Matchbox Girls (31 page)

“This way,” continued the faerie, “you are restrained, and we will drain your power out of you, but your... nature… is untouched. You are not made to suffer.” His mouth curved up in a feral, unamused smile.

Marley stared at him in horror. “No! No, I
will
suffer!”

“But how can you? It is such a benign form of captivity. And sometimes we will take you out and let you dance for us. Won’t that be fun?” The tickle of the inking moved up her foot to her ankle. “Won’t you be grateful for such a minor form of freedom?” He tilted his head to one side, as if listening to something, his gaze growing distant.

Then his gaze snapped back to Marley. She was sure her foot was tingling where the ink had been laid. Was yet another enchantment seeping inside her? Is that why they’d captured her in this way, was that what Tarn wanted? Her magic? Perhaps her powers would be put to use protecting Ettoriel?

She was trapped here. There was no one to hear her scream, no one who cared. All that effort to avoid Ettoriel, and she’d walked right into this hidden enemy’s grasp.

A warm finger pressed against her lips, and Marley realized that she’d been whimpering as she stared sightlessly ahead. The first faerie removed his finger, his eyes meeting her own. “You don’t like that fate? What would you do to escape it? Lie? Cheat? Betray?”

Hope flared in Marley.
Almost anything. But...
“I wouldn’t just let you hurt those children, if that’s what you’re asking.”

He tapped her mouth. “You’re a very dense little girl. Carry on, my brothers.” He stepped away and looked around. “Where did the sweet kitten scamper off to?”

Marley twitched convulsively as tickling began on her other foot. Where was Neath? Why, after protecting her in so many dreams, had the strange cat abandoned her now? What had Tarn said about her? A construct of her mother's, protecting her?

Tears sprang to Marley’s eyes. What a fantasy.

“Hmm,” said the first faerie, staring off into a corner. There was a sparkle of light on the carpet that slowly resolved into the wildcat-sized Neath. She flattened her ears and yowled. Her shadow flowed out like spreading ink behind her. It reared up, morphing into a rough human shape.

“Brothers,” said the first faerie, warningly. The black shape broke into pieces, light and color streaming out from the cracks. A breeze came from nowhere. Then the shadows flew in all directions, not shadows now but ravens. Corbin stepped into the Velvet Court.

-thirty-three-

L
ight streamed from both of Corbin's hands, and one eye glowed blue while the other was a black pit. Darkness seemed smeared across his face, and his hair tangled in the wind he’d brought with him.

He pointed with his left hand, silver light dripping from his finger, and the wind smashed into the faeries who held Marley. “Let the girl go,” he called.

“You have come into our realm, our power, halfling, a willing visitor,” growled the first faerie. “We will add you to our menag—ah!” A raven the size of a hawk had descended on him. More assaulted the faeries holding Marley, so that all she saw was wings, and all she heard was the cries of birds and men. Her feet were released, tickled by feathers.

The metal hands gripping her wrists opened. She fell to the floor, landing awkwardly on exhausted legs that promptly gave out beneath her. A faerie tripped over her and she covered her head and curled up. After a moment, when nobody else stepped on her, she started crawling toward where she’d last seen Corbin.

A hand closed over her arm and hauled her upright. She struggled tiredly before recognizing the golden glow around Corbin’s hand, and raising her eyes to his face.

Up close, she barely recognized him. Something cold and inhuman had settled over his features. He glanced over her and she wondered what had happened to his left eye. Then he raised his golden hand and touched it to her forehead. Something intangible popped free, leaving her feeling, on some metaphysical level, less constricted. The glow on Corbin’s hand changed texture, becoming tinged with blue.

“Where is the master of this Court?” demanded Corbin, turning his attention back to the faeries brawling with his ravens. Not just his ravens, either. White lightning soundlessly jumped from faerie to faerie, blinding their eyes and tying up their feet. Perspective skewed, until she wasn’t sure if the ravens were larger or the faeries smaller.

“Can we get out again?” she asked Corbin. “However you got here?”

“I don’t know,” he said in an undertone. “I came on the tail of your cat.” She followed his gaze to where Neath was damaging a faerie with spiky purple hair. It looked like she’d grown again. “I’m not ready to leave yet, though. Where are the children?”

