FIFTEEN

“MY FATHER WAS A landholder in Scotland. He had fields such as stretched nearly to the horizon, and he could have been a king, if he’d wanted to call himself such. He didn’t like the idea of a crown, though, nor the thought of people coming to take it from him, and so he contented himself with land, and hall, and the knights that helped him hold it. We were comfortable, and content, and happy enough. He loved me.” Janet paused, lips curving in a small, secret smile. I felt like an intruder, looking at that smile. “I was his eldest daughter, and I looked so much like my mam, and she gone to the grave after the birth of my little brother, and he loved me so. With a son in line to inherit his lands, and set to care for me no matter what, he could afford to love me. I didn’t have to be handed off to the first wealthy man to come along and promise to fill my stomach. I could be his pretty girl, and all the world was mine to have.”

“Spoiled little rich kid,” I said. “Got it.”

Janet’s lip curled as she looked at me. “Things were different then. Being able to love your children when they were no longer children was a luxury most men never had.”

“Very few of the people in this room were permitted by circumstance to enjoy the company of a doting father,” said Tybalt blandly. “You will please forgive us if we are not as sweetly touched by your tale as you believe we ought to be, and hunger instead for the meat of the thing. We have a child to find, after all, and linger here only so long as we must.”

Not entirely a child, to the rest of the world, but forever a child to me. Not only me: Janet winced, nodding.

“My apologies,” she said. “I was . . . as I said, I was not an only child, not set to be his heir, but well enough treated and spoilt as to believe the world was mine by right. He set a patch of farmland and forest on me as my dowry, a place called Caughterha, where the grass grew as green as the sky was blue, and the river ran heavy with fish throughout the year. It was a rich place. Any man who married me would have it for his own, and if I never married, it would keep me fed even if my brother tired of me or had a wife who would see me set aside. Legally, it was complicated for a woman to own such, but my father was well-loved among the local landowners and his men alike, and he was fairly confident no hand would try to wrest it from me. No mortal hand did.”

Janet’s lip twisted again, this time not in my direction. The look of disgust seemed to be turned inward, at someone who wasn’t here. “The fae knew a good piece of land as well as we humans did, and they anchored one of their parasitic halls in my wood, near my river. They even spread the word through the towns nearby, said ‘I forbid you maidens all as wear gold in your hair to come nor go by Caughterha.’ As if that ever worked.”

“It would work on us,” said Quentin. She turned to him and raised an eyebrow. I almost jumped. How had Cliff missed how much his new wife’s expressions looked like mine? He shrugged. “I know you may not believe it, but I’m only as old as I look. I’m a little younger than Gillian. And if someone said, ‘don’t go in that one, specific forest, bad things will happen if you do,’ I wouldn’t go. Ignoring that kind of warning gets you killed. Unless you’re a hero, you wouldn’t.”

Tybalt nodded agreement. I frowned.

“I think this is where the changeling experience differs, guys,” I said. “I would absolutely have gone to see what all the fuss was about.”

“If you had, if you broke that rule, I hope what would have happened to you would have been different from what happened to me,” said Janet. “I went. I had to. I needed to know. I tied my skirts above my knee to keep them from dredging up the dew, and I braided my hair to keep it free of the trees, and I went to Caughterha with all the arrogance I was heir to. And I met a man.” Her voice and face softened. For a moment, she looked so young it ached. “I met a beautiful, charming man who came out of the trees and told me not to pick his roses. Me, who had planted them, tended them, known them as my own for my entire life! I laughed in his face, told him if he wished to deny a girl her pleasures, he’d best hie himself out of my wood. And I left.”

We were quiet, waiting. We didn’t have to wait long.

“I left, and then I went back, again and again, over and over, until spring melted into summer, until he kissed me among the roses. He didn’t know I was a local landholder’s daughter. He knew I claimed to own the wood, but he had laughed and said his mistress would be mightily interested to hear that, and I never felt, even for a moment, that he believed me. To him, I was nothing but a human woman, and to me, he was a human man.”

“A human man who had sold himself, body and soul, to the Queen of Faerie,” said the Luidaeg. I turned. She was standing in the doorway that led to the kitchen, a plate in her hand and a weary expression on her face. “Don’t forget that part. I know he told you, because he didn’t have a choice. That was part of the agreement. Seven years of everything he wanted, no matter how extravagant, no matter how depraved. Seven years of paradise, his needs met, his belly full. And at the end—”

“A tithe to Hell,” snapped Janet hotly. “How could any man be expected to honor such a bargain?”

“Because he made that part up,” said the Luidaeg. “We geased him to tell anyone human he encountered that he was in the service of the fae, and they needed to keep their hands off if they didn’t want to incur our wrath. He said he needed some freedom to stay healthy and happy and we believed him, or, rather, Mother believed him because she always wanted to think the best of you humans.”

