Invincible (9 page)

Joy blinked in shock. “Wh-what?” she stammered.

“Good luck,” Maia said. Pat-pat. “An' goodbye.”

Without a word, Avery swirled the hem of his great feathered
cloak over Joy's head, pulled her against him and let it fall.

They fell together through a swirling cloud of white.

EIGHT

JOY LANDED HARD,
her
feet slapping against a wooden floor. Her knees bent automatically, accustomed
to recovering a botched dismount, her nerves on high alert. She didn't recognize
the room, which was sparsely furnished and dim. It might have been a cabin, or a
servant's quarters in a bigger house. The place smelled of old, dry firewood and
something spicy, like pine. Avery strode about the room opening drawers and
removing their contents. He kicked open a trunk with the heel of his boot.

“Where are we?” Joy asked as Avery dropped a stack of things
into the trunk.

“My home,” he said. “Or it was. Things will be much different
now.”

Joy rubbed her arms. It was cold—much too cold for August. She
had no idea where they were, but had a feeling it was north. Far north. Like
Greenland. How far away was she from her home and safety? How far away was she
from Ink? She shivered, remembering his last, parting look and wondered what
he'd think of her now.

Avery continued packing, swiftly gathering the paintings and
maps hanging on the walls.

“We left the Council Hall,” she said.

He nodded. “Yes.”

“You broke me out.”

“Yes.”

Joy paused. “Won't you get in trouble?”

He rolled his eyes. “Gods, yes.”

Joy folded her arms tight. “Then why?”

Avery paused with an armful of fine coats, the tails draping
off his wrist. “I have often asked myself the same thing,” he admitted. “Ever
since Maia came to me saying that you needed my advice.”

“
Your
advice?” Joy said, walking
around the butcher-block table in the center of the room. Everything was
utilitarian and made of thick, solid wood. “About what?”

“I imagine it pertained to staving off the change,” he said,
folding his clothes carefully into thirds. He concentrated on the task at hand,
neatly avoiding her startled gaze. “There are not many changelings in the Twixt
any longer, and even fewer who have struggled half-in, half-out of the
transformation—” He stopped folding one-handed and lifted his gaze. His eyes
seemed oceans away. “Anyway, I imagine that was her intention. Communication was
difficult.”

Joy gaped. “You're a changeling?”

“Of a sort,” he said. “I was born human, transformed by magic.
There are few of us at Court, and it is considered...embarrassing. Not to be
discussed in public.”

Joy circled the table. “And so you brought me here to tell me
about changelings?”

“No,” he said, hugging the clothes against his chest. “Maia
tasked me with getting you out of the Hall should anyone on the Council try to
hinder you. I agreed with her that every effort must be made for you to bring
about the Imminent Return. Bùxiŭ de
Zhēnzhū
agreed.” He ducked around her and continued gathering objects, folded bags,
wrapped packages and small boxes tied with twine. It looked as if he might have
been preparing to leave. Or that he'd never unpacked to begin with.

“That's...against the rules,” Joy said. “The Council's rules.
Sol Leander's rules. The Tide's—” The look he gave her made her stop. She shook
her head. “Maia I can understand, but you always believed in the law.”

“I believe in what is right, for our people and yours—
that
is the law that takes precedence,” he said. “The
Council no longer matters. Our monarchs await their Return, and to forestall
that is to play games of power and intrigue that are no longer theirs. Some of
the Folk accept this, others do not.” He tucked a quilted blanket into a soft
square. “When Councilex Maia asked me to accept the task she'd given me with the
entire Council as witnesses, it was my final act of obeisance under their
governance. I am loyal to the Twixt, to the King and Queen,” he said. “And
therefore, to you.”

Joy almost smiled. “You were loyal to me before then.”

Avery closed a book by the mantel, his back to her. “As you
say.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. “Why?”

