4. The Event
4
THE EVENT
W ith the new developments, and to Saffron’s quiet disappointment, Saoirse thought it best to remain in the palace rather than journeying out for their morning date—so Cylvan asked for something just as lavish to be prepared and served on the private garden terrace. Saffron could not complain, because everything that came from the palace kitchens was as delicious and decadent as he could ever ask for—but having to remain there, especially with the page of drawn arid circles for him to look over, he couldn’t help but feel like it was more of a political meeting rather than a romantic morning spent with his raven.
But he would not show it on his face. He would appreciate any and all the time he could get with Cylvan, even if it wasn’t as carefree as he hoped. Someday again, soon. Just not yet.
With the leaflet of illustrated circles in front of him, Saffron’s heart finally stopped pounding, at least.
“Most of these are nonsense,” he said, pointing to a few in particular as Cylvan leaned over to look with a curious eye. “This one at the National Treasury, this one at the Hospital, this one at the Library, and these three found in the random alleyways. These ones here,” he pointed to the ones labeled Council Office, Observatory , and High Oralcry , “… are legitimate circles, but not nearly as scary once you can actually read them. I think they just used so many hatchmarks to make them more intimidating. For example, this one at the Observatory, just says, ‘release all enslaved nightjars from their roosts ’… I’m not going to say that means nothing , but it’s certainly not an arid spell for destruction.”
He trailed his finger over the rest, pausing at the last remaining circle he hadn’t mentioned specifically. The only one with a purpose that wholly escaped him. Two circles within one another, feda hatchmarks scrawled around the edge of the exterior circle like any other arid circle—but in that one, additional lines extended from a few strategically-placed markings to extend past the edges of the circle, cutting through the middle to meet matching marks on the opposite side. Three points extended past the outer edge, one on top and two on the bottom, connecting to one another to form a triangular shape. His thoughts writhed at the sight, hating how that particular shape reminded him of the witchhunter’s symbol. Off to the side were additional notes—the only circle to include such a thing:
‘Drawn in what appears to be charcoal mixed with red paint.’
‘Found: red apple in circle of yew twigs,’ with an arrow drawn to indicate the center of the circle.
The yew tree was to rowan witches what rowan was to high fey—so to find it included in the center of such a strange arid circle made Saffron’s mind buzz with far more questions than answers. But it wasn’t even the inclusion of the yew that bothered him most—it was the apple that had apparently been nestled within them. Prince Cylvan’s apple allergy was no secret in Alfidel; and yew branches were used commonly to repel arid magic and witches, even by those who had never seen an arid epithet in their lives.
“This one…” he trailed off. “Is… interesting.”
“What does it say? Around here,” Cylvan urged Saffron back in the right direction, using one of his sharp nails to outline the illustration.
“Proclaim self… shelter soul… disgrace,” Saffron read under his breath. “Those are proper arid spell terms, unlike the others I described. But this epithet, the shape of it, and these lines that cut through the middle, and outside the edge, I’ve never seen anything like them before…”
“More nonsense then?” Cylvan asked with the smallest flicker of relief, like he was beginning to get worried with how intrigued Saffron was. Saffron couldn’t confirm or deny that, instinctively offering his prince a wary smile as if to say ‘yes, maybe.’ If it would ease Cylvan’s nerves, Saffron would say anything. Even if something else nibbled at him, telling him it wasn’t exactly true.
“Have you had a chance to send word to Luvon about what happened at the games?” Cylvan asked next, clearly eager to change the subject with the new reassurance. He stabbed a stalk of herb-and-buttered lettuce with his fork and crunching into it.
“Yes—Fiachra actually brought back his response just the other day,” Saffron said. The bird in question sat perched on the balcony bannister wrapped with pine garlands, pecking at the needles and squawking every time they poked her back.
“That’s why she’s been so clingy lately,” Cylvan commented with a little smile. Saffron grimaced, pushing the eggs and honeyed ham around on his own plate while determining the best way to describe the contents of Luvon’s letter without being too obvious what he was really saying. Not sure who might be listening, within the palace walls or somewhere in the trees around them.
