Shifting Shadows

“The main spell is set,” she told Haida, her voice raw. She held the destruction of the world in her hand. “We are undone.”

“Can you use it to destroy him?” asked the hobgoblin, ever practical.

“When the sight of him turns my knees to water?” Ariana said bitterly. “He has changed me. Made me a frightened and powerless creature who is as obedient to his command as any of his hounds ever were. I cannot move against him in his presence.” Once, she’d been strong-willed and powerful, but now she was nothing, a shadow of what she had been—broken to her father’s will except in these stolen moments.

But there was something about her father’s hounds, something she should remember.

“Then we are undone,” said Haida practically, licking delicately at her hand, then smoothing it over the hair on her cheeks. “If you have finished what he wanted, we should leave. He will follow—he cannot be what he is and not give chase. But he will play with his new toy first. It will give us a chance to lose ourselves in the world. I can keep us hidden from his hounds for many days. My magic is not powerful, but it is subtle.”

Courageous hobgoblin. Haida always examined a problem and found the best path from where she found herself to somewhere she might survive.

Ariana drew upon her example and examined what had already been done and sealed within the silver. Until this time of awakening when her father was gone, she’d been able to destroy the work she’d done before he noticed. Once a spell was sealed into the silver, she could not unwork it—any more than anyone else could. She held her hand near and watched as the silver called her magic.

“As I said,” she told Haida slowly, “this will eat the magic of any fae.” She paused, examining the flow of the magic in the silver because there was something unexpected that she had to work out. “Maybe I can squeeze the flow until it is only a bare trickle. If it can only pull a little, how much harm can it do?”

The hobgoblin sank down on her haunches and smiled, revealing sharp green teeth. “I told you. Told you that you would outsmart him.”

“When all he has to do to keep me stupefied with terror, obedient to his command, is call on his hounds?” Ariana asked. “You are overly optimistic. As long as he has the hounds . . .” And for an instant she knew why he’d left, knew that it was important, but she couldn’t get past the thoughts of his hounds, and the reason for his departure trickled out of her grasp like water.

Survival meant that she pay attention to the embryonic artifact in her hands—and not pull the beast inside her back to the forefront by fretting about the hounds. She turned to Haida. “Even if I slow the draw to little more than nothing, eventually it will amass power. I can make it take years, centuries maybe, but eventually it will hold enough to be valuable.”

“What it holds someone can take,” the hobgoblin agreed. “Can you stop that?”

“No.” She was powerful but not as powerful as some. To lay such locks on the artifact that no one could break it open was beyond her. And it would be unwise, even if she could. If it did nothing but sit in the cottage and steal magic from the fae that passed near it—eventually it would eat all magic and concentrate it in the lump of silver that fit into her hand. She didn’t know how much the metal could hold—but an explosive release when the silver could hold nothing more would be destructive on a scale she could almost not comprehend. Not as horrible as what would happen if it was able to hold all of the magic indefinitely—without magic, all life would cease.

“But I can make it so the magic it collects dissipates back to the Heart of Magic.” The Heart of Magic was the center of the world. Magic held in the Heart did not come readily to anyone’s hand but caused the wind to blow and the rain to fall. Ariana smiled fiercely at her little friend. “And—thus fulfilling the geas and thwarting my father.” She considered how to do that. “I need you for this, Haida, and it will probably not be easy.”

Haida bowed low. “It is my joy to aid you in any manner I might. But himself will be back soon—it is unlike him to be absent for long. Is there time?”

“Yes,” said the beast that now dwelled within Ariana. “The hounds have fled, and he seeks the means to recall them.”

Ariana closed her eyes and took in a shaky breath, waiting for the beast to subside. That was what she had needed to remember. His hounds were gone.

She should have felt relief but could not shake the feeling that her father was more dangerous than ever. Could not quiet her fear of him, and that fear made the beast stir again. She could not afford to let her beast take control, not with such delicate magic to embroider. She collected herself and looked at the hobgoblin, who was watching her warily.

“Haida, we can do this,” she said with more confidence than she actually felt. “The hounds have been chaffing under his leash, and they have left him. That’s where he has gone—to reclaim the hounds. We might have enough time to do this thing.”

•   •   •

Using Haida’s sense for the wild magic that lingered in the smallest thing and was closest to the Heart of Magic, Ariana worked until the hobgoblin made her stop and eat. Then she worked some more, the constant drain from the emerging artifact only a slight handicap.

The very slowness of its working was evidence that her other self was fully engaged in the attempt to mitigate the harm the artifact could cause, something she had not known for certain. The beast had seen the way to render this artifact mostly innocuous, just as Ariana had, and had shown itself to be an ally of sorts.

A fae of average power would have to keep the artifact the beast had crafted for weeks before it had an appreciable effect on his magic. So much the beast had managed.

She lost track of time, so tired she did not realize that it meant the beast had come to help. When she came to herself, she held a silver bird in her hand and just enough magic in her body to tell that it was an artifact, sealed and done. But she could not tell if she had accomplished her purpose or not.

She cupped the little silver bird in her hands, trembling with fatigue, as the walls trembled around her. This was her father’s house, and it did not take joy in those who would work against him.

“It is done,” she told Haida, who was hovering nearby. “Can you tell if it is for good or ill? I have burnt out my magic in its making.”

“Leave the silver bird,” said Haida. “It will distract him, and much good may it do him. I am not such as you to read an artifact. You have done what you could. Come, let us leave this place before it collapses apurpose. Underhill is no longer stable, and it is angry with us.”