Page 83 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
“He… he’s been well? Lead a good life?”
“Taught me how to ride himself.” Aislinn paused, his face growing more real to her, his presence sharpening. This wasDillon,her mother’s oldest friend. Grandpa Woodfern’s son. The empty seat at the table. The one they spoke about as if expecting him to come home, only they knew he never would.
Only now, hecould.
“He told me about you,” Aislinn went on. “A lot. Mother too. They both spoke about you all the time.”
“Right,” Dillon paused, eyes even more glazed than before. They were darker than most of the dead, a ghost of the brown of his father’s, like a painting behind a layer of cobweb. “Your mother is—”
“Juliana Ardencourt. Well, Arderthorn, now.”
Dillon smiled weakly. “She finally realised it, then? She and Hawthorn? He’s… your father?”
“This isinsane,” Beau gasped, finally finding his voice. “Wait until Mother hears—can I examine you?”
“Beau!” Aislinn hissed. “Not the moment! Dillon, er, Ser Woodfern—”
“Dillon is fine.”
“Would you like to sit down?”
“I… I don’t think I need to,” he said. “I don’t feel like I need to.”
“Fascinating.” Beau came forward, brandishing his notebook. “I’ve never heard of such a thing before—”
Dillon blinked. “You look like Hawthorn but you sound more like Aoife.”
“Don’t,” Aislinn warned. “The library practically raised him.”
Caer started breathing hard, his breaths short and ragged. Aislinn bent down beside him, steadying him against her. “Caer—”
“I’ll get him something,” Beau said, disappearing into Flora’s saddlebags. The dogs, thankfully, had all gone back to sleep, and none of them minded as he poked around the bags.
He came back with a vial of something that he held up to Caer’s lips. “Breathe,” he said, laying a palm against his chest. Light rayed beneath his fingertips. “Just breathe.”
Caer’s breath slowed. He swallowed the potion, and seconds later, sunk back into sleep.
Dillon stared at him. “Is he all right?”
“This has been a hard day for him,” Aislinn explained, forcing herself not to smooth back his hair. “He’s never brought back anyone so…wholebefore.”
“Any idea why that might be?” Beau asked, hovering around his elbow.
“Um… I’m afraid not.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I was at this quarry, filled with Unseelie. Juliana—your mother—was there. We’d flooded the place with snow, and then—Ladrien. He… he stabbed me.”
Aislinn stilled. She’d heard versions of this story before, but their mother always skipped over the details.
“I don’t remember anything else. Nothing. Nothing at all. Just… waking up in the snow and crawling towards the fight. Digging through the snow to follow you down here. I was sure you were Juliana and well… I didn’t know where else to go. I thought we were still in the fight…”
He finally fell down on the floor, slumping in a heap, but there was no relief to the action. “Vines and spirits,” he whispered.
“Do you need a drink?” Beau offered, holding up the dregs of Caerwyn’s potion.
Dillon took it, but the tincture dribbled out of his mouth. “I… can’t swallow.”