“He doesn’t remember how we ever found those ruins in the mountains—” He’s lost track of the natural veil tear where he used to pass through to the human world, since he stopped going to make deals and collecting changeling babies. “ I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to see them again. Apparently it was so long ago, he’s certain the road has been lost to the weather.” He won’t be able to take us there to pass through that way. I’m sorry.
Cylvan nodded, picking at his food. Saffron hated that silence, even if it was only a few moments long. The brief threads of lightheartedness from that morning, even from their time in the ruins, were slipping through his fingers faster than he could catch them. Especially with how their excursion had resulted only in more questions, rather than any answers. Still no leads. Still no resolution. Saffron could see exactly how it weighed on Cylvan’s shoulders, how by that point, his prince was struggling to maintain the same level of composure, let alone the same positivity, as what he’d demonstrated with the High Keeper and beyond. Being forced to watch as Cylvan’s lightened mood slowly dimmed beneath the crushing, silent yoke of frustration was enough to suffocate Saffron right alongside him.
“I asked if he could show me how he used to find old ruins, though, so that I might be able to do it myself. I think I might be especially cut out for it, since… you know…” Saffron went on clumsily, watching as Cylvan stirred his tea. “Luvon says the landscape has changed too much in the Winter Court that he doesn’t think any of his other places will be accessible anymore, but it’s impossible to really know. He apparently never did anything special to find those places years ago, just knew how to read the environment. So perhaps he could do it again, if we ask…”
“That’s understandable,” Cylvan answered, but said nothing else despite his lips parting like he meant to. Saffron squirmed in his seat. He sipped at his own tea, before picking at the garnished steak half-eaten on his plate. He wished to tell Cylvan more of the things he’d tried in private in an attempt to find a solution himself—eating as many rowan berries as he could, hoping it would increase his magic enough to see something that would help him, only to puke them all back up again; searching the woods behind the beantighe dorms at the palace for that abandoned doorway he’d once passed through the veil to the ruins with Ryder, though no matter where he looked, he never found it again. As if someone, either by Ryder’s orders or the Kings’, had already gone and knocked it down.
God knew Saffron had dozens of other ideas, possible leads, all scribbled down in his sketchbook, but he suddenly worried it would only dampen Cylvan’s mood further. Saffron’s own guilt crashed relentlessly whenever he secretly wished Cylvan could be more confident in him, all things considered. Despite what everyone else seemed to think, Cylvan was not meant to always look so sad—and Saffron hated knowing it was all his fault.
“Asche… will be so angry to know they weren’t here to see the strange magic circles reported around Avren…” Saffron attempted with an uncertain smile. Cylvan’s eyes flicked up to him, before, to Saffron’s relief, he chuckled and sat back in his chair.
“Oh, they’ll be fuming. Good thing we have these to show them when they get back, hm?” He said, touching the page with the illustrations.
Saffron nodded, taking a bite of his food. Doing everything he could to act natural—until Cylvan asked another question.
“How much time has passed?” He asked, sipping at his tea again as if the question was the most unassuming thing in the world, not five words that made Saffron’s stomach sink like a rock. Cylvan wasn’t asking about how much time had passed since the Midsummer Games—at least, not in terms of Alfidel’s clocks.
Gazing down at his hands, Saffron hated to be reminded. One week in Alfidel.
“A little more than two days,” he whispered. A muscle twitched in Cylvan’s jaw, saying nothing at first, only nodding. They sat in silence for a while longer, listening to the sound of morning birds, servants hurrying by in the garden below, the sound of the ocean a few blocks away and the late-summer breeze that carried it.
“Has Sunbeam’s bird returned with anything else?” The prince continued. Saffron having to shake his head was torturous.
