The Winter Long
Page 36
She couldn’t do that to me.
“Is there a pulse?”
Tybalt’s voice snapped me out of my brief reverie. I searched her throat again, pressing my shivering fingers into the soft skin of her neck, and shook my head. “There’s no pulse.”
If she wasn’t gone, then she was going, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
No. The thought crossed my mind, followed instantly by a chilling resolve that wound through me like the Shadow Roads, freezing everything it touched. Maybe it was true that most people couldn’t do anything about it, but I was Amandine’s daughter. I was among the first of the Dóchas Sidhe. And this was not going to happen on my watch.
“Help me move her,” I said, shoving my knife back into my belt and sliding my hands under her arms before I started to stand. Every shift of my position brought another of her wounds into view. There was so much blood.
Tybalt moved immediately around to lift her feet, asking, “Where are we going?”
“Her room. Even if it’s trashed, the bed’s big enough that we should be able to find a flat space to lay her out on, and I’m going to need room to maneuver.”
“October . . .” He frowned at me, expression speculative, even as he began backing across the living room toward the hall. He knew me and my limitations better than almost anyone else, and he wasn’t going to make me walk backward across a dark, cluttered room. “Are you preparing to do something utterly foolish, or simply stupid?”
“Remember that time I raised the dead?” In the basement at Tamed Lightning, just me and my knife and the body of Alex Olsen, who’d had information that I needed. I hadn’t even known what I was back then; I’d thought I was just another Daoine Sidhe, one with an unusually high tendency to wind up bleeding all over the damn place.
Tybalt’s eyes narrowed. “I recall something that might fit that description,” he said. “I recall, for example, that I did not speak to you for quite some time afterward, since you had done something that should have been impossible.”
“We know it’s not impossible. Not for me.”
“October—”
“I have to try!” I wasn’t intending to shout. I did it anyway. My voice seemed to echo in the small, dark space of the hall. Tybalt looked at me, his eyes opening wide in surprise. I looked back at him, trying to make him see how desperate I was. “If there’s anything I can do . . . she’s been threatening to kill me since the day we met, and she’s been saving me the whole time. I can be with you because of her. I’m here because of her. I have to try.”
“I would never have asked you not to try,” he said quietly. “I only need you to tell me what I can do to help you.”
I smiled a little. “Just hold me up when my legs give out.”
“My dear, that is something I will always be here to do.”
We carried her through the junk-clogged hall to her bedroom door. It took some shuffling, but we managed to transfer her entirely into Tybalt’s arms. The Luidaeg had never been larger than a human teenager. He held her easily, and I was grateful for her long, blood-matted hair, which hid her face from me.
The door to her room swung open as soon as I touched it, and the light of a thousand candles flooded out into the hall, seeming to chase away the clutter and the grime with its touch. Inside, the walls were lined with saltwater tanks rich with exotic fish and stranger creatures, things that were never meant to thrive in the oceans of this world. The pearl-eyed sea dragon she kept in the largest tank reared back when it saw us framed in the doorway, me with my bloodstained clothes, Tybalt with the Luidaeg in his arms.
I held up my hand. “Don’t freak out,” I said. “We’re not the ones who hurt her. I just want to help.”
The dragon glared at me, but it didn’t break the glass of its tank and come rampaging out into the room, so I was willing to call that a victory, however small. I gestured for Tybalt to put the Luidaeg down on the wide expanse of her four-poster bed. Its frame was ornately carved with mermaids and seaweed, and it reminded me of the furniture Arden had kept with her during her exile from her own Kingdom. It’s funny the things the mind throws up to protect itself from panic. Trivia suddenly matters more than anything else in the world.
The Luidaeg’s head lolled like a dead thing’s as Tybalt maneuvered her onto the mattress, setting a pillow under her neck to support it. He stepped back, glancing at me, and for a moment I could see the naked terror in his eyes, the fear he’d been hiding under bravado and efficiency. I managed another small smile, forcing it until the corners of his mouth relaxed, just a little.
“I won’t do anything I haven’t done before,” I said.
“That’s what I am afraid of,” he replied.
Talk was just putting off the inevitable. I drew my knife for the second time before gingerly lifting her right arm and turning it until the underside of her wrist faced the ceiling. I winced. A deep cut had split her flesh, opening it to reveal the pale ice-blue of her bones. It ran parallel to the vein. That explained the blood. Someone had been trying to bleed her out, and they might well have succeeded.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: blood magic is based on a potent combination of instinct and need. The two feed and inform each other, shifting their balance as the situation demands. Need something that the blood can give you badly enough, and there’s a very good chance that you can have it . . . if you’re willing to pay the price. If you’re willing to bleed for it.
There was a time when I would have taken care in injuring myself. That time was long past. I slashed my knife hard across my own wrist, hard enough that a few drops of blood spattered the Luidaeg’s cheek, standing out against what was already there only because they were fresh and red, not brown and dried. The smell of cut grass and copper rose around me, bloody and aching, as my magic responded to the wound. I took a deep breath, gritting my teeth against the pain. No matter how fast I heal, pain will always hurt. I guess that’s a good thing. It keeps me from getting more careless than I already am.
Gingerly, I placed my knife on the bed next to the Luidaeg’s unmoving body, trying to remember what I’d done to resurrect Alex Olsen. It hadn’t been that long ago. It felt like a lifetime. Blood ran down my arm and covered my fingers, dripping onto the duvet and leaving little red spots everywhere it hit. The wound itched, already healing, but it was too late; I had what I needed.
