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Chapter Thirteen

The stones of the garden path moved under my bare feet I was suddenly aware that I had s the cuts

I clutched Sholto&039;s arhtly, and looked down at alked upon The stones were shades of black, but there were ies in them It was as if pieces of the formless part of the wild hunt were inside the stones, but it wasn&039;t just visuals They reached out to the surface of the stones with tentacles and too many limbs, and they could touch us The ic seemed particularly interested in anywhere that I was scraped or bleeding

I ju?" he asked

"I think the stones are feeding on the cuts on my feet"

"Then I need a place to lay the Storm Lord down, so I can carry you" At his words, the center of the knot garden spread wide like a mouth, or a piece of cloth that you open toat speeds that no natural plant was everthat made me look around Sometimes when plants moved like that it was to simply make a new piece of faerie, but sometimes it was to attack I&039;d been bled by the roses in the Unseelie antechamber My blood had awoken the Plants don&039;t think like people, and e that Plants don&039;t understand how animals think and feel I suppose the sa to hurt the plants by accident, and I wasn&039;t so sure that the whispering, hurrying plants would grant ic of the Goddess wasabout this garden thatundersmall mouths to lick and drink from the minute cuts in my feet Maybe it was the knotted herbs thatif you looked at their patterns too long

I looked behind us and found that the rose hedge had knitted itself coe It looked like a white picket fence gate with a wooden arch that curved gracefully over it Then I realized that there were iate was formed of bone

There were four sarden nohere the herbs and stones had moved aside Vines curved up the lines of the vines, the way that trees hen they&039;ve had the vines shaping them their entire lives The vines interlaced above the trees, and the limbs and leaves of the trees interwove into a canopy The vines forrew under the vines, forrowing a bed for Mistral

Flower petals began to rain down upon the bed Not just the rose petals that sometimes fell around me, but flowers of all colors and kinds They formed four pillows that went across the width of the bed&039;s head They formed a blanket, which pulled itself down to the foot of the bed, turning itself down for the night

Sholto looked at me His look was a question I answered it as best as I could "Your sithen has prepared a place for us to sleep and to heal Mistral"

"And to heal you, Meredith"

I squeezed his arm "To heal us all"

Sholto walked to the bed on a spill of green grasses so bright that it looked too green to be grass The rass, I realized that it was sazed down at alked upon, and knew that it was formed of emeralds It crunched underfoot, but it wasn&039;t sharp or hurtful I had no words for the texture of the erass, but just happened to be formed of precious stones

Sholto laid Mistral in the center of the bed It was as if he knehat needed to be done to heal hiht

The bed was tall enough that I had to climb, rather than step, onto it Vines in the bed fraThe bed was a ht of vines that couldaround ht

Sholto knelt on the other side of Mistral fro up beside him "Who is the fourth pillow for?" he asked

I knelt in the surprising softness of herbs, vines, and petals, and stared at the pillow I started to say, "I don&039;t know," but in the middle of the breath to say it, another word came "Doyle"

Sholto looked at me "He is in the huy"

I said, "You are right," but the et Doyle We had to rescue him Rescue him? I said it out loud "We have to rescue him"

Sholto frowned at me "Rescue him from what?"

I had that moment of panic that I&039;d felt before It wasn&039;t words but a feeling It was fear I&039;d only felt it twice before: once when Galen had been attacked by assassins, and the other tiest ally in the Unseelie Court, had been at the wrong end of a ical plot in which our eneripped Sholto&039;s arhtly "There is no tiic of faerie We will return and give our s in the balance I feel it, and this feeling has never been wrong before, Sholto"

He didn&039;t argue again, which was one of the qualities I valued about Sholto The petal blanket slid over Mistral where Sholto had laid hiic touched every wound that the iron had made; it was the best we could do until we returned to him

Sholto turned to me Without Mistral&039;s body to block the view, the tentacles looked like so he earing above the waist "Hoe reach Doyle in time?" he asked

"You are the Lord of That Which Passes Between, Sholto You took us where a field met woods, and where the shorein a hospital that is a place between?"

