She got to her feet with the first failing of grace that I had ever seen in her. Even her beauty was pinched and pale, too thin and too sharp and too odd.
Mere Adele regarded her with utter lack of sympathy. “You got rid of his lordship,” she said, “and handily, too. He’ll see the back of hell before he comes by Sency again. You do know, I suppose, that he could have sworn to bring the Inquisition down on us, and burn us all for what you did to him.”
“No,” said Lys. “He would not. I made sure of that.”
“You—made—sure?”
Even Lys could wither in the face of Mere Adele’s wrath. She raised her hands to her face, let them fall. “I made him do nothing but what he was best minded to do.”
“You made him.”
“Would you rather he came back with fire and sword?”
For a moment they faced one another, like fire and sword themselves. Mere Adele shook her head and sighed. “It’s done. I can’t say I want it undone. That’s a wanting I’ll pay dearly for in penance. You—maybe you’ve paid already. You never should have left your Wood.”
“No,” said Lys. “I don’t think that. But that I’ve stayed too long—yes.” Mere Adele started a little. Lys smiled a thin cold smile. “No, I’m not in your mind. It’s written in your face. You want me gone.”
“Not gone,” said Mere Adele. “Gone home.”
Lys closed her eyes. “Sweet saints, to be home—to live within those walls again—to be what I am, all that I am, where my own people are—” Her breath shuddered as she drew it in. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? That’s why I came here. To find the door. To break it down. To go back.”
“You didn’t try hard enough,” said Mere Adele. “Won’t again. Always won’t.”
“Not my won’t,” said Lys. “My king’s.”
“Yours,” said Mere Adele, immovable. “I can read faces, too. Are they all as stubborn as you, where you come from?”
“No,” said Lys. Her eyes opened. She drew herself up. “Some are worse.”
“I doubt that,” said Mere Adele. “You’re welcome here. Don’t ever doubt it. But this isn’t your world. We aren’t your kind. You said it yourself. You love us, and we die on you.”
“You can’t help it,” said Lys.
Mere Adele laughed, which made Lys stare. “Go on, child. Go home. We’re no better for you than you are for us.”
Lys was mortally insulted. She was older than Mere Adele, maybe, and higher born. But she held her tongue. She bent her head in honest reverence. If not precisely in acceptance.
The Wood was cold in the grey light of evening. No bird sang. No wind stirred the branches of the trees.
Lys had tried to slip away alone. She should have known better. This time it was not my fault, not entirely: I had followed Francha. So we stood on the porch of the ruined chapel, Francha with both arms about her waist, I simply facing her.
“If the walls can open at all,” Lys said, careful and cold, “your mortal presence will assure that they stay shut.”
I heard her, but I was not listening. “Are you going to leave Francha again?”
Lys frowned and looked down at the child who clung to her. “She can’t go, even if I can get in.”
“Why not?”
“She’s human.”
“She can’t live in this world,” I said. “She was barely doing it when you came. When you go, she’ll die.”
“We are forbidden—”
“You were forbidden to leave. But you did it.”
Lys had her arms around Francha, almost as if she could not help it. She gathered the child up and held her. “Oh, God! If I could only be the hard cold creature that I pretend to be!”
“You’re cold enough,” I said, “and as heartless as a cat. But even a cat has its weaknesses.”
Lys looked at me. “You should have been one of us.”
I shivered. “Thank God He spared me that.” I glanced at the sky. “You’d best do it if you’re going to. Before it’s dark.”
Lys might have argued, but even she could not keep the sun from setting.
She did not go into the chapel as I had thought she would. She stood outside of it, facing the Wood, still holding Francha. It was already dark under the trees; a grey mist wound up, twining through the branches.
Lys’ eyes opened wide. “It’s open,” she said. “The walls are down. But—”
“Stop talking,” I said. My throat hurt. “Just go.”
She stayed where she was. “It’s a trap. Or a deception. The ban is clever; it knows what it is for.”
Francha struggled in her arms. She let the child go. Francha slid down the curve of her, keeping a grip on her hand. Pulling her toward the Wood.
She looked into wide eyes as human as hers were not. “No, Francha. It’s a trap.”
Francha set her chin and leaned, putting all her weight into it. It was as loud as a shout. Come!
“Go,” I said. “How will you know it’s a trap till you’ve tried it? Go!”
Lys glared at me. “How can humans know—”
I said a word that shocked her into silence. While she wavered I pushed, and Francha pulled. Dragging her toward the thing she wanted most in the world.
Later it would hurt. Now I only wanted her gone. Before I gave in. Before I let her stay.
She was walking by herself now, if slowly. The trees were close. I could smell the mist, dank and cold, like the breath of the dead.
“No!” cried Lys, flinging up her hand.
Light flew from it. The mist withered and fled. The trees towered higher than any mortal trees, great pillars upholding a roof of gold.
The light shrank. The trees were trees again, but their leaves were golden still, pale in the evening. There was a path among them, glimmering faintly as it wound into the gloom. It would not be there long, I knew in my bones. I braced myself to drag her down it. What would happen if it closed while I was on it, I refused to think.
She set foot on it of her own will. Walked a step, two, three.
Turned.
Held out her hand. She was going. I had won that much. Now she offered me what I had made her take. The bright country. The people who knew no age nor sickness nor death. Escape. Freedom.
From what? I asked her inside myself. I would grow old no matter where I was.
“Let Francha have it,” I said. “Maybe you can heal her; maybe she’ll find a voice again. Maybe she’ll learn to sing.”
Lys did not lower her hand. She knew, damn her. How easily, how happily, I could take it.
My fists knotted in my skirt. “I was born on this earth. I will die on it.”
Francha let go Lys’ hand. She ran to me, hugged me tight. But not to hold. Not to stay. Her choice was made. Had been made at harvest time, on another edge of this Wood.
Lys looked as if she would speak. I willed her not to. She heard me, maybe; or she simply understood, as humans did, from the look on my face. She said nothing. Only looked, long and long.
The path was fading fast. She turned suddenly, swept Francha up, began to run. Down into the glimmering dark; down to a light that I could almost see. There were people there. Pale princes, pale queens. Pale king who was not cold at all. Almost—almost—I could see his grey eyes; how they smiled, not only at the prodigal come home, but at me, mere mortal flesh, alone beside a broken shrine.
I laughed painfully. She had my wedding cloak. What Claudel would say when he came back—
If he came back.
When, said a whisper in the Wood. A gift. A promise.
I turned my back on the shadow and the trees, and turned by face toward home: warmth and light, and my children’s voices, and Mamere Mondine asleep by the fire. Above me as I walked, like a guard and a guide, rose a lone white star.