Page 47 of The Brightest Fell

“I thought you didn’t really remember that,” I replied.

He swallowed hard.

“I lied,” he said.

I gave him a sidelong look. There were lines in the skin around his mouth and eyes, drawn deep and cruel by an unseen hand. He was terrified. That wasn’t so unreasonable. This was the first place that hadn’t cared who he was or what he wanted—only what it could do to him.

There are days when I honestly wish I could kill Blind Michael all over again. Murder is wrong, but what he spent centuries doing to children . . .

Acacia was still walking. We followed her, rapidly catching up with Simon, who still looked like he was taking a casual walk in the park.

“Fascinating,” he said, not looking at us. “Building an islet of this size while the deeper lands were sealed must have taken an incredible amount of power. Building it well, so that it would endure past the life of its creator—it’s almost unbelievable.”

“My husband was a clever one; he knew the power of ritual,” said Acacia. “There are so many bones buried here that the islet will never crumble. It’s been bought and paid for with the blood of the innocent, every inch of it. If you were considering the virtues of becoming a lord in your own land, I recommend you find a better way. Stronger men than you have been corrupted by the lure of empire.”

Her tone was mild, almost bored, like she was remarking on the weather or talking about what she was going to serve for dinner. I stared at the back of her head, so much suddenly making sense. Blind Michael had borrowed the eyes of his Riders, but there had always been elements in Faerie who would have been delighted, even honored to join his Ride. People for whom a few extra teeth and claws would have seemed like a gift instead of a punishment. Instead, he’d taken children, snatching them from their beds and twisting them to his own ends. Why?

Because there is power in blood, and there is power in suffering, and for centuries, Blind Michael’s lands had been a constant source of suffering. He had carved the islet with his own two hands, and stabilized and expanded it on the backs of the children he destroyed.

This was a graveyard that stretched from one end of the horizon to the other. No matter how far we walked, we would still be walking in the footprints of the dead.

Acacia looked over her shoulder, smiling sadly at the expression on my face. “Now you understand,” she said. “My mother set her children against us—against me, who had the audacity to love a son of Maeve. She would have killed us both for our crimes, slaughtered our children in their cradles, and all for the sin of loving. He Rode with the best intentions, once. What he took, he thought the world could spare.”

Simon turned his face away, but not fast enough to keep me from seeing the profound discomfort in his eyes. Good. He needed to remember that monsters were made from the best of intentions—and I needed to remember that Simon, despite being polite and friendly and beloved of pixies, was also the man who had taken me away from my family and Luna and Rayseline away from Sylvester. He claimed to have done it all with the best of intentions. Well, Blind Michael had claimed the same thing, and look what that had done. Some of his victims—most of his victims, when I counted the dead—were never going to recover.

Quentin was still holding my hand, clenching tightly enough that my fingers hurt. I didn’t try to pull away, not even when we turned a corner and there it was: the stable, so close that I could smell the straw and horse-sweat scent of it. I tried to breathe shallowly, but I couldn’t stop the scent from creeping in and filling my nostrils, bringing too many memories along. This was where nightmares were born.

The tangled thorn briars that had once locked the stable doors were gone; the doors stood open, allowing the inhabitants to come and go as they pleased. That wasn’t the only change. The walls were still dark wood and stone, but they had been scrubbed at some point, and were no longer caked in several centuries of filth. The floor was clean. Everything smelled of horse, but not of urine or feces. Just hot skin, and fur, and all the other scents that were unavoidable when there were animals present.

Given more time, given more changes, this place might stop making my skin crawl. But I wasn’t going to count on it.

“The changeling boy was kept here,” said Acacia, indicating the stable.

“Wait,” I said. “Blind Michael snatched a changeling powerful enough to rip holes in the world, and stuck him in the stable?”

“He was mortal,” said Acacia, like that explained everything—and maybe, to her, it did. “Rider or ridden. In all the years I watched my husband working, you were the only changeling I ever saw him treat as anything other than a beast of burden.”

“Lucky me,” I said bleakly, looking at the stable. I pulled my hand out of Quentin’s. He didn’t fight me. He knew what I was about to do, and he wanted no part of it.

Might as well get this over with. I turned and offered him the candle. To no one’s surprise, it burst back into flame as soon as it was clear that I intended to give it to someone else. “Hold this,” I said.

He blinked. “What—?”

“It’s going to be hard enough to find August’s magic under everything in here. I don’t need to have the Luidaeg’s candle confusing me.” The Babylon candle didn’t smell of blood. It didn’t really smell of anything, not even smoke. That didn’t mean it couldn’t confuse things. The Luidaeg is a sledgehammer in a world of scalpels, and when she gets involved, it leaves a mark.

“Okay,” said Quentin uncertainly. He took the candle and pulled it close to his chest, so that the light of it bathed his face, making everything golden and wavering.

I offered him the most sincere smile I could muster, clapped him on the shoulder, and turned away from him. What came next was something I would have to do alone.

Blind Michael’s stables—and they would always be his, Acacia could be lady of these lands for a thousand years, could do everything in her power to erase the stain of his legacy, and this place would still belong to him, drenched in the effects of his good intentions, of his monstrosity—loomed like an empty eye socket, black and bleak and dripping with menace. I took a deep breath and forced myself to step inside, past the threshold. I didn’t look back. If I had, even once, it would have become impossible to continue on.

With every step, the shadows got deeper, and the smell of horses got stronger, even though most of the stalls were currently empty. I shivered. This was the real reason I’d given the candle to Quentin. If the shadows had danced when the flame flickered, I would have run screaming.

Some wounds never really heal. They just scab over enough to let you keep on going.

When I reached the center of the building, I stopped, braced myself against what was about to hit me, and closed my eyes.

Your name is October; you are doing this to save the man you love, I thought, and breathed in deeply.