86. Gone in the mourning

[Reader warning: This chapter deals with death and grief]

Later that day there was a memorial. Silence pressed steadily against the Stone Circle's labyrinth of passages, untrodden and unknown except to a lone, prowling cat. Those well enough had all gathered in the dining chamber, whose blankets and sleeping rolls had been swept aside. The bundles of dried herbs had been torn from the ceiling, and were now being lit as incense upon a dozen stout candles. Aside from their meagre flames, the room was in darkness.

Ada had watched the preparations for the ceremony. The sage-lights were extinguished, one by one, as a chalk circle was drawn in the centre of the chamber around the candles. The incense smoked until the air was dense and dizzying, some earthy fragrance that had existed since grass had first pushed itself through soil. Bodies moved together in the crowded space, their heat strangely comforting upon the cold stone beneath their bare feet. Ada couldn't make out those around her, their fine-boned faces briefly illuminated when they bent to the candles to light incense of their own.

Inside the circle were tributes to the dead, one for each who had fallen the night before. There were innumerable books stacked together, but between their bindings were also trinkets and tools. Ada spotted a porcelain teacup painted with stars and a plain wooden ring, a furled chart and a soft, woollen scarf. Her eyes stopped on a glass vial set atop a pile of books, a single white lily placed inside. She stepped back into the crowd with a tight throat, Hester's death blooming like a fresh pain within her chest.

A hum, low and soft, began from the far side of the chamber. It travelled through the thick air like a vibration, or like an ocean's tide that sucked at the shores of Ada's mind. A voice rose from the depths, then another, words separating and composing until a song came spilling like the sea from their lungs. A hot panic overcame Ada, distant memories now intimate and overwhelming. Memories she could drown beneath.

But then a hand closed around her own, long fingers finding the spaces where her knuckles came together, and held on tight. Her other hand found someone else in the darkness, who despite their strangeness held on just as closely. The candles lit the silhouettes of fae all around the circle, all holding hands and singing as one. Words formed themselves in Ada's mouth, and though she didn't understand the song, she felt each one like her heart was beating its rhythm.

She thought of Hester. Then of Florentin and of Min. She thought of Raeph above in Wysthaven and the rest of the bandits come together beneath it. She thought of her family; of Marie and Jack, of Lucille, and her parents. And finally, her grandmother and the man whose death she had wished would never come to pass. Though pass he had, into a deep and dark unknown, yet with the warmth and love of those he left behind. A balance between life and death, unimaginable and inescapable. A harmony⁠—or an everlasting song⁠—passed from one pair of lips to the next.

Ada held the hands of the two fae beside her. In that moment, she was a part of their circle, sharing their song and their tears. Ada was adrift in the ocean of grief, but realised that she was not alone. She held the hands of a thousand others, who would keep her afloat no matter how close to drowning she felt. Their grief was her own, just as hers was theirs. Their history as entwined as their voices in the air. Together, they suffered. But, together, they would see a new morning.

When the ceremony was over and the tears had dried, some fae knelt by the chalk whilst others left the chamber. Ada moved slowly, her head still heavy in the hot air. She came to the steps where she had sat earlier and found in her place a little girl with tight, tangled curls.

"Min," Ada breathed, finding their arms around one another before she had even sunk to the stone.

"Are you ok, Ada?" Min sniffed, her fingers locked at the back of Ada's neck.

Ada almost huffed a laugh. "Am I alright? What about you? I thought... I thought you had..."

"I'm ok," Min whispered, her body feeling so much smaller than Ada remembered. "I'll be ok."

They shuffled aside as a family left the chamber, and Ada looked into Min's dark eyes, seeing the light and shadows cast within them. "You fell from that tower, Min. Do you remember anything at all?"

Min screwed up her face, her eyes squeezed shut, and Ada immediately regretted asking. But then the girl sighed and shook her head. "It's strange... I'm not sure. But Armestrong said you took me back here." She wrinkled her nose again. "You and Raeph."