“He tricked them away from me, lured them out and did some magic to this place that snatched them beyond my reach,” she said angrily. “Out of my range.”

“Rather like this,” said Tarn’s voice, and a cold wind swept through the room, tumbling both birds and the smaller faeries. But there was more to it than that. The cushions and hangings all turned translucent and hard, like a model of a luxurious room carved from diamond. Or ice. Every inanimate thing in the room was now ice or snow, including the walls. Only around Corbin did the material of the room maintain its original character. His hands glowed brightly.

Tarn, standing at the same door he’d departed through, looked mildly irritated. “My dear, if you wanted more company, you had only to ask. You didn't need to summon this ruffian.” He waved a hand and the whole room twisted, the ice flowing and reforming into different structures, until they were in a prison run by the Snow Queen. Fur-lined handcuffs hung on the inside door of the large barred cell that had appeared around them, and a glass cake dome appeared around each of the ravens. A number of unusual implements, all silver and crystal, hung on the wall beside Tarn.

But the new scene barely lasted long enough for Marley to register the details before Corbin lifted his hands and the fittings of the room shattered into whiteness. All was mist, with Tarn and his goblins barely visible through the drifting coils. The ravens cried and flapped through chilly air.

“Do you know what happened when you stepped inside the door?” Corbin asked in a low voice.

“I
told
you. He stole the children.”

“I mean when everything exploded. I saw it as the door closed. No? I’ll tell you. Three things combined: the nature of this place, the curse Ettoriel placed on you, and your own gift. An enormous amount of power was released. It left marks. Normally, I wouldn’t be able to fight a faerie lord, not in his own land, but he must have exerted significant resources to repair the breach you caused.”

“Can I do it again?”

He glanced at her and took her hand. “I have no idea.”

“What was that you took from me?”

“That enchantment I couldn’t identify earlier. A marker for him.” He nodded toward where Tarn was tracing delicate shapes through the mist with his long hands. “He’s been tracking you.”

Marley closed her eyes and felt for the curse, felt for the demon’s gift. The curse was there, but still unfocused. The demon’s gift—but she was exhausted. She couldn’t control it.

“What can you do now that you’re here?” she asked quietly. “I want to make him talk. He’s been playing with me in my dreams since Zachariah vanished. He’s got Zachariah somewhere, and maybe Branwyn and Penny too, and I want to know why. He doesn’t have the same motivations as Ettoriel, I know that.”

“The dreams explain the mark's purpose, then. Look out,” Corbin said, and pulled her to one side. Color was creeping into the mist and swirling along the ground. “Let’s walk while we talk, shall we?” He set out in an apparently random direction, towing her after him. Marley thought he’d run into a wall soon, because the room hadn’t been that big. But he didn’t. The white mist thickened around them.

“What exactly are you doing?” Her body ached all over. It wanted her to lie down and sleep, preferably after a long, hot bath. She ignored it.

“Right now? In layman's terms, I'm interfering with the signal he broadcasts to control the environment. I took the signature from the enchantment he put on you.” He raised his blue-tinted hand. “I’m making a lot of spiritual noise. “

Marley nodded, thinking, looking down at her feet. She was wearing shoes again. But she'd felt the ink on her skin. What was real here?

Corbin went on. “You said Zachariah was here? I wonder if we can find him.

“He said Zachariah was his son,” Marley said.

Corbin stopped walking to look at her. “Did he really? That explains a lot about the tricky old bastard.” It was a moment before Marley realized he was describing Zachariah as old. “Maybe he’s just congenitally unable to tell the simple truth. Let’s find him and ask.”

“If we’re going to find somebody, I’d rather find the children. If Zachariah is well, he’s not going to stop being well in the next few hours. “ And if she could get the girls back this time, she wouldn’t hang around L.A. She’d find someplace to run to.

“You’re not desperate enough yet, girl,” said Tarn’s voice from somewhere in the mist. “Your eternal optimism, so human. Your inability to fight back, so like your mother.”

“Words are cheap, faerie,” called Corbin, and squeezed her hand. “Shall I—”

Light flared around them. Marley jerked so hard she tripped herself, but it was Corbin who twisted and sprawled, as gravity reversed itself for him. A room spread out from the burst of light and they were once again back in the Velvet Court. This time, it was Corbin who was caught up by the metal hands. He kicked and twisted as goblins swarmed him.

