Lament - Мэгги Стифватер

"Foul, isn't it?" the Queen asked. "Seems only fitting that the essence of a killer should manifest as a filthy, ordinary pigeon."

The words burst from my mouth. "Are you kidding? It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

I stared at that brilliant form in the cage. It felt like the promise of what people could be, before we started to screw ourselves up. It felt like a beginning.

The Queen crooked an eyebrow at me, disbelieving. "One last chance, Luke Dillon. Tell me you will love me, and I'll spare you."

Luke just shook his head, a slight movement against my cheek. I stepped out of the circle of his arms, toward the Queen. "You can't force someone to love you--don't you get it? You can force them to kill for you. You can force them to be your subjects. You can't make someone love you!"

The Queen shrilled, "My subjects love me! I do not force them to obey me!"

Eleanor's eyebrow raised.

I seized whatever meaning I could find in that little gesture. "Prove it. Prove it."

"You will die, cloverhand," the Queen snarled. Then, louder, she screamed to her subjects, so loud that her voice cut through every bit of music and laughing and dancing. They froze, and magic hung in the air on this weird night. "Do you see me, my lovelies? Witness my beauty?

Now look at the cloverhand--look at how ordinary she is, how dull, how simple! She is nothing, but she claims that my subjects do not love me!"

A slow smile had started on Eleanor's face as she stood behind the Queen. With every word that the Queen spoke, it widened, until the beauty of her smile was agony to look at.

The Queen lifted her arms, and when she screamed, her voice was as fierce as summer lightning.

"Choose your Queen!"

The night was quiet.

It was so quiet that I could hear the cicadas buzzing in the field across the road, and the frogs chirping in the ravine behind the school. A car's tires hummed on the distant highway and, above me, in the absolute silence, I heard the streetlight buzzing faintly.

Then the faeries rushed toward the Queen, one crazy mass of shimmering bodies and wings and beaks and claws, and I was forced away from Luke by the press of the throng. The noise was unbearable: cries and laughs and growls. I didn't know what was happening, and I couldn't see Luke or the Queen or anyone for all the bodies shoving past me.

But one cry could be heard above all of them--a high, reedy wail that went on and on, freezing my blood with its wildness. And then I saw a tall faerie, with shaggy fur growing on his shoulders, stalk by me holding a handful of blond hair in his huge fist. Long blond hair, with a clump of red on the end. I still didn't get it until I saw a collection of lithe, willowy she-faeries tossing a hand between the three of them. I saw blood drip from it. Then I saw two faeries the color of the sky tugging on either end of a long stretch of fabric from the Queen's dress.

"Oh my God." I pushed my hand to my mouth. Next to me, Eleanor made a small, vaguely amused sound.

A hugely tall faerie with the pricked ears of a horse lifted some gory prize above his head, and the wild crowd cheered, primitive and delighted with their kill.

They killed her.

"Dee," Luke pushed by Eleanor as if she were nothing and gripped my arm. "Are you all right? I thought--" He broke off as he watched a dragon-like creature slither by with an arm in its long, toothy mouth. His pale eyes followed its progress through the strange crowd.

"I didn't think they'd kill her."

"I thought it was you." Suddenly I realized that Luke, for the first time, looked shaken. "I saw them carrying a hand and--" "Shut up. I'm okay. Nothing happened." It felt good to be the one to comfort him for once; to hold him together. "What's going on?"

A tall, beautiful male faerie had caught everyone's attention and he held the Queen's bloody circlet above his head. His voice was like one thousand voices together as he said, "We have chosen our Queen."

He walked through the crowd, the faeries making a path for him, heading straight for me with the horrible crown-- still covered with the Queen's blood. I couldn't even begin to imagine its awful weight on my head. I shivered; Luke's hand tightened on my arm.

Oh God! No!

Still the faerie came, his path unerring, through the crowd toward me.

No. Not me. Not me, I wished fervently. Anybody but me.

The faerie stopped before me, and I saw blood dripping down his arm from the circlet.

Not me.

He stepped forward, closing the space between us, and then he placed the circlet on Eleanor's head. "Long live the Queen."

"Oh, that I will," said Eleanor.

BOOK SIX

All you who are in love Aye and cannot it remove I pity the pain that you endure.

For experience lets me know That your hearts are filled with woe It's a woe that no mortal can cure.

-"The Curragh of Kildare"

 TWENTY-TWO

 There was silence as Eleanor faced us across the parking lot. Over her shoulder, the moon moved slowly across the sky, the birds still fluttering and trembling on its surface. The silver glimmer they cast mingled with the ugly yellow of the streetlights.

"I have waited a long time," Eleanor said finally. She knelt and picked up the soul-cage with more grace than any human. "Luke Dillon, you served the last Queen, not this one. Take your soul, darling." "Thank you," I said. "It's not a gift," Luke said, his voice flat. Eleanor smiled, both beautiful and fearsome. "You were always such a clever one. Do you want it or not, dear? You worked so hard for it."

