THREE

THE DAY QUEEN, AT REST

Aster was playing cards when something peculiar happened. A part of the wall—which appeared quite solid—suddenly wasn’t there. Instead, there was a rectangular hole, shaped something like a door. Beyond the opening stood a woman in a red dress, with red-rimmed glasses.

“Aster,” the woman said. “Come here!”

“Do you mean me?” she asked.

She realized she was holding something and looked to see what it was. She found it to be a playing card, with a knight on a horse, reared up.

“Aster!” Someone said. She turned, and saw a woman, standing in a doorway.

“Keep your eyes on me,” the woman said. “Walk here.”

As she rose, she bumped against the table. She was trying to remember what she was doing when she heard someone call her. It was a woman, wearing glasses, motioning toward her frantically. She was already standing, so she started walking that way, to see what the matter was.

She blinked her eyes, wondering what was happening. About two feet away, a strange woman with brown hair and a red dress was yelling at her. Had she done something wrong?

She started to back up, but the woman darted forward, grabbed her arm, and yanked her through a hole in the wall.

Almost instantly, she felt dizzy and sick, and doubled over, vomiting. The woman kept her grip on her arm. She gasped, trying to keep everything from spinning.

The woman was looking down at Aster, and she suddenly recognized her. It was Ms. Fincher, her high school guidance counselor.

“What . . . ?” she got out, before another wave of dizziness overtook her.

“I’m sorry,” Ms. Fincher said. “We have to go, or we’ll both get caught.”

She heard a sliding sound, then a thump. Then they were in near darkness.

“Ms. Fincher?” she said.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Ms. Fincher said. “You know me. Come along, quickly. Can you—can you make some light, or something?”

“Oh,” Aster said. “I can try.”

To her great relief, she could now remember her spells, so she said a firefly Whimsy, and a mote of light appeared; she could see the woman’s face.

Ms. Fincher was a small woman, slight of frame. Pretty, with brown hair cut short, but longer than Aster remembered it. She looked strange in her red gown, as if dressed up for some sort of theatrical production. She knew she wouldn’t have had that reaction to anyone else dressed that way here, where it was perfectly natural and expected.

But Fincher was not from here. Aster had only ever seen her in suits—usually skirt and jacket—once in jeans at some kind of fundraiser.

“Thank you,” Ms. Fincher said. “That will help.”

“Ms. Fincher. What’s going on?”

“I’m saving you, hopefully,” she said.

“Wait. My father—”

“I came here with your father, remember? With Dusk. She used the necklace you put on me to command me.”

“You’re not wearing it, anymore.”

“No,” she said. “Watch out, there are stairs ahead.”

“What happened to Dusk?” she asked.

“I think she escaped,” Fincher said. “Otherwise, Kostye wouldn’t have been so angry.”

“And the other guy—”

“Do you know him? The chancellor? Do you know who he is? What he is?”

“I don’t know what he is,” Aster said. “But he’s bad. He killed my friend Veronica. He wants to kill me. To take my soul, even though I know that sounds kind of crazy.”

“I might have thought that once,” Ms. Fincher said. “But not now. I’ve seen things . . .”

She stopped and turned around.

“Obviously, Aster, you know a lot more about this—world—than I do. Do you know how to return home?”

Aster considered the question. Ms. Fincher knew that she, Errol, and the others had entered the Kingdoms. She did not know that she had returned from them, did she? Furthermore, Aster hadn’t been able to return to Sowashee on her own the last time; Billy had done that, in his giant form. This time she’d arrived in a carriage provided by some guy—yet another guy—who had the hots for Veronica. If she put her mind to it, she could, given time, probably find her way back to the Reign of the Departed. But she didn’t know how to do it right now, nor did she have any interest in doing so, not without her father.

“I don’t know how to go back there,” she said. “My father does, or at least did.”

