When October had performed this ritual, it had been a difficult, complicated thing. It showed in the video I had of her, in the way she moved from component to component, hesitating before she slotted each new segment into place. She had no training in ritual magic, going through the motions with the clumsy precision of a child learning how to set the table for the first time.
I had no training in ritual magic, either. But I had the video, and I had proof that what she had done was something that could work. So I carried flowers, and I scattered juniper berries, and I drew my circle of salt.
I was standing in the middle of it when Elliot returned, the bag of blood in his hands. He looked at my work, and made no effort to hand the bag to me.
“Rituals like this demand the blood of the caster,” he said. “You need me.”
“My mother’s blood belongs to me,” I replied. “It does not flow in my veins, but her magic gave me life when all was lost; her family line gave me a name. The laws of sympathy state that in the absence of blood I can call my own, hers serves just as well.”
Elliot looked surprised. I swallowed the anxious laughter threatening to overwhelm me.
“Never attempt to argue rules with someone who has them embedded in her very code,” I said. “Give me the blood and go. Lock the doors from the outside and wait. I will succeed, or I will fail, and we will know soon. We will know before October arrives whether she is to be turned back at the gate.”
For a moment, Elliot looked like he wanted to make one last attempt to sway me. Then his gaze flicked to the blood in his hands, and I knew that as much as he wanted his lover back from the dead, he wanted my mother—his liege, his best friend—even more. With a small nod, he handed me the bag. Then he turned and left the room, pulling the doors shut behind him. There was a click as he locked them. Not locking me in, but locking the rest of the company and the rest of the knowe out.
That was good. It was time to begin.
Stepping into the circle, I picked up the paring knife Elliot had provided and sat, the bag of blood resting on my crossed ankles. I closed my eyes, reaching past the thrum and buzz of my electronic world, looking for a natural rhythm that no longer belonged to me. It was faint, but it was there, and when the world clicked over into sunset, I felt the air change, turning tight.
Quickly, before I could reconsider, I unwrapped the mandrake Elliot had provided before drawing my knife across the bag of blood, splitting its surface and spilling what remained of my mother onto the floor. The smell of it, cold and sterile and yet somehow meaty and animal, struck me in a wave. I shuddered, and ran my fingers through it, hoping to make the connection between it and myself.
“My name is April ap Learianth,” I said, using the form of Mother’s name which accompanied her title, the one that predated this country, this culture, this place. “I am the daughter of January ap Learianth, who built this place with her own hands, and I am here to petition for your attentions. I bring you blood and flowers and salt from the sea. All our Courts together here support my plea.”
The mandrake was lying motionless in the spilled blood, soaking it up but not responding. That was wrong. On the tape . . . when October had performed this part of the ritual, the mandrake had come alive, consuming her blood, taking on her form. This was wrong.
Even as the thought formed, the flowers around the edge of my circle burst into bluish-green flame. The candles lit themselves. The mandrake might not be awakening, but the fire was burning. There was still a chance.
“I bring you life,” I said, and pressed my hands flat against the floor, as I had seen October do. The mandrake did not move. I grabbed the knife and drove it, with its burden of my mother’s cold, sluggish blood, through the mandrake’s chest. The fire burned higher. “If I could speak with you a moment, I would be greatly appreciative.”
I waited. The room seemed to quiet, until I could barely hear the crackle of the flames, until a low buzz, as if a hard drive were starting to skip, filled the air. I raised my head.
The night-haunts were there.
They surrounded me in a gauzy cloud: small, winged figures dressed in tattered shrouds, as if even their clothing came from the dead. Those closest to me looked solid, like ordinary fae compressed into miniature versions of themselves. It was . . . odd, to see Silene and Centaurs and Cait Sidhe with autumn leaf wings growing from their miniaturized backs, but the oddness was not enough to make them disappear.
They dropped lower, until one of them—a male, with eyes like frosted violets, and a starkly beautiful face—was hovering at the edge of the circle, on a level with my eyes.
“What do you think you’re doing, daughter of trees?” he asked. There was more curiosity than cruelty in his tone. “We have been summoned here before. Do you know what you’ve done?”
“I am Countess April ap Learianth of Tamed Lightning,” I said. “I have summoned you here according to a ritual passed from the Luidaeg to Sir October Daye of Shadowed Hills. I have called you, and you have come.”
One of the night-haunts laughed and flew forward, joining the first. This one, I recognized. He had a seal’s dark eyes, and spiky brown hair streaked with gray, like a seal’s fur. “She’s got you there,” he said. “Toby strikes again.”
“Remind me why we let her live,” muttered the first night-haunt.
“I know you,” I said. They both stopped talking and looked at me. I kept my eyes on the second one. “You were her suitor, weren’t you? The Selkie man who came to help her.”
The night-haunt looked at me sadly. “I was him most recently, yes. He died. Now I wear his face, and remember him, as is the accord between ourselves and the rest of Faerie. I remember you, too, April. You’ve grown.”
“I had to.”
“Why have you called us here?” He looked at the motionless mandrake in front of me, and frowned. “The ritual is incomplete. The blood spilled is not your own.”
“The blood belongs to my mother.”
His face softened. “January is not among our number.”
“I know. None of the dead of this place are with you, except for Gordan.” I looked at the flock, searching for that second familiar face. “Where is Gordan?”
“We aren’t the only flock,” he said. “She didn’t want to return here, and we didn’t make her. Guilt lives into the grave.”
The thought was chilling. I was suddenly, completely grateful for the knowledge that when I died, I would not join the night-haunts. Nothing without blood and bone to consume could ever be counted among them.
“I see,” I said. I focused on the night-haunt at the front of their number, the one who wore the Selkie’s face. “I have called you for my mother.”
The night-haunt frowned. “I don’t understand. Her death was denied to us.”
“Because it was no true death,” I said. “Her body was destroyed, but the part of her you could make your own was trapped, held outside the ordinary way of things.”