“You never did,” said Janet.

“Because I had actually paid attention to more than a few humans. I knew, even then, how much trouble you could cause.”

“Will you deny that you intended to sacrifice him?”

“No. He was the tithe. But it wasn’t to Hell, and he came to us willingly. Seven years of everything he wanted, and at the end, a peaceful death. That’s more than most men got in those days. Hell, that’s more than most men get now.” The Luidaeg walked over and shoved the plate at me. “Cold chicken and cheddar cheese with strawberry jam, just the way you like it.”

Janet blinked. “You . . . like that?”

“If you’re going to be disgusted, go for it,” I said, taking the plate. “Cliff used to make gagging noises and think he was the cleverest man alive.”

“Gillian eats her sandwiches the same way.”

I nearly dropped the plate.

“Her father told her they were ‘mommy sandwiches’ when she was, I don’t know, four or so. He and I weren’t married yet. She tells people they’re my favorite, but we both know that isn’t true. He wanted her to have something of yours, even if he could never admit it.” Janet looked to the Luidaeg. “So my Tam lied to me. He was trying to save his life. You’d have done the same.”

“I would never have agreed to Mother’s bargain in the first place, and if I had, I would have kept my word,” corrected the Luidaeg. “He made a promise. He swore to die for Faerie’s sake. We kept our side of the bargain. All you ever were to him was a chance to turn his back on his obligations.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Janet’s laugh was bitter. “I know perfectly well what I was to him. He didn’t want to die.”

“All mortal flesh dies.” The Luidaeg shot me a sharp look. “I know you want to hear the end of this, but I want you eating that sandwich. Now.”

I took a bite. As with all the Luidaeg’s cooking, it was balanced and delicious. Having seen what her apartment looked like without the illusions, I wasn’t even worried about eating something I didn’t intend to. Much.

“Not all mortal flesh,” said Janet. “Mine’s still here.”

“Only until Mom comes home and releases it.”

Janet smiled tightly. “And won’t that be a day? Yes, I went to Caughterha. Yes, I fancied myself in love with a man who said I was beautiful, said I was perfect, said I could save him from the fae. I wanted an adventure. I got one.”

“It really happened. You really did it,” said Quentin, horror and awe in his voice. “You were the one who broke Maeve’s last Ride.”

“It was the only way to save him,” said Janet. “On Halloween, when the fae Rode, I had to pull him from his horse and hold him fast. I had to refuse to let him go, or everything would be lost forever. I did it. God help me, I did it, and the fairy queen had to go in his place.”

“This is the good part,” said the Luidaeg. “I mean, ignore the part where she’s trying not to brag about going out to the forest with the express intention of killing my mom. Look at the rest of it. The way the humans tell the story, Tam Lin told her how to save him from us, because he didn’t want to die and we were going to condemn him to Hell and how dare we. But you know how well we can stop a tongue that might say things we don’t want said. Do you honestly think my mother—my mother—would set her little pet free to wander the woods with the key to her downfall ready to tumble from his lips and into the hands of the first pretty maid to happen by? She was smarter than that. She was better than that. Who gave you the key you needed, pretty maid? Who told you how to break us?”

I looked from the Luidaeg to Janet, and I knew what she was going to say, and I didn’t want to hear it. Five hundred years. That should have been long enough that the villains of the piece would change, and yet . . .

“She said her name was Eira, and that it wasn’t fair for an innocent man to die for Faerie’s sins. She told me what to do.”

“There we go.” The Luidaeg toasted the air with an imaginary glass. “My sister’s greatest crime. Shattering our world. And the stories call me a monster.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” muttered Quentin.

“I lost the baby,” said Janet quickly, like she could sense her time to speak was coming to an end. “All that magic, all that effort, holding onto my lover as he became beast after beast—it was too much. I lost the baby, but my father already knew I’d been touched, and he demanded Tam marry me. I suppose I should have known he wasn’t the kind of man to keep his promises, but I thought . . . I thought I was different. We were both human, and Maeve’s curse was so fresh on my skin that I didn’t realize yet what it would do. When Tam ran, I did the only thing I could think of. I tied my skirts and I braided my hair and I went back to Caughterha looking for the fae. They were the ones who had ruined my life. I wanted them to restore it.”

“We told you,” said the Luidaeg. “We told you. ‘Don’t go to Caughterha.’ When that didn’t work, ‘don’t touch the favorite of the queen, the man condemned to die.’ We told you, over and over. You ruined your own life.”

