Chimes at Midnight
Page 85
“October?” Dianda’s voice was very far away. “Are you all right?”
“No.” I pushed myself away from the wall and moved to try the treasury door. It was locked. The thought of trying to pick it made me tired. “I need those keys you grabbed before.”
She tossed me the key ring. It clattered to the floor at my feet, and it took me three tries to pick it up with my sticky, trembling fingers. The keyhole was large enough that I was able to eliminate half the keys before I even started testing them against the lock. The first three wouldn’t turn. The fourth turned slightly, and then stopped, refusing to go any further.
The fifth key opened the lock.
My shoulders slumped in relief as I pushed the door open, letting the keys fall into the growing puddle of blood at my feet. Dianda was saying something, but I couldn’t stop to listen. She would get up on her own. Or she wouldn’t, and we’d deal with that when I knew whether or not this was the end of the line. My feet left bloody prints as I walked into the room.
Treasure—both recognizable and strange—was piled up on all sides. Bars of gold and platinum shared space with sacks of beans and jars of feathers. I shuffled forward, trying to spot the hope chest somewhere in the mess. The smell of blood was overwhelming everything.
Blood. I fumbled the baggie full of the Luidaeg’s blood out of my pocket and managed to break the seal, spilling blood lozenges in all directions. I let them fall, focusing on the two that I had left in my hand. She knew the hope chests. They knew her.
Please, let this work without killing me, I thought, and put the lozenges into my mouth.
The kick of her blood slamming into me was even harder this time, maybe because I’d taken twice as much. It wanted to own me, and I couldn’t let it, or I would be lost. I forced the forming memories aside, trying to focus the energy the blood was pumping through me. “Hope chest,” I whispered. “Hope chest, hope chest . . .”
And there it was, a simple wooden box on a plain pedestal that I could suddenly recognize. I stumbled toward it, flashes of the Luidaeg’s memories washing over me with every step. The Luidaeg and a blonde woman, kissing on a beach at sunset. The Luidaeg in a bog, watching smoke curl up against the stars, holding a little boy who had Blind Michael’s eyes. The Luidaeg in the arms of a man with hair the color of twilight, blackness shot through with glints of gold and red and rose.
Then my hands touched the wood, my blood staining the delicate carvings, and I fell to the floor with the hope chest cradled in my arms, and nothing really mattered anymore. I didn’t feel myself hit the floor.
I didn’t feel anything.
TWENTY-FIVE
I OPENED MY EYES and found myself staring at the ceiling of my old apartment. “Okay,” I muttered, sitting up and looking down at myself. I was in my long black Bourbon Room T-shirt, and I was lying on my four-poster bed from Mother’s tower. The room was familiar and wrong at the same time, mixing aspects of my mortal and fae lives with maddened abandon. The shelves groaned with battered paperbacks and random knickknacks alongside magic swords and jars full of fireflies. One of the windows looked out on the Summerlands, while the other showed a midday parking lot.
“I hate symbolism,” I said, sliding out of the bed. At least nothing hurt. My wounds were gone, washed away by whatever process I’d started by touching the hope chest.
I had touched it, hadn’t I? I couldn’t quite remember whether I’d reached it in time. I walked toward the door, fighting the urge to touch my ears and see where my blood was balanced. This place seemed designed to tell me soon enough, and there was no point in rushing the inevitable.
Then I opened the door, and found myself looking at . . . myself. Mostly. The woman in the doorway was clearly a changeling, a little less fae than I had been at the start of the week, a lot less human than I’d been when I broke into the treasury. She was wearing my leather jacket, and had a knife in either hand. Her fingers were wrapped around the blades, hiding them, and their hilts were identical.
“Hi,” she said, without preamble. “I’m you.”
“I got that,” I said, frowning. “What’s going on? Am I going to have some kind of messed-up vision every time I need to change my blood?”
“Maybe,” she said. “It’s not like this is ground that’s been walked before. Most blood magic comes with visions of a sort, so you could call this more of the same. How do you feel?”
“Weak.”
“That’s because you’re bleeding to death.” She held the knives out toward me, hilt first. “Pick one.”
I blinked. “That’s it? That’s the wisdom of this particular stupid vision? ‘Pick one’?”
“The hope chest responds to intent, and right now, you don’t have any; you’re too far gone,” she said, still holding the knives out. “You could actually say that this moment, right here, is both you fighting your own blood, and you fighting the hope chest. Part of you wants to be human. Let the goblin fruit carry you away on a tide of sweet, sweet dreams that leave you dead. Part of you wants to be fae. Stop making this choice, stop taking this risk. So pick a knife. If you get the silver, you’re fae. If you get the iron, you’re human. Either way, you’ll have made a decision—you’ll have given the hope chest the intent it needs to work.”
“Are you messing with me?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m offering you a fifty-fifty chance at survival. And that’s better than you’ll have if you don’t pick a knife soon. There’s only so much blood in your body, and you’re not regenerating. Come on. Choose while there’s still time for it to matter.”
The knives were identical, and she was holding them the same distance from her body. Nothing about her position hinted at which one I should take.
“What do I do after I have it?” I asked.
“Stab yourself.”
“. . . of course I have to stab myself,” I muttered. “This day just gets better and better.”
“Don’t stall,” she snapped abruptly. I blinked. She scowled. “If you bleed to death, I die with you. So stop messing around and fix this. I don’t want to die. I’m not ready. I have too much left to do.”
