“I don’t understand.”
“Whoever called up these phages,” I said, “needed a way to guide them from the Nevernever to the physical world. They needed a beacon, someone who would resonate with a sympathetic vibe. Someone who, like the phages, wanted to make people feel fear.”
“And they used my Molly,” Charity whispered. Then she stared at me for a moment. “You did it,” she said quietly. “You tried to turn the phages back upon their summoner. You sent them after my daughter.”
“I didn’t know,” I told her. “My God, Charity. I swear to you that I didn’t know. People were dead, and I didn’t want anyone else to be hurt.”
The wooden pew creaked even more sharply in her grip.
“Who did this thing?” she said, and her voice was deadly quiet. “Who is responsible for the harm to my children? Who is the one who called the things that invaded my home?”
“I don’t think anyone called them,” I told her quietly. “I think they were sent.”
She looked up at me, and her eyes narrowed. “Sent?”
I nodded. “I hadn’t considered that possibility, until I realized what all of the attacks had in common. Mirrors.”
“Mirrors?” Charity asked. “I don’t understand.”
“That was the common element,” I said. “Mirrors. The bathroom. Rosie’s makeup mirror in the conference room. Plenty of reflective steel surfaces in a commercial kitchen. And Madrigal’s rental van’s windshield was reflecting images very clearly.”
She shook her head. “I still don’t understand.”
“There are plenty of things that can use mirrors as windows or doorways from the spirit world,” I said. “But there’s only one thing that feeds on fear and uses mirrors as pathways back and forth from the Nevernever. It’s called a fetch.”
“Fetch.” Charity tilted her head, her eyes vague, as though searching through old memories. “I’ve heard of them. They’re… aren’t they creatures of Faerie?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Specifically, they’re creatures of deepest, darkest Winter.” I swallowed. “Even more specifically, they’re Queen Mab’s elite spies and assassins. Shapeshifters with a lot of power.”
“Mab?” she whispered. “The Mab?”
I nodded slowly.
“And they’ve taken my daughter,” she said. “Carried her away to Faerie.”
I nodded again. “She’ll be a rich resource for them. A magically talented young mortal. Compatible energy. Not enough experience to defend herself. They can feed on her and her magic for hours. Maybe days. That’s why they didn’t just kill her and have done.”
Charity swallowed. “What can we do?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “It would be nice to have your husband along, though.”
She bit her lip and sent what might have been a hateful look down at the altar. “He’s out of reach. Messages have been left, but…”
“We’re on our own,” I said.
“We must do something,” she said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “The problem is that we don’t know where to do it.”
“I thought you just said that they had taken her back to Faerie.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But just because I tell you Ayer’s Rock is in Australia doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to find the damned thing. Australia’s big. And Faerie makes it look like Rhode Island.”
Charity clenched her jaw. “There must be something.”
“I’m working on it,” I said.
“What will…” She paused and cleared her throat. “How long does she have?”
“Hard to say,” I told her. “Time can go by at different rates between here and there. A day here, but an hour there. Or vice versa.”
She stared steadily at me.
I looked away and said, “Not long. It depends on how long she holds out. They’ll get all the fear out of her that they can and then…” I shook my head. “A day. At most.”
She shook her head. “No,” she said quietly. “I will not let that happen. There must be a way to take her back.”
“I can get to Faerie,” I said. “But you’ve got to understand something. We’re talking about opening a path into deep Winter. If I’m strong enough to open the way, and if I’m strong enough to hold it open while simultaneously running a rescue operation against at least one ancient fetch who ate my magic like candy earlier tonight, we’re still talking about defying the will of Queen Mab. If she’s there, there’s not a damned thing I can do. I don’t have enough power to challenge her in the heart of her domain. The whole damned White Council doesn’t have enough power. On top of that, I’d have to know precisely where to cross over into Faerie, because I’d have only minutes to grab her and get out. And I have no idea where she is.”
“What are you saying?” she asked quietly.
“That I can’t do it,” I told her. “It’s suicide.”
Charity’s back stiffened. “So you’re willing to leave her there?”
“No,” I said. “But it means that I’m going to have to find help wherever I can get it. Maybe from people and things that you won’t much like.” I shook my head. “And it’s possible I’ll get myself killed before I can even make the attempt. And even if I get her out… there could be a price.”
“I’ll pay it,” she said. Her voice was flat, strong, certain. “For Molly, I’ll pay it.”
I nodded. I didn’t say the next thought out loud-that even if we did get the girl back, there might not be much left of her mind. And she’d broken one of the Laws of Magic. She could wind up on the floor of some lonely warehouse, a black bag over her head, until Morgan’s sword took it off her shoulders. Or, maybe worse, she could already have been twisted by the power she’d used.
Even if I could find Molly and bring her home, it might already be too late to save her.
But I could burn that bridge when I came to it. First, I had to find her. The only way to do that was to learn where the fetches had carried her through to the Nevernever. Geography in the Nevernever isn’t like geography in the normal world. The Nevernever touches our world only at certain points of sympathetic energy. The portion of the Nevernever that touched an empty and abandoned warehouse might not be anywhere near the area of the spirit world that touched the full and busy child-care center across the physical street from the warehouse. To make it worse, the connections between the mortal world and the Nevernever changed slowly over time, as the world changed.
There could be a thousand places in Chicago where the fetches might have dragged Molly back to their lair. I had to find the correct one. And I had to do it before dawn, before the rising sun scattered and dispersed the residual traces of her presence that would be my only trail.
I had about two hours, tops, to get my aching body back to my apartment to bathe and prepare for a spell that would have been dangerous had I been rested and entirely whole. Tired, hurting, pressured, and worried as I was, I would probably kill myself on Little Chicago’s trial run.
But my only other option was walk away and leave the girl in the hands of creatures that made nightmares afraid of the dark.
“I’ll need something of hers,” I said, rising. “Hair or fingernail clippings would be best.”
Charity said, “I have a lock of her hair in her baby book.”
“Perfect,” I said. “I’ll pick it up from your place. Where’s the book?”
She rose. “I’ll show you.”
I hesitated. “I don’t know if that’s wise.”