Luke released my hand to retrieve the cage. He returned to my side and set the cage down between us, like it was something we both owned. "What happens to Deirdre?"

Eleanor shrugged. "Probably an extremely boring life. Ugly children. Midlife crisis. Bed pan.

Death."

"You won't hurt her?"

Eleanor smiled at me as if the idea was pleasing, but she shook her head. "I doubt it, dear. So many other fun things to do." She looked around at her faeries and clapped her hands. "Speaking of which, pretties, where did the music go? Is this not Solstice?"

And with that, They whirled into the night around us, filling the parking lot with music once more. Eleanor smiled benevolently. "Now, Deirdre, are you not going to give the gallowglass back his soul? He cannot stop looking at it."

It was true. Luke's eyes kept going back to the bird, and the part of him in me tugged toward it as well. I almost hated it. I hated that it meant goodbye. But most of all, I hated that I didn't know what would happen to him after he had his soul back. Was Eleanor right? Would he have to pay for the Queen's sins?

"The hero always dies at the end of Irish songs, didn't you notice?" Luke's voice was barely audible. He crouched to look at his soul, and I saw the brilliance of the dove reflected in his pupils.

"Wait!" Una's voice carried as she danced out of the auditorium. Behind her, Brendan was carrying James' body as if it weighed nothing. He strode as close to me as he dared and laid James down on the asphalt.

"Is he alive?" I asked, rushing to him, thoughtlessly pushing Brendan back with the presence of my iron. I knelt and saw the rising of his chest; I put my hand above his mouth and felt his breath warm my hand.

"I still don't think it's a good idea." Brendan shook his head. "But for now, the piper lives." He jerked his head toward Luke. "What of Luke Dillon?"

Luke looked at me, across the million miles that separated us. I think he was afraid. "What of me, Dee?"

I took a deep breath. No matter what happened, I wasn't going to win. But maybe I didn't have to lose completely. I looked at Brendan and Una. "Do you remember what you said that first night I met you?'" "He remembers everything," Una interrupted me. "He's like an elephant."

Brendan held up a hand. "Shut. Up." He turned to me. "What did I say?"

I stumbled over the words, not sure how to say what I wanted to. "You said that Luke had played with you--that he played with you in the past. You said he was like you, more like you than most people. And--" My eyes found Thomas Rhymer, watching from nearby. "And Thomas said that humans who live with the faeries don't die. If I give his soul back--do you think--so he has a chance to prove where his soul belongs--" Luke's eyes darted to me, and then to Brendan. I didn't even know if he wanted what I was trying to get for him. Maybe he'd just think he was going from one prison to another. Then he looked from Brendan to Una. "Will you have me?"

Brendan frowned at him before speaking. When he finally opened his mouth, it seemed he was choosing his words carefully. "You've spent so much time among the iron."

"Indeed," added Una. Luke was frozen beside me.

Brendan frowned deeper. Slowly, disgust began to grow on his face. My stomach turned uncomfortably. "You stink of it. The filth of iron. I cannot imagine us--" Una giggled, and Brendan elbowed her. He turned back to Luke. "I just do not think it will be possible. I'm sorry."

Luke started to say something, but then Una began to laugh, a beautifully silly laugh. She laughed so hard she had to crouch down on the pavement and rest her hand on the ground. She finally gasped, "Brendan, love, Luke Dillon believes you."

Luke made a face at Una and looked back up at Brendan. "Are you having fun with me?"

The disgust melted off Brendan's face, replaced immediately with an easy smile. "You and your flute don't have to ask whether you belong with us, Luke Dillon. We'd be honored. You are far more faerie than you are human."

Una wrinkled her nose. "But also more gullible."

Luke made a soft little noise--whether sadness or appreciation, I couldn't tell.

It was so unfair. After all we'd done, after everything that had happened, I should have gotten to stay with him. But there was no way to make it fair.

"Do it," Una said. "Stop moping. You have the rest of Solstice with him. We're here as long as the music is."

I left James and walked back to the cage. Luke kissed my cheek, my forehead, my lips. Then he whispered against my skin, "Thank you for making it mean something."

Eleanor strode over to us, regal in her bloody crown, and pulled out her bone-white dagger.

"Truly," she whispered reverently, "This was a wonderful game." She handed the dagger to me.

It took me a long moment to realize she meant for me to open the birdcage with it.

Without giving myself time to second-guess, I sliced through the top of the cage. The bars sprang outward like wires, and the dove flapped in the bottom, its eyes frightened. I could see its heart pounding through its fragile skin.

"Shhh," I whispered. Reaching in, I cupped its wings to its sides. It was unimaginably light, and I felt as if it would disintegrate in my hands if I pressed too hard. I looked up at Luke. His eyes were locked on mine, unmoving.

In my hands, the soul tugged toward Luke, and I let it guide my hands to his chest. I imagined Luke before me, young and vibrant and grinning, and everything we could have had. I wanted to say something like "goodbye," but in the end what was there, really, to say that we hadn't been saying all along? And then I let his soul flutter back into him.

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