“But if I pick the wrong knife—”
“If you pick the wrong knife, Faerie had better find a new hero.”
“No.” I pushed myself away from the wall and moved to try the treasury door. It was locked. The thought of trying to pick it made me tired. “I need those keys you grabbed before.”
She tossed me the key ring. It clattered to the floor at my feet, and it took me three tries to pick it up with my sticky, trembling fingers. The keyhole was large enough that I was able to eliminate half the keys before I even started testing them against the lock. The first three wouldn’t turn. The fourth turned slightly, and then stopped, refusing to go any further.
The fifth key opened the lock.
My shoulders slumped in relief as I pushed the door open, letting the keys fall into the growing puddle of blood at my feet. Dianda was saying something, but I couldn’t stop to listen. She would get up on her own. Or she wouldn’t, and we’d deal with that when I knew whether or not this was the end of the line. My feet left bloody prints as I walked into the room.
Treasure—both recognizable and strange—was piled up on all sides. Bars of gold and platinum shared space with sacks of beans and jars of feathers. I shuffled forward, trying to spot the hope chest somewhere in the mess. The smell of blood was overwhelming everything.
Blood. I fumbled the baggie full of the Luidaeg’s blood out of my pocket and managed to break the seal, spilling blood lozenges in all directions. I let them fall, focusing on the two that I had left in my hand. She knew the hope chests. They knew her.
Please, let this work without killing me, I thought, and put the lozenges into my mouth.
The kick of her blood slamming into me was even harder this time, maybe because I’d taken twice as much. It wanted to own me, and I couldn’t let it, or I would be lost. I forced the forming memories aside, trying to focus the energy the blood was pumping through me. “Hope chest,” I whispered. “Hope chest, hope chest . . .”
And there it was, a simple wooden box on a plain pedestal that I could suddenly recognize. I stumbled toward it, flashes of the Luidaeg’s memories washing over me with every step. The Luidaeg and a blonde woman, kissing on a beach at sunset. The Luidaeg in a bog, watching smoke curl up against the stars, holding a little boy who had Blind Michael’s eyes. The Luidaeg in the arms of a man with hair the color of twilight, blackness shot through with glints of gold and red and rose.
Then my hands touched the wood, my blood staining the delicate carvings, and I fell to the floor with the hope chest cradled in my arms, and nothing really mattered anymore. I didn’t feel myself hit the floor.
I didn’t feel anything.
TWENTY-FIVE
I OPENED MY EYES and found myself staring at the ceiling of my old apartment. “Okay,” I muttered, sitting up and looking down at myself. I was in my long black Bourbon Room T-shirt, and I was lying on my four-poster bed from Mother’s tower. The room was familiar and wrong at the same time, mixing aspects of my mortal and fae lives with maddened abandon. The shelves groaned with battered paperbacks and random knickknacks alongside magic swords and jars full of fireflies. One of the windows looked out on the Summerlands, while the other showed a midday parking lot.
“I hate symbolism,” I said, sliding out of the bed. At least nothing hurt. My wounds were gone, washed away by whatever process I’d started by touching the hope chest.
I had touched it, hadn’t I? I couldn’t quite remember whether I’d reached it in time. I walked toward the door, fighting the urge to touch my ears and see where my blood was balanced. This place seemed designed to tell me soon enough, and there was no point in rushing the inevitable.
Then I opened the door, and found myself looking at . . . myself. Mostly. The woman in the doorway was clearly a changeling, a little less fae than I had been at the start of the week, a lot less human than I’d been when I broke into the treasury. She was wearing my leather jacket, and had a knife in either hand. Her fingers were wrapped around the blades, hiding them, and their hilts were identical.
“Hi,” she said, without preamble. “I’m you.”
“I got that,” I said, frowning. “What’s going on? Am I going to have some kind of messed-up vision every time I need to change my blood?”
“Maybe,” she said. “It’s not like this is ground that’s been walked before. Most blood magic comes with visions of a sort, so you could call this more of the same. How do you feel?”
“Weak.”
“That’s because you’re bleeding to death.” She held the knives out toward me, hilt first. “Pick one.”
I blinked. “That’s it? That’s the wisdom of this particular stupid vision? ‘Pick one’?”
“The hope chest responds to intent, and right now, you don’t have any; you’re too far gone,” she said, still holding the knives out. “You could actually say that this moment, right here, is both you fighting your own blood, and you fighting the hope chest. Part of you wants to be human. Let the goblin fruit carry you away on a tide of sweet, sweet dreams that leave you dead. Part of you wants to be fae. Stop making this choice, stop taking this risk. So pick a knife. If you get the silver, you’re fae. If you get the iron, you’re human. Either way, you’ll have made a decision—you’ll have given the hope chest the intent it needs to work.”
“Are you messing with me?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m offering you a fifty-fifty chance at survival. And that’s better than you’ll have if you don’t pick a knife soon. There’s only so much blood in your body, and you’re not regenerating. Come on. Choose while there’s still time for it to matter.”
The knives were identical, and she was holding them the same distance from her body. Nothing about her position hinted at which one I should take.
“What do I do after I have it?” I asked.
“Stab yourself.”
“. . . of course I have to stab myself,” I muttered. “This day just gets better and better.”
“Don’t stall,” she snapped abruptly. I blinked. She scowled. “If you bleed to death, I die with you. So stop messing around and fix this. I don’t want to die. I’m not ready. I have too much left to do.”
“But if I pick the wrong knife—”
“If you pick the wrong knife, Faerie had better find a new hero.”
