe. An officer next to them had a phone pressed to their ear. Dad would know about things by now. Maybe, now that the Unseelie had withdrawn, things would be a bit easier for him. My heart pounded. I wished I could have gone back and explained things to him. I wished I’d left a letter or something to let them know I was alive. All I could do was tell myself that I’d make it back to them eventually and explain myself.
“F-Father Gooding?” The ripples shifted, shadows dancing across silver. Father Gooding’s chest rose and fell. Marshmallow curled up on it, her ears perked up. After a moment, Gooding’s eyes fluttered open and settled on the thing sitting on his chest. The monitors next to him began to flash in alarm. Thank God. Both okay, if confused.
I swallowed. “Dom? Jasika?”
They sat on a floral couch in the Witters’s living room, each holding a mug of something steaming. Their lips moved, but I couldn’t make out the words. There were streaks on their cheeks. Had they been crying? Dom reached out and wrapped an arm around Jasika’s shoulder, pulling her into a loose hug.
My skin crawled. I forced myself to look away. I’d broken promises to all of them. I didn’t expect they’d be able to forgive me even when I did return. But they would be safe.
“All right. One more,” I murmured, leaning in so close my nose almost touched the quicksilver. “Where’s Mab keeping my mum?”
The quicksilver undulated in the bowl, the surface rippling. A shadow rolled across the surface until, like a golf ball had been dropped right down the center, the mercury splashed out of the bowl.
I jerked back as the little silver droplets beaded on the wall and floor. After a second or so, they firmed up and rolled back toward the bowl, mocking gravity as they settled inside. Okay. So clearly some questions wouldn’t be so easily answered. Not too unexpected. If they were, I wouldn’t be here.
Very suddenly, this place weighed like sand on my back. I staggered to my feet and shuffled across the room, careful not to look too closely at the walls, and threw myself onto the fur-covered bed. Dust puffed up around me and hung in the air this time, drifting down in slow motion. I reached up. The dust pushed away from my hand, like magnets repelling each other. Maybe there was just ambient magic here. Dimly, I wondered if Gwen’s room was anything like this. Or Mum’s. Had she ever spent nights lying alone like this staring up at the ceiling, dreaming of the human world?
I had no doubt she’d be upset if she knew I’d done this. But maybe she’d understand. After all, she’d once been forced to serve Mab under this stupid curse. She’d escaped once. Maybe on that awful day back in Wales, she’d handed herself over to protect us the way I did. But the point was that she’d escaped in the first place. Changed her name. Found love. I could, too. But not until I found a way to break whatever contract Morgan made. Without that, there was no point to running away. Mab would just come again and again.
I let my hand drop. The dust floated down to settle around me. The bony walls seemed to squirm in the corner of my eye, and I didn’t dare look right at them, just in case it wasn’t a figment of my imagination.
I squeezed my eyes shut and began reciting all the weaknesses I’d learned over the years. Iron burned them. Saint John’s wort, rowan, rue, yarrow, and holy water repelled them. Lies were impossible for them. They couldn’t cross through running water. I’d heard, though it had never been confirmed, that maybe red could hide me from some of them. Somehow, somewhere, something had to be the key to getting one up on Mab. I just needed time to observe her. Figure out where she was weak.
There was no way, really, for me to guess how long I’d be here. But this wasn’t a job to rush. Mab had raised hell for us for years.
Time to return the favor.