Iron Codex 2 - The Nightmare Garden (38 page)

Tremaine shoved me forward, hissing, “When the queen calls, you obey.”

It was the last thing in the world I would have done willingly, but having been commanded, I walked to the end of the dais, drawing the stare of every Fae in the cavernous room. Whispers went up among them, but I focused on the Winter Queen. Those terrible eyes never blinked, not once. Her lips were the only color on her face, stained to the exact red of blood. When her silver-crowned tongue darted out and licked a spot of the color away, I realized that at least some of it
was
blood.

Fear was something I was getting used to pushing away, to be felt later, when I could deal with it on my terms. But I couldn’t push this away. What I felt looking at the Winter Queen wasn’t like a cut or a scrape but a mortal wound.

I’d never felt such a vibration rolling off a living creature—if Octavia was alive. She didn’t look it, not really. Something was filling up the beautiful vessel sitting before me, making it walk and talk and gesture, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was only renting the space, not inhabiting the flesh.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Aoife,” Octavia said. One slippered foot poked from under her voluminous, airy white, black and red skirts. The foot shoved a silken floor pillow toward me. “Sit.”

This seemed more like exposing my throat as if I were a vulnerable animal than sitting, but I did as she said. I didn’t want to find out what would happen if I was openly defiant.

The pillow silk felt cool, and the marble against the backs of my legs nearly burned with cold. I looked up at Octavia, who was even more terrifying from this vantage
point. “I know what you said, but I have to ask: are you going to kill me?”

“Kill you!” she exclaimed, and let out a laugh like the croaking of a crow. “Why would I do such a thing?” She looked at Tremaine. “You haven’t been nice, have you? You’re never nice.”

“Aoife is only a changeling, Your Majesty,” he said. “I’m not required to be nice.”

“She’s a beautiful present, is what she is,” Octavia said. “And you’ve done well by bringing her here. But if you lay a hand on her again, Tremaine …” Her perfect, frozen face moved into a frown that made her look like a wild animal. “I won’t be happy. Do you understand?”

Tremaine tensed, leaning away from her anger. “Yes, madam.”

All at once, she was back to being regal and expressionless. “Good.”

I watched the exchange, fascinated. So there
was
something Tremaine was afraid of, someone he had to take orders from. I didn’t blame him for his fear—Octavia would be intimidating no matter what the context, never mind when she was perched on her throne like a carrion bird atop a tombstone.

Octavia turned to me once more. “My dear, you must be calm. You saved my life, and I have no intention of harming you in return. Contrary to the stories, my sister the Summer Queen is the one who keeps changelings as pets.”

I must have frowned, because she let out another laugh. “Oh, you didn’t know that, did you? Yes, the Summer Court builds wonderful things that gleam and glitter in the sun. But to do that you need silver and gems, and to get them
you need slaves.” She gestured at the room. “Do you see one goblin—pardon me, Erlkin—enslaved here?”

“No,” I said softly, not knowing where this conversation was going, but fairly sure it was nowhere pleasant.

Tremaine rapped his knuckles against the back of my head. “No,
Majesty
,” he snarled. “Show some bloody respect to your betters.”

I whirled on him, furious, but Octavia beat me to it, rising to her feet with a sound like a dozen crows taking flight.
“Enough,”
she growled at Tremaine. “Your temper is your undoing. Every time.”

Tremaine scrambled back, dipping his head. “Forgive me, Majesty. I was only thinking of your position.”

I saw my chance to perhaps buy myself a little goodwill with the queen, here where Tremaine was cowed and couldn’t smirk or talk over me. “I know Tremaine told you I broke the Gates on my own,” I said. “That I screwed up when I destroyed the Engine and sent the power to Thorn to break your curse.” I stood as well, even though Octavia towered over me when she was upright. If I was going to meet my fate, it would happen while I was standing. “But I didn’t know,” I said. “And all I know now is that if they aren’t fixed, soon the Proctors will have control of the Gates, and complete supremacy over all the Iron Land. They’re already figuring out how to use them. How long until they start trying to conquer Thorn? As it is,” I said, realizing that this, more than anything, might get me out of Thorn, “any of your people, your creatures who come through the cracks, will be trapped there.”

Octavia raised one of those almost invisible, perfect eyebrows, but she didn’t make a move to shut me up, so I kept
talking. From the corner of my eye, I saw Tremaine’s face heating to crimson with rage, but I ignored him. Octavia was my chance to get out of the Thorn Land unscathed.

