Crown of Briars Read online

  “You know the way out?” he asked.

  Zoe winced. “Kind of. It was a mess finding you.” She offered out the compass to him. “If you could fix this to point back at the Briars again, it would probably help.”

  Simon took the compass, puzzled. He had to blink a few times to focus on it properly without his glasses. A shaky smile broke out over his face as he saw it pointing back toward him. “Oh. That was clever. Yes… I think I can fix it.”

  The way back through Lord Wormwood’s manor was admittedly easier with the Wanderer of Arcadia leading the way.

  Zoe had thought herself at least moderately ingenious for making it to the manor at all — but even stricken and exhausted, Simon simultaneously navigated their path and handled the dangers there with such rote elegance that Zoe found herself a little bit awestruck.

  As they encountered the faerie servants that had given them so much trouble before, Simon reached into his pocket for a lighter, and replied with an absent-minded flick of flame, still staring at the compass. Bright golden lines of light leapt across the hallway in a fiery web. The ghost-like creatures scattered where the light touched them, darting away from their path. It took Zoe a moment’s inspection to realize that Simon had simply confused the creatures’ sense of direction.

  She and Jean followed in Simon’s wake, staying close behind him. As they did, the vampire shot her one raised eyebrow.

  “You can say it,” Zoe muttered. “I’m a hack.”

  “You did an admirable job with few resources,” Jean told her diplomatically. But she saw the amusement in his aura. He turned his eyes back to Simon, and Zoe saw genuine respect filter through him. “There is no substitute for experience, however.”

  Simon maneuvered them through the hallways with such an uncanny precision that Zoe knew it couldn’t all be due to the compass. She allowed herself a brief moment of envy at his natural magic; Sagittarius witches had a literally supernatural sense of direction.

  She shook off the pang. Scorpio magic had taken her where even Simon didn’t normally dare to go. The flower around his neck that currently kept him on his feet was her invention.

  Speaking of which… Jean wasn’t doing quite so well as he pretended. The deterioration of his body and mind had slowed as they walked further away from the center of Wormwood’s power, but that didn’t mean that it had stopped. Every once in a while, his aura jumped and his jaw clenched. Zoe saw him pause more than once to resettle himself. A lesser vampire like Vivienne would have lost themselves by now… but even the seigneur could only hold out for so long. There was nothing to be done but to escape Delirium entirely; Zoe had offered what remained of her own flower again, and again he had refused.

  Zoe startled as Simon threw open a door at the end of the hallway. The hazy glow of alien starlight trickled in from the outside. Was that the door they had come in through? She couldn’t tell. Either way, another wash of relief went through her. We’re doing it. We’re actually getting out of here.

  Simon turned to regard them seriously. For just a second, Zoe thought that he looked beautiful and strange in the light of those stars. He might have been human, but Arcadia’s touch upon him blurred that distinction, so that he very nearly looked as though he belonged there. “Eyes on the ground,” he said softly.

  Zoe nodded tiredly. As she moved for the door, Simon caught her hand, threading his fingers through hers. They held onto each other with a tight, silent grip on their way out into the hedge maze. The horizon thundered with clashes of faerie power — closer now, but still much too far to see properly. The maze loomed somehow taller than before, and even more ominous, as though it had taken exception to the battle currently happening on Delirium’s border.

  “I don’t think the maze is going to let us leave,” Zoe told him quietly. “I had to cheat to get us in.”

  Simon considered the way grimly. “I think you’re right,” he said. “More cheating may be in order. But I’m not sure I can use the Briars without making a splash.” He glanced her way. “How did you manage it the first time?”

  Zoe frowned. “I guess I took a bit of a Scorpio approach,” she said. “I can try it again, but I’m not as fresh as I was before.”

  As Simon and Jean paused behind her, she reached into her soul to gather up the still-seething power of the Briars. It responded almost too eagerly; she had to pacify it before she dared to release it into the ground before her.

  For just a second, Zoe could have sworn that the hedge hesitated. But it quickly shivered away from her power as it had done before, clearing the way for them to move forward.