“Yes, I’ve tried talking him into it,” she said. “The problem is, he not only has no desire to go back, he doesn’t remember ever having been there.”

“Yes,” Aster said. “I gathered that.”

“I’m sorry. It must be hard to know he doesn’t remember you at all. Coming here has changed him. His condition. In fact, I guess it’s reversed. He remembers everything since arriving here, and he remembers events of many, many years ago. But not his time on Earth. Or you, obviously.”

“I need to see him again.” Aster said.

“It won’t go any better, Aster. It will be worse.” She sighed.

“I wish we could have talked about all of this—before.”

“Yeah,” Aster said. “‘Hi, Ms. Fincher, I’m here for my counseling session. My dad is a sorcerer from another world. He brought me here to protect me from some terrible evil, but a curse of some kind is affecting his memory.’ That would have worked out great, right? Dad in an institution, me in some kind of halfway house or whatever.”

Ms. Fincher nodded. “I suppose you’re right. Still, once I was involved, you might have filled me in. As it is, I’ve been having to learn as I go, which is . . . difficult. Can you tell me what you know about the curse?”

“Only that it affected adults, everybody over a certain age, and that the deeper into the Kingdoms you go, the stronger it seems to be. At the outskirts, just past the Pale, the grown-ups have turned into monsters, but one day a week they’re human again. But when we got farther in, they had become trees and stones and so forth.”

Ms. Fincher nodded. “I’m sure you’ve seen what happened here.”

“Yes,” Aster said.

“And the sun? The seasons?”

“What do you mean?”

“Surely you’ve noticed. It’s always sunset, and it’s always autumn.”

Aster shrugged. “Maybe some kingdoms are like that.”

“No,” Ms. Fincher said. “This happened after I arrived. When I first got here, there was still day and night. Whatever this curse is, I think it’s getting worse. Like your father.”

“Pulling things apart,” Aster said. “Breaking the day into pieces, the year into pieces, as it split old from young.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” Ms. Fincher said.

“I can’t believe you’re not more freaked out about this,” Aster said.

“I’m completely freaked out,” Ms. Fincher said. “But I’m also rational. If I can’t trust what I see, hear, and feel, then I’ve gone insane. And I refuse to believe I’ve lost my mind. The question is, is there any remedy? Your father talks about putting things right, but he doesn’t know what happened, either. Do you have any clue?”

“I’ve been told it can be fixed,” Aster said. “But I don’t know how.”

“I was hoping . . .” Ms. Fincher said, but then she shrugged. “Someone told me there was a way. A way to save you and break the curse. I’m taking you to her. But I don’t know—I don’t know who to trust, Aster.”

She studied the counselor’s face.

She didn’t know who to trust either, including herself. One voice insisted that if she could see her father one more time, she could make him understand. He would come around, and everything would be okay.

But that wasn’t really how things worked. She knew that by now. She had magic words to call whirlwinds and lightning, but the words to make her father better didn’t exist—or if they did, she didn’t know them yet. Ms. Fincher was right—if she went back, things would go like they had before, only this time Ms. Fincher would probably get caught, too, and then she wouldn’t have anyone to lure her out of the oubliette.

“If you know someone who thinks they know how to end the curse, then by all means, take me to them,” she said.

The counselor smiled grimly.

“I can’t take you any further myself,” she said. “If I don’t get back soon, they’ll figure out I helped you escape.”

“Why not come with me, then?” Aster asked. “My father used to be bad—very bad. He talked about it sometimes when he was drunk. He says he was a monster. He says he changed for love. He means he changed for my mother. And since she died, he tried to stay good, to be like she would want him to be. To protect me and raise me. But if he doesn’t think I’m real anymore, or worse, if he doesn’t remember Mom—”

“I know,” Ms. Fincher said. “That’s what has happened. Right now, your father is capable of awful things. The chancellor knows that and it feeds his worst instincts. He’s like the devil on your father’s shoulder.”

“And you’re like his angel?”