Tarn slouched on a throne at the far end of the room. Neath prowled in a cage at his feet. He waved a long-fingered hand. “You failed with the girl, my pets, but look, I give you a second chance with the boy. Do your best work.”

Marley lunged forward, without a plan, and banged into a transparent wall. She stared at what she could not see, rage and disbelief warring within her. She wasn't desperate enough? Had all the mist been yet another trick by the faerie lord?

Then Corbin grunted, a sound far more disturbing than any cry he might have made, and she threw herself at the invisible barrier again. If only Corbin would let her protect him. All she wanted to do was keep her friends safe.

Yet how could she fault him for rejecting her? Look how little she’d been able to help AT or the girls. She was useless—worse than useless—to those who had trusted her. Her vision was the stuff of nightmares. If only she could use it aggressively. If only she could fight.

Her skin felt spiky again. Her gaze fixed on Tarn, fully activating the catastrophe vision. He
was
going to suffer soon. He was bound, and he was dancing with dreadful danger, and he was enjoying it.

For a moment, her vision blurred. Logic disjointed, and then she saw clearly again. She couldn’t protect without permission. But he was doing something dangerous, and he knew it. He
wanted
to be hurt.

“Enjoy this,” she whispered. She reversed her shield and wrapped it around him, so that the spikes were on the inside.

Tarn gasped. The sound, soft as Corbin’s grunt, stilled the room. The goblins fell away from Corbin and the hands holding him up released him. He landed on the floor in a crouch, his clothing torn and his skin scratched.

Marley raised her hand to the invisible wall and brushed her fingers across it. It melted away and she stepped forward, watching. Her stomach twisted with nausea even as elation rang in her ears. Tarn’s hands clutched his shoulders, his face tilted up. His face contorted, and she was
glad
.

Little noises came from Tarn. Marley drifted closer, straining to hear. Was he begging? She’d begged. Her gorge rose, but she forced it down again. She was doing what was necessary, and her squeamish stomach would just have to cope.

Then she realized that Tarn was laughing. He spread his arms. “Yes. Finally. Such a good girl. Your mother’s daughter, but she’d be horrified now.”

“Shut up about my mother,” Marley snapped. “She abandoned me. I don’t want to hear about her.” But her gaze moved unwillingly to the caged Neath, who he’d called her mother’s construct. The cat sat in the cage, perfectly still, staring at her.

She looked back at Tarn again, who was still coughing with laughter. “What’s so funny? It hurts. I
know
I’m hurting you.”

“You have bound me utterly,” he agreed. “It is glorious. You’ve bound me so close that no other binding can hold. “

Beside her, Corbin breathed, “I knew it! They
are
invoking the Covenant.” Marley glanced at him. He’d clearly understood something, but Marley was still waiting for the dawn.

Corbin saw her expression and went on. “That’s like the Hush, but for the fae. My people modeled the Hush after the Covenant. But I thought it was just suppression, not control.”

Tarn cleared his throat. “Leave,” he said, looking at his passive goblins. A few were stirring uneasily. “Go back to the Feast and await my call. Leave, now!” One by one, they faded into shadows.

“It's much cruder than the Hush. It is both a cage and a bridle. Do you think we'd been hiding in our lands sulking, all these centuries? Only the smallest of part of us could slip the bit,” continued Tarn, and his voice was echoing and desolate. “Now Ettoriel has gained the reins, for his wonderful attempt to save the world. The other angels were happy to loan him one of the leashes when he told them he might break the Hush as a byproduct of his heroism. Us, bound to help free the angels!” Laughter bubbled in his voice again, but he mastered it. “He commands us to
aid him
, and so we must. He commands us to
hinder you
, and so we must. He commands us to
reveal nothing
. He commands us to
feed him power
and he does not care how.” The laughter escaped, taking away his ability to speak.

“The wildfires,” said Corbin. “You’ve been using the fire as a power source for his magic.”

“Clever boy,” Tarn said. And he turned his gaze to Marley, looking at her with too-bright eyes, as if waiting for her to understand.