Chapter 32
When Mouse woke, she heard muted voices shouting above her.
Floundering to remember anything, she took stock of herself and her surroundings.
Her head hurt enormously. The pain radiated from the back of her skull.
Her stinging forehead and her left hand competed for attention.
She could wiggle her toes and fingers, although she could not see them.
There was something soft on top of her, obscured by the darkness. Thornwood, she remembered. Beyond his shoulder, Mouse made out the back of the Faerie King’s throne. From there, it was cracked wood and glass mixed in charred powder. The walls were packed tight around them.
Thistlemarsh had collapsed on top of them, she remembered. Who knew how deep they were buried, trapped in a cave of rubble created by the angle of the throne’s back? Her heart pounded, and she struggled to breathe.
“Thornwood,” she whispered.
He groaned and shifted above her. “Hell, I feel terrible,” he said. His hand went to his head. They were so close that his fingers brushed Mouse’s nose. “Where are we?”
“Under Thistlemarsh, I think,” Mouse wheezed. As he shifted, sprinkles of debris drifted down onto her face. She clutched his shoulders. He went still.
“It collapsed,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I suppose that makes sense—it was mostly held together by magic in the end. When the Faerie King and Viola both released their spells simultaneously, Thistlemarsh could not stand alone.” Magic lit Thornwood’s fingers, rising from his ring, but it sputtered and died.
“I’m still too weak to get us out from here. ”
“Please, be quiet,” she said.
“Why—” he began before Mouse pressed her finger to his lips. Her hand was covered in dust and left a chalk-white mark across his mouth. She could hear the voices again. This time they were closer, nearly above them.
“Down here!” she shouted. “We’re down here!”
The voices stopped, then resumed, louder this time.
Thornwood caught on, adding his call to hers.
The debris overhead shifted. After what felt like an eternity of desperate work, a ray of light cut through to them.
They were not as far down as she feared.
A few villagers she recognized beamed at her, including Old Tom and the butcher’s boy.
Mouse could see John’s face at the top, smeared with ash.
“Thank Christ!” he cried.
“Blasphemer,” she called back weakly.
The men surrounding John laughed too hard for such a paltry joke, but Mouse appreciated the sentiment.
“We’ll get you out of there soon,” John said. “They’ve gone to fetch a rope.”
“My mother,” Thornwood asked, his shout cutting through John’s elation. Mouse saw John stiffen.
“She is well. Mr. Mickelwaithe brought her to the cottage.”
Thornwood sagged against Mouse, his weight going limp on top of her. When she looked down, she found that he was unconscious. The purple under his eye had deepened, and the scar on his cheek had darkened from white to black.
With Thornwood unconscious, it took longer to pull him and Mouse out from beneath Thistlemarsh’s remains.
He was the first out, and the villagers had carried him away before she could think about where they would take him.
She scaled the hole as best she could in her silk shoes.
Every few steps up, another piece of the Hall would tumble beneath her. She clung to the rope.
As she went, she saw flashes of her past broken into slivers.
She saw herself as a child, tiptoeing around Lord Dewhurst’s ire.
The child transformed into a young woman, dashing through cascades of artillery fire, her forearms stained with blood.
Finally, she saw herself running from the Faerie hunt, horrified statues watching her flee in silence.
With each passing image, a weight lifted from her shoulders, as the memories fell behind her.
John pulled her up the last few feet, drawing her in for a crushing hug. She felt his tears on her neck and began to weep as well. They did not speak. The surrounding villagers kept a respectful silence until one mustered up the courage to cut in.
“Forgive me, Reverend Martin, but the house,” he said.
“Right, of course,” John said, pulling away and wiping his face on his sleeve. “It’s not safe here. Plenty can still fall on us. It would be very inconvenient if we spent all that time looking for you and a wall collapsed on top of us as soon as we got you out.”
Mouse took in the Hall as they scrambled over the ruins.
It was as though they were inside the ribs of a giant laid down on its back in the English countryside.
Beams crumbled as she watched. The stone walls remained, with black char marks running upward in horrid waves.
At the base of the stairs, Mouse saw that the large mirror had cracked, but the pieces clung to the frame.
