Page 89 of A Divided Duty

Some of them were as fine as hairs, and plucking each one out of her took more effort than I would have believed possible. But bit by bit, they came free, and I heard her delighted gasp as her hand warmed in mine, her wooden fingers slowly softening and plumping out into flesh and bone. I squeezed them and kept on going, biting my cheek again and again as I chased down the threads.

Finally, the last of them was in my mental “hands,” and I was untangling it from where it had become wrapped around her orbital bone, working it free inch by terrible inch. I pulled, it was gone, and I sagged, unsurprised when Raysel’s arms were suddenly holding me up, refusing to let me fall.

She was laughing, softly at first, then with more and more enthusiasm. I opened my eyes and tilted my head back, meeting her ecstatic, totally normal face.

“You did it,” she said, voice bright as a summer sunrise. “You did it. I didn’t think even you could do this, but you did it. Toby, you did it!”

“I noticed,” I said, and straightened. My head was spinning, and for the first time in a while, I could feel the edges of a headache pressing against the sides of my skull. Using too much magic will do that. I used to incapacitate myself on a pretty regular basis. These days, it’s a lot less common, and I can be a real baby when my head hurts.

Raysel moved to prop me up again. “Toby? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” I said. “Just used a little more magic than I was counting on.” I was definitely going to have to rethink freeing all the Riders. Raysel hadn’t been fully transformed. That might have made it easier—less spell to strip away—but it might also have made it harder, since her transformation had still been actively rooted to Michael’s magic. Either way, if I was going to do this again, I needed to be braced.

And maybe bring a cooler full of sandwiches. It turns out that even when you’re drinking your own blood, you’re still technically losing it. I could do without sleep for longer than should have been possible. I could skip eating as long as I wasn’t bleeding too much. But when I kept bleeding like it was my job, I would eventually run out of forward momentum.

Raysel leaned in for a hug, and I let her, wrapping my own arms around her shoulders and squeezing her solidly.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said, softly. “I promise.”

“It’s not, but it’s nice of you to say,” she said. “Can we leave now, please? I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Her request almost certainly meant leaving the skerry, not just the hall, but I nodded, shifting my arm to loop around her waist where it could help us both remain upright. “Let’s go,” I said, and started for the door I’d arrived through.

We were almost there when the door swung open and a dark figure stepped through, a candle in one hand. Raysel squeaked and tried to flinch away, but I held her where she was. “Hey,” I said. “It’s okay. It’s Tybalt.”

“Indeed, it is,” he said. “Miss Torquill. You’ve given us quite a fright trying to locate you. I’d prefer not to misplace you again, or my wife, who it seems you’ve managed to find. Good job. She can be a slippery one, our October.”

Raysel giggled, still sounding uneasy. Tybalt stepped forward and she shied away, shifting positions so that I was between them.

“Hey,” I said. “Hey, it’s all right. You know Tybalt. He’s not going to hurt you.”

“I’m sorry,” said Raysel. She sounded sincere, which was better than it could have been. “I just … It’s been a lot.”

“I understand,” he said, backing up again. “October, however, looks like she’s on the verge of collapse. May I assist my wife in leaving this foul place?”

“I think I could be okay with that,” said Raysel.

This time when he moved forward, she stood her ground, and he got an arm around me, both of them holding me up when my wobbly knees threatened to dump me on my ass. I tilted my head back, smiling at him.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hello,” he replied. “Did it never occur to you to wait for me outside?”

“No,” I admitted. “I assumed you’d already managed to find a window and were waiting for me inside, and then once I found Raysel, I sort of stopped worrying about it. I know you can take care of yourself.”

“I found the entirely wrong building,” he said, voice doleful. “A stable, with walls of briar and horses penned within. I had to backtrack to where we’d been separated from each other to catch your scent and follow it to this place.”

“This is the Children’s Hall,” I said. “It’s where they put the children they’re trying to transform. It’s where they put Raysel.”

He looked at her, then at me, clearly taking stock of my condition. “I assume they put her here to change her.”

“They said … they said they’d make me back into what I was supposed to be,” said Raysel, voice shaking so hard that it almost broke. “They said I’d never run away again, because there’d be nowhere I could go. They were going to trap me here. In this place, and in my own body, and … and never let me go home again.”

“Oh, kitten,” he breathed. “The ones who would have done that to you forgot to account for the people who care for you. You are a part of our household, our court, and I am still a King of Cats. No one steals the kittens from my care.”

Raysel smiled, and the expression was so achingly sweet that it made me even angrier with Luna, who was her mother. Who should have known her well enough to care for her, not just for the idea of her.

“I know,” she said. “Toby … she saved me, and I’m sort of glad you weren’t here, because I didn’t need you to see me like that. I didn’t need anyone to see me like that.”