The Brightest Fell Page 29

Crime is low where the Luidaeg lives. The people who are willing to risk moving into apartments that look like they might collapse at any moment find, to their surprise and delight, that their power bills are lower, their windows never let drafts inside, and cockroaches are mysteriously nonexistent. Somehow—possibly because the Luidaeg is not above using magic on mortals to get what she wants—this has never turned into a rush to claim and gentrify those apartments. They stay open to the city’s poor and needy, and she keeps her safe barrier of mortals between herself and the rest of Faerie.

  It was too bad she hadn’t chosen changelings as the recipients of her goodwill and passive aid. We needed it as much as the mortals did. Maybe more. We didn’t have a world to call our own, and we were falling off the edge of everything, day by day, night by endless night.

  I eased my way through the streets, past buildings with good foundations and peeling paint, along sidewalks that somehow managed to be structurally sound while looking like horrifying tripping hazards. Even the potholes were more trick of the light than reality; it wouldn’t exactly be helping these people if driving home tore out the undercarriage of their cars. Finally, I pulled up to the mouth of an alley and stopped the car.

  “We’re close enough to the apartment that we shouldn’t have to worry about anyone seeing us,” I said. “People look the other way when things happen near the Luidaeg.”

  “That’s not terrifying in the least,” muttered Simon. “Yes, let’s visit the undying sea witch whose very presence causes the world to reject the normal consequences of our actions.”

  “Great idea,” said Quentin, and got out of the car.

  August started shouting as soon as I opened the trunk. “How dare you! Mongrel scum! You have no right! My father will kill you when he hears of this! He’ll turn your eyes to wood and your heart to stone and leave you blind and loveless to wander the world for eternity!”

  “Wow.” I turned to Simon. “You’re going to do that? Really?”

  “I might have been willing to make the attempt, once,” he said uncomfortably. “Please, can we untie her?”

  “Not quite sure that’s the term for taking off this much tape, and no,” I said. “Get her out of the trunk. We need to deliver her to the Luidaeg.”

  August screamed. August shouted. August swore. She didn’t have a great grasp of modern profanity yet, but she knew all the traditional words, and she wasn’t afraid to mix and match them as necessary to suit her needs. Since apparently what she needed was to insult everything about the three of us, she was pretty well-equipped.

  It should have been funny. Somehow, it was just sad. She was threatening us with her father’s vengeance, which would be swift and furious when it came, and Simon was looking more and more depressed, as if her words were barbs that cut and tore his skin. Even Quentin was starting to look distressed.

  Gillian had always known who I was. Even when she was telling me to go away, screaming that she never wanted to see me again, she had known who I was. To have his own child reject him like this . . . it didn’t matter that it was all due to the Luidaeg’s spell. It still had to be killing him.

  I walked ahead as Quentin and Simon carried August into the alley. The Luidaeg’s front door was set back into the wall, recessed, half-hidden, and entirely uninviting. She liked it that way. It wasn’t that she didn’t like company—one of the first things I’d realized once we started to become friends was just how lonely she was—it was that when she had company, it was because people were asking her to do things and, sometimes, she didn’t want to.

  If I ever met Titania, we were going to have a little talk about laying compulsions on people. What she’d done to the Luidaeg wasn’t fair. There was nothing in the world that could have made it so.

  The door swung open before I could knock, and there was the Luidaeg, back in her “cousin Annie” guise, all curly black hair and acne-scarred cheeks. Her ponytails were tied with strips of blue painter’s tape, almost matching the fabric of her denim overalls. Her feet were bare. Nothing about her screamed “all-powerful sea witch.” Nothing about her even screamed “old enough to drive.”

  Nothing except her eyes. They were too old for her teenager’s face, and filled with the sort of shadows that no one should have to hold alone.

  She raised an eyebrow at the sight of me in all my too-human glory before her gaze switched to August, who had gone very still on her chair. Apparently, the Luidaeg was menacing enough to shut up even my imperious sister.