“No,” he said quietly. Yama had come to deliver Sunbeam’s only message the night after the games, three words on the strip of paper: Found them. London. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to send anything back before the fairy wren was gone again. He’d never forget the sound Cylvan made when they realized, like he’d been gutted on a knife.
“Well,” Cylvan finally spoke again, clearing his throat then dabbing the napkin to his mouth. Something was clearly on his mind; perhaps still ruminating on the news of that morning, while Saffron had made the mistake of thinking it wasn’t anything to worry about just yet. But a new sense of restlessness had infiltrated his raven prince’s movements, and Saffron noticed the shift in an instant. “Perhaps the oracles from Fjornar coming to assist will be a blessing, rather than something to dread. If anyone can find a way through the veil, it’s them.”
Saffron had already asked a hundred times if any progress had been made with the royal oracles working around the clock—but Cylvan never quite knew how to explain what, exactly, the problem was they were having. Something told Saffron even they weren’t entirely sure. It was as if, at least from Avren—the veil had simply refused to answer the calls of anyone, even those most experienced in weaving it.
“Is your mother still in Avren?” Saffron asked, hoping to change the subject to something more lighthearted. He hadn’t gotten the chance to be properly introduced, yet, but had been hoping to do so, as Gentle Naoill dé Fianna rarely left the Winter Court for Avren. Despite the circumstances of their visit, Saffron was eager to finally be introduced to his future?—
“They actually left late last night,” Cylvan said, and Saffron wilted again in an instant. “Our conversation did not go… well. I think they were eager to return to the Winter Court as soon as possible, afterward. Ah, that reminds me, I should pray for their safe travels while there’s still time. I should make my way to Lugh’s altar now, while the weather still permits; if Maeve is no longer in the palace, I’ll ask Saoirse to ride with you back to Mairwen, púca.”
“Oh, I thought…” Saffron started, but closed his mouth as Cylvan was already standing. I thought I might spend the day with you , he wished to say, but swallowed every word back like pieces of sharp ice. Not wanting to make Cylvan uncomfortable, not wanting to pressure him into something he wasn’t in the mood for. Wishing to give him the space he needed to grieve, to pray, to do what he needed to feel better after all that had happened—even if praying was all he did when not caught up in bureaucratic responsibilities. There were many reasons Cylvan spent most of his time in the palace since the Midsummer Games—and one of the few Saffron never commented on, was how his prince prayed to their family god endlessly. Whenever a moment allowed itself. He’d hoped that morning, with even a single day away from bowing on his knees, Cylvan might wake up the following morning without so many bruises on his pale legs—but it seemed even Saffron couldn’t provide the comfort Cylvan sought from old king Lamhfada, to bring his missing sibling back from the ether.
When he wasn’t thinking about how to get through the veil, Saffron was thinking about how he might still pass a message to the other side; when he wasn’t thinking about what sort of message he would send, he ruminated over when Ryder would inevitably come back for him, considering Saffron had been the single thing Ryder was convinced he needed in order to fully win the favor of all the humans he was saving.
Only in the briefest of moments, in the earliest hours of the morning, when his mind finally wore itself too thin to carry thoughts any longer, did Saffron allow himself a chance to sleep—but rarely was it ever anything more than tangling in those same thoughts like a withered net. Tangled until he choked; until he kicked himself free of his blankets and went back to work.
That night, Saffron woke a second time to the sound of screaming. It echoed through a faint vision of kneeling before a great bird, wings spread over him, interspersed with a rhythmic knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock— sensations already too thin to fully grasp in sleep, and whisked away the moment his eyes opened.
Staring at the dark ceiling of his dorm room, his ears rang as sweat dampened his forehead and chilled his skin. Again, those screaming pleas for help, echoed off his eardrums, even if the vision thinned like watercolors into nothing. Come find me, I’m lost, come find me —those cries, that voice that resembled Aschewing far too closely. Enough to bring panicked, exhausted tears to Saffron’s eyes. Nearly filling the back of his throat with vomit.
