Chapter 35
Avice
Sleep eluded Avice later that night. She tossed and turned in Trewoofe’s arms, fidgeting under the furs as his question spiralled in her mind.
What if they do it again?
The midwife could not bear it. They had barely survived the first time.
What can I do to keep him safe? To keep the Underneath safe? To keep Hope and Boarden safe?
An idea struck her like lightening.
The decision made, she extracted herself from her Knucker’s arms. He mumbled her name as she pulled away from his embrace. Just as she was about to slip from the pallet, claws snagged her wrist.
“Avice.” Trewoofe cracked an eye open. “Where are you going?”
“I need to relieve myself,” she whispered. “Go back to sleep.”
He yawned widely – jaw clicking – before settling back into slumber. She burnt with guilt at lying to him. Avice was honest to a fault, and the falsehood stained her tongue. But she knew if she told him her plan, he would try to stop her.
Bramble snored loudly as she tiptoed past, his paws twitching as he dreamed. She knelt by the hearth, where her Wisp had lowered his flames as he rested.
“Ashling,” she breathed. “I need your help. Will you light my way?”
The Faerie brightened and let out a curious chime.
She pressed a finger to her lips.
Ashling dimmed as he floated up to perch on her head. She moved softly around the pallet and inched open her clothing coffer to tug out a cloak. She wrapped it snug around her shoulders, followed by tugging on her gloves.
Avice side-stepped to where she stored her medical tools. The coffer creaked loudly as she opened it, making her grind her teeth. She glanced over her shoulder and was relieved to see both Trewoofe and Bramble remained asleep.
“Ashling,” she whispered, pointing down into the coffer.
The Wisp floated down and hovered above the collection of unusual items. Chewing her lip, Avice rested the lid against the wall and rummaged through the contents.
She pulled out one of the crystals and a torn strip of silver blood-stained bandage.
From instinct, she had kept one scrap unwashed.
She brought it to her face and wrinkled her nose.
It still reeked of that bizarre oil and iron, which was exactly what she had hoped for.
Avice placed them carefully onto the lid of the neighbouring coffer.
She scrabbled around, squinting through Ashling’s light, and pulled out her belt.
She slung it around her thick waist and shoved in her iron knife.
She beckoned for Ashling to exit and he wafted out, landing neatly on the top of her head.
She tucked the items under her arm, crept towards the door, and shoved her boots on over her stockinged feet.
A loud clunk echoed through the cottage as she turned the key in the lock. She snuck a peek towards the hearth and saw both of her boys still slept.
Avice sucked in a breath and went into the freezing night.
The cold stole the air from her lungs as she carefully closed the door behind her. It had not been this frigid when she relieved herself earlier in the evening. There was only one explanation. She stepped from under the eaves and looked up. A stream of snowflakes fluttered down to her.
She squinted through the gloom above. “Ashling.” She pointed up. “Can you show me?”
The Wisp chirped and bolted up, leaving a sparking trail in his wake. With a chime, a great illumination burst from his body, lighting up the entire garden.
“Just as I suspected,” she whispered to herself, breath misting as she spoke. “It has cracked.”
A spider web of lines spread from the pinnacle of the dome, each letting in a shower of snow. The weight of the blizzard piling on top had finally proven too much for the magic, and it had begun to fracture under the weight.
Avice waved at him. “Come down!”
Still bright, Ashling darted back. He pealed with alarm at what they had discovered.
“I know, darling, I know,” she soothed. “The Equinox ritual will bring Spring, it will fix it.”
He rang a deep tone.
She stuck out her chin. “It has to work.”
Avice turned to pluck Trewoofe’s flowers. They had crystalised in the plummeting temperature, even more beautiful with their icy sheen, frozen in their otherworldly beauty and pulsing with ancient magic. She felt the thrum, even through her gloves.
Ashling bobbed in front of her face, drawing her attention.
“An offering.” She chewed the inside of her cheek, wishing she had a hand free to clasp her pendant.
