I didn’t even feel my face hitting the pond. Everything was darkness, glorious darkness and the final, perfect absence of pain. It was done, all of it, the running and the fighting and the pain. After everything that I’d gone through, it was finally over, and this time, the waters would carry me home.

FIFTEEN

“TOBY, DON’T BE DEAD, don’t be dead.” It sounded almost like Tybalt’s voice, too distorted and far away to really tell. Water was soaking through my sweater, plastering my hair down against my cheeks; my eyelids were heavy. Too heavy to bother opening. I leaned into the arms that were holding me up and let myself go limp, falling back down into the darkness.

Time passed. How much, I couldn’t say; I only knew that I was rising toward consciousness, and I fought that ascent with everything I had. Waking held pain and duty and too many questions, while sleep held only peace, and the shadows of sunlight on the water. I was done. Sleep was all I wanted now.

You can’t always get what you want. The pain hit without warning. I gasped, opening my eyes in surprise, only to squeeze them shut again as my head began throbbing. What little I’d seen told me next to nothing about where I was, only that there was a roof above me, and that the dim light wasn’t natural. I was inside; I just didn’t know where. Not that it mattered, since I was too weak to move and in too much pain to care. Hopefully, I wasn’t slated to be somebody’s dinner. At least if I was, it would probably help my headache.

A little experimentation showed that I could move my right hand. The ground beneath me was soft, springy, damp to the touch, and faintly warm. I frowned, becoming curious despite myself. Where was I?

Footsteps approached from behind me. I couldn’t run; I couldn’t even make my eyes open again. All I could do was lie there, frozen, as a hand caressed my temples and a soft voice whispered, “She is not yet ready for you. Sleep.”

The blessed dark rose again, reclaiming me.

I dreamed of glass roses and the taste of pennyroyal.

Waking came faster the second time, even if I was no more willing; going back to my body meant going back to the pain, and it had gotten worse while I slept, spreading out from my head and shoulder until every breath caught in my chest. But I was alive. The realization hit me, and I opened my eyes, too startled to play dead any longer. I was alive.

I was looking up at a ceiling of woven willow branches, held up by a series of arches that appeared to have grown from the mossy floor. Pixies clustered on every available surface, their shimmering glow lighting the room. The moss beneath me was soaking wet, and as a consequence, so was I. I knew where I was. Lily’s knowe.

The only entrance I know of to the knowe required climbing straight up the steepest bridge in the garden. I was pretty sure I hadn’t done that before I blacked out. I was honestly surprised I’d reached the Tea Gardens at all. “Hello?” I said. My voice came out in a whisper. “Is anybody there?”

“You’re awake.” It was the voice I’d heard earlier, soft, feminine, and faintly worried. “Stay where you are. Do not move. We will fetch her.”

“Got it,” I said, and closed my eyes. Not moving wouldn’t be hard; I doubted my ability to roll over, much less run away. I didn’t hear the speaker leave, but after some indefinite amount of time—minutes or hours, I had no idea—soft footsteps approached, accompanied by the rustle of silk. They stopped just beside my head.

“Hello, Lily,” I said, not opening my eyes. “Sorry to just drop in like this.”

“You are always welcome here,” she chided. Her voice was like water over stones, laced with a Japanese accent. “Even when you do not choose to come, you are welcome.”

“Sorry,” I said, still whispering. I wasn’t sure I could raise my voice if I wanted to. “I got a little banged up.”

“I noticed. Everyone noticed. What did you do to poor Marcia?” A hand touched my shoulder, testing the edge of the wound. Her fingers were cool, and the pain faded where she touched. “She was very upset, and there were mushrooms in the cash register.”

I let out my breath in a hiss, relaxing as the worst of the pain slipped away. “I didn’t have any money, and I needed to get inside.”

“Silly changeling,” she chided. “Does it never occur to you that you could ask?”

“Not my style,” I said, managing a faint smile.

Lily made a clucking noise, like she was scolding an unruly child, but continued stroking my shoulder, fingers leaving trails of numbness behind. I opened my eyes, tilting my head back to watch her. “Hush,” she said, “be still.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, watching as she reached over me to pluck a sprig of foxglove from the mossy bank.

Her hands were slim and covered with delicate silver scales, the fingers webbed to the first knuckle. Only her fingernails looked human, and even they were a pale silver-blue. I could see the shadow of her face if I turned my head just right, and memory supplied what vision couldn’t: she was impossibly delicate, with jade eyes and long black hair braided back with willow branches, pale skin decorated by dainty silver-and-green scales. She was beautiful, but it wasn’t human beauty. Even by fae standards, Lily was unique.

“Oh, October,” she said, waving the flowers above my face. “You are my favorite type of puzzle, child—the sort that makes no sense at all. May I help you this time, or would you rather bleed to death over what has passed between us?”

“How did you bring me here?” I asked, looking past the flowers to her face.

“I didn’t,” she said, and smiled. “Blood in the water, remember? When you were brought to my doors, I could let you in, and grant you succor, because of the permission you gave me with that blood. I can do no more unless you grant me your consent.”

“Brought to your doors?” I asked.

“You have more friends than you believe, October. Will you let me help you?”

Undine magic has rules. When I bled in Lily’s waters, I gave her permission to keep me alive; she couldn’t do anything more than that unless I told her she could.

“Of course,” I said, closing my eyes again. With Evening’s curse hanging over me, I couldn’t afford to pass on anything that might be an offer of help.

“Very well, then. For now, rest. I need nothing more of you.” I felt her bringing the foxgloves down to the edge of the wound in my shoulder, brushing them over the worst of the damage. They stung as they touched skin before a cool, anesthetic numbness began to spread outward from their petals. Foxglove is poisonous—lovely, deadly, and probably not the best thing to put in an open wound. Then again, I’d been paying my tolls with mushrooms all day, and I’m not a healer. If Lily thought rubbing foxglove into my shoulder would help me, she was probably right, and even if she wasn’t, she couldn’t do more damage than I already had.