Gates, they would be in a matter of moments.
His left-hand coat pocket was warm, and the golden chain wrapped against his thumb. He closed his eyes for a moment, crouching in ditchwater, the weeds around him already beginning to take notice of the change in the air, rustling softly. Peeking over the park’s low, gray north wall was a ghilliedhu’s birch tree, slender and moss-cloaked, quivering expectantly. Its wandering spirit was at Summer’s revel, so no worries there.
His thumb drifted over an oval of metal. Daisy’s locket had been gold-coated, but this one was true metal through and through, and he thought perhaps Robin’s Realmaking was the cause. When she found he’d taken it, she might be angry, or think it a price extracted for her sleeping safely.
It was something different, though. He concentrated, breathing as softly as he could. Here at the edge of Amberline, the interference was enough to cloak him, the Veil rippling and thickening, thinning and snapping.
All he had to do was watch dawn come up. When it did, he could follow the tugging against Robin’s necklace, and it would lead him straight to her, wherever she had wandered. Hopefully she was still in his trailer, but if she woke she might well consider it not the safest place in the world.
She might even let him explain before she unloosed that song of hers. He’d earned a little gratitude, but even if she wasn’t happy with him, well, once night fell and Unwinter was free to roam, she’d be glad enough of Gallow’s protection.
What, you think she’ll fall right into your arms?
Well, no. But he could… what? Show her he wasn’t so bad? Apologize?
I am not my sister.
No, she wasn’t. Daisy was mortal, and dead these long years.
Five years. Be precise, Gallow.
Something nagged at him. A thin thread of sound.
He stiffened, rose slowly, slowly, to peer over the edge of the ditch. His feet were cold, but his boots had seen worse on mortal jobsites.
Dammit.
Hoofbeats. Soft, slithering rustles. Snicking of claws on pavement.
The necklace tugged against his fingers.
No.
It tugged again, more insistently. The hoofbeats were a measured jog, not the pell-mell of chase. Jingling of tack, a soft, queerly flat neigh.
They melded out of the Veil, fog rising in thick white ropes from the ground to shield them from the murderous light rising in the east. At their head rode Unwinter, and Jeremiah’s knees threatened to go soft for a moment. He realized he was holding his breath, staring at the crowned helm and the hands on the war-horse’s silver-dripping reins.
It makes them strong, before it kills them, Robin whispered in his head.
Unwinter himself was afoot. And Robin Ragged was near.
Was she thinking to escape into Summer as well? If she was awake and moving, she knew her precious cargo was missing. How could he explain? Would she give him time to?
Or did Unwinter have her, bringing her body—or what was soon to become a corpse—to Amberline, to toss over the wall and into Summer? A declaration of war, or merely a slap at the Queen he had been a Consort to so many years ago?
The company of Unseelie halted. Mist thickened, swirling, ice crackling under Unwinter’s horse. A mocking laugh cut through the vapor, familiar and chilling.
“Hail to thee, lord of Unseelie.” Glove-shod feet brushed, and Puck sounded well pleased with himself.
Jeremiah peered over the edge of the ditch. This was a horrible hiding place, and the mist wove around him, its fat flabby corpse-fingers a living blanket along the ground. It was filling the ditch, and his feet would freeze in the water before long. He’d be trapped like the swan in Ell Mercy’s lay, and wouldn’t that be an awful way to die?
“Goodfellow.” Colder than the mist, that voice, and rumbling, too. “I have kept my end of the pact.”
“And so have I. Hark, Unwinter, the Gates of Seelie open.”
It was true. The dawn chorus of birdsong was rising around this mist-walled spot, liquid streams of gold that were the Gate-hinges singing as well. The entire Court would be at the south end of the park, flickering through the Veil as Summer’s white hands brushed the metal lovingly.
“Little good that does me without…” Unwinter halted. “Ah. Her.”
“Give up your chase of my kin, Unwinter, and she shall do what no other has done since the days of your own Harrowing.”
Unwinter’s silent sneer was nevertheless palpable. “And you are so certain of this?”
Birdsong crested. The fog, shot through with rosy tendrils, cringed.
The Gates were