Matchbox Girls (30 page)

The twins were nowhere to be seen, but the figure that had seemed so close to Zachariah in silhouette was still present. A single door led from the room, behind him. She could see no sign of the portal that Kari had opened.

Still dazed, she stared up at the man as he moved closer to her. The resemblance to Zachariah went beyond his height and build; he had Zachariah’s hair and there was a familial likeness in the features. This man was even more attractive, though, exuding a magnetism that Zachariah barely carried off.

He blew out his breath in a sigh, and then smiled at her. “Come now, stand up. We’ve waited so long for you.”

There was something familiar in his voice, too. It was deeper than Zachariah’s, a lazy drawl that didn’t seem to expect much of her even as his words encouraged action.

She tilted her still-ringing head, trying to understand who he was. He looked like Zachariah, yes, but that wasn’t where the familiarity stopped. “Who are you?” she breathed.

He held out a hand and flexed his fingers. The air before his hand shimmered, and a tiny winged figure sprang into existence. He bent his hand forward and the figure bowed. He waggled a pair of fingers and the figure opened its mouth in a pantomime of speech.

It was Tinker Chime. Chime, the adorable little pixie, had been a puppet of the man standing before her. He’d done everything he could to lure her into his domain, and as soon as she’d entered, he’d ripped the twins away from her.

Part of her felt she had to get up, rage, attack him. Part of her wanted to weep and shudder in a corner. The rest of her thrust herself to her feet. The oversized cat on her chest fell onto its paws and entwined itself around her legs.

“You took them. You took
all
of them. Zachariah. Branwyn and Penny. The kids. Where are they?”

“Some of them are here, some of them are there. What does it matter now? You’ve lost them.” The bastard’s little smirk didn’t change.

“No, you’ve stolen them. There’s a difference.”

His smile broadened. “Is there?”

Marley paused to consult her guardian sense. The kids were still alive, although in great danger. She thought they were asleep. She had a vague sense that they were
thataway
but had no idea which direction
thataway
was. She nodded at the door behind the man. “Is that the way out?”

“I must inform you there is no way out.” His smile twitched.

Marley was tired. She'd been utterly emptied by recent events. But she put her hands on her hips. “Are you trying to be intimidating? Because you’re a man who masquerades as a six-inch-tall pixie. Last night I had somebody trying to shred my soul. You’re going to have to try harder.”

He moved his head to one side, staring down at her. The world went all topsy-turvy again, knocking her off her feet. Something cold and hard caught her around one wrist, then the other.

The world righted itself, with a yank on her arm sockets. This time she was dangling with her toes a few inches above the ground. Her wrists were pinioned over her head, held by, as far as she could tell, a pair of metal hands jutting from the wall.

“Pretty good,” Marley panted. Her shoulders hurt and her head drooped.

“I can’t just let you go,” said the faerie. He sighed again and the light puppet of Chime crossed its arms and tapped its foot. Marley wondered if he always had the puppet out, like a ventriloquist. The thought was unbearably creepy. She shuddered.

Then the little puppet faded away, and the tall man said, “Exhausted, confused darling. If you had found your way here earlier, you could have rested between your downfall and the end of our little play.” His eyes slid away from her, finding the cat crouched to one side, growling quietly. “Your damnable guardian delayed things some. Is it a construct of your mother’s, perhaps?” His gaze shifted back to her. His eyes were pied, one green, one brown. “But you came, all the same.”

“You could have lured me in a lot quicker with an open door and a big sign saying, ‘ZACHARIAH HERE’.”

“But then we wouldn’t have had all those marvelous talks. I enjoyed them, despite that thing.” He nodded at Neath again.

“You enjoyed lying to me, you mean. Who the hell are you, anyhow?”

He bowed. “I am Tarn, Duke of Underlight and Master of the Sunset Halls. This is my Velvet Hall, and here is my court.”

-thirty-two-

M
arley became aware of the feeling of dozens of eyes watching her. The staring was a pressure, a familiar pressure. She’d felt this before over the past few days, at Zachariah's and at Penny's. Invisible eyes, watching her from all directions. But this time the eyes weren’t invisible. In the shadows among the hangings on the walls, they glinted.

