“But still Unseelie.” As I said it, I trembled when I realized that Grey didn’t know about the exile. So he and the prince must have been sent immediately to the cave after the Curse by Orybon’s furious father.
He shrugged. “Sometimes a name is given because of the nature of a people. Sometimes they grow into it.”
It took me a moment to remember that he was talking about the Unseelie folk, so absorbed had I been with my latest realization. But he sounded so much like Father, the tears I’d almost shed at his winglessness now prickled in my eyes. So I shook my head to clear it and said carefully, “The opening up there where the bats go out might be on the ground.”
“It might. But there’s no use guessing. We have no more wood to build a ladder. Believe me, we have scoured every inch of these caves, all the winding corridors and smaller caverns. Many times over the long years we have gone on expeditions to find more wood, as have members of the tribe.”
And since they’d had many, many years to do it, I didn’t doubt him. But I didn’t mention that, when my wing healed, I could possibly fly them each up to inspect the ceiling. I was reacting to his trust in me, but as soon as I had that thought, I had a counter-realization. There was no way I could carry either one of those big men up that high without possibly killing both of us.
By this time, we’d walked back to the Gate. It loomed before us. Glowered at us. All but called us names.
Suddenly, I knew what I had to do, knew what the only thing I could do was. I wondered that it had taken me so long to see that. It was the only thing different from anything they’d already tried. And it had been in my dream as well.
Turning to Grey, I said, “Get all the McGargles back as far as possible, way back in the corridors. The littlest ones the farthest away. Put solid rock and many corridors between them and me.”
“What are you going—” he began, but he already knew.
“I’m going to Shout the Gate down, of course,” I said. “It’s the only sensible thing to do.”
“After the spell and what it did to you, the sensible thing for you would be to rest up more.”
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do!” I said, my voice rising.
“Madam, I would never tell a Shouter female what to do,” he answered calmly, though there was a hint of laughter behind his eyes. “The men who fell down the magick traps were quite in agreement on that point, however they differed on your history. But I might suggest!”
“Right. Then let me suggest that you get those McGargles away, and I will worry about my headaches and wing aches, Prince Grey.” I turned and walked toward the Gate.
I should have realized that sense and magick needed to go together. I should have been more cautious. But I was only thirteen.
And, like Grey had been when he swore his Oath to the prince, I was equally far from home.
• 12 •
THE SHOUT
Immediately, as if he’d been ordered by a general or a king, Grey began explaining, cajoling, and then actually pushing the McGargles away from the Gate. Slowly but with great energy, he rounded the big creatures up, shepherding them down the long corridor, including the hairless one who seemed to be shivering once away from the fire.
“McGargles halloooo!” Grey shouted, rather like a cowherd or a pirate rounding up a group for a long trek.
I watched them disappear around a turn and knew he was getting them as far from the Gate as possible. Farther, I hoped. I didn’t want to kill anyone ever again.
Since I’d no idea how long to wait for them to get settled, I simply paced in front of the Gate. All the while, the magick embedded in the Gate made my headache start up again. I wondered if by trying out the spell, I’d made a connection with that magick and given it the ability to sneak into my head. I’d ask Father when I got home.
If I get home. That thought made my head throb again.
The only thing to do was ignore it and make certain everything I had to do was firmly in mind. This one Shout might be the only chance I’d have before the Gate’s magick shut me down completely, so I had to make it count.
Unlike the Shout I’d pushed out when enclosed in Gargle’s arms, this one was going to have to be well thought through. That would take some time, but time was the one thing I’d plenty of. So, I rehearsed the steps to come: the deep breath drawn in, the open mouth, the Sweetened Spot from which the fuller breath for the Shout would come. And then the actual rush of air out into the Shout, while simultaneously I’d make the Wish.
I thought about the Three T’s: timbre, temper, tension.
And then I thought about how to frame the Wish.
It couldn’t just be a Wish for the Gate to fall down. I understood that. The falling Gate had to be told to fall either forward or back. It had to be disarmed in a way that we could cross over it. Since neither Grey nor Orybon could fly over it and I—for the while—was equally incapacitated, this was an important point.
I wondered briefly if I should discuss everything with Grey first. I was beginning to rely on his sensibleness the way I did on Father’s. But he was already hiding well behind the stone walls with the trolls. Yet I really, really needed to talk it through with someone who knew more about magick than I did.
But who?
Turning back to the Gate, I thought, Why the hurry? I’ve already missed the christening by days. I can only hope that since I’m still alive and not in a thousand starry pieces, the Family is the same. Though why I should think that . . .
Still, nothing needs to be done this moment. Or today. Or even tomorrow. Except . . . except I want to be home safe. With Father and Mother and the Family. And if—as I partially accepted—I were already too late for that, then . . .
Pictures of starbursts danced before me. Or else my mind was melting.
An enormous shadow moved into the cavern toward me.
