Artificial Night, An - Seanan McGuire Page 0,73

more time as he looked from my reduced feet to the marks in the dirt and back several times. Finally, he nodded. “Yes.”

“Good.” I rose. This was where I’d entered Blind Michael’s lands. If there was a way out, we’d find it here. “We rest here.”

The children dropped where they were, forming loose circles as they flopped on the stony ground. Quentin led Katie to one of the larger rocks, helping her settle. The tail was a problem; she wasn’t aware of its existence, but she couldn’t sit on it without hurting herself. Quentin finally reached around and moved it out of the way, pulling his hands away from the silky hair like he’d been burned.

Katie smiled glassily. “Will we be home soon?” The changes were continuing; thin lines of white hair now ran down her cheeks like a parody of sideburns.

“Sure, Kates. Sure.” He gave me a pleading look. Of course. Leave it to Toby—she needs another ulcer.

My candle was dwindling, still burning a steady blue. We were safe, but for how much longer? I was afraid to risk another invocation.The two I’d done already had used up most of the wax, and we couldn’t afford a failure.

Oh, well. Third time’s the charm, especially in Faerie. “Luidaeg?” I said. “Luidaeg, if you can hear me, we’re scared, and I don’t know how this works. We need to come home now. I’ve got the candle, Luidaeg, you said I could get there and back . . .” The flame sputtered and turned crimson, surging upward. I jerked it away from myself, nearly dropping it, and a hunting horn sounded in the distance.

More horns followed, and more, and more, until the air rang with them and the sound of hoofbeats began to rumble through the ground. Blind Michael’s men were coming, and my candle couldn’t cast enough light to hide us all.

And everything started to happen at once.

The children jumped to their feet, clustering around me in uniform silence. They knew that screaming would destroy any chance of escape. Not that silence was going to save us: the hoofbeats were getting closer, and there was no place to hide. It was finished. It had to be.

I looked at the candle in my hand and at the knife at my belt, and wondered how many of them I could kill before the Riders took us.

“Aunt Birdie! This way!”

I turned toward the voice. Karen was standing behind me, pointing toward the nearest briar. Her robe was dark with dust. “Karen?” None of the others had turned. It was like they couldn’t hear her calling.

“You have to hurry! Go through the thorns—you’ll need the blood! Hurry!” She gestured frantically, and I realized with dim horror that I could see through her. In my experience, see-through people are usually dead.

I was raised a daughter of the Daoine Sidhe; we listen to the dead, and there’d be time to grieve after I’d gotten everyone else out alive. I grabbed Jessica’s hand, tucking Andrew up under my arm, and sprinted for the briar, calling, “This way!” There was a pause, and then the shell-shocked children followed, hauling each other along as they hurried to catch up.

The horns were getting closer. Blind Michael’s men were faster, armed, and on our trail, while all I had was a candle and the word of the ghost of a girl I hadn’t seen die. Not great odds.

I skidded to a stop at the edge of the briar, searching for an opening. There didn’t seem to be one. Karen said we needed blood; fine. Blood was something I could manage. I thrust the hand that held the candle into the branches, ripping my skin in a dozen places. There was an instant of perfect silence, like the world had stopped. Maybe it had.

And a door opened in the air.

The Luidaeg was on the other side, white-eyed and frantic, with ashes in her hair. Her panic barely registered in the face of my own. “Hurry!” she shouted in an eerie imitation of Karen’s tone. “You let it burn too long!”

I didn’t pause to think. I pulled my hand out of the thorns, grabbed Andrew and shoved him at her, then pushed Jessica after him. Raj and Quentin seemed to get the idea, because they started herding the children toward the door. Katie and Helen were among the first. Then the Riders came over the hill, and there was a mad rush as children raced for freedom. In no time at all, it was