Ada smiled slightly. "And where is Armestrong? I'm surprised she let you out of her sight."

"She said I could come!" Min said indignantly, followed by a sly smile of her own. "But it was dark during the ceremony, so I thought afterwards I could wait out here and then you showed up instead. You always show up at the right time."

Ada got to her feet. "Well, let's see if we can find her⁠—"

"No!" Min wailed. "I'm so bored of that infirmary and she'll make me go straight back! I want to talk to you! Please!"

Ada sighed, looking from Min to the mourning chamber, still unlit and crowded.

"Alright," she finally reasoned. "But only for a little while, and not somewhere we'll be disturbing anyone."

"Yes!" cried Min, before clamping her hands over her mouth.

Sage-lights burned bright as they made their way through the passages and slipped through a crack in a pale, stone wall. The library spread like a paper-city before them, and Min stood with her eyes impossibly wide, as if trying to take in all the inked words at once. They wandered between the shelves together in silence, Min stroking every book she could reach with a reverential touch. Behind them came a rustling of paper, and Ada's heart leapt as she spun around, expecting to see Hester stooped between the stacks of pages.

The mangy cat gave Min a mewl, sliding between the shelves to tangle itself between the girl's legs. It must have followed them from the passages, and Ada wondered if an inky paw-print could be blamed on her. Min picked up the thin cat, holding it close as a deep purr echoed through the empty library.

"She must miss Hester a lot," Min whispered, as if afraid to upset the cat.

Ada smiled sadly. "We do, too. So maybe we can all help each other."

"I wish she wasn't gone," Min said, burying her face in the cat's mottled coat.

"She died for a cause that she believed in," Ada said gently. "We shouldn't wish for things that can't be changed. It's like a harmony that can't be disrupted."

The image of Hester walking the library shifted mid-step into Rosamund, her letter finding its place amidst the papers and books.

"Let me show you something," Ada said. When she turned, the sage-lights illuminated two padded pillows at the bottom of the shelf that she hadn't noticed before. She drew them out and settled down next to Min, the cat curling up on the girl's lap.

Ada reached into her pocket and held the little crystal flower up to the light. It shimmered like a star fallen into the palm of her hand, and Min breathed a gasp as if seeing the magic with more than just her eyes.

"It's beautiful," she whispered.

"It's the one my grandmother was given by the fae. This little flower is the reason I ended up here. How odd is that? One tiny bluebell for a whole other world."

"Wishes can sometimes change worlds," Min said, still staring at the flower. "I think this one still could, if you wanted it to."

"It could?" Ada asked.

"The Wind told me you'd be the one the bring back magic, Ada," Min said. "You came here and now the Lady of Wysthaven is gone. She was the one who wouldn't let anybody Cast. I've heard people talking in the infirmary, I think things are going to change very soon. I think that the Wind was right."

Ada blinked. She looked down at the glass flower, twinkling for her just as brightly as it had for her grandmother. All of a sudden, she felt a wave of longing and loss wash over her, making her eyes wet.

"You must miss her," Min whispered, placing her small hand over Ada's. "Your grandmother."

"Every day," Ada said, taking the child's hand and holding tight. "Our families are both very far away."

"Yes," agreed Min, tears now trailing down her cheeks. They held each other close in the library, surrounded by the books of generations. "Tell me more about your family."

So Ada told her about her grandmother and her cottage on the edge of the forest. She hummed the tune her parents always sang to one another when baking together on Christmas morning, and explained the wild games Jack and Marie would play around the hearth after drinking one-too-many mugs of hot chocolate. Ada even retold the stories she and Lucille would whisper across their bedroom when they were little, about dragons and marauders and giants under the hill.

"They're lucky to have you as a sister," Min said once the stories were finished.

Ada frowned, thinking back to her final night with her family. She could still remember the words she had spat at Lucille, and Marie's fallen face with her eyes full of tears.

But Min repeated, "The luckiest in all the worlds."