  “You found her,” said the Luidaeg. “You actually found her.”

  “We did,” I agreed. “Can we come in?”

  Her sigh was deep and almost pained. “I suppose you might as well. It’s not like you’re going to go away.”

  She stepped to the side. I moved to step past her and she grabbed my wrist, stopping me, pulling me to stand beside her against the wall as Quentin and Simon carried a still-silent August into the apartment.

  “Put her in the living room,” said the Luidaeg. “October and I will be right with you.”

  Arguing with the Luidaeg was never a good idea. In my current semi-mortal state, it seemed like the sort of idea that could get me seriously hurt. I nodded to Quentin, signaling that it was okay, and stayed where I was. He looked unsure. He kept walking. Sweet Oberon, I loved that kid. Simon went with him. It was that or let go of August, and since he didn’t want to hurt his daughter, he didn’t really have a choice.

  The Luidaeg waited until we were alone before she turned to me and asked, “What the hell happened to you?”

  “August.” I spread my hands, using the gesture to indicate the full, virtually human scope of me. “Turns out Mom didn’t spend her entire life pretending she was Daoine Sidhe. August actually knows what she is, what she can do, and how to do it aggressively.”

  “I should have warned you about that.”

  “You think?” I shook my head. “It could be worse. It can always be worse. I’ll borrow Arden’s hope chest when this is all over, put myself back to normal.”

  “Do you know what normal is anymore? This is much closer to the woman you were when you showed up on my doorstep for the first time.”

  I paused. Finally, I said, “Back then, I was trying to be part of the human world. I thought that was where I was going to be happy. I know now that I was wrong. This is where I belong, and that means I can’t go back to being human and hoping Faerie will leave me alone. It’s never going to happen.”

  “Good.” The Luidaeg looked relieved. I didn’t have time to examine that before she was saying, “Why did you bring her here? You found her. That’s what you promised to do. You won’t have to work for me. You can get your kitty back.”

  “She still can’t find her way home.”

  The Luidaeg stopped moving.

  “Simon stands right in front of her and she doesn’t know who he is. She keeps telling him that her father is going to mess him up when he finds out what we’ve done. We’ve tried telling her that Simon is her father, but it’s like the words don’t make any sense to her.”

  “Damn.” The Luidaeg tugged on the end of one electric tape-wrapped pigtail. “Sometimes I wish I weren’t so good at my job.”

  “If we take her back to Amandine the way she is now, she won’t know who Mom is,” I said. “I don’t think that will end well for me.” Or for my people. Amandine had Tybalt and Jazz captive and at their most defenseless. A tomcat can do a lot of damage. So can an adult raven. But neither of them could unlock their own prisons, and without the freedom to use talons and claws, she could hurt them badly enough that I didn’t even like to think about it.

  “No,” admitted the Luidaeg, lowering her hand. “Amy doesn’t like it when she doesn’t get what she thinks she deserves. She’s not going to want a daughter who doesn’t know her. She’s going to want a daughter who’s grateful to be home.”

  “Lui
daeg . . . I need you to return her way home.”

  There was a long moment of silence, during which I watched the Luidaeg and she looked at anything but me. There wasn’t much to look at in the hallway: the walls, the floor, the clean mended fishnets she had hanging up as decorations. In the end, she had no choice but to return her attention to me.

  In a very soft voice, she said, “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  “I mean I can’t. I have to give people what they ask me for. If you say you want a pony, I have to give you a pony. But I can ask you to pay whatever I want, and the more I don’t want to give you a pony, the steeper that cost becomes.” Her mouth twisted in an unhappy line. “If you’re an asshole about it, I can even fuck with you after I give you what you asked for. Asked to have a pony, not be a pony, but hey, one’s essentially the same as the other, right? Looked at from the right angle.”

  “So I’m asking you to give August’s way home back.”

