The courage of the body—thecourage of a tree-climbing child or a hunter coursing neck-or-nothing after a stag—had never been Anne’s. Isabeau had always been bolder in that way. When she was old enough, perhaps she would pursue the stag from the front of the galloping pack, heedless of danger, reveling in her speed and skill.
Anne preferred facing dangers that could be bested with the mind alone.
But some courage is born of wild necessity.
Anne took Louis’s hand and flung herself blindly into the memory of the strange light that had accompanied Julien Moreau.
In that moment, her choice was made. Let them depose her, let them do anything, so long as she could save the people she loved.
She pulled Louis with her, their hands clinging tight. They took that single step, and the great hall was gone. She was outside, elsewhere. Her eyes watered. Another step and she tripped, hit the ground, and rolled. Her masses of embroidered silk skirts kept her from hurting herself, but she was shaken. She lay gasping, then thought,Moreau, Isabeau, where are they?
She scrambled to her feet.
The world was wholly silent, except for a wind like long, soft breathing. She’d torn her caul and her hair was coming loose, thoughshe still wore the unicorn-hair fillet. Louis was there, searching her for injuries. She looked up at him. “Are you all right?”
“I think so,” he said, stepping back. “I do not know where you have brought us, though.”
She dragged off the ripped caul and let her hair fly, constrained only by the fillet. She turned in a circle, frowning. If she had followed Moreau, she could not see him now. “I know this place,” she said. “But not.”
They had come back to the convent at Paimpont. Or at least, the place where it had stood. The lake still lapped the shore, like quicksilver under a stormy sky. The rain pattered softly down, almost too light to feel on her face, except that she was getting steadily colder.
But where the convent had been stood a castle. A castle of fantastical shapes, fantastical dimensions, rising haphazardly against tree and sky and storm cloud. As though God’s idle hands could fling battlements and towers and buttresses down into a careless heap.
Before that castle stood a woman. Or a creature like a woman. Her face was full-lipped and sharp-chinned, eyes tawny as a beast’s.
She was watching them.
Anne felt Louis tense, staring back. There was still no sign of Isabeau. None of Moreau either. She’d leaped blindly, her heart full of terror, but she hadn’t followed her sister. Or had she? What waited for them in that strange heap of a castle?
“I think,” said Anne, licking her lips, “that—we must ask this lady.”
“That is no mortal lady; she was never of Eve’s getting,” said Louis. He didn’t stir a foot. “That is a korrigan.”
“Nevertheless,” said Anne.
They walked hesitantly across to where the korrigan waited. Louis had her walk a pace behind him, on the side of his shield-arm.
“Madame,” called Anne in cautious Breton, “whose dwelling is this?”
“Why,” said the lady in a high voice, “this is the castle of Never-Was. Here dwells the king of the Lost Lands.” Was there a very faint mockery in that strange voice? Her eyes were full of night, darkerthan the day around them; the shadows of her did not quite suit the light. Her yellow eyes flicked once and then lingered on the fillet in Anne’s hair. Something in her expression changed.
“Is this king a mortal man?” said Anne.
The yellow eyes dropped, found Anne’s face.
“Yes, that is His Majesty,” the lady said, and again there was that tone of irony. Her nails were sharp, and her eyeteeth were sharp, and her veiling hair was thick and coarse and beautiful. “He went to get a bride and has come home with a child.”
Anne said, cold to the heart, “The child is my sister and I must find her.”
“You may try,” said the lady—the korrigan—for so she must be. “But it is very hard to get anything you want in the castle of Never-Was. The king learned this, to his grief, and then forgot again.” She smiled secretly.
Anne said, “I will find her nonetheless.”
The lady laughed, coldly, and said, “As you wish.” She turned toward the door with a great ring of keys in one long, thin hand, the nails curling over her fingertips. Anne saw then that a strange moon, brilliant with night, hung in that daytime sky, and rain fell upon the castle, though none upon her. Her stomach knotted. The korrigan put her key in the postern. Turned it. Then she flung the door open. There was nothing inside. A void.
Anne stood still, feeling Louis breathe beside her. Every instinct cried out against that threshold and the black maw beyond. Anne said to the lady, “Is there any more you can tell us, Madame, of this castle and its king?”
The lady was staring again at the unicorn-thread. But she said, “Nothing. Go in or go away; I merely keep the door.”
