The ogres began gathering momentum, coming for us again.
“Thomas!” I shouted, lifting my sword, staring at the ogres as my shadow abruptly flickered out over the ground between us.
Wait. My shadow did what?
I had part of a second to realize that a new source of light had cast the flickering shadows, and then a bead of intense fire, maybe the size of a Peanut M amp;M, flashed over my shoulder and splashed over the chest of the nearest ogre. Summer fire slammed the ogre to the ground before it could so much as scream, and began to rip its flesh from its bones.
“I’ve got him!” Fix called, and I saw him in my peripheral vision, sword in hand. He got a shoulder under Thomas’s arm and lifted him with more strength than I would have credited the little guy with. The ogres’ charge came to a complete halt. I shoved my staff through the belt tying up the bundle of mail Thomas had been carrying, lifted it awkwardly to my shoulder, and we fell back toward the rift, never turning our backs on the ogres. They hovered at the edge of visibility in the gusting snow, but did not menace us again.
“Watch your step,” Fix warned me.
Then I felt a rippling sensation around me, and then I stepped into an equatorial sauna.
I found myself on the thin stretch of stage before the screen in Pell’s dingy old theater. I stepped to one side, just as Fix came through with Thomas.
Lily stood on the floor, facing the rift. She looked weary and strained. As soon as Fix came through, she waved a hand as if batting aside an annoying fly. There was a rushing sound, and then the rift folded in on itself and vanished.
Silence fell on the dimly lit theater. Lily melted down onto her knees, one hand holding her up, white hair fallen around her head as she shivered, breathing hard. The ice and frozen snow that had been coating me, gathering in my hair and in the creases of my clothing, vanished, replaced by the usual residual ectoplasm.
“Mmmm,” Thomas observed in a slightly slurred voice. “Slime.”
Fix lowered him to the ground and went to Lily.
“Fix,” I said. “Did you hear what was happening out there?”
“Kicked a beehive, it sounded like.” He knelt beside Lily, providing her his support. “The castle’s garrison came out to meet you?”
“No,” I said. “That was every other Winterfae on the map, apparently.”
“What?” he demanded.
“I, uh, kind of threw a bunch of Summer fire around Mab’s playhouse, and blew up most of this frozen fountain thing.”
Fix’s mouth dropped open. “You what?”
“The Scarecrow was hiding behind the thing and so…” I put Charity’s sword down and waved a hand. “Kablooey.”
Fix stared at me as if I’d gone insane. “You poured Summer fire into Winter’s wellspring?”
“I can’t sleep well any night I haven’t inflicted a little property damage,” I said gravely. “Anyway, I did that, and all hell broke loose. My god-mother told me that anybody who was anybody in Winter had gotten their vengeance on and was coming to kill me.”
“My God,” Fix breathed. “That would do it all right. Where did you get Summer fire to…” His voice trailed off and he stared at Lily.
The Summer Lady looked up, her weary smile gorgeous. “I only provided a minor comfort and guide in order to repay my debt to the lady Charity,” she murmured, a small smile on her lips. “I had no way to know that the wizard would steal that power for his own use.” She drew in a deep breath and said, “Help me up. We must go.”
Fix did so. “Go where?”
I said, “All of those Winter forces are now at the heart of their own realm. Which means that they aren’t on the borders of Summer waiting to attack. Which means that Summer has forces that can be spared to assist the Council,” I said quietly.
“But it only took them a few minutes to show up,” Murphy pointed out. “Couldn’t they just run back and be there a few minutes from now?”
“No, Murph,” I said. “They planned for that. This whole raid was a setup from the get go.” I jerked my head at Lily. “Wasn’t it.”
“That is one way to describe it,” Lily said quietly. “I would not, myself, interpret it that way. I had no part in bringing the fetches here-but their presence and their capture of Lady Charity’s daughter presented us with an opportunity to temporarily neutralize the presence of Mab’s forces upon our borders.”
“We,” I murmured. “Maeve is working with you. That was why she showed up at McAnally’s so quickly.”
“Even so,” Lily said, bowing her head at me in a nod of what looked like respect.
Fix blinked at Lily. “You’re working with Maeve?”
“She couldn’t have altered the flow of time at the heart of Winter,” I said quietly. “Only one of the Winter Queens could do that.”
Fix blinked at Lily as if I hadn’t spoken. “Maeve’s working with you?”
Lily nodded. “Like us, she fears Mab’s recent madness.” She turned back to me. “I provided you with power enough to threaten the wellspring, in the hope that you would draw some portion of Winter back into its own demesnes. Once that was done, Maeve altered the passage of time relative to the mortal realms.”
I arched an eyebrow. “How long have we been gone?”
“It is nearly sunrise of the day after you departed,” she replied. “Though the passage of time was only altered in the last few moments of your escape. Maeve will not be able to hold it for long, but it will give us time enough to act.”
“What if I hadn’t realized it in time?” I asked her. “What if I hadn’t used your fire?”
She smiled at me, a little sad. “You would be dead, I suppose.”
I glared at her. “And my friends with me.”
“Even so,” she said. “Please understand. The compulsion my Queen has laid upon me permitted me few options. I could not make explanation of what I had in mind. Nor could I simply stand by and do nothing while the Council was in such desperate need.”
“But now you can tell me all about it?”
“Now we are discussing history,” she said. She inclined her head to me. Then to Charity. “I am glad, Lady, to see your daughter returned to you.”
Charity looked up at her long enough to give her a swift smile and a nod of thanks. Then she went back to holding her daughter.
“Lily,” I said.
She arched a brow, waiting.
She’d manipulated me, turned me into a weapon to use against Mab. She hadn’t exactly lied to me, but she had taken an awful gamble with my life. Worse, she’d done it with the lives of four of my friends. She had good intentions all the way down the line, I suppose. And she had faced limitations that my instincts told me I still did not fully appreciate or understand. But she hadn’t dealt with me head-on, open and honest.
But then, she was a Faerie Queen in her own right. What in the world had ever given me the impression that she would play her cards faceup?
I sighed. “Thank you for your help,” I said finally.
She smiled, though the sadness was still in it. “I have not been as much a friend to you and yours as you have been to me and mine, wizard. I am glad that I was able to lend you some help.” She bowed to me, from the waist this time. “And now I must take my leave and set things in motion to help your people.”
I returned the bow. “Thank you.”
She bowed again to the company, and Fix echoed her. Then they walked swiftly from the theater.
I dropped onto my ass at the edge of the stage, my feet waving.
Murphy joined me. After a moment, she said, “What now?”
I rubbed at my eyes. “Holy ground, I think. I don’t think we’re going to have any immediate fallout from this, but there’s no sense in taking chances now. We’ll get back to Forthill, make sure everyone is all right. Food. Sleep.”