He flared purple and back to blue.
“For the Nightly Neighbours. I want to make a bargain with them.”
He flashed red.
“I know, I know. But what other Faerie do you know who could track down the source of the poison in the middle of a blizzard?” she asked. “I need to do something before he returns.”
Ashling let out a series of chirps.
“Of course, I do not want him to go,” she replied. “But he needs to. He is a Sidhe King, all the Faeries he looks after and protects from—”
The Wisp sparked and let out a single note.
“I do not know how he can bear to be around me after what humans did to him.”
He turned crimson and back to blue.
“I know it was not me who did that to his family.” She chewed her lip and looked up into the storming night. “Let us get back to what we came out here to accomplish.”
Avice pulled out the healing crystal. It sung as she wove the pulsing flowers around it.
She rushed, her fingers freezing despite her gloves, and fumbled the stalks and vines.
Common sense told her to go back inside and prepare the offering properly.
She tossed logic aside. She had to make sure Trewoofe, the Underneath, and the children would be safe when he returned.
She had not known – before their days together – about the Sidhe Kings, and their guardianship of the Otherworlds.
“It is too important,” Avice muttered, fixing the final bloom in place.
She held the offering in front of her face, inspecting it for any obvious flaws. There was no rhyme or reason to her creations, she followed her instincts, as though her soul knew what to do.
“That is what is means to be a Faerie-speaker and a witch.”
She repositioned one flower, and a spark of power clicked into place.
The wreath sung, and the frozen blooms shone.
She grinned at her creation: a central blue geode, wrapped in vines, kissed by tiny blue and white flowers.
The arrangement reminded her of Winter, the perfect gift for the Nightly Neighbours who stalked the longest nights.
She nodded to her Wisp and set off at a fast march down the garden path.
At the boundary, the translucent purple shifted and swirled in front of her, the enchantment struggling to fend off the worsening storm.
Winter raged.
The wind against the ward bellowed, the frost gnawed at her joints, and she fought the impulse to flee from the freezing night and return to Trewoofe’s arms. Still bright, Ashling landed on her head.
She peered into the blizzard but could sense nothing, her sight would not allow her to see and hear the incorporeal through the violent elements.
“I will have to call them. Ashling, are you ready?”
He chimed in response.
Avice braced her knees, rooting herself to the Wisp on her head.
She filled her lungs with the stinging air, ignoring the tears it brought to her eyes.
The ink along her back boiled and writhed beneath her skin – setting her teeth on edge – as she pulled on the threads of power thrumming from Ashling.
The air crackled with sparking blue as the tattoo along her spine glowed.
She opened her mouth.
“NIGHTLY NEIGHBOURS!”
The words hurt, scalding her throat as they echoed into the storm.
She dropped her chin to her chest, breath ragged, puffing out streams of mist.
Ashling pealed with alarm.
Avice snapped her gaze up, and up. One loomed, a hairbreadth from the shimmering protection that separated them. She tilted her head at a sickening angle, her pointed, frozen ear touching her shoulder.
Wide-eyed, Avice studied – who she assumed to be – the Queen of the Nightly Neighbours.
She was beautiful, with russet skin that gleamed under an icy sheen, snow-white hair, and two starshine eyes set into her cherubic face.
The Queen’s white bodice accentuated her broad, hour-glass figure, tucked in at her waist and flowing down into a tumbling skirt embroidered with crystals.
She appeared weightless, as her bare feet did not sink into the snowfall.
Her perfect lips twitched. “Brave little witch. Smart, too. Calling us from behind the ward of a Sidhe King.”
Avice dipped her head. “The Well King is my friend.” She did not think it hurt to announce that fact. “But tonight, I come to you needing the actions of a Queen.”
She spotted movements: minute, slight, but there, flanking both sides of the monarch.
It must have been the rest of her flock, but Avice could not perceive them in the dark despite Ashling’s bright light.
His presence, steadfast and supportive, kept her from bolting from the terrible beauty of the Faerie Queen in front of her.