“I’m not an angel. But I’m the best he has. Aster, whatever good your mother’s love may have woken in him—it was already there. She just helped him find it. He’s not a lost cause. But without my influence, I fear what might become of him. And what he might do.”

“That makes you dangerous to the chancellor,” she said. “What if he decides to get rid of you? He’s done way worse.”

“Right now he doesn’t dare,” she said. “Your father likes me. But if he suspects I betrayed him . . .” she shrugged.

“Likes you?” Aster said, her mind retracing the last part of the conversation. “Likes you how?”

She looked embarrassed.

“I’m as confused about that as anyone,” Ms. Fincher said. “Just—don’t worry about it for now. Look out for yourself. These steps will take you to an underground stream. You may have to swim, but I’m told on the left side it’s usually shallow enough to wade. You’ll know when to get out. You’ll be in a cave, and a friend will meet you there and help you to safety. Her name is Eve.”

Aster nodded. “Okay,” she said. “You stay safe, too.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Aster started down into the darkness.

She smelled the stream before she heard it and heard it before she saw it by the light of her mote. The tunnel she was in dropped down on the left side—where, as promised, the water only came up to about her knees. That was still a nuisance, because the dress Oak and his brothers had given her quickly became soaked and heavy, dragging at her feet. As she went along, the water became deeper. Finally, up ahead, she saw what looked like a shore or bank, and an empty space beyond.

She stepped a little more quickly; the water was freezing, and she was eager to be out of it.

Her next step encountered no bottom, and before she could do more than gasp, she plunged into the river face-first.

Aster lay wet on the stone river bank, luxuriating in and regretting memory.

Ever since her dad developed his problem, Aster had lived in fear of inheriting it—of not knowing who she was, where she came from, what was happening. She had read books on dementia, Alzheimer’s, and retrograde amnesia.

In the oubliette, those fears had been completely realized.

The horrible thing was, it hadn’t been so bad. She had experienced each moment of existence as if it was the first, sort of like when she had been very young, when a shiny green beetle or a water-skeeter could hold her attention for hours. Without memory, there could be no regret, no could-have-beens, and no anxiety about the future.

All that was back now since Ms. Fincher had rescued her. The stairs, the freezing water, and finally strong hands pulling her from the underground river.

She sat up in the dim light, searching for her rescuer and trying to get her bearings, but she had little to help her along, even after she called up another tiny light. She was in a cave with a ceiling so low she had to stoop. The river flowed on one side and beyond it was stone, but every other direction ended in space and darkness.

“Welcome, cousin,” a soft voice said.

Aster nearly jumped out of her skin, and for a moment she still didn’t know where the voice had come from. Then she saw her, sitting cross-legged a few feet away on a blanket, a little picnic basket in front of her.

Her hair and face might have been carved from a single piece of chalk. Her eyes were like two dark holes, and between and above them gleamed a silver star. Her gown was silvery and diaphanous, finer than any silk she had ever seen.

“Eve?” Aster asked.

“That is my name,” she said. “You know my blood. Gloam is my nephew, Dusk my niece. My brother was king here, but he died long before the curse. The queen—took another husband, not a very good one. He also was gone before the curse. And you and I, I suspect, are also kin. You reek of our family. But I do not know you. And that is curious.”

“Wait,” said Aster. “If you’re Dusk’s aunt, why aren’t you stone, or asleep, or whatever, like the other adults?”

“Dusk is a little older than me,” she said. “I am the youngest of my siblings.”

“And how do you know Delia Fincher?”

“When the curse arrived, I should have taken my brother’s place and become queen. But my niece, Nocturn, seized power and tried to imprison me. I escaped her and found this place to hide. Whether it was here before the curse or not, I do not know. As you may be aware, things have changed. Nocturn had only the vaguest notion I was here; when Kostye and the Chancellor drove her out, they had none at all. But there are many places from which I can observe them, and I have been watching them closely. And with them, Delia. In her I saw someone who could help us. I met with her, several times. And when I saw you, I knew it was time to act. You are the one we’ve been waiting for.”