  “I told you, I can’t.” The Luidaeg looked miserable. Openly, actually miserable. “She hasn’t fulfilled the conditions for its return, and I can’t give it to you without demanding something of equal value in exchange.”

  “So it’s not that you can’t; it’s that you won’t.”

  “I won’t take your way home, no. I won’t let you buy a spoiled pureblood brat who thought heroism was as easy as following the light of a candle at the expense of your own happiness and the lives of the people who love you.” The Luidaeg shook her head. “You’ve found one of the few places where I can refuse to do something. When an older bargain is involved, the rules shift.”

  “If we’re speaking of rules, I have a proposal for you.”

  We both turned. Simon was standing at the mouth of the hallway, hands empty by his sides, looking at us with calm, resigned weariness. There was nothing of Sylvester in him now. There was nothing of my old enemy, either. There was only Simon Torquill: husband, father, man who had paid everything he had to try and bring his daughter home, only to discover that he needed to find a way—somehow—to pay even more.

  “I thought I told you to go to the living room,” said the Luidaeg.

  “You did,” said Simon. “You did not, however, tell me to stay there. Loopholes, milady sea witch. Always, there are loopholes.”

  The Luidaeg folded her arms. “I’m listening.”

  “Only because you have no choice, and for that, I am sincerely sorry: for that, I apologize with all my heart and soul. You would refuse to hear me, were you allowed.”

  “Damn right,” said the Luidaeg. “What do you want, failure?”

  “I want to change my estimation in your eyes by doing what I failed to do so many years before, when I asked you the wrong questions and allowed my feet to be set upon the wrong path,” said Simon. His voice was soft, but there was steel behind it. “My name is Simon Torquill. I am the son of Celaeno and Septimius Torquill, third- and last-born of their children. I am the family disappointment, the one who refused to strive or aspire, but was happy to settle with my wife and daughter and live in peace. I have done my best. I have succeeded, and I have failed, and my greatest success was my child, August Torquill, born to Amandine the Liar. She is mine, Luidaeg. Do you contest that she is mine?”

  “If I wanted to split a hair to thread a needle, I could,” she said. “Her mother pulled all that was of Titania’s line from her body before she was born, and she helped willingly if unknowingly, because the power belonged to the blood of my father. The power was in Oberon’s lines. You had the making and the raising of her, but by her bloodline, your bloodline ended.”

  “Loopholes,” said Simon.

  I looked between them. “Uh, one of you want to tell me what the hell is going on? Because you’re sort of losing me here, and I’m a little concerned about leaving my squire alone with August any longer than I have to.”

  “She won’t hurt him,” said Simon.

  “I’m more worried he’s going to find a marker and draw a mustache on her,” I said. “Quentin doesn’t actually like being attacked in his own home, and while he’s polite enough not to do harm to someone who’s been restrained, there are many ways to take revenge.”

  The Luidaeg snorted, looking briefly amused, before the wariness returned and she focused back on Simon. “I don’t like people bending the rules to suit their own purposes; it’s messy,” she said. “No, I do not contest that she is your daughter. There’s too much Torquill in her for any sane person’s liking.”

  “Then you agree that, as her father, I have the right—the obligation, even—to take her debts onto myself.” Simon looked at her coolly. “She need not be lost any longer.”

  “Oh, oak and ash,” I said, the penny finally dropping. “You want to trade your way home for hers, don’t you?”

  Simon shrugged. His eyes were weary, but his jaw was set; he was determined. I couldn’t tell whether that was a good thing, or a tragedy about to get started.

  “I’m her father,” he said. “I didn’t save her the first time. I have to save her now.”

  The Luidaeg took a step forward. “Simon,” she said, and from her lips, his name was an apology: she wasn’t calling him “failure” anymore. “When August gave me her way home, it wasn’t just a physical thing. She lost so much more than that. You’ll lose the same. You won’t know the face of your child, or your wife. You may not even know your brother. She hadn’t been lost before she came here. You have been. Taking your way home may mean taking all the ground you’ve gained.”