She wondered if the flames melted them into place or if the mirror was still in the grip of some residual magic.
In the reflection, her pinky was still absent from her hand.
In the entryway, the roof had collapsed from an upstairs room down to the cellars, and Mouse could see up to the windows on the fourth floor. The glass was gone, leaving only stone and ashes.
From the remains of the tapestry, a single Faerie face winked out at her from the ground. The fire had consumed its body below the neck.
With a grim smile, she pressed her shoe into the charred edge of the fabric. Marked with soot, the Faerie looked as exhausted as she felt.
She hobbled slowly as glass shards studded the bottoms of her shoes, but soon they were out in the fresh air.
The sun sat like a toad above the trees, dipping further and further into the night as though descending into a pond.
Pink clouds enveloped the sky, only parting to allow glimpses of the star-studded navy beyond.
Mouse bit back her surprise. Her journey to defeat the Faerie King had taken the whole day.
Villagers with steaming mugs dotted the lawn. The civilian fire service members carried buckets from the pond to the waning embers still dancing in the lower windows. She wondered, absently, if anything had survived—the books in her uncle’s study or the poetry in Bertie’s room?
Not now, she told herself firmly. It will keep until tomorrow.
Still, Mouse struggled to stop her emotions from swelling. Nearly every able-bodied villager attended the remains of the fire. Those who could not help directly rushed about with buckets of water and sand, delivering them to those battling the flames.
“They knew something was wrong even before I arrived to raise the alarm,” John said, joining Mouse.
“What happened when the Faerie King’s magic reached the village?”
“Everything feels like a dream now. It was as though the magic drained all the color and life from the things that it touched. After mining the energy, the magic carried it toward Thistlemarsh on a golden cloud. But the spell was slow-moving. Most villagers were able to escape their homes, and then the magic started to retreat. When it did, I knew it was your doing. The color came back, and those who were caught in the initial onslaught came out of their houses confused but unharmed. I went to Thistlemarsh, and the villagers were only too happy to join me.”
“Aren’t they dreadfully curious?”
“Some of them, yes. But others seem to already have forgotten that the magic ever happened. I’m not sure how it will all play out.”
Mouse and John observed the villagers in silence.
“It was kind of them to help. I would not have expected it.”
“They know they owe their lives to you, even if they cannot remember why.”
The harried village doctor arrived. He frowned at the gash on Mouse’s forehead, and the line of his lips deepened into a scowl when he heard about the pain in the back of her head.
“You should stay at the village hospital tonight for observation,” he said, pressing a gray wool blanket into her hands.
It itched terribly, but she obediently wrapped herself in it and nodded.
The doctor patted her shoulder. “You’ve always been a smart girl.
I wish the same could be said for your friend Mr. Thornwood.
I told him he should stay overnight as well, but he refused. ”
“That sounds like him,” John said.
Mouse rolled her eyes at them both.
“I must ask—is his scar a war injury?” the doctor asked.
“It is an old wound,” Mouse said, feeling oddly Faerie-like as she avoided the question. “He tries to minimize it as best he can.”
She did not elaborate. When she looked out at the other villagers, she saw a few lean away. Let them gossip, then. At least they would think Thornwood was a war hero, if not a bit of a vain one for hiding an injury under white makeup.
She was not sure how Thornwood would proceed now, but she would not be the one to reveal his Faerie nature to the world. And she did not know how much they would remember when the night was over.
John pressed a hot mug into her hands. The heat traveled through her like a shot. She waited to take a sip until she could feel the warmth from her fingers to her chest. The tea was too strong, but Mouse was grateful for it.
“I would kill for a bath,” she said at last.
“There’s no need for violence,” John replied, “but the bath might have to wait until the doctor has cleared you.”
“I’ll tell him it is necessary for my health.”
“I am sure he has never heard that before, after dealing with entire companies of injured soldiers.”
Mouse wrinkled her nose.
They looked back at Thistlemarsh from the lawn. For the first time, Mouse noted Mickelwaithe working in line with the fire brigade. His black coat was open, revealing a black undershirt and a thin swath of his bare chest.