Artificial Night, An - Seanan McGuire Page 0,45

and saw Raj crouched beside my tree, making himself as small as he possibly could. “How did you get away from Acacia?”

“The yellow woman?” He snorted, arrogance returning as he said, “She asked the trees about invaders, but not about animals, so they didn’t tell her. Trees aren’t very smart.”

“Clever.” I meant it. When I was fourteen, I thought trees were things to climb, not things you could trick. “Why did you come back?”

“Because of her.” I looked at him blankly, and he said, “She was looking for you. I don’t think she’d have been looking for you if you worked for Him.” He paused. There was no trust in his eyes, but there was something else: the first flickers of hope. “Are you really the October my Uncle Tybalt knows?”

I sighed. “Yeah. That’s me.”

Raj frowned. “My father says Uncle Tybalt’s friend October is an adult.” He paused. “And a hussy.”

“I usually am. An adult, not a hussy.” Hussy? What the hell was Tybalt telling his Court? The King of Cats and I were going to have a long talk when I got my own body back.

“But you’re younger than I am!”

“Courtesy of the Luidaeg,” I said. Raj flinched at her name. More quietly, I said, “Your uncle asked me to get you and the others out of here, and the Luidaeg put a spell on me to make it possible.”

“You let the sea witch cast a spell on you?” The wariness vanished, crowded out by awe and fear. “And you survived?”

“She’ll kill me eventually, but not today. Today I’m going to get you out.”

“How?”

Good question. We were crouched in the middle of an enchanted forest with nothing but a hollow tree for cover, and I still had no idea where the other kids were. For that matter, I didn’t know how I was going to get them out when we found them. All I had was a knife that was too big for my hands, a candle I didn’t dare to put down, and a half-grown Cait Sidhe who kept fluxing between terrified and arrogant. There have been times when I had to work with less, but root and branch, you can only count on a miracle so many times before reality puts its foot down.

Not that there was anything else I could do. It was time to roll the dice against that miracle one more time.

“You were running from the Huntsmen before,” I said. “How did you get away?”

“It was Helen,” he said, sounding ashamed. Of course he was ashamed—no teenage boy wants to admit that he was saved by a girl. “She found a way out of the room we were locked in. None of the others would follow her. But I . . .”

“You thought it might be worth trying.”

“I thought I could find the trail they brought us in by.” He looked away. “I thought I could get us out, and Uncle Tybalt would come, and we’d destroy them.”

“How far did you get?” I asked. I hated to do it; his posture told me he was on the brink of tears, and pushing him over that edge might make him useless. I didn’t really have a choice. I needed to know whether I had any hope of saving the others.

“A long way,” he whispered. I waited, but he didn’t say anything else. He just huddled, ears pressed flat, shaking.

Right. I rose, offering him my hand. “Come on. We’re going now.”

“Where?”

“Away from here.” I didn’t know how I’d get him out without going through Blind Michael, but that could wait. He needed to be moving more than I needed to have a plan.

He looked at me warily, then slid his hand over mine, covering it to the wrist. The reality of what the Luidaeg had done was sinking in. How was I supposed to save the kids and defeat Blind Michael when I was just a kid myself? Raj was watching me with an anxious sort of trust. I sighed. Whether I stood a chance or not, I had to try. I hate being the last resort.

It took us longer to fight our way out of the woods than it had taken to enter; the branches snagged at our clothes, and the roots tangled around our feet until it seemed like the trees were actively working against us. But the candle was steady and blue, and I found that if I watched the flame rather than the landscape, I could walk without stumbling.

“You can get there