I waved my hands at it. “All McGargles out of here. Now—”
“I am hardly a monster,” came Orybon’s dry voice.
“You most of all, prince.”
How could he be so stupid? And why was his shadow so wide?
And then I saw he’d someone with him. A small troll, perhaps, who limped along by the prince’s side.
“Hi, Goosey,” called out the shadow. “I’ve found you.”
“Not Pudding Alice after all?” said Orybon, though he’d never been fooled.
“Dusty,” I whispered, but under my breath, not willing to give the Prince of Lies more than one name at a time, even if it was only Dusty’s pet name for me. Though I was happy to see Dusty, deliriously so, actually, still I was devastated he was here, so close to the monstrous prince. It changed—well—everything.
Aloud, I said in as calm a voice as I could manage, “How, by the gods, did you get here?”
“Fetch, found, flew, fell,” Dusty said.
“Fetched what?”
“Father sent me to fetch you. The king wouldn’t allow us to give any gifts without all of us there after Father explained about you being so sick. He gave us three more days to come back, laughed and called it ‘a damned magick number for you magick makers.’ And Father didn’t want to chance the king changing his mind so that we all burst into—”
“A thousand stars . . . yes, I know.” Those same stars were once again bursting inside my brain.
Dusty ignored me, so breathless in his telling, his hands flailed about. “So Father sent us all off in different directions to find you, since when we’d gotten home, you weren’t there. I chose to fly over the Wooing Path because it’s the quickest way between home and castle, and I figured you might go that way in a hurry. I was looking down and saw something sparkling below. I hesitated for a moment. Flying the path isn’t forbidden, walking it is.”
“Mr. Magpie,” I whispered.
Dusty continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “I thought about the Forbidding, but if that sparkle was a clue to your whereabouts, I had to take the chance. And when I landed,” he said, “there was something lying in the grass by a tree: a patch of spiderwebs.”
I touched the ripped place in Solange’s dress.
“And I found your hair ribbon, too. When I spun around to find you, I fell down some sort of a trap hole. No wonder we’re not supposed to go on foot along the Wooing Path. Flew at the last, so I landed easily, except I think I may have hurt my ankle. Your accident thing may be catching, like an ague. And once down and here—wherever here is—I bumped into Sir What’s His Name here. Hard hands.”
“Harder heart . . . Why didn’t you just fly back up and alert the others?”
“I didn’t know you were actually here.”
“Well, fly away now.” I tried to wave him away with my hands. “I don’t need you.”
“Do too!”
“Do not!” Why couldn’t he see that if he left, he could fetch the others? And then I remembered—he could fall into the trap but not fly out. Well, maybe he could squeeze through the bat hole.
“Children, children,” said Orybon, but he was smiling as he spoke. “Much as I am finding this family reuinion infinitely amusing—”
“Stay out of this,” I said. And then realized I may have just stepped entirely over the line. What would he do to me? What would he do to Dusty?
To my astonishment, he laughed. “What a talkative family you are. Are there more of you at home?”
“Hundreds,” I said quickly, holding up a hand so Dusty would just shut up.
“Well, so here is part of the hundreds to help you figure out—”
“Leave him with me,” I said, even though interrupting the prince a second time might really be pushing it. But still, he had to be nice to me until . . . well, until he realized I couldn’t do what he wanted. “We’ll make something happen together.”
“A double Shout,” said Orybon, clapping his hands. Then he laughed again. “I guessed you were going to do one when I saw all the McGargles gathered down the path.”
“You knew from the beginning that I’d have to do it.” Even before I knew, I thought.
“A good warrior understands his weapons.”
And of course that was all I was to him, a weapon. And now Dusty was another. The third, Grey, was no longer particularly useful, except to keep the peasants quiet.
“And a good leader knows when to retreat so that the weapon can be used,” I told him. I remembered the General telling us that.
Orybon gave me a nod, left Dusty, and moved away.
I called after him, “I’m not giving a Shout until I have that spindle back. In good order.”
He turned and held it up. “I thought you might want it!”
I put my hand out for it.
“When the Gate is down, you will get it.”
“Your Oath on that, prince.”
He laughed. “Why, of course,” he said. But his hands were never together, so I didn’t know if he meant it or not. Or if that counted as an Oath. But Dusty had heard. And Grey, too. I saw his shadow, with his hand on his sword. Again. But this time it might not have been for me.
And then the two of them were gone, hiding behind the walls of stone with the hairy creatures, leaving Dusty and me alone.
• • • • • • • •
“What’s this all about, Gorse?” Dusty whispered when Prince Orybon was truly gone.
I showed him the Gate and then told him everything I knew about it. I told him what I’d guessed. I told him what I feared. And finally I said, “But which way should I Wish the Gate to fall?”
“Either way, the trolls we passed getting here will have to leap over it in case it’s still dangerous,” he said.
“Do you mean the troll monsters or the fey monsters?” I asked.