“Is there a pulse?”
Tybalt’s voice snapped me out of my brief reverie. I searched her throat again, pressing my shivering fingers into the soft skin of her neck, and shook my head. “There’s no pulse.”
If she wasn’t gone, then she was going, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
No. The thought crossed my mind, followed instantly by a chilling resolve that wound through me like the Shadow Roads, freezing everything it touched. Maybe it was true that most people couldn’t do anything about it, but I was Amandine’s daughter. I was among the first of the Dóchas Sidhe. And this was not going to happen on my watch.
“Help me move her,” I said, shoving my knife back into my belt and sliding my hands under her arms before I started to stand. Every shift of my position brought another of her wounds into view. There was so much blood.
Tybalt moved immediately around to lift her feet, asking, “Where are we going?”
“Her room. Even if it’s trashed, the bed’s big enough that we should be able to find a flat space to lay her out on, and I’m going to need room to maneuver.”
“October . . .” He frowned at me, expression speculative, even as he began backing across the living room toward the hall. He knew me and my limitations better than almost anyone else, and he wasn’t going to make me walk backward across a dark, cluttered room. “Are you preparing to do something utterly foolish, or simply stupid?”
“Remember that time I raised the dead?” In the basement at Tamed Lightning, just me and my knife and the body of Alex Olsen, who’d had information that I needed. I hadn’t even known what I was back then; I’d thought I was just another Daoine Sidhe, one with an unusually high tendency to wind up bleeding all over the damn place.
Tybalt’s eyes narrowed. “I recall something that might fit that description,” he said. “I recall, for example, that I did not speak to you for quite some time afterward, since you had done something that should have been impossible.”
“We know it’s not impossible. Not for me.”
“October—”
“I have to try!” I wasn’t intending to shout. I did it anyway. My voice seemed to echo in the small, dark space of the hall. Tybalt looked at me, his eyes opening wide in surprise. I looked back at him, trying to make him see how desperate I was. “If there’s anything I can do . . . she’s been threatening to kill me since the day we met, and she’s been saving me the whole time. I can be with you because of her. I’m here because of her. I have to try.”
“I would never have asked you not to try,” he said quietly. “I only need you to tell me what I can do to help you.”
I smiled a little. “Just hold me up when my legs give out.”
“My dear, that is something I will always be here to do.”
We carried her through the junk-clogged hall to her bedroom door. It took some shuffling, but we managed to transfer her entirely into Tybalt’s arms. The Luidaeg had never been larger than a human teenager. He held her easily, and I was grateful for her long, blood-matted hair, which hid her face from me.
The door to her room swung open as soon as I touched it, and the light of a thousand candles flooded out into the hall, seeming to chase away the clutter and the grime with its touch. Inside, the walls were lined with saltwater tanks rich with exotic fish and stranger creatures, things that were never meant to thrive in the oceans of this world. The pearl-eyed sea dragon she kept in the largest tank reared back when it saw us framed in the doorway, me with my bloodstained clothes, Tybalt with the Luidaeg in his arms.
I held up my hand. “Don’t freak out,” I said. “We’re not the ones who hurt her. I just want to help.”
The dragon glared at me, but it didn’t break the glass of its tank and come rampaging out into the room, so I was willing to call that a victory, however small. I gestured for Tybalt to put the Luidaeg down on the wide expanse of her four-poster bed. Its frame was ornately carved with mermaids and seaweed, and it reminded me of the furniture Arden had kept with her during her exile from her own Kingdom. It’s funny the things the mind throws up to protect itself from panic. Trivia suddenly matters more than anything else in the world.
The Luidaeg’s head lolled like a dead thing’s as Tybalt maneuvered her onto the mattress, setting a pillow under her neck to support it. He stepped back, glancing at me, and for a moment I could see the naked terror in his eyes, the fear he’d been hiding under bravado and efficiency. I managed another small smile, forcing it until the corners of his mouth relaxed, just a little.
“I won’t do anything I haven’t done before,” I said.
“That’s what I am afraid of,” he replied.
Talk was just putting off the inevitable. I drew my knife for the second time before gingerly lifting her right arm and turning it until the underside of her wrist faced the ceiling. I winced. A deep cut had split her flesh, opening it to reveal the pale ice-blue of her bones. It ran parallel to the vein. That explained the blood. Someone had been trying to bleed her out, and they might well have succeeded.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: blood magic is based on a potent combination of instinct and need. The two feed and inform each other, shifting their balance as the situation demands. Need something that the blood can give you badly enough, and there’s a very good chance that you can have it . . . if you’re willing to pay the price. If you’re willing to bleed for it.
There was a time when I would have taken care in injuring myself. That time was long past. I slashed my knife hard across my own wrist, hard enough that a few drops of blood spattered the Luidaeg’s cheek, standing out against what was already there only because they were fresh and red, not brown and dried. The smell of cut grass and copper rose around me, bloody and aching, as my magic responded to the wound. I took a deep breath, gritting my teeth against the pain. No matter how fast I heal, pain will always hurt. I guess that’s a good thing. It keeps me from getting more careless than I already am.
Gingerly, I placed my knife on the bed next to the Luidaeg’s unmoving body, trying to remember what I’d done to resurrect Alex Olsen. It hadn’t been that long ago. It felt like a lifetime. Blood ran down my arm and covered my fingers, dripping onto the duvet and leaving little red spots everywhere it hit. The wound itched, already healing, but it was too late; I had what I needed.