But sitting up in his dark bedroom, the terrible cries faded beneath wakefulness as swiftly as the brief images of the dream had. He was in his Muirín dorm room. There was no one calling out to him. There was no bird spreading its dark wings over his bed as he slept. Even Fiachra remained curled up in her nest of Copper’s blazer and stolen trinkets on the mantle. Only one other presence joined him there, the dark shadow of a great beast seated on the floor at the end of Saffron’s bed.
“Your nightmares are loud enough to even bother me.” Taran’s voice was low, ghostly in the low light, but brought an unexpected sense of calm to Saffron’s frantic nerves.
“Sorry,” he muttered, putting his face in his hand before dragging fingers back through his hair, damp with sweat. “Do you normally listen in on my dreams?”
“I do not,” Taran growled. “Hence my annoyance.”
“And what am I supposed to do about it?” Saffron asked tightly, before throwing the blankets off and kicking his legs over the side. “If you have any suggestions for keeping nightmares at bay, I’m all ears. In fact, as my familiar, I think it’s your responsibility to take care of me even while I sleep. Hm?”
“I don’t think you know what a familiar is meant to do.”
“And you do?”
Taran’s red eyes narrowed in exasperation, but he said nothing. He had as much idea as Saffron did, when it came to how exactly he was meant to perform as the familiar to a rowan witch.
Making his way to his desk, Saffron sank into it with a deep sigh. He struck a match and lit the oil lamp within reach, glass still warm since he’d only just put it out a few hours prior in that futile attempt to sleep. Slotting it back within the disordered piles of books, parchments, spilled ink, worn-down quills in front of him, he silently vowed to give up on sleeping altogether. Clearly it was no longer meant for someone like him, and only a waste or time to try.
Flipping open his sketchbook to the list of ideas for getting through the veil, the beaded unicorn bookmark gifted to him by Asche after Ostara reflected the light of the lamp as it always did. Saffron rested his chin in one hand and stared down at it in silence, before forcing his eyes to travel to the written list that never changed. Next to him, Taran’s presence lingered, even pawing over to sit and take stock of the words with him.
Ask Luvon if he can get me through the veil
Ask Luvon if he’ll teach me how he used to pass through (says all his old tears are closed)
Eat enough rowan berries to speak directly to the veil (puked them all back up)
Check the veneer of the Finnian Ruins again (guards reported the building destroyed/burned with the rest)
Find books about the veil in the library (ha ha.)
Go back to Morrígan’s Kyteler ruins and see if Sunbeam’s veil circle can be made viable at all
See if Prof Adelard would be willing to explain anything (threaten him?)
Find Eias Lam ?? (Learned oralcry in Fjornar like Ryder)
Ask Baba Yaga about the knocks again (too dangerous)
Go back and check the tear in the veil behind the royal beantighe dorms (cannot find it anywhere )
Wait for Mabon and make Cylvan my bridge partner?
Go back to where they tried to sacrifice F iachra (nothing there)
Fjornar? (Where Ryder is from)
The King’s Keep in the Winter Court
Exhaling through his nose, Saffron scribbled another idea at the bottom, before groaning and knotting fingers in his hair in his endless frustration.
Find out where Ryder and the other humans from the ruins went ?
“Is this really all you’ve come up with?” Taran asked.
“Icarus, go,” Saffron growled back in irritation.
Taran rolled his eyes, but obeyed, vanishing into the air with nothing more than a faint burning sensation in the scars of Saffron’s arm. And like every time before it, Saffron gazed down to where they looked back up at him, visible and ugly and pink when not wearing his glamour. He ran fingers down the markings, feeling each and every one, as if he could summon a resolution from them. From that moment on Ostara when he was pure magic, pure rowan-veil magic, where he doubted nothing and would have gotten what he wanted with his teeth if forced to.
