“Sylvie?” Robert cries. She can’t hear his voice over the frantic music, but she can read her name on his lips. But as she steps towards him, she realizes that he isn’t speaking to her, but to the woman who has appeared before him, released from the prison of the Queen of Life by Robert’s playing. A familiar woman, the girl she used to be so long ago: lion-like mane of black hair, the swirl of lace skirts, the draped black velvet cape, thigh-high platform boots. This girl is young and beautiful, her skin as smooth as wax, her face vapid and doll-like, and it is for her that Robert is reaching. The tempo of the song has turned frantic, like an overwound musicbox, the joyful notes stretching into a high pitched howling. Robert falls into Death’s arms, which curve to catch him, as he sinks to his knees. She bends to kiss him; the Queen of Life trapped between them. Their lips meet. And the music snuffs out so suddenly that Sylvie staggers, almost falls.
The Queen of Life lies abandoned on the floor.
Robert Mynwar and Death are gone.
A blazing black shadow envelops Sylvie, drags her to her feet like a ragdoll, hangs her by her shoulders.
“You have brought Death into Faery!” Oberon roars. With a movement too quick for the human eye to track, he has gone from the dais to the stage, and his eyes are blazes of starfire; horns flare from his forehead.
“So I have,” Sylvie shouts. “You stole my love, and now I have stolen him back!”
“I did not steal him! He came of his own desire. They all do! This talk of abduction is rubbish—they call us, we come, and we offer them everything they desire. No human has ever stayed in Faery save by their own choice!” The tips of his antlers brush her forehead. If he dips his head any lower, she’ll be impaled. She kicks out and catches him in the knee with the tip of her boot.
Wincing, he lets her slide from his grip. She cries: “It’s a false choice, buoyed by false promises!”
“A choice made freely!” Oberon hisses. “You humans long for our glamour and then you balk at the price you must pay! You heard him; he said he wanted nothing to do with your ugly world! You are a fool!ˮ
Oberon is right. She is a fool. Suddenly she wants nothing more than to be a million miles away from Faery. Tucked up in her own bed, with a hot water bottle, a box of chocolates, and the snoring corgi. Oberon is still shouting when Titania, now standing at his side, the corgi held to her shoulder like a baby, says: “You fuss over nothing, my lord. Robert was growing tiresome anyhow, and now he is gone. She should be gone, as well! Toss her out!”
“But she brought Death into Faery!” Oberon says again, and now he sounds peevish, like a whiny child. “That insult cannot go unchallenged.”
Titania answers: “And Death, having gotten what it wanted, is gone. Mab shall see to our security better in the future and make sure that it does not return. But first, Mab, harness the hummingbirds. We shall hunt butterflies on Hawthorne Hill.”
The seneschal bows her stardust head and fades from view. The ballroom has emptied; the other faeries have fled. The lake water remains dark, but it no longer churns. “I want my dinner,” the corgi complains, and Titania hushes it. Oberon’s horns dwindle; green seeps back into his eyes. He says to Sylvie, his voice oozing charm: “You are Sylvanna de Godervya. I saw your solo show at Hammersmith. I loved your last album.” He stretches a long arm towards her, index finger extended. Titania knocks the finger away.
“No more musicians,” Titania says. “They are far too much trouble. Come, my lord, let us sup before we hunt, and lie together perhaps. You, human, do not come to Faery again. Here—” Titania tosses the corgi at Sylvie; the loaf tumbles towards her, fatty paws scrabbling. Somehow Sylvie manages to catch it. The force of the catch flings her backwards; a rush of wind fills her ears, squints her eyes. Through the sting she catches glimpses of a dizzying whirl of geography, all the landscapes she and the corgi had trudged through to get to Faery, now flashing by like a kaleidoscope. She clutches the quivering corgi to her chest, closes her eyes to the stomach-churning blur, and then it’s over. Stillness surrounds her, and a wet tongue snorgling her ringing ear.
Sylvie opens her eyes. She’s back at the crossroads, and there, engine still purring, waits her limo. The corgi flops out of her arms, and looks upward, barking. Something is spinning down out of dark sky; Sylvie holds out her arms just in time to catch the Queen of Life before it smashes on the ground. A second item pings Sylvie on the head; bounces off the corgi, who yips in pain—the iron pick.
“Well, that was fun. At least we didn’t have to walk all the way back,” Sylvie says to the corgi, and it mlems at her. She takes off her sunshades and chucks them. She is very tired, and her joints burn like fire. A spatter of gentle rain hits her shoulders; then another spatter, much harder. But despite these aches she feels light as a feather. For years she had lived with despair and loss tucked under her heart. Then her heart was full of roaring rage. Now the despair, the loss, the rage: all gone. For the first time in forever, instead of feeling full of him, she feels full of herself. She laughs as she realizes she didn’t free him. She freed herself.
The corgi runs to the limo door and stands there; it doesn’t like its floof to get wet. Syvlie says, “I agree. Let’s go home.”
“Can I catch a ride with you, pretty lady?”
A tall figure steps into the center of the crossroads, turquoise ring flashing on the extended thumb. Jeans as slick as paint and tiny flowered shirt, opened all the way to the ornate silver belt-buckle, slung low on swaying hips. A toss of hip-length golden floss hair, the solar flare smile. The corgi shows its teeth, shark-like, twisting around her feet, and she soothes it with a gentle push of her foot.
“It’s a foul trick,” she says. “To come in that guise. Turn back into the groupie, or I shall imprison you again. And this time I shall not let you out.”
Robert Mynwar laughs: “Don’t be a git, Sylvie. Come on, get in the limo. You’ll catch your death in this rain.”
“I already caught my Death, Bobby,” she says. She opens the door of the limo and the corgi bunny-hops inside.
“Oh, I know. He was quite annoyed, but he says he won’t hold it against you. In fact, he let me come in his place to fetch you. Wasn’t that kind?”
After tucking the Queen of Life into the seat-well next to the corgi, Sylvie turns back to face Robert Mynwar. He’s still grinning, as though the entire last seventy-two years were nothing but a joke. Even in the drizzling rain, he’s glorious. He’ll always be glorious. He may be dead, but he really is going to live forever, the bastard. Well, so will she, on her own terms, and without him. She’ll match his legend, and then some. The woman who stole Robert Mynwar back from the faeries and then gave him away.
“Sorry, Bobby, I can’t give you a lift. I’m late for an engagement.” Sylvie quickly jumps into the limo and slams the door shut. Robert peers through the window; tapping on the glass, and she laughs, thinking of all the times they snuggled together in the back of this limo, staring out at the fans so desperate to get to them. Now he’s the one on the outside, desperate to get to her. The corgi jumps the seat, snuggles into a circle against her, its warmth a welcome ease to the ache in her hip. She tabs the window down a crack: “I’ll see you later, Bobby. Much later.”