  Only a few minutes after they had started, however, the strange stars clouded over, and a familiar, poisonous rain began to slither upward toward the sky. Acid and ozone mixed scents in the air, assaulting their senses.

  The hedge closed in around them abruptly. Violet flowers blossomed in the rain, throwing up plumes of sickly pollen. Zoe threw the Briars against them in a panic — but Delirium no longer shied from her power. Instead, the realm pressed in upon her with a sinister fervor… directed, she knew, by a conscious hand.

  Simon called on his own shard of the Briars, bolstering Zoe’s power with his own — and quickly overtaking it. Unlike her infectious spells, his approach was direct and unapologetic. He seized control of a nearby hedge, winding it about them like a shield. Nothing, however, could stop the poison that rose from the ground in a tainted deluge… and in spite of Simon’s best efforts, the hedge before them parted and bowed.

  From out of that hedge walked a tall, gaunt figure, dressed in an old black morning coat. Both his eyes and his short shock of hair were the same strange violet as the dark flowers that surrounded them. His faintly curving lips expressed a cyanotic blue at the edges, like an oxygen-starved corpse.

  Zoe’s Witchsight showed her clearly the shining crown of sickening, coruscating color that hung about his head like a halo. The power of his mantle fanned out behind him like a twisted, maddening storm.

  “Ah!” said Lord Wormwood. “Uninvited guests! My very favorite sort.”

  Chapter 17

  Zoe’s concentration broke in a heartbeat.

  Lord Wormwood hadn’t bothered to veil his power. The press of it on her senses was so shocking that she found herself cringing back, trying to cover her eyes. As with the Lady, however, covering her physical sight did little to relieve the spiritual weight of a faerie lord in his full majesty.

  Useless, came the distant, wretched thought. I’m so useless at the worst moment.

  Simon pulled her in against him, tucking her head into his shoulder. The lingering damage of his stay in Delirium still scarred his soul, but that deep core of warmth still remained beneath it all. His nearness helped to stem the madness, though nothing could banish it completely.

  Zoe had expected to see fear in Simon’s aura… but there was none to be found. There was instead a grim determination — the certainty that came of knowing that the price of failure was too high, no matter how impossible success might seem. Behind them, Jean had tensed, his aura ragged and ravaged by poison… but Zoe knew that he had assessed the situation and found himself ill-suited to contribute to it.

  “You are overmatched,” Simon told the faerie lord quietly. “Even now, two of your peers batter down the gates to your kingdom. If you let us leave unharmed, they will have no reason to continue.”

  Wormwood laughed. It was an empty sound — there was only that strange facsimile of amusement in his aura, bereft of any real emotion. He laughed because it was the thing to do, and not because he knew its meaning. The sight of it made Zoe shiver with newfound fear. This is what a faerie lord is, she thought. This is what they’re truly like, without even a shred of humanity.

  “How can I be a lord who bows to other lords?” Wormwood asked. “There is no sense to it, warlock, truly. You humans call me Lord of Madness, but your sentiments are mystifying by comparison.”

  Simon didn’t bother to argue the point with him. He qu
ickly changed tacks instead. “What use do you have for us?” he asked. “The Lady clearly will not bargain with you. There is no value in keeping us here.”

  The sky rumbled once more. The Lord of Delirium had shifted his attention away from the realm’s borders; the lapse had allowed the other two faerie lords to gain more ground, but somehow, that didn’t seem to concern him overmuch.

  Wormwood tilted his head. “You sell yourself short,” he murmured. “Of course you have value, my dear creature. So many bright dreams are locked within you, desperate to escape. It is my joy, my purpose, to see that they are freed.”

  A shudder wracked Simon’s body at that. The ghost of a dimly-remembered horror shadowed his aura. He had been dreaming while he slept.

  Wormwood smiled. The expression was oddly warm, though his affection was as hollow as the rest of him. “Humans, mortals, witches… you are all so inconstant and distractible. But I am Delirium, and I shall never change. Allow me to deliver you from the terrible shackles of your mind.”

  That awful mantle surged with power.

  Far above them, beyond the roiling violet clouds, the stars began to fall.

