An Artificial Night
Page 33

The children were slinking back into a group, watching me with angry, empty eyes. It’s always nice to feel loved. I kept backing up, chanting the rhyme over and over until my shoulders hit the wall. I glanced from side to side. There were no doors. No way out.
Emboldened by my sudden stop, the group of children began creeping closer. They surrounded me in a loose semicircle, stopping well out of reach. The Piskie looked at me, saying, “Oh, you won’t go.” She seemed to be the unofficial spokesperson for the group. Most of the others didn’t say anything more complex than “new girl” without being prompted. “There’s no leaving before it’s time.”
“I see,” I said, not moving. “That’s good to know.”
“Good and bad don’t matter—there’s no point in running. Rider or ridden, it’s not your decision, and if it’s the second, to the stables you’ll go. If the first, you’ll join our company . . . for a time.” There was no softness in her smile. “Making enemies of the only friends you’ll find here isn’t wise.”
“Maybe she wants enemies,” said the Centaur.
“No one smart wants enemies,” replied the Piskie.
Considering that I’d voluntarily entered Blind Michael’s lands, I wasn’t sure I qualified as smart. “What happens now?” I asked, keeping my voice steady. They were avoiding the candlelight, but candles can’t last forever. Eventually, the wax would burn down, and they’d take me.
“Now we wait,” said the Piskie.
“We wait for Him,” added the Urisk, in a hiss.
“He’ll come.”
“Because you’re here.”
“New girl.”
“New blood.”
“Rider or ridden.”
“And maybe he’ll take one of us when he takes you.”
“To the Ride—”
“—the Hunt—”
“—to where the darkness waits—”
“He’ll take us home.” This last was from the Roane, who popped his thumb into his mouth as he finished speaking. His fangs fit neatly around it, barely grazing the skin, although the blood from where he’d bitten his own lip made that difficult to see.
“How long have you all been here?” I asked, keeping my shoulders pressed against the wall. I’d been distracted by their seeming innocence once, and I wasn’t going to risk doing it again. In this place, innocence could kill.
The answers came from all around, called out too quickly for me to see who made each one. “A long time.”
“Long time.”
“Many new children.”
“I was new once.”
“We were all new once.”
The Piskie hugged herself, saying, “Sometimes He comes and picks one of us, even when there aren’t any new ones. He takes us away to join Him, and we never come back here again.”
“Where is here?” Children like to talk—even monster children. If I could keep them talking, they might tell me something I needed to know.
“Home,” said a voice from the back of the crowd. The Piskie scowled over her shoulder before looking toward me again, eyes narrowed.
“The Children’s Hall,” she said. “It’s where we wait. You’ll wait, too, if you’re a Rider.”
“And if I’m not?” I was certain I wouldn’t like the answer.
“If you’re not a Rider, you’re ridden,” said the Centaur, smiling thinly. “You won’t come back here, if you’re ridden. You’ll go to the stables, and do your waiting there.”
That didn’t sound promising. “What—” A heavy grinding filled the air as the flame of my candle turned a brilliant white, blazing up another foot. The children stepped back, laughing, suddenly at ease. “What the hell?”
“You’ll understand now,” said the Piskie, through her laughter.
And everything changed. The walls of the Children’s Hall dropped away, transforming the shattered ballroom into a clearing ringed by warped, almost menacing trees. Riders lurked in the shadows of their branches. The candle flame abruptly dwindled to a tiny blue spark, and just as abruptly the children were upon me, pinching and shoving as they surrounded me on all sides. They pulled me back when I tried to break away, jeering at my distress.
A deep voice rumbled in the distance, drowning out the voices of the children: “Send me the intruder. Let her be seen.”
Still laughing, the children pushed me forward, and I saw Blind Michael.
He was tall—no, he was more than tall; he filled the sky. His arms were tree trunks, and his feet were the roots of the earth, and standing in front of him, I was less than nothing. I was dust and dry leaves skittering across the sky, and my only hope was that he would open those arms and let me hide under them until the world ended. His smile was the smile of a benevolent god, kind and merciful and willing to forgive all my sins. Only his eyes broke the illusion of peace: they were milky white, like ice or marble, and seemed almost as cold. I snapped back to myself for a moment, almost remembering who I was and why I was there; for that instant, I knew what I was looking for.
And then the glamour slammed back over me in a wave of glory, and He was my entire world. The children moved out of the way as I stepped forward, letting me pass. I wasn’t theirs to torment anymore—I belonged to our mutual god, and I was His and His alone. I was barely breathing as I realized the magnitude of my devotion. I would live for Him. I would die for Him. I would kill in the name of His glory . . .
A sudden wind whipped through my hair, snarling it around my face as the candle blazed white again. The air was abruptly filled with the sharp, ashy stink of burning hair. I jerked the candle away from myself, ready to throw it aside—I didn’t need it anymore, I was home—when a thin line of wax blew free and spattered on my lip, filling my mouth with the taste of blood.
There wasn’t much blood in the wax, but there was enough to let me break the glamour he was throwing over me. Blind Michael wasn’t a god; he was just a man sitting on a throne carved from old wood and decorated with yellowing bones. He couldn’t block the sky if he tried. Oak and ash, what had I been about to do?
I sucked in a breath, almost choking on the taste of burned hair, and said, “No.” My head was pounding, but there wasn’t time to deal with that now. I could have a migraine later, when it was safe to collapse. “I’m not yours. You don’t get to take me that easily.”