I didn’t understand that, and so I didn’t say anything, hugging the leather jacket around myself and watching her warily instead.
The Luidaeg cocked her head and raised her hands, eyes on the wall of thorns the whole time. Then, in a voice like scales scything through clear water, low and carrying, she said, “You swore once, when we were children together, that no door of yours would ever be locked against me. You swore, and we were children of Maeve both, we understood how easily promises could be broken, and so we bound the bargain in blood, Mug Ruith, we pledged it to the stones. We’ve broken a thousand promises to one another since that day, but never this one. Now let. Me. In.”
With that last word, she lowered her hands in a sharp, decisive gesture. There was a sound like a sheet of paper being torn, and the briars parted, revealing another forest. It was all trees, same as this one, but the sky was subtly different, the shapes of the branches not quite the same. The air in the opening shimmered like a heat haze, and the Luidaeg was frowning as she looked back at the rest of us.
“This is where we hurry,” she said, and so we did, all of us, stepping quickly through the gap to the other side. I was the last one through. The briars slammed closed behind me, so fast that I felt the wind generated by their collision. I glanced back.
There was nothing there. Only the forest, stretching off into the distance. I blinked, facing front again. “Because that’s not ominous at all,” I muttered.
“This is my brother’s territory,” said the Luidaeg. “Or was, before he died. Ominous was very much his stock-in-trade. And right now, I’m glad you don’t remember most of what we’ve been through together, because I swear, I do not want to hear one little question about why I didn’t let you use this shortcut when you needed it. There are rules.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, and so I just blinked at her as we continued making our way through the darkness.
Not as deep a darkness as it had been on the other side of the briar wall, however: here, the moon overhead cast almost as much light as Grianne’s Merry Dancers, gilding everything in silver and making it easier for me to keep my footing. We continued to work our way through the trees, which were plentiful but not tightly packed, almost like they’d been cultivated that way. The four of us stayed close together, the Luidaeg in the lead, unwilling to risk being separated.
The air was warmer than it had been in the other forest, warmer and sweeter, too, with a faint hint of distant bonfires. People lived there, which was more than I could say for the place where this journey started. I wasn’t sure I’d want to meet them.
No sooner had that thought formed than a hunting horn rang out through the woods, loud and sharp and far closer than I liked. I froze, legs refusing to carry me any farther. Grianne dropped into a defensive posture. Ginevra snarled, showing sharp white teeth. And the Luidaeg smiled.
“I knew it wouldn’t take long for my sister-in-law to notice she had guests,” she said. “Hold your ground, everyone. We should have an escort in a moment.”
I did as she asked. I couldn’t really have done anything else, not with that horn freezing me in place. It rang again, and terror washed over me, cold and bright and bitter, filling my mouth with the metallic taste of my own adrenaline. I had never heard that horn before, but I knew it all the same. It had been starring in my nightmares since I was just a child. That horn was the last thing naughty changelings ever heard.
Hoofbeats began to make themselves known under the ringing, loud and getting louder by the second as the horses pounded through the wood toward us. I had a bare moment to consider how foolish it was to ride horses in a forest this dense, and then we were surrounded. A dozen massive horses poured out of the dark to circle us, their hooves tearing divots out of the earth, their nostrils flaring as they snorted and tossed their heads. Their riders were built to scale, each easily twice as large as I was, wearing mismatched armor that bristled with spikes and patches. They didn’t look like a cohesive force. They looked like a nightmare.
Every one of them was armed, swords and spears and weapons I didn’t recognize but could all too easily picture doing serious and even fatal damage. The Luidaeg was unbowed. She crossed her arms, looking at the rider in what seemed to be the lead of their formation.
“Took you long enough,” she said, dismissively. “All right, you caught us. Fair game, tag, we’re it. Now take us to my brother.
“Take us to Blind Michael.”
I didn’t hear what she said after that, if anything. I was too busy fainting.
EIGHTEEN
I CAME TO SPRAWLED ON the ground, which was cold and hard. Someone was kicking me rhythmically in the hip. I opened my eyes and blinked up at the starry sky before pushing myself into a sitting position. For once, I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut as I looked frantically around, trying to take stock of the situation.
Well, I wasn’t tied up, or in another cell somewhere, and I didn’t seem to have acquired any new bloodstains that I could see. The ground was so hard because it was made of stone, not earth. A layer of straw covered it; not enough to soften the surface, but enough to show that someone had at least tried. The person kicking me was Grianne, who smiled and stooped to offer me her hand when she saw me sit up.
“Hit the ground hard,” she said. “Didn’t wake up. So we moved you.”
“Moved me where?”
She shrugged and gestured behind her, to a low stone building that looked like it had seen better days. Hell, it looked like it had seen better centuries. The roof was thatch, with holes big enough to climb through—or fall through, if you were reckless enough to try climbing on that rickety mess of sticks. Beyond it I could see the red glow of a bonfire. We appeared to be in a similar building, this one entirely sans roof.
“Gin thought you’d be upset if you woke up in the middle of a party; said I’d watch you,” she said.
I took her hand, letting her pull me to my feet. “I appreciate it,” I said. “I wouldn’t have liked to wake up alone.”
She shrugged, reclaiming her hand.
I looked at her thoughtfully. Of my three current companions, Grianne was the one who knew me in this world, not in whatever strange world they came from. “Can I ask you something?”
She nodded.
“Do you think we should save their Faerie?”
“Don’t know,” she said, with another shrug. “I like me well enough. Like my friends. Like the Duke I serve. Even like you. Might not be me in their Faerie. But the way they talk, there’s lots of people missing. All the shifters. The whole Undersea. And there’s the changelings. It’s not supposed to be this way for you. Shadow Roads are collapsing. Don’t like that. Think we might need their Faerie.”
“So you think their version of Faerie is better.”
“Didn’t say that. Said I don’t know. Because I don’t. I can’t. Maybe you can, if you look at enough blood memories. Maybe you can tell me.”
I blinked at her. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk that much.”
She shrugged for a third time, and didn’t say anything more, just started for the light on the far side of the stone building. I took a beat to collect my thoughts, then followed her, trying not to get left behind.