He tried to assure himself that part of his soul wasn’t lost—just tired. Just tucked away. Such a vicious thing wasn’t safe to let loose too often, anyway, hence why having Taran there to keep the wildfire at bay was actually a good thing. He only wished he could figure out how to tap back into it again on his own will, at his own control. He’d gone from his magic running out of control, to seemingly stretching so far out of reach he didn’t know how to reel it back again. Constantly battling between wishing to let loose with it once more—to reminding himself, the events of the Midsummer Games would have been far, far worse, if Ryder had gotten his way with Saffron doing exactly that.
Washing the night-sweat away in a few inches of bathwater, Saffron emerged into the dorm’s common area just as Copper did from his bedroom, offering good-mornings and then good-byes as his roommate hurried off to hurling practice that wasn’t actually practice.
Waiting in Muirín dorm’s common room for Sionnach to join him, Saffron paused a moment at the bulletin board where half a dozen of the morning’s newest gossip columns had already been pinned. Each and every one displayed large, bold titles crying out about the human attacks around Avren the day before—making Saffron smile bitterly, as he knew as well as anyone that such a thing was never going to be kept a secret—though only one of the pamphlets was printed with a gallery of every one of the found circles illustrated for all of Avren to see. Surrounded with paragraphs decrying the kings and their seemingly ‘uncaring’ attitude; pleading with the ‘red witches’ to come forward in favor of peace over chaos, followed by an illustrated gallery of new ‘missing beantighe’ notices lining the bottom, as if he was the only one in all of Alfidel who could see the irony. He had to resist tearing it down and throwing it in the trash—also well aware it wouldn’t do any good. There would be dozens more scattered around Mairwen, alone.
Sionnach finally approached from behind, breathless and apologizing for running late. Saffron told them not to worry about it, reaching out to fix the collar of their blazer and making their face go bright red in reaction. The sight alone was enough to ease Saffron’s growing agitation, bringing him back to earth with a teasing smile.
Outside, the sky was overcast with thick clouds, but a rain had no yet punctured the air, and Saffron breathed in a deep lungful of it. Attempting to steal the buzzing, electric-energy from the possibility of thunder like it could replace the perpetual exhaustion in his blood.
They barely made it through the front door and down the courtyard when a professor suddenly rushed up on the other side of the gates, throwing their hands up and shouting. Commanding Saffron to stop, to wait, even shoving him back through the gate and into Sionnach. She slammed the metal shut with a deafening bang that shook every bar.
“Professor?” Saffron asked, but Sionnach tugged on Saffron’s sleeve and pointed over the professor’s shoulder to where Maeve appeared on the pathway, hurrying toward them with a shared look of deliberation. The professor, meanwhile, just looked pale, clutching a piece of paper in her hand and stammering as she spoke quickly. Saffron saw Mairwen’s official letterhead printed at the top, and the briefest string of words including ‘overnight’ ‘event’ ‘Erelaine’.
“All students must remain in their dormitories until further notice!” The professor exclaimed as Saffron attempted to search Maeve out again on her heels. “A formal announcement will be sent via house birds within the hour, so please return to your room for now?—”
“Excuse me,” Maeve said as she reached the gate. Her dorm-prefect badge was displayed front-and-center on her blazer, catching the eye of the professor in an instant. “Let Lord Saffron pass, please. I’ll take responsibility for him.”
“What’s going on?” Saffron asked again while shimmying through a gap in the gate, keeping a tight grip on Sionnach’s hand to ensure they passed through with him. Maeve said nothing, just taking Saffron’s opposite hand and roughly pulling him away before anyone could stop them. “Maeve!”
She still said nothing—but handed Saffron a piece of paper, a copy of the same one the professor trying to lock the gate had crushed in her grasp. Sionnach hurried to match Saffron’s pace, reading it over his shoulder, though the both of them came to a halt once the words struck in order.
TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE: MAIRWEN ACADEMY AND ALL SURROUNDING AVREN INSTITUTIONS ARE TO IMMEDIATELY LOCK DOWN.
OVERNIGHT OCCURRENCE AT THE MORRíGAN’S TEMPLE IN ERELAINE: SECOND VEIL EVENT REPORTED.