“Permanently,”
I rushed on. “Forever. The Proctors and the Brotherhood of Iron used to work together, and if another Storm happens, it’ll unite them again. They’ll close the Gates for good and trap whoever is still there, and the creatures of the Mists besides. Your
hexenrings
won’t work, because the Proctors are smart enough to lace all their vulnerable spots with iron. Your people wouldn’t be able to travel anywhere. You’d have Thorn and Thorn only.” I stopped, my heart thudding, and waited for Octavia to either rip my throat out or pass her judgment.

Octavia cut her eyes to Tremaine. “Truth?”

“Of course not!” Tremaine sputtered. “Majesty, nothing of this nature is certain. The problems with the Gates, the issues we’ve had casting
hexenrings
, they’re almost certainly aberrations that can be fixed.” He jabbed a finger at me. “Besides, I know for a fact this little half-blooded bitch lies as easily as she breathes.”

I glared at him. Nothing he said could touch me now. I’d taken the leap off the cliff, and I’d either fly or fall. Name-calling didn’t matter.

“This ‘half-blooded bitch’ saved my life,” Octavia snapped at Tremaine. “She saved all of Thorn from devastation. Or have you forgotten so quickly the very wheels you set in motion?” She pointed one of her bony fingers at him. “And when you talk of half-bloods, Tremaine, you are talking of the offspring of my dear sister. The loss of whom, as you know, I mourn every day. I look harshly on those who would criticize her.”

“You can’t only take the word of this—” Tremaine started.

“I am the queen!”
Octavia jumped from the dais in a fluid motion and advanced on Tremaine, who scuttled backward faster than any bottom-feeding ghoul exposed to light. “And you, while loyal, are nothing more than a servant. Do you understand me, Tremaine? You got Aoife to help us, and therefore you are responsible for what she’s wrought.”

Abruptly, she turned from Tremaine and moved toward me, folding her arms and looking almost conciliatory. I just stayed as still as possible, the way I would have if I’d been faced with a hungry wolf.

“Are you telling me the truth, Aoife?”

I willed my voice not to shake. “Yes.”

“And I suppose,” Octavia said, running one of those talons down my cheek, “that you wish something in return for setting things right.” Before I could jerk away, she moved again, mounting the dais and settling back on her throne. Her movements were so liquid, it was like watching water flow under ice. “Name it, then,” Octavia said, tapping her nails against the bone arms of her throne. “All the knowledge of Fae and Thorn is at your disposal. One thousand years of magic and wisdom. I won’t have it destroyed and sealed off like a tomb. Name your price.”

I shut my eyes. I wanted to sob with relief, but I had a feeling that here, the tears would only freeze against my face. If this didn’t work, I’d likely die. I’d be just another Gateminder who’d played against the Fae and lost.

Strangely, I wasn’t afraid. I knew this was how it had to be, deep down and with certainty. I was more upset that I’d never see Dean again, never get to tell Conrad I was sorry for how our relationship as brother and sister had faltered,
never get to thank Archie for trying to protect me, even if he’d done it in the most backward way possible.

I swiped at my eyes and then faced Octavia. “I want the location of the nightmare clock.”

Octavia tilted her head but didn’t speak. For once her face wasn’t impassive, and I got the idea I’d shocked her, if such a thing was possible. “And why, pray,” she said, “does a sweet half-blood girl need such a horrid thing as the dreamer’s great gear?”

“I need it to fix the Gates,” I said. “Stop the leaks, stop the disasters. Tell me how I get there.”

Octavia grinned at me. “You’re the Gateminder, Aoife. You figure it out.”

I did what was anathema to every screaming instinct then. I turned my back on Octavia, on Tremaine, and started to walk. I cringed with every step, waiting for the blow or the bolt of magic, until I reached the door; then I turned around. “I guess we don’t have a deal.”

“Wait a minute,” Octavia said, her voice echoing down the room. “You don’t just get to walk out of here, Aoife. The Fae can find you anywhere. Your blood calls to us.”

She came to me, across the throne room, and I watched her advance the way I imagined a mouse felt watching a hawk swooping down. “You have something I want, it’s true,” she said. “But then, I have something
you
want. Plus, you’re my prisoner until I say otherwise. So, Aoife, here are
my
terms.”