  The wavering lights screamed down from the firmament, hissing violent paths of steam through the rain that rose up to meet them. Bright, beautiful, and incomprehensible, the burning stars slammed into the ground around them. With them came the unavoidable sight of utter madness.

  A single, wicked rose, blooming from Malcolm’s mouth.

  Vivienne’s fangs, tearing viciously at her wrist.

  The cloying scent of absinthe.

  Zoe’s mind began to unstitch itself entirely. There was a keening sound in the air. It might have been her own screaming.

  Simon’s fingers dug into her hair, holding onto her desperately. He was coming apart too, though — she could see the unraveling in his aura.

  She needed to do something. Anything. But the thought slid away just as quickly as she tried to grasp at it.

  What was I thinking? Why was I thinking?

  Soon, even those questions were lost in the maelstrom.

  Zoe’s mind resurfaced like a drowning creature gasping for breath. Her knees had hit the ground.

  The stars had dimmed. Their glow pulsed and wavered erratically.

  Wormwood’s kaleidoscopic mantle guttered like a candle flame in the wind, struggling for coherence. Jean’s fingers were closed around the faerie lord’s neck; his eyes burned a bright and maddened red. Wormwood stared at the vampire as though he had never seen anything quite like him before.

  The faerie lord’s mantle wavered again. A bit of that effervescent color leeched away, flowing between Jean’s lips. With dawning horror, Zoe realized: the seigneur was feeding on Wormwood.

  Simon moved long before she could form her first full thought, taking advantage of the brief window of respite. He let her go to stagger to his feet. At first, Zoe wasn’t sure just what he intended to do… but as he forced his way toward Wormwood, Simon tore the wilting crimson lily away from his throat, and threw it at the faerie lord.

  He touched the flower with the Briars. It spasmed and grew, reaching out to tangle itself around Wormwood’s body. The lily shuddered and curled around the faerie lord’s arm, climbing its way to his throat.

  The last of its petals wilted almost at once, spiralling to the ground. But Zoe saw the moment of disconnect as the flower leeched the poison of Delirium from the faerie’s body, oh-so-briefly cutting his connection to the crown upon his head.

  The realm lurched.

  Deafening thunder rolled through the air. The poison rain stuttered and reversed… and very slowly turned to frigid sleet.

  Darkness rushed into the brief void created by the disconnection, seizing upon the lordless realm. Cold hunger tore at the stars around them, consuming their alien light. Hedges froze and shot through with strange, frigid roses of ice and stone, as the tall, menacing figure of Lord Blackfrost advanced upon them. Each of his slow, measured steps froze the ground underfoot. As he came to stand just before Wormwood, Blackfrost’s cold blue eyes glinted with merciless victory beneath his crown of shadows.

  Furious, limitless growth carved through the hedge next to Blackfrost, cutting a strange juxtaposition of elements. Virulent vines of jasmine and ivy rapidly expanded, choking out the poisonous violet blossoms. The Lady of Briars stepped from the overgrowth to place one delicate hand upon Simon’s shoulder. The thorns upon her brow seethed and shifted, wilder and more vibrant than ever.

  The lily at Wormwood’s throat fell away entirely… but even as he regained his mantle, it was far too late. The two other faerie lords had claimed the soil beneath his feet, stranding him outside of his own realm. His mantle flickered, caught in the forbidden position of treading upon foreign land. Ice climbed up his body, holding him firmly in place.

  The clash of three Arcadian mantles was too much. Zoe buried her face in her hands and did her best to breathe. The Briars coiled beneath her feet though, and she felt a surge of steady, familiar strength shoot through her. The lingering effects of Delirium leeched away from her; even the injury in her shoulder failed to bother her, so long as her feet touched the Briars. She forced herself to look upon the gathering, with the reassuring power of the Lady holding her mind together.

  Jean turned upon Blackfrost, his eyes burning red. The vampire’s lips were tinged blue around the edges, though Zoe couldn't tell whether that was a hallucination of her Witchsight or not. The seigneur hissed and reached out for the cold faerie lord… but Blackfrost had a hunger all its own, and that hunger was far deeper and more vast than that of a single vampire. Shadows wrapped around Jean, ripping at the unnatural Arcadian power he had tried to digest. Zoe cried out for them to stop — but brutal as the process was, she realized belatedly that Blackfrost was, in his own way, drawing out the toxic bit of Delirium that Jean had taken.