“Who is we?”

“You will meet her soon,” Eve said.

“I would like to meet her now,” Aster said.

“Time is pressing,” Eve agreed. “But you must eat and drink. Replenish yourself. Then we will go to see her.”

On the little blanket, Eve fed her apples, grapes, raisins, figs, walnuts, and chestnuts. For drink, she had cold water scented with mint and rosemary. Aster realized how long it had been since she had eaten, and how good things could taste in the Kingdoms. Apples in the Reign of the Departed, for instance, were big, but they were also watery and grainy, sometimes sweet but with little else in the way of flavor. These apples were small, more yellow than red, and tasted like rose petals and lemon, but most of all like apple. The grapes were a little shrunken and wrinkled, on their way to becoming raisins or wine, sweet and musky, with thick, chewy skins. The walnuts tasted like a rain in the forest smelled.

When she had eaten, Eve suggested a nap, but Aster was ready to move on, and the other girl finally agreed that it was time.

“Which way?” Aster asked.

“It’s right over here,” Eve replied.

Aster turned to look that way, and she felt a sharp pain in her neck, like a wasp sting, but worse. She slapped her hand to the spot, and opened her mouth to shout, but her mouth kept opening, folding back over her head, swallowing her. Eve said something, but her words came from another place, far away, in a language she did not know.

Down another rabbit hole, she thought.

Aster dreamed of a harp the size of the sky, strummed softly by zephyrs, plucked by the swells of evening winds, hushed by the rain. She felt the lowest notes only in her bones, and the highest behind her eyes, more color than sound. When light came, it was at the far end of a tunnel, fraying at the outlines, refracted by what appeared to be tiny jewels scattered about.

As her eyesight adjusted she realized she was looking up through an immense field of webbing, and the lights were beads of water collected where the threads met. She was at the bottom of a deep pit, staring up through layers of spider web, but she gradually came to understand that she was hanging in the center of the web, and the web wasn’t round, but spherical, stretching out away from her in every direction. Here and there she saw darker blobs, like insects encased in silk. Except they weren’t shaped like insects; they looked more like human mummies. The nearest, only a few feet away, had something golden and gleaming poking through, like the top of a crown.

Aster.

The voice did not come through her ears; she felt it in the webs that held her captured and suspended. Inside the silk encasing the crowned figure, a faint, golden glow began, like sunlight. She made out the luminous shape of a woman.

I thought you would never come, the voice said. It seems so long. But you have come at last to end the curse.

“Who are you?” she asked.

The Day Queen, my subjects called me, she said. Elbendé, The Swan, my name at birth. Bright Sky, my husband named me, and Light of Love. My children called me Mother. You must listen—my time is short. Darkness enfolds me, and only fitfully and in dreams may I wake. The curse is of your father’s making. Even he cannot undo it. But you can.

“How?” Aster asked.

Your mother gave you something. Do you remember?

“My little silver sphere,” she said.

There are five of them, the Day Queen said. Find them.

“But I lost my orb,” she said. “I don’t know where it is.”

It was given to you. You have the power to seek it—you always have. You have seen where two others are.

“One is here,” she said. “My father has it. Another is in some place with pyramids. I think I left mine in the carriage, so Veronica has it. But what about the fourth and fifth?”

The light from within the cobwebs dimmed visibly.

“Wait,” Aster said. “That’s not enough. Where is the place with the pyramids? Once I have all the orbs, what do I do?”

Your heart will learn, the Day Queen said. When you find your heart. But first you must survive the cost of coming here . . .

Then the light was gone, and only shadow in its place.

The web, still for a moment, suddenly shook. Looking around wildly, Aster saw a darkness blotting out the little lights of the dewdrops, moving toward her.