“There’s more than one of him?”
“Another, actually, though he’s not really a monster but a fey captive as much as we are.”
“We, of course, can fly,” Dusty said.
“Well, I can’t. Not yet.” I shrugged. “Hurt it when I fell.”
“Poor Goosey,” he said, “but I am not surprised.”
“The fey men can’t fly either. They were Cursed into winglessness when they were imprisoned here.”
“Well, I will carry you in my arms, the way I did when you were still too little to fly,” he said, poking his finger at me. “You don’t look like they’ve been overfeeding you! Let me see that wing.”
I took off the useless Cloak and tied it carefully around my waist. Then I offered my back to Dusty, who explored the wing with his fingers.
I winced at his touch.
“Not broken.”
“I know that.”
“Probably strained.”
“Figured that out, too.”
He put his hands up as a gesture that he was giving up any argument. “Then my offer still stands. We get that Gate down, and I will carry you across. Or if we don’t get the Gate down, then we fly out of here through the same hole we fell through.”
“Can’t.”
He looked puzzled.
“Magick traps only work one way.”
“Did old Prince Hard Hands tell you that?”
I nodded.
“Well, maybe he’s wrong. Or lying.”
“Or maybe we can fly up there,” I said, pointing to the bats’ bolt hole.
“Why didn’t you show me that first?”
I shrugged. “There’s still the small matter of my . . . my Oath.”
“Did you have your fingers crossed?”
“Of course. But if you think I trust my life to a children’s game—”
He gave me a hug. “Right!” he whispered in my ear. “Let’s do that Shout.” He stepped back. “You smell, Gorse.”
“You try sleeping in a mossy bed next to a baby troll.”
He laughed, but held his nose with his fingers just to make the point.
“So, here’s what we’ll do,” I said. “I’ll make up the Wish part, and you join me on the count of three for the Shout. Having two of us should be much better than just the one.”
He nodded. “Always is.” For a moment, he cocked his head to one side and looked at me oddly. “You’re not fourteen yet.”
“I know.”
“And untrained.”
“I know.”
He grabbed my hands. “You know I’m pretty good on stone walls.” Then grinning, he took it back. “Actually, the only stone walls I’ve ever brought down were the ones quarried and set up by a farmer in his fields. Lots of sparkly stuff in the stones.”
“Poor farmer,” I said.
“Not really. There was a fortune in gold coins under the wall. He’s got a mansion now and a daughter marrying a duke.”
“Did you know?”
“Of course I knew. I took out the shiniest and left the rest.”
I smiled. Of course he did. But we still had the Gate to worry about. “All right, then we’re ready.” I spoke more positively than I felt. I’d no idea what could happen with two of us Shouting together. It could be a total waste of magick. Or the entire cave could collapse on our heads.
He took my hand. “I’m ready when you are, sister.”
I looked steadily at him, the one brother I could always count on. “I’ll start on And. Then on One, we’ll do the intake of breath, on Two, the open mouth, and then on Three . . .”
“The push out of breath.”
“The Shout.”
He nodded, his normally smiling face suddenly serious as if he’d just realized how fraught with danger all this was.
“Come on,”
I said. “We’ll get as close to the Gate as we dare.”
We began to move forward slowly, until the Gate started to spark at us, the orange and red flicking out like dragon tongues. I knew we could have gotten a foot closer on our bottoms, but then we wouldn’t have been in any position to run away if things went awry.
And whenever I was involved with something, things always went awry!
“I’ll Wish that the Gate falls away from us,” I whispered.
“Good idea. Don’t want to be crushed.” He laughed out loud, almost as if this were just a lark with the Family boys, though the laugh was strained.
I wanted to smile back, but this wasn’t a faerie tale, and I wasn’t certain we were going to get a happy ending. At best, no one would be hurt. Or hurt too badly. At best, we all got out, even Prince Orybon. Well, I thought, that might not actually be for the best! My lips pulled into a thin line. At worst . . .
I forced myself to stop thinking that way. Bad thoughts warp magick.
“I’m not even sure if our magick works here,” I said, neglecting once again to mention Gargle and how he disappeared after my first—my only—Real Shout. “I tried a spell on the Gate before you got here, maybe a few hours ago.”
“Maybe?”
I shrugged. “Time is funny here.”
“What happened?” he asked.
“Not much.” I added quickly, “It was a good spell. Great-aunt Gilda would have loved the rhymes.”
“I’m sure it was,” Dusty said. “But with two of us, any Shout and any spell will be that much better.” Always positive, but I could tell he was having second thoughts. Maybe even third thoughts.
As was I.
Still, he held out a hand.
Our fingers touched, my left, his right, our hands like ice.
“And . . .”
“Are we starting?”
“Shut up, Dusty. Of course we’re starting.”
“I just want to be sure.”
His hand was suddenly sweaty. Or maybe mine was.