him bits of living oak to ease the pain of crippling.
He owed her.
“Please!” The water swelling in his eyes might be a clever ploy, but who could tell? “They must have scented you. They’ll come back—go, go!”
Come back? Does he mean Unwinter’s kin came visiting? Later she would think she should not have hesitated, her mouth opening slightly and the song blooming deep below her throat. It came from a place other than breath and biting, past tasting and swallow. Parsifleur must have seen it on her face, for he cowered against the door of his bolthole…
… so his was the life they took when their curved, silver-chased flintblades pierced the veil of seeming and found flesh.
Robin stumbled back over piles of oddments, her heels sinking in and her ankle threatening to twist before she saved herself with a fishlike sideways jump. Parsifleur hung against his illusion-shell door, the light in his wet eyes dimming as his mouth worked weakly, and the song burst from her throat full-born.
They were cold pale barrow-wights, not bark-skinned or Twisted as poor Pidge had become, their eyes alight with Unwinter’s will and their grasping fingers clasped about hilts chased with moon-gems. It made no difference, for the key shifted and Robin’s song dropped a full octave, becoming a river of sharp-edged sunshine that blasted the illusion-door and the solid concrete wall on either side with considerable force. There was a rumble, a high keening, and twisted steam-threaded bodies flopped as Robin inhaled, backing up still further in a quick, light-clattering shuffle. Here, with enough breath and a means of escape to hand, she was slightly more sanguine about her chances.
Still, such a broad spread of the song’s force would not last long. Robin was no warrior. Fleeing was always better, using the song to distract or stun so she could escape.
And yet.
Orange-veined and smoking, the ruin of Parsifleur Pidge crumbled to the floor of his hole, and she spared another few counts of precious breath to sweep through his remains and make certain. The song crackled, full of the hot sough of a forest fire’s breathing under the organ notes. It was all she could do, burning the wood-spirit that remained, however twisted by the cold iron that had been driven through his ley, so that he could not be taken by Unwinter and forced to serve as part of the Hunt.
Or worse, the Sluagh’s ghostly cavalcade.
Then she had to breathe again, sucking in smoke-laden air and conscious of the rumbling silence that was full of little hisses and twitches as the wights found they were not quite torn from living’s embrace just yet.
Not until she could gather more air, and bring more killing sunshine into this dark hole.
“Ragged,” one of them snarled in the darkness. “He wantsssssss you.”
No need to ask who. Only Unwinter would send barrow-wights. He’ll have to catch me first.
She did not say it. Save the breath for that which matters, the first lesson she learned in Summer’s beautiful, treacherous Court. Now her lungs were full, and her shoulders hit the weeping concrete wall next to the back door. If she killed now, any reinforcements arriving later would have trouble tracking her over cold iron, and she could use her own quirpiece’s echoing to find the trail of the knight who had saved her earlier. All things should be so simple for the one who had crafted it, and she, unlike most sidhe, did not have to worry about the chantment fading with dawn’s cold rise.
Later, though. First, the Ragged Robin had to survive.
They came for her, their eyes lunar sparkles in the cold dimness, and Robin’s back, scraping against the wall, ran with prickles and danger, again. The sensation was useless, so she discarded it and opened her mouth completely, letting her throat relax and the music swell out. As long as she was breathing, they would not catch her here.
The hot salt water on her cheeks was a weakness, and she denied it, even as she sang Parsifleur’s assassins into dissolution. All but one, and that one was her own self, scrambling through the escape-tunnel on hands and knees, hoping the wights were the only pursuers she would face tonight.
It does not matter, Robin. Run now, and pray for absolution later.
There was no absolution to be had, but Robin ran.
A REVERSAL OF ANGER
13
Morning sun striped his face. He kept forgetting to close the blinds. Jeremiah Gallow woke flung on his back, a chill running through his bones and