“Immortality. What a bitch, right?” I glanced at the staircase. “And Luna . . . She may go sooner than we thought. I wish she hadn’t made that pact.” But there was nothing else to say. Nothing to make it better. Sometimes, we did what we had to, even when the end result was devastating. Sometimes, we played the devil, because playing god was out of reach.
Rhia handed me a sandwich. “Eat. You need food. What were you doing out there?”
I bit into the roast beef with Swiss, and smiled. Simple comforts meant a lot when times were dark. Even with all the riches of my Court, sometimes the best cure to sorrow was standing by a kitchen counter, a roast beef sandwich in hand, talking to my cousin.
Licking the mayo off my fingers, I shrugged. “Talking to the Snow Hag. She gave me advice on how to find Myst’s Achilles’ heel, but I’m not sure how to proceed.” I ran down what I needed to do. “So, I have to travel through time, in a sense. Not like a time machine, but go back in my memories—and that’s one hell of a tumble into the abyss.”
“Yes, it is, but I can help you.” Ysandra was standing at the kitchen door. She swept into the room. “It won’t be easy, and the ritual has its own dangers, but I can help you regress to that time period. The question is are you ready?”
I glanced at Rhiannon and swallowed the bite of sandwich in my mouth. “The question isn’t am I ready. The question is how soon can we get this show on the road?”
And with that Ysandra led me into the living room so I could travel into the past to face down our enemy.
Chapter 10
Of course, as soon as I agreed, fear crept up and hit me over the head like a sledgehammer. “Myst won’t really be there, will she? I mean, whatever I see will be a memory, won’t it?”
Ysandra let out a long sigh. “While I want to say yes, and I believe that’s the way this works, there’s always the chance that—in this life—she’ll sense something going on. Magic is nebulous. You know how unpredictable it can be, and there’s always the chance something will go wrong. But if you have to do this, and it sounds like it might be one of our best chances to find a way to defeat her, then I’m going to say that I think we should go for it.”
Grieve entered the room. He stopped at the sight of us. “What’s going on?”
“Ysandra can help me go into the past, to look for ways to battle Myst.” I brushed my hand across my face, weary beyond belief. “Does it matter that I’m so tired that it feels like I’m about to drop?”
Truth was all I wanted to do was crash. I didn’t even care if I managed to get my clothes off, though sleeping in bloodstained leathers wasn’t all that appealing. In fact, now that I thought about it . . . I began to unbuckle the sides of the tunic, and as I did, the smell of dried blood wafted up, and I had to get it off.
“Help me, I need this off now!”
Ysandra jumped to help me, and I noticed that Rhia had already removed hers. Within a couple of minutes, I was standing there, devoid of the armor, but my corset and jeans felt sticky and ripe. The blood hadn’t soaked through to them, and I hadn’t really sweated—I really didn’t perspire much anymore, ever since the initiation—but the feeling of death clung to them.
“Is there anything in the house I can—” I stopped as Ysandra put a hand on my shoulder. She turned me toward her.
“Cicely, breathe. You are panicking. I think . . . So many changes in such a short time . . .”
I wanted to protest, to be the strong Cicely they deserved. But the truth was she was right. Too much death, too much betrayal and betraying. The dominos were falling, and now there was no stopping the chain reaction. I’d been the fuse on the bomb . . . and now the shockwaves were reverberating faster than we could cope with them.
But something about Ysandra’s touch was calming. I closed my eyes and found myself breathing in sync with her. A few moments later, the panic slid from my body, and I opened my eyes. Rhia and Grieve were watching, as Peyton entered the room.
I turned to her, mutely holding out my hands, willing her to understand and forgive me. I couldn’t say the words, but I prayed she could hear them.
She paused, then slowly walked over to face me. “I understand. I can’t forgive you, not quite yet, but I do understand.”
With light fingers, she lifted my hands to her lips and kissed them lightly. “My mother almost killed you. You thought you could trust her, and she turned out to be a traitor. The stakes are so much higher now. We thought we could trust Leo, and he almost killed Rhiannon. This town runs on treachery. You did what you had to. Luna will come to understand. Someday, she’ll understand.”
“Not if she dies first.” I winced, but held my head up, remembering what Lainule and Ysandra had both taught me.
“Maybe . . . Maybe it will take death to help her see. We can’t make choices for other people, Cicely. They have to walk their own paths, even when those paths are dark and fearsome. And Dorthea’s help? We need every hand on board. Even when those hands are shadows from the other side.” She glanced over to Ysandra. “What do you need me to do? I heard everything from the kitchen.”
Ysandra motioned to the sofa. “Cicely, you can lie down for this. Indeed, the fact that you’re already tired will only help us take you into the trance that you need to be in. Peyton, will you get my bag?”
Chatter suddenly popped into the room. “Just got word that the crew from the Consortium are on the edge of town. I’ve sent a contingent of men to guide them back here. Apparently they ran into an altercation a ways out and were held up. They have wounded, but no dead.”
“How long till they get here?” I glanced at the clock, dazed. It felt like we’d been on our feet for days, but it wasn’t even midnight. So much had happened in such a little time.
“Half an hour maybe. I’ll have some of my men get the parlor ready for them—they’ll need a place to stay.” He vanished back into the kitchen.
“Lie down, Cicely. Rhiannon, can you get me a throw to cover her with? Something warm. Even though she belongs to Winter, she needs to keep her body temperature within reason.”
As Rhia left the room, Peyton entered it, handing Ysandra a black bag, like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag. Ysandra opened it, fishing around until she came up with a small bottle that had an eye dropper in it.
“This tincture will help you sleep, and it will make you vulnerable to my suggestions. Therefore, Grieve—you and Rhiannon must be in the room at all time. I don’t want there to be any questions as to what I’ve done, or am doing. Do you understand?”
Rhiannon, who had just returned with an afghan, nodded. “Of course.” She pulled a chair up to sit near my side.
Grieve moved to a stool beside Ysandra. “Make no mistake. If you even make a move that seems like it might hurt her, I will kill you right then and there. No questions, no regrets. Do you understand me?”
Ysandra flashed him a mirthless smile. “Of course I understand. I also know that what I’m about to do won’t be very pleasant for her, but I will explain to you and Rhiannon every step of the way. However, when it comes time to draw her back, I may have to slap her—or otherwise startle her. Cicely, if you get caught in the trance, if you go too deep, I have to be ready to yank you out. There are no guarantees that this will work, but I’ll do everything I can to facilitate it.”
I looked at the bottle. “Will that hurt me, with the fact that I’ve made the transformation to Fae Queen?”
She shook her head. “No—I know for a fact that Lainule used these herbs herself. And there are no fish products in it. There should be no reason why it would harm you, unless you drank the whole bottle. Then it might send your mind into a tailspin, but I doubt it would poison you.”