Janet ignored her. “It was easier to find the fae in those days. They were less hidden, less secretive. I found their Court, and I found their King, and I demanded he do right by me. So he did. He took me into his service, and he took me into his confidence, and one night, after too much wine and too much conversation and too many regrets, he took me into his bed. Not against my will—never that—but still, we both knew we shouldn’t have done it. Amandine happened not long after that. My pretty, perfect Amy. The best thing Faerie ever made.”

Tybalt shivered and turned his face away. I took a step to the side, still cramming sandwich into my mouth, and leaned over so my shoulder rested against his. He glanced at me and relaxed, very slightly. That was enough. That had to be enough.

“We know the story from there,” I said brusquely, and turned toward the Luidaeg before Janet could resume singing Mom’s praises. “Gillian’s missing. Whoever took her used her clothes to lay several false trails, including one to a courtyard Janet owns that no one’s supposed to know about, and another to the lair of a Baobhan Sith. She bled a lot when she was taken, but the blood I was able to retrieve didn’t contain a death. I think she’s alive. She’s being held captive, and I need to get her back as soon as I can. Can you help me?”

“With your debts where they are, I doubt my father himself could help you,” said the Luidaeg, grimacing. “She’s a mortal girl, October. She’s outside my reach.”

“Can’t blame a mother for asking.”

“That is one of the things I would never try to blame you for.” She tilted her head, looking at me. “You’re calmer than I’d have expected. Is this the blood loss speaking, or do you know where you have to go next?”

“I know who took her.” I kept my eyes on the Luidaeg, not wanting to see my companions react. If any of them looked like they didn’t believe me, I was going to start swinging. “I caught a scent in the Baobhan Sith’s lair. Nothing I could follow, but enough to give me an identity.”

The Luidaeg raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t care if it’s impossible. I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense. The false Queen was in that room. She knows about Gillian. She met her, when Gilly was a baby. I took her to Court to present her as my daughter.” Even then, with Gillian’s fae blood as thin as it was, I’d wanted her to be taken care of. I had wanted the purebloods who barely allowed themselves to see me to see her as someone worthy of protection if something happened to me. “Rowan and ice. That was what the room smelled like. And it was fresh. This wasn’t a trail from before she was deposed.”

“I thought you left the imposter queen sleeping in Silences,” said the Luidaeg mildly. Her eyes flicked toward a point behind me, and I knew she was quizzing me for the sake of the others, the ones who hadn’t been there, who didn’t know the way I did.

I could have kissed her, if she wouldn’t have ripped my head off for doing it. “We did. I even had Walther contact them. He says she’s still there. I say she’s not. We can find out what they have in their basement after I bring my daughter home.”

“Home to me,” said Janet. I turned. She was still sitting, but her hands were balled into fists, and she was glaring at me with every ounce of fury she could muster. She locked her eyes on mine. “This changes nothing. You don’t get to take her.”

“She’s a person,” I said. “An adult person, who gets to make her own choices. But yes, I am bringing her home to you, and to Cliff, because she chose to be human, and he never asked to get this tangled up in Faerie. Even though his human wife might as well be one of us.” I paused. “He doesn’t know, does he?”

“Never,” said Janet. “I would never.”

“Good.” I looked back to the Luidaeg. “It’s her, and she has my child, and I don’t know how or why she took her, but I know it’s her.”

“Do you know where she is?” prompted the Luidaeg.

I opened my mouth to answer. Then I paused and dug Jocelyn’s note out of my pocket, unfolding it. “Gillian’s roommate is a thin-blooded changeling. Thin enough not to be having a violent allergic reaction to Janet’s ‘protection charms,’ but strong enough that fairy ointment works on her. She knew more than she should have, and she left me this note.” I shoved it at the Luidaeg. “The old knowe. They’re at the old Queen’s knowe.”

The Luidaeg looked at the note. Then she looked at me and nodded.

“I think you’re right,” she said. “You’d better go.”

I started to turn. Then I hesitated, and said, “Promise me.”

The Luidaeg lifted an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“You haven’t said that you’d protect Janet. That means you don’t intend to. I need her safe. Promise me, Luidaeg.” I paused. “You’re my aunt. You’re my blood. Apparently, so is she. I need time to figure out what that means.”

The Luidaeg pinched the bridge of her nose. “Dad preserve me in the face of all his damn heroes. Yes, October, I will protect the woman responsible for my mother being lost to me. Happy now?”

My stomach twisted. I hadn’t really considered that part. “No,” I said honestly. “I’d be happier throwing her in the Bay. But I can’t do that to Gillian. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“See that you are.”

I turned then, and bolted for the door, accompanied by the footsteps of my friends as they ran after me. The Luidaeg’s patience wasn’t infinite, and neither were Gillian’s chances.

It was time to bring my daughter home.