Marley twisted in the metal grip. The presence of many observers made her feel even more helpless. She wondered if Severin would actually do as he’d threatened, and come to claim her if she failed. She wondered if this Tarn person would let him. Would they fight? She was pretty sure that wouldn’t go well for her. Or what if they teamed up on her?

Blackness rolled over her vision. The curse had only triggered a moment ago, but already it was growing stronger again. She didn’t have a clear memory of what exactly had happened, in that horrible moment when the twins had been torn away and the world had spun upside down, didn’t know what had broken or where, but she’d felt it strike through her. What would it break next time?

Tarn stared at her calmly. Slowly, she became aware of the rustling sense of expectation among the half-hidden fae in the shadows. They were waiting for something. Was Ettoriel going to come in and finish the job his curse kept almost doing? Was this a strange form of fae torture?

“My arms hurt,” she said. “I’m sorry I asked you to try harder to intimidate me.”

“You still don’t seem very intimidated,” Tarn pointed out. “I must say, Action Girl Branwyn was far more... curious... about her situation than you are.”

Realization dawned. “You want to
exposit
at me. Oh. You definitely need a cat for that. Neath, you’re up. Go snuggle with him.” She felt drunk with exhaustion.

Tarn laughed out loud and snapped his fingers. An upholstered footstool appeared beneath Marley’s feet, so that while her wrists were still captured, her weight was no longer dragging on them. “It would disappoint us both if you were simply abandoned to languish in captivity. It’s so dull in Underlight these days, even in the Velvet Court.”

Marley looked around the shadowy room. “Is anything here actually real?”

Tarn moved closer. “I am.”

“And them?” She pointed with her chin at the eyes in the shadows. They shifted about, blinking on and off.

“Real enough.”

“But this Velvet Court of yours isn’t real. That’s how you pulled the children away.”

“Space is malleable, especially here.” He looked around fondly. “It’s served us well over the years.”

Marley moved her hands back and forth, wondering if she could work them free. What would she do then? Even if she dodged her many watchers and made it to the door, she would still be trapped in this flexible world, with no idea of how to get to the children. No, the only way forward was to play his game. Maybe she could get some kind of concession from him if she kept talking. If she entertained him.

“So, do you believe the girls are dangerous as well? Is that why you’re helping Ettoriel?”

Tarn laughed again, a full, rich sound. “I
know
they are dangerous. Their touch will not fade from the substrate of my realm for many years. You did not see it, but when we took them, the world separated around them, like butter from buttermilk.”

Marley remembered the white flare she’d seen when the curse had struck and wondered if she had seen the passage of the twins after all.

“Good,” she said, and she didn’t bother to keep the vindictive pleasure from her voice. “You deserve trouble for helping that bastard.”

Tarn dipped his head, as if he didn’t disagree with this statement. “It has been a long while since we could do what gave us pleasure.” When he looked at Marley again, there was a hunger in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

Marley felt the sudden urge to back away, pressing her shoulders futilely against the wall. “Why do you look like Zachariah?”

Tarn tossed black hair away from his eyes. “Zachariah was never what I'd call a
charming
child, not like your two wards. Even knowing what was at stake, what could be accomplished, he chose to resist my command. But he always did have a knack for predicting the path of games.” There was grudging pride in his voice.

Marley blinked and then blinked again. “You’re his
father
?”

Tarn smiled again. “His mother was a beautiful, intelligent woman, if easily distracted. Somewhat like you.”

“Oh, ew,” said Marley, trying to unthink the idea that possibly she reminded Zachariah of his mother. “Next topic! When are you going to let me go?”

“I told you already that I cannot
let
you go.” His voice was stiff and strange again, and this time, she caught the subtle emphasis.

“Why do you—” She stopped.
Faeries are like lawyers.
“You’re not lying, are you?”
Ettoriel? Who’s that? We serve the Dark Lord Tibbersnaufer
. “But in my dream—” She stopped, confused.

Tarn spread his hands. “For a Duke of Faerie to speak untruths within his own realm would be disastrous. All the realm is bound to the truth of its master’s tongue. But your dream... What are dreams but lies your brain creates to help it understand a greater truth?”