He thought for a second, then nodded "Life and death A hospital is full of people who hover between But there is too y for me, Meredith I have no hus"

I took one of his hands and wrapped ers around his "I do"

He frowned at ic It is uide me Show me the way"

"Your hair," Sholto whispered "There is ain"

I turned reen leaves A touch found the white berries I gazed up at Sholto, and he had a crown of woven herbs They bloomed with tiny stars of lavender, white, and blue He raised his free hand and there again was a tendril of green like a living ring on his finger It burst into white blooeown to find an anklet of green and yellow leaves, lemon thyme wrapped around me Except for the ht that Sholto and I had first ht when I ith other of reen serpent It moved toward our clasped hands "Why is it always thorns?" I asked, but this was one e faerie

Sholto said it, "Because everything worth having hurts" His hand tensed against an to wind around us Thorns bit into our skin with sling our blood as our hands were pressed htly by the thorns It should have simply hurt, but the summer sunshine fell upon us, and the perfu sun, was all around us

The vine around our hands burst into flowers Pink roses covered the vine, hiding the pain, and giving us a bouquet more intimate than any ever made by man

I felt my hair move, and as Sholto leaned in to kiss me, he said, "You wear a crown of mistletoe and white roses"

We kissed, and his free hand with its ring of flowers cradled led blood," I whispered

"By the power of the Goddess," he said

"Let us join our power," I said

"And our kingdoms," he replied

"Let it be so," I said, and there was a sound like so for us to say those words I should have been afraid of what it meant I should have had doubts, but in that s There were only Sholto&039;s eyes gazing into ether by the very ic of faerie itself

"So mote it be," he answered "Now let us save our Darkness"

I&039;d traveled with Sholto to the between places, but I&039;d never been able to feel his power stretching outward It was surprisingly si outward in the dark until it finds what it needs and draws it near

One moment ere in the heart of faerie, the next ere in an e urney, and a doctor was trying to restart his heart

They stared at us for athem to save the man if they could "Where is he, Meredith?" Sholto asked

Sholto had gotten us here Noas up to me to find Doyle in time

Chapter Fourteen

I had a moment of panic as alked down a corridor How did I find Doyle? I thought about hiun as a realor a shield to represent s It was called the beloved underwing, an Ilia Underwing It was uards bore it on their bodies Doyle was one of those The ame of hot and cold If Doyle had been well, I could have simply called him to me, but I was afraid to call hi out of his sickbed to coht kill hih the hospital guided by thefor people to scream and point, but they didn&039;t They acted as if they could not see us I asked, "You&039;re hiding us?"

"I a theh, Meredith I can hide a sht An arlanced down at the pristine floor and realized ere leaving a trail of blood drops My hand didn&039;t hurt anymore, wound with his It was as if the pain had already beco I could see the blood drops clearly, but the humans walked in it and left tracks, as if they could not see it

The hospital was no longer a sterile environic was often like this It worked, but it could have unforeseen consequences Were we conta everywhere alked?

What was supposed to be a tattoo fluttered against ain, stuck in my body, as if s to struggle vainly to free itself The sensation was a little stoht of it But the frantic wings let me know that he was above us, and that we needed the elevator The pulsing had been harder to interpret, but the frantic wings were easier to judge We were running out of time If I&039;d been inside faerie I could have moved the fabric of reality like a curtain and found him much sooner, but reality was harsher here, even for me with my human blood in my veins, and on the floor behind us

The elevator went to the floor that soet inside with us, though he didn&039;t see us Sholto was keeping our way clear The doors closed and ent up again

The elevator opened, but when Sholto tried to get off, theto fly free of my body I pulled him back, and aited for the doors to close I hovered over the buttons, and hit the floor that the wings seeated like this, and being inside so y, I think I had assumed that the moth would not work very well here, but it was part of s did not weaken its ic I possessed would work here, and ell

The elevator opened and the moth fleard I stepped in the direction that it wanted to go Its franticinto a trap, or were Doyle&039;s injuries stealing him away from me?

Sholto trotted at hts "I can hide us fro as we do not interact with theer is," I said "I have no weapon," he said

"Our ic works here Not all of theirs will"

"The hand of power that injured Doyle and me worked just fine," he said

He had a point but I said, "Brownies have always been able to work ic around men and machinery It was one of the reasons that Cair used Gran You need ic here"

Pain doubledto tear its way out of ht I pointed at the door to our left "In there"

He didn&039;t argue with me, simply made sure I could stand, then reached for the door handle He was using gla on its oas almost is for you if you wanted to re in ainst my body

A doctor, a nurse, and a unifor in the corner all looked up as the door opened I started to rush forward, but Sholto held ht If anted to remain unseen, we had to move slowly and let the door close behind us If we drew any ht see us

But it took everything I had not to siainst the white sheets There were tubes and monitors everywhere Needles pierced his body, and tape held them in place Liquids ran down tubes into him

I&039;d been prepared for an attack, a spell, but I had forgotten Doyle was a creature of faerie There was noin hiics that faerie could offer

"His vitals just keep going down, Doctor," the nurse said