  Jean collapsed beneath that power. The red in his eyes wavered and vanished. Zoe tried to rush to his side — but the moment that she set foot upon that blasted, icy ground, her connection to the Briars wavered, and that storm of power sent her cringing back.

  Simon pressed his fingers silently to his mother’s hand, reassuring — but he released her long enough to stride toward Jean, crossing over into Blackfrost’s territory. As Simon knelt next to the vampire, Blackfrost laughed. It was a laugh entirely unlike that of Wormwood — there was real fire beneath the facade of amusement.

  “Constantly going where you should not, Wanderer,” Blackfrost said. “That is the second time you have dared to step into my realm.”

  “Oh, hush,” a voice said. Zoe realized belatedly that there was a woman standing next to Blackfrost, sheltered in the shadow of his power. Her long black hair stood out starkly against pale skin that glowed like moonlight. Her eyes pierced the darkness of Blackfrost, a bright and bewitching aquamarine that could only be evidence of the touch of a warlock’s pact. Her kind, relieved smile and her comfortable-looking cardigan rather undercut the look, however. She stepped aside to help with the seigneur. “I’m so glad that you’re all right, Simon,” she sighed.

  Simon shot her a smile of genuine friendship and affection. Zoe might have felt a hint of jealousy, if she hadn’t seen the gentler, less powerful crown of shadows that whispered about the woman’s head. “I’m surprised that His Lordship allowed you anywhere near this mess, Elaine,” he said.

  Elaine snorted. “Allowed,” she repeated, as though the very thought was ridiculous. She helped Simon haul Jean to an unsteady standing position. Between the two of them, they managed to bring the vampire to the liminal boundary between Blackfrost and the Briars. Zoe noted, however, that Elaine did not step over that line herself. Suspicion flitted through her aura as her eyes locked upon the Lady of Briars; as soon as Jean was handled, Elaine pulled back toward Blackfrost’s side.

  Whatever their history, however, the Lady had no attention to spare for Elaine. Her too-green eyes were focused upon Wormwood. “Thief,” she hissed. Her
voice echoed in the sky above them, cutting through the thunder. “Never again shall you take what is mine!”

  Lord Wormwood considered her with a blank curiosity in his expression. The frost had climbed up his chest, painting his ragged morning coat and trapping his arms behind him. “I understand,” he said to her. “I see it clearly now. You are infected. You and the other one… you have both been poisoned by the Lower World.”

  Of the things that Wormwood might have said, that seemed to be the only one for which the Lady of Briars was unprepared. She cringed back as though he had slapped her. Gray, withered shame shot through her at the sound of her secret spoken aloud.

  “It will be the death of you,” Wormwood told her softly. His violet eyes bore into her. “You are not the first to fall into the vices of the Lower World. The corruption leads to madness of a sort far beyond even my powers.”

  The words were aimed true. Zoe saw them strike neatly. Each one caused ripples of anguish through the Lady. The Briars flinched back with her — Zoe had to stagger back to keep her feet upon them. Blackfrost staggered and reoriented himself, hurrying to stake his claim upon the portion of Delirium which the Lady had abandoned.

  The colorful, shifting crown upon Wormwood’s brow flared. “It may not be too late for you,” he said. “This poison alone, I might deign to cure.”

  There was no malice in the words — Wormwood wasn’t capable of malice. There was merely observation, and cold, empty calculation.

  Blackfrost growled in annoyance. He curled his fingers together; the ice on Wormwood’s body crawled up toward his neck. “You have it backward,” the faerie lord drawled, though Zoe could see the effort he was expending to shore up the Lady’s retreat. “I was born to both worlds. Of the two, I found Arcadia to be the infection… but I have conquered it.” He turned cold blue eyes upon the Lady. “The pure ideas of Arcadia, unsullied by emotion, are endless and perfect… and also useless. To dabble in the Lower World is to be infected by meaning. It is a priceless corruption — a madness the likes of which a creature like Wormwood cannot dream.”