“What is it you want from me and mine?” she asked, straightening her head and focusing down on her.
“There was an assault on the Underneath. They used iron and oil, and something I do not recognise. Perhaps not even from the shores of Albion.”
The Nightly Neighbour jolted at that. “You know ‘Sidhe’, and you know ‘Albion’. Are you sure you are human? You speak old words, words of power.”
Avice nodded. “I am human, one who is a friend to the Good Neighbours. I give them gifts in exchange for favours.”
A sickening grin cut across her face, her needle-teeth flashing in the Wisp light. “So, you seek a bargain?”
“Yes, my Lady.”
She let out a short-sharp laugh. “It has been many, many Winters since we have had a bargain. Tell me what you want us to do, and the price for it.”
She took a deep breath. Courage, Avice, courage.
She pulled out the silver blood-stained linen from beneath her cloak.
“Do not handle this, it is iron touched.” She tossed it through the ward, and it landed on the snow beside the Queen.
“I ask you to find the source of the ingredients used in this poison. I know you cannot touch where iron is made, and I would not ask a Good Neighbour to risk their life. But perhaps the oil? Find where it is being made or kept and destroy it.”
The Queen’s grinned widened. “And what will you give us for this? Pass it to me.”
She unfurled her black, thorn-tipped fingers. Her knuckles grazed the ward, which hissed and spat in response, sizzling her skin. She squealed and tugged away, nursing her burnt hand with the other.
“It did that,” Avice bit, “because you meant to harm me.” She pulled her offering from beneath her cloak. “A Winter wreath, inspired by your beauty.”
She held it high above her head. Ashling’s light exaggerated its glitter, and it sang in honied tones. The Queen lowered her head, squinting at the offering.
One heartbeat.
Then two.
“Done!”
The Queen shrieked into the gloom, and Avice flinched, hot blood pooling in her ears. She shrugged, using her cloaked shoulders to catch and wipe away the oozing crimson. She was instantly distracted from the needling pain by the appearance of a Death Mount.
Avice opened her mouth in a silent scream. The Queen had been terribly beautiful – attractive and dangerous in way that reminded the midwife of blade-sharp icicles – the creature before her made her want to bolt for her pallet and hide beneath the blankets.
It was skeletal, with thin ribbons of flesh draping between its expanding and contracting ribcage.
It lowered its half-frozen head to the bandage.
It snuffed like a hound at the object. Great puffs of breath froze into snowflakes and joined the blizzard, the very air in its lungs adding to Winter’s tantrum.
It rose its head to its mistress, and let out an equine squeal, making Avice recoil again.
The Queen scratched its forehead with her fingers, much like the midwife would Bramble. “Glashtyn has the scent.”
Avice bowed. “Thank you, my Lady.”
She stepped back. With both hands she lobbed the crystal, it sang as it sailed through air, exited the ward, and landed neatly in Queen’s outstretched hand.
She pressed the offering to her chest. “It will be done tonight.”
With that, she – and her terrifying steed – were gone.
Avice dropped to her knees, fumbling for her crystal pendant, and squeezed it between both palms. She panted, unable to catch her breath.
She had never been so terrified of a Faerie before, not even in the Underneath.
There, she had the knowledge that it was Trewoofe’s home, and it was a sacred place of healing.
Here, all she had was the Winter wind and frozen bones.
Ashling hovered in front of her face. “You did it!”
“I—”
Tears blurred her vision.
The Wisp bobbed. “Avice?”
“I—” She choked. “I can hear you, and you sound like the sweetest song.”
Ashling blazed, bright and golden, bathing her frosted skin in his light. She released her pendant and offered him her cupped palms. He landed softly, and she brought him to her chest, close to her galloping heart.
“We should go inside. You will catch your death out here.”
Avice mumbled her agreement, still bewildered by all that had occurred. Her knees creaked in protest as she stood. She shuffled down the garden path. Slipping silently back into the warmth of her home, her sleeping King and familiar were none the wiser.