Page 54 of The Brightest Fell

“But then we wouldn’t be inside, would we?”

It was difficult to refute the calm literalism of Simon’s words, even as I considered how pleasant it would be to punch him in the nose. “Okay, we’re here, and August was here, but I’m not picking up any traces strong enough to indicate that she was here recently.”

“When did she leave?”

“I don’t know.” Maybe someday I’d be able to develop this strange ability of mine to the point where I could tell just how old a faded trail was, but I wasn’t there yet. All I knew for sure was that August had been here—and that the trail had been fresher the first time I’d picked it up. I frowned. “I think she may still have been here when Riordan first arrived.”

“Which could mean . . .” prompted Simon.

I stared at him. “Which could mean she used Chelsea’s gating back and forth to get herself home. She may have been back in the mortal world this whole time.” But that didn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t she have gone running straight to the tower, and to our mother? Why would she still be lost, when she’d been given the perfect opportunity to be found?

Simon nodded, expression grim. “Precisely so. We need to be sure. Follow her trail, before Riordan comes back and our own journey comes to an end.”

“Right.” I closed my eyes and inhaled, digging down past the scent of Quentin’s spell, past the overlapping traceries of magic that made up the place—and there was so much magic, there was so much; what Riordan hadn’t repaired magically, she had created magically, filling in the gaps in the walls with virtual silver and stone. Given enough time, she would probably go back and fix those spots for real . . . or maybe not. When she had this much raw power to throw around, why put any flesh behind the fantasy? It wasn’t like she ever intended to leave.

Only knowes built to last need to have any real foundations. The Tea Gardens had crumbled when Lily died, because her magic had no longer been there to shore them up. The false Queen’s beachfront knowe was still there, but it was fading a little every day. Eventually, it would return to the mostly formless shallowing it had been when I first found it for her, filled with potential, beautiful as only something that could become anything ever was.

Maybe, after it had lain fallow for a century or two, someone else would open it and allow it to become something new, something that wasn’t tainted by the legacy of what it had already been. I sort of hoped that would be the case. But it wasn’t going to be any time soon. Arden had her knowe, one that was more reality than lovely illusion, and she wasn’t going to set herself upon the pretender’s throne.

Under Riordan’s magic, under the magic of her subjects, under even Chelsea’s frantic and panicked magic, I found August’s. It was baked into the walls, almost as it had been back in Amandine’s tower. It was no wonder Riordan had been drawn to this specific castle. With as much work as August had done, this may have been the only livable spot in all of Annwn.

“This way,” I said, and started walking.

With Quentin beside me, I didn’t need to worry about walking out of the don’t-look-here; it moved with him, and hence it moved with me. Simon brought up the rear. I couldn’t watch him and where I was going at the same time, but he seemed nervous, like something about being here was putting him on his guard. Honestly, I couldn’t blame him for that.

Annwn may have been a place where people lived once, but that was a long time ago, in a world that might as well have been a fairy tale for all the impact it has on people like me. Annwn is a myth and a legend and a lie, sealed off by Oberon like all the other deep realms of Faerie. The fact that we were here should have been an impossibility. Would have been, if we hadn’t been willing to barter our freedom for the use of a candle. Not exactly a route that was available to everyone, or one that should have been emulated.

And August had been here. The whole time Simon had been trading his soul away, one piece at a time, looking for a way to bring her home, she’d been here, locked away from her family but safe, outside the reach of anyone who might want to hurt her. August hadn’t been suffering like Luna and Rayseline had, or even like I had. She’d just been unable to find her way home.

Home. I frowned. That was the odd part of all this—not that there were any really normal parts to the situation. August had traded her road home to the Luidaeg, saying that she couldn’t come back until she’d found Oberon. I was becoming convinced that she was back in the mortal world, even if she wasn’t back with our mother yet. Was that not close enough to count as “home”? How had she been able to do that without finding Oberon?

Unless she had managed to find him, and things were about to get even more complicated. Because that was exactly what we needed.

The trail of August’s magic led down the hall and to a curving staircase, winding its way upward through the castle. This, I recognized, despite Riordan’s extensive renovations. These stairs led to the cells where Etienne, Tybalt, and I had all been imprisoned, intended to be used as warm bodies to help her build her new vision of Faerie. Well. Some of us were going to be warm bodies. Tybalt had been marked for slaughter by her ally, Raj’s father Samson, who was going to make sure that his son was never truly a King of Cats, only a puppet.

Thinking of Tybalt wasn’t good for me. Not yet. I shook the thought away as I climbed the stairs, looking for the place where August’s trail became something else.

Behind and below us, someone shouted. Riordan had noticed that we were gone.

“Perhaps speed is of the essence,” said Simon mildly.

“Next time you misplace one of your kids for a century, I’m not helping you,” I snapped, voice barely above a whisper, and walked faster.

August’s trail led us out of the stairwell and down a hall, the walls lined with closed doors that looked solid enough to stand up to a legion of ax-wielding Jack Nicholsons. That was a terrifying thought in and of itself. I slowed, testing the air again and again, before I finally stopped in front of one of the doors and thrust the candle at Quentin.

“Hold this,” I said.

Quentin has been my squire long enough to know better than to argue with me. He took the candle, staying close as I dropped to my knees and pulled the set of lock picks from inside my jacket.

Simon raised an eyebrow. “Are you a common thief, then?”

“I like to think of myself as a rare and exceptional thief, but sure,” I said. The last time I’d been here, I’d picked these locks with bits of twig and bracken. Real lock picks were a major step up. It made the job seem almost trivial. That was nice. Difficult things should always seem trivial, when they can.

Moving as quickly as I dared, I pulled the appropriate lock picks from my set and slipped them into place, breathing slow and deep as I worked at the tumblers. These were old locks, preindustrial, tooled by hand instead of by machines. That meant that each of them was unique, with its own weights and balances. It also meant they were remarkably primitive compared to some of the locks I’d encountered in the mortal world. After only a few seconds, the latch clicked.

I stood, tucking my lock picks back into my pocket, and took the candle back from Quentin before I opened the door.

The cell on the other side was small and plain. Riordan hadn’t bothered casting any illusions here, maybe because she hadn’t seen the need: it wasn’t like the occupant was ever going to tell anyone how terrible her hospitality had been. The air reeked of piss and stale sweat. Heaps of straw and rough bracken lined the walls, providing bedding and a latrine at the same time. Quentin’s nose wrinkled. Simon hung back, clearly unwilling to enter the room.