Avery turned around, cradling the old book in his hand. His
face was carefully blank, his voice, quiet. “Do not ask questions that you do
not want answered.” He ran his thumb lightly over the tattered spine. “Some
truths should remain unsaid.”

Joy glanced away. Nodded. She'd learned that lesson all too
well.

“Now, then,” Avery said, piling books into what Joy suspected
to be a bottomless chest. “My particular case involves an elixir, one that can
reverse the change and allow me to retain my hand and arm for one hour out of
every twenty-four.” He swept the top of his cabinet clean. “I can choose when to
take it, but it is only good for that one hour—no more, no less.” He picked at
something on his cloak, preening. “I do not know if the elixir will stave off
your change, but it may slow it down considerably. Perhaps you can be human or
Folk for one hour out of twenty-four? I am no alchemist, but at least it may
provide a start.”

He pulled a roll of paper out of a drawer and handed it to her.
“I have written down the ingredients and their measures, but you will need to
find someone to draft it—a hedge witch or herbalist.” Avery stepped past her,
dismissive and hurried. “It is human magic,” he admitted. “And not gotten
lightly.”

Joy touched the scroll. The stiff paper felt sharp. “You were
human once,” she said. Her voice was harsher than she intended. “Did your family
find the cure?”

Avery laughed, sounding both surprised and surprisingly hurt.
“No. My family died long ago, living out their human, mortal lives.” He lifted a
wooden box from under the bed and pressed his hand to each of four clasps. They
sprang open, and the room filled with forest scents. He lifted out a shaggy
tunic of spiky nettles that was missing one sleeve. It crackled as he held it.
His face turned grim. “My sister tried to save me,” he said. “She tried to save
us all, but I was the only one—” He stopped and sighed. “The last one who
couldn't fully change back. So I lived and they died, because they were mortal
and I was not.”

“And your auspice—?”

“Being betrayed by a family member? Yes, I believed that once,”
he said. “But I was angry and alone, and it was untrue.” Avery squeezed the
woven fibers. They cracked and crumbled in his hand. “It was true enough for me
at the time and easily fed my hatred for humanity, my bitterness at betrayal,
but I have since learned that failure does not justify fear.”

He draped the prickly shirt on the white bedsheet and folded it
up neatly, then tucked the bundle gently into the trunk. The room felt suddenly
empty. Whatever had been Avery's was gone.

“We cannot linger,” he said. “They will be here soon. There are
few places in the Twixt I can fly.”

Joy gaped. “You can
fly
?”

He gave her a sour look. “I can slipstream short distances. Air
Folk call it ‘flying' or ‘loqcution.'”

“Ah.” Joy glanced around the abandoned room. “All done
packing?”

Avery smirked. “Unlike you, I don't have a great love of
furniture.”

Joy gave him her own sour look and declined to comment. Despite
Avery's favorite dig, Ink was a
person
, not an
object—he was a thinking, feeling being and not just a convenient shape. Joy
swore that if Avery ever called him a chair again, she'd kick him in the shins.
But thinking about Ink made her anxious. What would he do now that she'd escaped
with Avery? She fumbled with the zipper pull as she tucked the scroll into her
purse. “So where are we going?”

“To the Bailiwick,” he said. “If you are the courier, then the
King and Queen are awaiting your word, your assurance that it is safe for them
to Return in order to abide by their rules.” He closed the trunk with a snap.
The lid folded in upon itself, becoming a smaller trunk, then a box, then a
packet, then a cube, which Avery picked up and tucked into a small pouch on his
belt. It was neatly done, just like the scroll and the rescue and the offer to
bring her back—everything she needed to succeed and escape—but the Folkish part
of her balked, wondering if the elixir could be poison, the rescue might have
been staged and the offer to return her to the Bailiwick was a ploy to expose
where Graus Claude was hiding. If she was going to stop the change, wish back
her heart and free the Folk trapped in Faeland, she was going to have to stop
thinking like a human and start acting more like the Folk. Her human half wanted
to trust Avery, but the Folk half knew that she couldn't. Too much was at stake.
He was a rival, a ranking courtier and an agent of the Tide.

