Page 33 of The Innocent Sleep

The confirmation of Luna’s absence explained much about what I’d already seen of Shadowed Hills, but raised more questions that I had no idea how to answer. “What of his daughter?”

“The Duke has no children, lost or living,” said Garm. Then his eyes widened. “Unless—are you saying the Fair Titania edited a child away?”

“I’ve already heard claim that two people I know to be sleeping off the sentences for their crimes are awake and active within the political structure of the Mists, while others are missing,” I said grimly. “I wouldn’t put anything past her at this point. But come. We must to the Library. How were you intending to travel there?”

Garm paused. “I wasn’t sure you would make it back to accompany me,” he said. “Even if you did, I wasn’t sure you would actually want to.”

“All right . . . ?”

“So I arranged a ride with my customary companion,” he said. “I apologize if you wanted to keep your presence a secret. She’s very good at discretion.”

“She? She who?”

The shadows in one corner of the room rippled. I tensed, moving to place myself between them and Garm. The chances of a knight of Shadowed Hills being attacked in the Duke’s own knowe were slim, but as he was one of the only allies I currently had, I didn’t want to risk them, no matter how slim they were.

The ripples increased, and Grianne stepped out of the shadows in a flare of greenish-white light. Like Garm, she had set aside her livery; she was wearing a simple green sundress that complimented the striated gray of her skin and nearly matched her eyes. She stopped when she saw me, Merry Dancers bobbing next to her head as she tried to figure out who I was and what I was doing there.

Grianne was, in many ways, the platonic ideal of a Candela. She was lithe and compact, not tall enough to attract attention if she was trying to lurk in a bog or fen, with ash-colored skin and hair a few shades darker, like an exposed granite cliff face. Both were striped with bands of darker and lighter gray, making it even easier for her to blend in. Two globes of light wove and danced around her: the Merry Dancers she would once have used to lure human travelers to their deaths in sucking mud and quicksand, in the days when such action would have protected all of Faerie.

She looked at me with confusion, frowning, and turned to Garm, cocking an eyebrow in silent question.

“Grianne, this is Rand,” he said. Then, in a tone that implied the sharing of a delicious secret, he added, “He’s the Cait Sidhe I told you about. He’ll be accompanying us to the Library.”

“Can’t,” she said, brusquely.

I didn’t take offense. The Candela are infamously terse, as a whole, and my past dealings with Grianne had clearly illustrated that she was short-winded even for one of her kind. “Why not?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Shadows won’t allow.”

Ah. Like the Cait Sidhe, the Candela are able to access the Shadow Roads. The desire to keep Candela in her Faerie—or at least the lack of desire to get rid of them—was probably what had caused Titania to assume she could leave the Shadow Roads connected without risking the escape of the royal cats. I wanted to believe she had done it so we could at least try to feed our people, and could then claim her hands were clean when we failed and starved, but even that cynical a position was beyond me. She didn’t care about us enough to give us a lifeline. If she’d left the shadows open, it was because she thought there was some advantage in it.

Such as the movement of the Candela, who were often employed as messengers, despite their taciturn natures. But the Shadow Roads didn’t belong to them as they belonged to the Cait Sidhe. Taking passengers was difficult, even for us. For the Candela, it was virtually impossible. Honestly, I was impressed that Grianne was strong enough to carry even Garm.

“Have no concern for me, Lady,” I said. “The Cait Sidhe anchor the Shadow Roads. I can get myself to the Library, if only you tell me where we’re going. When last I looked, the Library of Stars lay its anchor in San Francisco, on the mortal side, near a wholesale flower market.”

“That place was abandoned some time ago,” said Garm. “These days, the Library lays anchor in the city of Vallejo, near the water. Can you follow Grianne along the shadow paths she carries me through?”

“I can,” I confirmed.

Vallejo? That was an interesting choice of anchor. It was a mortal city whose fae side belonged to two fiefdoms at the same time—since the bounds of Shadowed Hills were formally determined by “the shadow of Mount Diablo,” the hillier portions of the area were part of Sylvester’s domain, while most of the city belonged to Duke Carrig in Wild Strawberries. I had never heard of the Library moving that far from the seat of the Mists, not even during the false Queen’s reign.

“The distance will be no trouble, and the light the Dancers cast carries even on the Shadow Roads; I’ll be able to follow easily enough,” I continued. “Lady Candela, when you’re prepared to begin the journey, only go, and I’ll be right behind.”

Grianne nodded brusquely before taking Garm by the wrist and falling backward into shadow, pulling him with her. I shrugged and dove after them.

As I had promised, the light of Grianne’s Dancers was more than sufficient to let me find them in the darkness. She began to run, hauling a gasping Garm along in her wake, neither of them moving as quickly as I would have considered safe. I hurried to catch and keep up, barely pushing myself above a walk, even as she clearly struggled. Finally, taking pity, I leaned over and said, in a mild, carrying tone, “I can take him if you would prefer, Lady.”

Her Merry Dancers bobbed ready assent, and I caught his free wrist even as she let him go. She sped up as soon as she was unburdened, moving nearly twice as fast as she had been before, and I sped up to match her, towing Garm along with me.

I could still hear him choking, struggling to breathe in the shallow air of the Shadow Roads. “This goes better if you hold your breath before the journey begins,” I said, as kindly as I could. I felt for our location, and decided we were near the mortal city of Martinez. Not too far from Pleasant Hill, then, and not over water.

“Grianne, a moment,” I called, and pulled Garm with me out of shadow, onto a warm green hillside, the moon shining overhead and the air of the mortal world blowing around us. He sucked in several deep, greedy breaths before he began to cough, wiping the ice from his lashes at the same time. I let him go and took several steps back, folding my arms as I watched.

“Was this your first time on the Shadow Roads?” I inquired mildly.

Still coughing, Garm shook his head in the negative.

“No? How odd. I would have thought you’d know to hold your breath, then, before diving down into the darkness. The air there is very picky about who it allows to breathe it. Unless the Roads recognize your magic, they’ll treat you as an intruder, and freeze you out.”