  “Wait, don’t you get to decide that?” I asked.

  The Luidaeg shook her head. “It’s my magic. That doesn’t mean I have perfect control. Or do you have perfect control of your magic? Because if you do, I want you to teach me.”

  “I don’t.” What she was saying made a terrible sort of sense, even though I didn’t want it to. I could decide roughly what I wanted to achieve, but unless I was looking for a binary effect—like shifting someone’s blood from one state to another—whatever spell I cast would fill in the details. It knew better than I did how to put itself together.

  “Didn’t think so.” She focused on Simon again. “I understand why you want to do this, but I don’t think you know how much ground you’ll lose. You smell of apples again, Torquill. What my sister did to you is going to leave scars, but you might get to be your own man again if you stay free, if you keep heading for home. Don’t you want that?”

  “With all my heart,” he said. His voice broke. So did my heart. “But not all of my heart beats in my breast, and what of it sits in your living room must come before what stands in your hall. August is what matters. She’s gone too long without salvation, and besides,” he paused to smile at me, “when she works with October, I have all faith that the two of them will find a way to save me. That’s what Amy’s daughters do. They save me.”

  The Luidaeg closed her eyes. “Simon . . .” This time, his name was not forgiveness. This time, his name was a plea. “Please don’t ask me to do this.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and it sounded like he meant it. Then, in a slower, more formal tone, he said, “Luidaeg, daughter of Maeve, I ask a boon of you. I come prepared to pay.”

  “Of course you do.” The Luidaeg opened her eyes. “What do you want?”

  “I am the father of August Torquill, who bargained with you unwisely and against my express wishes. I have come to take her debts onto myself. I ask you to return what you have taken from her, and take it, instead, from me.”

  “Right.” The Luidaeg shook her head. “I guess we’re doing this.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  QUENTIN AND SIMON had pushed August’s chair up against the wall, well away from all the exits. It was a nice positioning job. Even if she got loose, she’d have to go through at least one of us to get out—and Quentin wasn’t going to be taken by surprise a second
time. He was sitting on the couch, as far from her as he could get without leaving the room, and watching her with all the wariness of a cat in the presence of a venomous snake. He visibly brightened when I stepped out of the hallway, although he didn’t say anything.

  August wasn’t so reserved. “Release me at once!” she howled.

  “No,” I said, and stepped to the side, letting Simon and the Luidaeg enter.

  As before, August’s eyes skated over Simon like he wasn’t there before focusing on the Luidaeg. She went very, very still. Lost due to an ill-conceived magical bargain or not, she still knew enough to know a bad situation when she saw one.

  “Hello, niece,” said the Luidaeg, and there was no warmth or mercy in her voice, only weariness, and an unforgiving tide as deep and as wide as the sea. She walked across the room toward August. With every step, a little more of her seeming humanity melted away. It was a subtle process, enough so that when she reached August she had been fully sea-changed, without giving me a single moment to point to as the transition.

  Her skin was smooth as water on a windless day, and her hair was a cascade of curls flowing down her back and over her shoulders, also like the water, but this time after it had been whipped into angry waves. Her eyes were black from side to side, bottomless, cold. Even her clothing had changed, becoming a form-hugging dark blue gown that shaded to white at the bottom, like waves breaking against the beach.

  We were standing in the presence of the sea witch, and I was close enough to human that she wouldn’t even need to mean to hurt me. She could do it without intending to, with a twitch of her little finger. I suppressed a shiver, remaining exactly where I was. Maybe I could keep from attracting her attention.

  Not that there was that much of a risk. She was focused fully on August, who was still staring at her, silent and afraid.

  “A hundred years ago and more you came to me and insisted on something I did not want to give,” said the Luidaeg. “Do you remember?”

  August said nothing.