Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson 5)

"Here," said Ariana. "Put your hand on my shoulder, Jesse."

"I'll put mine on yours," I told Jesse. "Samuel, can you see anything?"

"I can now," he said. "It's getting lighter ahead."

"Lighter" was a relative term, but the ten stairs we went down I could see. The stairs ended in a dirt tunnel that was lit by gems embedded in the ground that were as big around as oranges. The ceiling of the tunnel was about six inches lower than Samuel was tall, and the roof and sides were thick with tree roots.

"There aren't any trees above us," I said. "And even if there were, we've come down a long way past where I'd have thought there would be roots."

"She has a forest lord in her court," said Ariana, reaching to the side where strings of roots made a rough curtain for the dirt wall beyond. The roots moved toward her, caressing her fingers briefly before falling back where they had been.

"What kind of fae are you, Ariana?" asked Jesse. "Are you a forest lord, too? Or a gremlin like Zee, because you can work silver?"

"There are no others like Zee," she told us. "He is unique. Almost all fae can work with silver to one extent or another - silver loves fae magic. But you are right: there are iron-kissed fae in my background, and steel holds no terrors for me."

We were talking quietly, but I wasn't too worried about being discovered. There was a feeling of . . . emptiness here that told me that there was no life other than the roots that tangled in my hair and tripped my feet.

"We - " I stopped, remembering that I wasn't supposed to discuss anything about the fairy queen. Had I already broken my word? Did it matter when we were storming the castle?

"Jesse," I said, deciding to play it safe, "we haven't planned anything at all about the rescue."

"There's no planning when you're running through Elphame," said Samuel, who was walking bent over, with one hand up to ward off the roots. "It's not that kind of place. Ariana will lead us to her grandson and Gabriel, and we'll try to get out by coping with anything that happens along the way."

"That sounds . . . simple," I said.

"It could be simple," Ariana told me. "She cannot be expecting visitors - there just aren't very many fae who could open a back entrance into a fairy queen's lair. Thralls will not react to us - they know nothing and are not much more than automata who follow the queen's orders. We may be able to find Phin and Gabriel and leave with them before anyone realizes there is something wrong."

"Should we have brought - " Ariana's fingers touched my lips.

"Best we not talk about what that one so desires in her lair," she told me. "I expect she might hear that. And no. It is powerful, and even if it will not do as she wants, it will still do great harm in the wrong hands."

"All right," I said.

Samuel raised his head. "Best we not talk anymore at all. I'm starting to pick up the scent of people now."

I could smell them, too, once he'd pointed it out. We were coming upon more-traveled ways. The loose dirt of the floor became packed earth, and the roots thinned and were replaced with rough-cut square blocks as the dirt floor became cobbles, and the ceiling rose so Samuel could stand up straight again.

There were already other tunnels joining ours.

I caught the scent before Samuel, but I think it was only because the woman came upon us from behind, and I was walking last. It didn't matter, though, because I only had time to whirl around, and she was upon us.

She wore a torn jacket and filthy jeans and carried a large wooden cutting board in both her hands. She walked right into me and bounced off. When she tried to walk around me, I blocked her a second time.

"Take this to the kitchen," she said, without looking up at me. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, all of her attention on the board she held. Her hair hung in ragged clumps, and there was dirt on her knuckles. Around her neck was a thin silver collar. "The kitchen, child. The kitchen. Take this to the kitchen."

I moved out of her way, and she all but sprinted past us.

"She's not taking care of her thralls," said Ariana disapprovingly.

"Thrall?" asked Jesse.

"Slave," I answered. "You know when someone is enthralled with a movie or a boyfriend - that's from the same root word."

"Follow her," said Ariana. "The kitchen should be at the heart of Elphame."

We jogged after her, passing by a young man in a police uniform, a woman in a jogging suit, and an older woman carrying a steaming teapot, all wearing silver collars, and all moving with unnatural intentness. The floor switched from cobbles to stone tiles, and the ceiling rose again until it was fifteen feet or more above our heads.

The gems that had lit the passage we had been in were lining the walls and dangling from the ceiling from something that could equally well have been fine silver wire or spiderwebs. Whatever it was, it didn't look strong enough to hold them. Samuel's head would hit the lower gemstones once in a while, sending them swinging.

We came into the kitchen, which could have been imported from a 1950s TV set - a very large cooking set, since there were two six-burner stoves in a room that was bigger than my now-deceased trailer. I looked around, but none of the people in the kitchen was Donna Reed or June Cleaver . . . or Gabriel Sandoval, either. The glistening white appliances were rounded in a manner my eyes found odd, and the three refrigerators had silver latching handles and Frigidaire stenciled in silver across the top. People with silver collars were preparing food and drink - and didn't seem to notice our presence at all. The woman we'd followed here put the cutting board on the counter next to one of the sinks and began to fill the sink with water by working the hand pump that it had instead of a faucet.

"Excuse me," said Ariana, walking up to a man who was stirring something in a pot that looked like oatmeal.

"Stir the pot seventy times seven," he said.

"Where are they keeping the prisoners?" Samuel asked, putting the push into his voice that the really dominant wolves could. His voice echoed oddly in the room.

Slowly, all the action in the kitchen came to a stop. One by one, the six people wearing silver circlets around their throats turned to look at Samuel. The man Ariana had spoken to stopped moving last. He pulled his spoon out of the pot and pointed to one of the seven rounded doorways. The others, one by one, pointed the same way.

"Forty-seven steps," the oatmeal stirrer said.