A door slammed in the distance, the sound echoing along the hall. Arden tensed.
From the other side of the cell, Nolan said, “Sister dear, I don’t mean to rush you, but I think you’re about to have company.”
I glanced in the direction his voice was coming from. A hole hung in the air, showing a bare-earthed field scattered here and there with the orange domes of pumpkins, and a man who looked very much like Arden standing anxiously at its center.
“I know, Nolan,” she said, tersely. “I’m trying to get her to move. I don’t want to just grab her.”
“Well, you may have no choice. This charm won’t hold much longer, and we don’t want them to find two prisoners when they come to haul off their one.”
Charm? Well, that explained the whiff of cider. Father has always been gifted at the art of borrowing magic from other people’s blood, and in blending it in ways that shouldn’t have been possible. But his own magic almost always worked its way into the mixture.
“Sadly, my brother’s right, and we’re out of time,” said Arden. She grabbed my wrist, dragging me to my feet as she stood. “I hate to abduct you after the night you’ve had already, but it looks like that’s what’s about to happen.”
“Wait!” I yelped.
She stopped, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, my name is October, and yes, I’m a little tired of being abducted, but I have a headache and I don’t know how you can be in here, and I absolutely killed the man they’re going to accuse me of killing. I don’t need a ride out of here. I need a fair trial and to face justice for what I did.”
“Oh, honey. If you think you’re getting a fair trial in this Court, they’ve done more of a number on you than I was afraid they had.”
I crossed my arms. “You don’t know me.”
“No, but I know some people who do, and I know how the Courts treat changelings,” she said. “I know that Nolan and I have been evacuating people all up and down the coast since Moving Day began, and I know it’s not going to be enough, but I know we can’t stop trying, not while there’s a chance we might be able to get one more changeling out of harm’s way. And I know I’m coming close to the point where the iron does real damage, which means you might already be there and thus not be thinking very clearly.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that much like pushing a drunk out of the bar at closing time, I don’t feel like I’m really crossing any lines by throwing the changeling out of the iron-riddled dungeon before the guards arrive.”
With that, she grabbed me again, twisting around so that she fell backward through the portal her brother was holding open, allowing her own mass to drag me after her. I tried to twist my wrists free but couldn’t quite break her grasp, and when she hit the ground, I landed on top of her, and both of us were somewhere . . . else.
The air was different. That was the first thing I noticed. There was no tang of car exhaust, which meant we weren’t back in the human world, and the scent of rotting yarrow barely masking iron was absent as well. Instead, I smelled fresh-turned earth and mulch. Arden pushed at my shoulders until I rolled off of her. Then she pushed herself to her feet, not trying to help me up, and turned to her brother.
“I just took a lot of ferrous fuckery to the teeth, so if you could help me out here, I’d appreciate it.”
Wordlessly, Nolan produced a stoppered bottle from inside his jacket—which matched hers, I noted; the two of them were dressed virtually identically. Given their respective heights, I wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart at a distance if her hair hadn’t been so much longer. Braid it and tuck it down the back of her jacket and even that difference would go away. Interesting.
Arden pulled the stopper and swallowed the bottle’s contents in two hard gulps before making a theatrical retching noise and wiping the back of her hand, hard, across her lips.
“Sardines and spoiled tomato jam,” she said, in a tone like she was making a report. “How does it keep getting worse?”
Nolan produced a canteen this time, offering it to her.
“Best brother,” gasped Arden, snatching it away and proceeding to wash her mouth out enthusiastically with its contents.
A drink would have been nice. My mouth still felt like a mile of dry sand. My head was spinning wildly. I tried to push myself up onto my hands, and stopped as Arden’s attention swiveled back to me.
“Uh-uh,” she said. “You were in there longer than I was, and you’re not as fae, but we don’t know how long you were asleep, either. You could be on the verge of actual death.”
“Which is a real thing,” said Nolan. “I know sometimes it feels like a story told to keep you in line, but I assure you, death happens.”
“She knows that,” snapped Arden. “She was going to stay there and let herself get executed. Give me the next bottle.”
“Did you take that bad a dose?” Nolan sounded alarmed.
“No, silly, it’s for her.”
“I know she’s been annoying, but has she really earned that sort of punishment?”
“Give it to me.” Nolan produced another bottle. Arden took it before crouching next to me again, holding it out. “You’re a little scrambled right now, so I’m going to forgive you for being a pain in my ass and trying to get martyred for a cause you can’t possibly understand just yet. That said, you were in there for a while, and you’ll feel better if you drink this. Eventually, I mean.”
“What is it?” I asked, warily.
“The alchemist who made it says it binds to the iron in your body and wraps it in a shell that keeps it from hurting you while it works through your system. But then, this particular alchemist says a lot of things, so maybe he’s full of shit. What I can say for sure is that if you drink it, you’ll hate me, but then the iron will stop burning and freezing you at the same time, and it won’t chew any fun new holes in your liver.”
I took the bottle. When I removed the cap, it smelled like chocolate oranges. Frowning, I glanced at Arden.
She smiled encouragingly. “First impressions can be deceiving. For example, I think you’re petulant and annoying, and you probably think I’m the worst. Let’s try to fix that, shall we?”
Right. Well, she might be irritating, but pulling me out of an unbreachable dungeon in order to poison me in a field seemed a little over the top, even for a pair of bored purebloods. I pressed the bottle to my lips, letting gravity do the bulk of the work as I drank.
That was a good thing, because it meant I couldn’t stop drinking when the taste registered. It was also a bad thing, because it meant I couldn’t control how fast the stuff filled my mouth. I swallowed frantically, trying not to choke, and when it was gone, I sat up and scowled at Arden.
“What the hell was that?” Yelling at purebloods seemed to be turning into a bad habit of mine. At least this time I had a good reason for it.
“An interesting question,” said Nolan, bouncing into my field of view. “We’ve been taking notes, trying to find any predictable pattern in the flavor. What was it for you?”
“Oysters and mint chocolate,” I said, wishing I had something I could use to rinse the taste away, or at least something I could wipe my tongue on. “Ew.”