She reached into a pocket in her dress and pulled out a photograph. It was a tintype of a human, and I gasped when I saw the face, faded and water stained but so familiar.

“My sister, Nerissa,” said Octavia as I stared at my mother.
She was young there, flowers in her hair, far too young to have even met my father yet. “And my terms: The nightmare clock for my blood. Your blood. You and your mother will return to the Thorn Land once you’ve fixed the Gates. I get my sister back, I get my Gateminder, and you get to know you didn’t destroy that filthy, smoke-ridden iron world you insist upon calling home.” She tucked the photograph away again. “It’s a good exchange, Aoife. Take it.”

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Nerissa …? She was full-blooded Fae? It was possible. She and Octavia had the same narrow faces, the same burning gazes. Octavia was fair and Nerissa was dark, but it was possible … Same father, different mothers? How had I not known from Tremaine that Octavia and Nerissa were related?
Because if you had known, you’d never have done as he asked
, the maddeningly logical part of me whispered.

Tremaine appeared at Octavia’s shoulder, smirk firmly back in place. “Good effort, Aoife. But your human half is always going to get in the way of striking a true bargain.”

I ignored him. I couldn’t let Tremaine lord it over me that I’d lost again. There were more important factors to consider. I wasn’t leaving Thorn unless Octavia let me—that much was plain. There wasn’t a machine here that I could trick into getting me home. My Weird was useless. Draven would kill Dean, my mother would be devoured by the wreckage of Lovecraft, and the rest of the people I cared about would fall under martial law put in place by the Proctors as the Storm slowly encroached upon the rest of the world. People like Rasputina couldn’t fight back, even with the Crimson Guard’s acceptance of magic. The world would wither and die like poison fruit.

Or I could accept Octavia’s offer, and then nothing would happen to any of them. The same uneasy balance would exist between Proctors and Brotherhood, humans and Fae. The world would go on exactly as it was. All I had to do was take myself out of the equation, agree to become Octavia’s servant and return with my mother. It wasn’t the choice a Gateminder would make, but in that moment, I wasn’t a Gateminder. I was Dean’s love, I was Conrad’s sister, I was Archie and Nerissa’s daughter. I was a half human who cared about the Iron Land even though it was sometimes dark and desperate beyond compare.

Octavia’s voice pulled me back. “Well, Aoife?”

When I thought about it, it wasn’t a hard choice at all. “I won’t fight you,” I said. “You can have me and my Weird, to do with as you like. But the only way you’re getting Nerissa is if you tell me how to find the clock and send me back to do what needs to be done to stabilize the Gates.”

Octavia looked upward, clearly thinking. It was like being regarded by a hungry, unblinking owl. “Very well,” she said at last. “And of course I can trust you, because if you attempt to void our deal, there will be nowhere you can hide from us. Closed Gates, open Gates, we will find you, Aoife Grayson, and we will pick the flesh from your bones if you betray us.”

I raised my chin. Octavia had to think she didn’t scare me, though the opposite was true. If I was going to spend my time in the court of the Winter Queen, it wasn’t going to be as a pet. “You can trust me. Unlike you, I know what that word means.”

Octavia gave another croaking laugh. “Good. As for the nightmare clock, the mad inventor Tesla didn’t just build
Gates between physical realms. He started the Storm, and it will end with him.” She snapped her fingers. “Tremaine, take her back to the
hexenring
.”

He dragged me out of the room, his mouth set in a grim line. I hadn’t seen Tremaine angry often before, but it had always led to explosive results. “I bet you think you’re terribly clever for pulling that little stunt, ratting me out. Rest assured, when you’re back in the fold, I’m going to teach you some manners.”

I jerked my arm from his grasp and stepped into the
hexenring
on my own. After hearing Octavia’s revelations, after being taken from the Bone Sepulchre, I was worn out. I didn’t have the capacity for any more emotion. “I’ll never be afraid of you again,” I told Tremaine as my body began to separate from my mind, the awful vertigo of magic sinking its claws into me once again. It might not always be true, but after what had happened, I couldn’t let him think he’d won. “I’ve seen what else is out there. You’re nothing.”

Tremaine laughed, throwing his head back. “I’ll be everything to you, Aoife. You’ll see, when you return. If I can’t take the Winter Throne as a regent, then marrying its heir will do nicely.”