Page 90 of The Brightest Fell

They had been in those cages, enspelled not to turn back into their human forms. Would Mom have worried about her spell slipping? Would she have wanted to be certain that if they did turn human, they wouldn’t be able to escape?

“I think something’s wrong,” I said, looking at Sylvester.

He looked back, worried.

His face was the last thing I saw before I hit the ground.

TWENTY-SEVEN

AS WAS SO OFTEN the case when I passed out at Shadowed Hills, I woke up in a bed, the covers pulled up to my collarbone. The ceiling above me was deep blue, painted with pink swirls, like the sky at sunset. Somehow, that didn’t make me feel any better.

My hands didn’t ache anymore. That was good. I couldn’t actually feel them. That was bad. I pulled my arms from under the blanket, raising my hands to my face. They were swaddled in a thick layer of gauze, until I could barely move them. The numbness was probably one of Jin’s salves. That, or Mom had used a poison on the thorns that had done permanent nerve damage. At the moment, it was difficult to tell.

I was alone. The room was too silent for anyone else to be there. Even Tybalt would have made some sound, however slight. Cohabitating with one of the Cait Sidhe has sharpened my situational awareness out of self-defense. I sat up, looking around. The room was small and plain, with the minimum amount of furniture necessary to make it livable. One of the guest rooms, then. Judging by the color on the walls and the quality of the furnishings, one of the family guest rooms. I was moving up in the world.

Moving up, and moving on. I shoved back the covers, noting with some satisfaction that I was clothed for a change—wearing a loose white chemise and a pair of soft gray chamois trousers, but clothed—and climbed out of the bed, padding barefoot toward the door. I could worry about where my weapons and real clothes were later. Right now, I needed to find Jin, and find out whether she’d been able to coax Tybalt back into his human form. If she hadn’t . . .

That would be when I started worrying about weapons, and when Sylvester would need to start worrying about whether I was about to do something he wouldn’t be able to forgive.

Almost unsurprisingly, when I opened the door, I found a sentry waiting. Grianne was leaning against the wall, her Merry Dancers spinning a slow ballet through the air above her head. Like all Candela, she was gray-skinned, gray-haired, and lithe of build, while her Merry Dancers were perfect spheres of whitish-green light that brightened and dimmed in accordance with her mood. Judging by their current brilliance, her mood wasn’t all that great.

More surprising was the purple pixie playing tag with her Merry Dancers, spinning around them with dizzying speed. Lilac stopped playing when she saw me, hovering in the air ringing for a moment before she dove for my hair and buried herself there. Grianne looked down and focused on my face, one brow raising slightly as she took in the rounded planes of my cheekbones and the brown of my hair.

“Huh,” she said finally. “Old school.”

“I’ll get back to normal soon,” I said.

She shrugged, expressing that it was no concern of hers. “How are your hands?”

“Numb.” I held them up for her to see. “Did Jin tell you how bad it was?”

“Yes.” That seemed to be enough for Grianne. She pushed herself away from the wall. “Duke Torquill sent me to wait for you. He and the others are in the kitchen.”

The kitchen. That could be a good thing. That smacked of recovery, of needing to take people where they could get a good meal and a glass of something extremely alcoholic. My hope must have shown on my face. Grianne shook her head.

“Don’t,” was all she said. She turned and started down the hall, leaving me with little choice but to pad after her, swallowing my questions. I’d have my answers soon enough. Pestering Grianne wouldn’t make them come any sooner, and might result in her deciding I was too much trouble to guide.

I’ve been in and out of Shadowed Hills since I was a little girl. I did most of my training there, and while it’s been a while since I was a regular sight in the halls, I still know my way around. Mostly. Like all large knowes, the building has a tendency to rearrange itself, and I didn’t want to risk getting lost. The time I’d already spent unconscious had been more than long enough.

The time . . . “Grianne, how long was I out?”

“Eight hours. Maybe.” She kept walking. “Long enough for everyone to yell a lot. Sir Etienne had the shift before mine.”

If I’d woken up while Etienne was on duty, I might have been able to get better answers. I silently pledged to do a better job of timing my returns to consciousness. The thought was laughable, but it was a good enough distraction to keep me from grabbing Grianne and shaking her until she gave me the answers I needed.

Then we were at the kitchen doorway, a wide, gently peaked wooden arch that led into a large, comfortably designed room. Melly, the Hob in charge of the kitchens as a whole, was bustling between the stove and an artfully rough-hewn table, a bowl of soup in each hand. Quentin was seated there, across from—

“Jazz!” I sped up, brushing past Grianne in my hurry to get to the now-bipedal Raven-maid. May was standing behind her, hands resting on her shoulders, keeping her in place, keeping in contact at all times. They turned to look at me, Jazz weary, May wary. “Are you all right?”

“I have thumbs again,” said Jazz. She sounded distant, and faintly dazed, like she was still waking up from a long and not entirely welcome dream. “I didn’t before.”

“Eat your soup,” said May. She kept looking at me as Jazz turned to begin fumbling for her spoon. “She needs time. How are your hands?”

“Messed up, but I’ll live.” I raised them for her to see. “Where’s Tybalt?” If Jazz was back in human form, Tybalt would be too. He’d probably been asking for me.

May looked away.

A chill lanced through me. I turned to Quentin. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “What?” I demanded. “What’s going on?”