“But what greater truth?” murmured Marley, mostly to herself.

“You already know it,” said Tarn. He raised his gaze, staring off into the distance. “Time is running out. I do hope nothing
unexpected
happens.”

“Your puppet lied to me about who you’re working with. But why? And it was such a ridiculous lie. Tibbersnaufer. Really?”

Tarn’s gaze was still distant. Then it snapped back to Marley. “Do pardon me, but I have to tend to a disruption.” He turned to pace through the door.

Marley called, “Wait!” Tarn paused, his head turned just enough to indicate that she had his attention. “Will you at least let Branwyn go? She’s got no part of this.”

“But she wants a part so very badly,” smirked Tarn, as he vanished through the door.

Marley slumped as much as her restrained arms would let her. Then she realized that she wasn’t alone just because Tarn had departed. The eyes were still all around her, and now their owners were creeping out of the shadows.

Her first thought was “small goblins,” but she realized that though they crouched close to the floor, they were no smaller than her. Nor were they monstrous in appearance. They had wild hair, large noses, and expressive mouths, with slanted eyes, and they moved like dancers emulating animals. Mostly, they seemed male, dressed in rags of silk and fur and feathers, decorated by scars and rainbow-colored tattoos.

One of them, in red silken rags and orange leather, the first from the shadows, loped over to her and stared up into her eyes. On the stool, she was maybe a foot and a half taller than him. Then he ducked his head and pressed his face against her groin, inhaling deeply.

Marley froze in shock, and then kicked up off the stool, trying hard to introduce her foot to his own groin. He dodged to one side, laughing.

“Why don’t you do as my lord wishes?” he inquired, when he had his breath back. “It has been so long since we were free to do as we wish. The world misses us.”

Marley panted, resting her weight on one foot only, ready to kick again. “What are you talking about? He already has what he wants of me.”

He tilted his head, looking at her feet, and then her face. Then he moved closer again. Too close. Reflexively, she kicked out. He caught her foot, as easily as catching a ball. Grinning, he held her foot as she cursed and squirmed, then slipped her shoe off. He tossed the shoe over his shoulder; one of his companions caught it and tried it on his own bare foot.

“Not true. He wants so much more from you.” The faerie’s voice dropped to a croon. “The sun, the moon, the stars.”

“I haven’t got the title for those,” Marley snapped. She yanked on her foot again, her exhaustion driven away by rising panic. It was just as disturbing to have this strange creature holding her foot as sniffing her crotch. Another one came up alongside her, running a single finger over the small of her back.

Shakily, she said, “If you guys don’t back off, I’m going to start screaming. I don’t think your lord would like that.” That had to be true. He was so polite; there hadn’t even been any chains until she’d been rude.

But the faerie holding her foot was still smiling, his strong fingers squeezing its sole. “It rather depends on the screams. He left you here with us quite aware of his actions.”

“Tarn!” she shrieked. A third faerie grabbed at the leg supporting her, wrestling it up, while a fourth pried off her other shoe.

“Perhaps we ought to make you one of us,” suggested the first faerie. “Show you the nature of our captivity.” Her socks came off next. She kicked and twisted and screamed, until she realized that they’d pinioned one foot between three of them and were... tickling it? It was so strange that she gasped and swallowed another scream as she tried to work out what was going on. She couldn’t see beyond their wild heads of hair, but she could feel cool, wet, fine lines being traced across the top and sides of her foot, leaving a residue behind.

Were they writing on her? For a moment, she even caught the distinctive whiff of ink. Then she recalled the markings they all wore, and what they’d said finally made it past her wall of terror.
Perhaps we ought to make you one of us.

Was that even possible? Her memory helpfully supplied the word “changeling” in reply. She shuddered and renewed her fighting, focusing on that foot, on moving it just enough to disrupt the careful inking.

The first faerie looked up at her, his pale eyes hungry. “There are other ways, pretty one, ways you’d like much less.”

Marley stared at him, then shook her head. Just let one thing she disliked happen because if she didn’t, something worse
might
happen? Hell, no!