Page 93 of The Brightest Fell

Every time it seemed like my strange little family was starting to heal, something else would come along to split it apart. Maybe that was how things were going to be from now on. Maybe we were never going to be whole again. Sometimes things fall apart, and that’s just the way it is.

Sylvester didn’t look like he shared my acceptance of the situation. He started walking again, still faster than was strictly necessary, the dogwood flower and daffodil smell of his magic crackling in the air around him as it rose in response to his unhappiness. I hadn’t realized how much I depended on the magic around me to read the situation.

A blank wall came into view ahead of us. Sylvester touched it, and a patch of it went misty, creating a temporary door. He looked at me gravely.

“I know you can do this, October,” he said, before he turned and walked away, leaving me alone.

Right. I took a deep breath and stepped forward, through the misty wall, which turned solid again behind me, leaving me standing in the garden, surrounded by warm artificial sunlight that did nothing to cut through my cloud of trepidation and foreboding.

Jin was sitting on a nearby bench. I walked toward her. She raised her head, wings vibrating, and smiled a sad, relieved smile when she saw me.

“October,” she said. “You’re back to normal.”

“Queen Windermere brought the hope chest,” I said, like that was normal, like everybody had queens running errands for their convenience.

Jin nodded. “Good. I can’t reach him.”

I didn’t need to ask who she meant. Even if I hadn’t known, the weary sorrow in her voice would have been enough to tell me. “Where is he?”

She pointed to a patch of white-and-purple irises. I nodded and walked toward it, keeping my steps as light as I could. When I was close, I stopped and crouched, and peered into the depths of the vegetation.

There was Tybalt, crouched low, paws tucked in tight against his body and tail wrapped around his legs. The look he gave me was pure animal fear. Once again, the urge to kill my mother surged up and threatened to overwhelm me, and once again, I pushed it down and away. This wasn’t the time. I needed to focus on what mattered. I needed to focus on finding one more way home.

“Hi,” I said, lowering myself to the ground until I was stretched out with my cheek flat on the grass.

Tybalt stayed where he was.

I let my eyes drift half-shut, trying to find the strands of magic I knew had to be surrounding him. This wasn’t an outside transformation, like the one that Simon had hurled at Jazz the first time I had pulled a spell apart with my hands. It wasn’t a geas, either, forced into Simon’s blood and body by someone else. This was Tybalt’s own magic, being used against him by my mother and by the trauma he had endured.

This would have been easier if I’d had access to his blood. Everything is easier, always, when I have access to blood.

I froze. The idea I’d just had seemed farfetched, but what about this wasn’t? It was worth trying. Anything was worth trying, if it brought him back to me. This garden was mostly gentle plants, but Luna has never shied away from roses; they grew tucked among the ferns, low, lush-smelling tea roses spreading their tattered petals wide. Not sitting up, keeping my motions as slow and easy as I could, I reached over and ran my fingers along the nearest stem.

The thorns were small but sharp, breaking my skin easily. I brought the hand back, faster this time, and stuck my bleeding fingers into my mouth before they could heal. Drinking in as quick and deep as I could, I focused not just on the blood itself, but on the specific memory I wanted: the moment when, in Arden’s halls, I had tasted Tybalt’s blood on his lips and felt Tybalt’s magic thrumming in my veins.

All memory is contained in the blood. All memory, and all magic. The memory of magic wasn’t enough to give it to me—I’m no alchemist, and this was like a copy of a copy, faded, distant, and thin—but I fell through my blood memory and into his, catching a glimpse of my own face as I watched him die in front of me. Grief swept through me, strong enough to make my heart stutter. Not strong enough to wash away the triumph.

This was what Tybalt’s magic felt like from the inside, all wild pennyroyal and feline musk. This was the shape of it. I looked at him again, small and trembling in the depths of the ferns, and I saw the thin traceries of his transformation snarled in the stripes of his fur, worked into the lines of his limbs. It was so simple. It was part of him, and it was locked in its current position, twisted by my mother and then frozen by his own fear, confusion, and power.

“I love you,” I said gravely, and reached out, hooking my fingers in the air, hooking my magic into his, and pulled.

Tybalt did not transform so much as collapse, a cat one moment, a man the next. Not entirely a man: there were stripes across his bare back and shoulders, extending all the way down his butt and across the tops of his thighs. That didn’t matter. That had never mattered to me. I scrambled to my hands and knees and dove into the bushes, gathering him close, ignoring the scent of crushed flowers as I pulled him against me and held him as tightly as I dared.

I was crying. Finally, I was crying. I pressed my face against his hair and just sobbed, breathing in the scent of him, his skin and sweat and magic, mingling with the scent of blood and roses and green, growing things.

It was hard to say how long I was crying into his hair before he raised his head, blinking bemusedly up at me. I sniffled. He lifted his hand, fingers trembling, and touched my cheek.

“October,” he whispered.

“We’re home,” I said, and we were. We finally, finally were.

TWENTY-EIGHT

IT HAD BEEN THREE days, and I was finally able to let Tybalt out of my sight without finding it difficult to breathe.

May and Jazz were in a similar situation. Jazz had insisted on going back to her antique store after two days in bed, and May had gone with her, despite this plan necessitating her being out of bed before one in the afternoon. Unspoken but ever-present was the fear that we were enjoying a brief respite from our separation, and that if we lowered our guard, even for a second, it would all come crashing down.

The Luidaeg still had Officer Thornton in her guest room, and was slowly working on removing the traces of Annwn from his system. She didn’t know how long it would be before she could wake him up, much less start figuring out how much damage his time in deep Faerie had done. He might be lost forever, one more Rip van Winkle to lay at Faerie’s doorstep.