“I left Filly on the sidewalk outside my house,” Joy said,
hoping that the fight back in the real world was over even though it'd been only
a moment, if that. “She's probably having fits. You should take me there before
she breaks something valuable.”

“Very well,” he said, glancing once more around the bare room.
He opened his cloak, exposing his rapier and the snowy left wing curled against
his side. “Come. We haven't much time.”

She stepped closer, squeezing her purse strap, feeling his
nearness like a betrayal. She kept her eyes forward, wishing for the smell of
rain, the
shing!
of a razor, the sharpness like
limes. She tried not to feel the soft feathers embrace her as his cloak fell
warm about her shoulders. “Where will you go when they come for you?” Joy asked
for something to say.

“Not far,” he said, his voice by her ear. “I have my duties.”
His wing unfolded, lifting the cloak high over their heads. Avery whispered into
the feathered quiet. “And you have yours.”

His cheek touched her face. Joy held her breath. The cloak
dropped in a flurry of feathers. And they disappeared.

Avery dropped them onto the grass just within sight of the
path. Filly stood among the wreckage looking smug. Long gouges ripped through
the topsoil, a stone bench lay cracked in half and monstrous bodies littered the
ground like scattered, broken toys. Joy shrugged off the cloak and stepped
quickly away from Avery. She felt his gaze prickling behind her. She didn't look
back.

“Hoy!” Filly waved, rattling her half cape of bones. “There you
are. Figured you'd be back here quick enough when the hirelings ran off. Left
the Council in a ruckus, I'd wager.” The blond warrior eyed Avery over Joy's
shoulder. “Popped her out right from under their noses, did you?” Robed in
feathers, Avery could only nod. Filly's face split in a grin. “I
knew
I liked you! Well met indeed.” She nodded to Joy.
“And you? Are you well enough?”

“I'm fine,” Joy said, amazed at Filly's quick deductions.

“Oh, yes,
fine
.” Filly snorted.
“You keep using that word like a well-worn boot.”

“If that is all,” Avery said crisply, “I will leave you in the
Valkyrie's capable hands.”

Joy spun around. “Avery, wait!” She stopped twisting her
fingers and tucked them behind her back. His blue-green eyes seemed to
alternately harden and swim as she drew closer. She tried to put the heart she
didn't have in her words. “Thank you.”

The tips of his feathers and his hair ruffled in the breeze. It
was a long moment before he spoke.

“Make it worthwhile,” he said. “Bring them home.”

He ran down the sidewalk, away from them, his cloak billowing
behind him, almost level to the ground, before he lifted his wing and arm and
disappeared in a swirl of feathers and down.

Filly stepped beside Joy and scanned the surrounding carnage.
“Well, that was fun, but I'll admit it's not what I was expecting.”

Joy glanced at her sideways. “Why? Were you expecting something
else?”

“I always expect something to happen around you, Joy Malone.”
Filly tossed her head, snickering. “And I am rarely disappointed.” She snapped
an arm across Joy's chest, stopping her flat. “Wait,” she whispered, smiling,
expectant. “Wait for it—
there
!”

The air tore sideways and Ink appeared, silver-shirted, razor
drawn and wallet chain swinging. Joy couldn't help but feel excited to see
him—beautiful and
here
—but it was followed quickly
by a wave of wariness and guilty shame. She was afraid to look at him.

“Ah! There you are!” Filly barked. “You're late.”

Joy reached for him. “Ink—”

“Stop!”
he reared back, black eyes
wide. Joy froze.

His arm rose at the shoulder, snaking out in a short burst of
speed...

She was back in the Carousel, back against the Red Knight, back
standing between Ink and Maia's door. Joy stumbled backward, scalpel held high.
Their blades met in a burst of black-on-white sparks that pinwheeled in a
firework cloud. Ink jerked back, stung.