The Brightest Fell

by Seanan McGuire

  “What? Oh!” Madden shook himself, a great, full-body motion, like he was trying to dry off after an unexpected dip in deep water. “Yeah. Here.” He closed the distance between us in a few long steps, holding his tray out toward me. “What are you going to do?”

  “Something stupid. And painful. And unusually lasting, for me.” I took the tray, setting it carefully on the nearest open patch of floor.

  Madden frowned. “What do you mean, lasting?”

  “I mean the more human I am, the more slowly I heal.” I’ve bounced back from being stabbed in the heart and dropped from the treetops, but I was more fae than human when those things happened. “I’m about to make a mess.”

  “Oh.” Madden took a step back. “I can’t really explain blood on my work pants.”

  “It’s okay,” I assured him, and turned to the things I’d asked him to bring me.

  The Borderlands Café isn’t the biggest or the fanciest in San Francisco, but the owner makes it a point to buy the best ingredients he can. Belatedly, it occurred to me that I could have asked for a cup of coffee. Being closer to human meant caffeine would work on me again. After I fix this, before the hope chest, I thought, and got to work.

  Alchemy is a science, precise and careful and refined over the course of centuries. People like Walther can spend their whole lives practicing their craft, and still feel like they had more to learn. In one of those “Alanis Morissette would call this ironic” twists, changeling charms work along similar principles. A French chef and a home cook can both roast a chicken. It’s just that one of them will do it with technique and precision and a guaranteed result, while the other will be working off of Grandma’s recipe, a handful of herbs, and a basic understanding of heat.

  I have always been more of a home cook. I picked up the squeeze bottle of honey and wrung a healthy amount of sticky golden liquid into the bottom of the teacup before adding pinches of powdered ginger and mint leaves.

  “He that has a tiny little wit, with hey, ho, the wind and the rain,” I chanted. My magic struggled to rise around me, cut-grass and copper and so very, very strange, and so achingly familiar. This was how it had been for me, for years. This was how I had grown up, struggling to reach the bottom rungs of a ladder that everyone around me seemed to climb so effortlessly.

  Maybe using King Lear to focus the charm meant to save my stepfather was a little weird, but I’ve always had a thing for Shakespeare, and somehow I didn’t think Simon would appreciate me going for Hamlet. I added salt to the mixture in the bottom of my teacup and stirred it with my finger before reaching for the pot and adding enough hot water to cover everything. The smell that rose from the mess was sweet and medicinal.

  I was going to fix that.

  “Must make content with his fortunes fit,” I chanted, and drew the knife from where it rode at my hip, comforting and close. The blade was silver, enchanted to hold a proper edge, and I kept it sharp. Given what my knives were often used for, letting them go blunt was never a good idea.

  Simon rolled his eyes, sensing the shape of what I was about to do. He would have told me not to, if he could have; I was sure of that. I paused to smile a little, trying to seem more encouraging than concerned. From the way his eyes rolled again, I didn’t quite manage it.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m a professional.” I ran the knife along the ball of my thumb, opening the skin. The pain was bright and electric, as it always was, but this time, it didn’t fade: this time, it stayed and grew stronger, the skin unable to knit back together the way it so often did.

  At least I’d have all the blood I needed. I held my thumb over the teacup, bleeding into the water-and-honey mixture. Then I reached for Simon’s hand, and repeated the cut along his thumb, adding his blood to the “tea.”

  “Simon Torquill,” I said. “You have been bound for my sake, and for my sake, I release you. You have been bound by the blood of your brother: I undo those ties with the blood of my mother. Be fit. Be fine. Be free.” I raised the cup to his lips, holding it there until I saw him swallow. Good.

  Now came the hard part. “The rain it raineth every day,” I murmured, finishing the phrase from Lear, and brought the cup to my own lips. The bloody red of his memories crashed down on me like a wave, and the basement—and my body—went away.

  TWENTY

  EVERYTHING WAS FILMED in red, like I was looking at the world through a pair of literally rose-tinted glasses. That was how I knew this was a blood memory, and not reality. Well, that, and the fact that I was standing, I wasn’t bleeding, and my body felt like my own again.

  It’s almost funny. There was a time when I would have given anything to be a real human girl. And then that time passed, and I accepted myself for who I was always meant to be, and I learned how to be happy among the fae. Which was, naturally, when people started trying to give me back my humanity. A pity they never asked first.

  “October.”

  I turned.

  Simon was behind me, a worried expression on his familiar, unfamiliar face. He still had the same bone structure as his brother, could still pass for Sylvester when calm or serious, but the more time I spent with him, the more I was coming to see him for who he really was. He was quicker than his brother, more mercurial, and oddly, more relaxed, at least when he wasn’t being villainous or dour.

  I frowned. “Is this a memory?”

  “No. You foolish, foolish girl.” He smiled wryly, shaking his head. “You understand the principles of what you do, but not the possible consequences.”

  “I’ve heard that one before.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Simon stopped smiling and simply looked at me. “What are you trying to do?”

  “Remove the geas that Sylvester put on you.” The basement seemed to be getting bigger around us, the walls stretching off into some dark, sanguine distance. Everything was still overlain with red, but it was taking on more shade and nuance, the longer we stood here. “I figured if his blood was enough to do it, maybe my blood would be enough to undo it.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea? I’ve hurt you before.”

  He wasn’t wrong. But neither was I. I could feel it in my bones. I shrugged. “I won’t pretend that I’ve forgiven you for what you did to me. I sort of want to. It would be easier. I know that you didn’t mean to do as much damage as you did. That doesn’t make the damage go away. It doesn’t give my daughter back to me.”

  It was funny, in a terrible way. Simon had been so focused on doing whatever he could to bring his daughter home that he’d caused me to lose my own child forever. I didn’t need to say that aloud; he knew what I was thinking. I could see it in the shamed, downcast tilt of his eyes.

  “You didn’t tell Riordan she could have me.”

  Simon frowned. “What?”

  “You’re a pureblood. You dance with words when you can’t find someone better to dance with. There’s a reason I triple check everything I say to the Luidaeg, and she’s my ally. I know she wouldn’t screw me over just to show me that she could. Sylvester made it so you couldn’t speak out against me. Okay, fine. All you had to do was stay silent when Riordan asked if I was with you. There were a hundred things you could have said to her that would have turned a quick pit stop into a disaster. You didn’t say any of them. You helped more than you had to. But that’s not why I want to save you.”

  He frowned. “Then why . . . ?”

  “Three reasons. I lost my father when I was really young. He was human. As soon as Sylvester offered me the Choice, as soon as I said I wanted to be fae like Mom, I lost my dad. He died thinking I had burned to death in our home. August deserves to have her father. I’m not her biggest fan right now,” the memory of pain arced through me, like even hinting at what she’d done was enough to activate the echoes of it that still lingered in my blood, “but that doesn’t mean I want her to lose you.”

&
nbsp; Simon nodded slowly.

  “Second, I need you to help me figure out how to get her way home back, so she can recognize you, and we can return her to Amandine, and I can save my friends.” That, too, was a factor in me starting to forgive Simon, whether I wanted to or not. I would mourn for my lost relationship with Gillian for the rest of my life, which had the potential to be very, very long. He hadn’t known what he was doing when he took me away from her, or maybe he just hadn’t cared.

  But I’d built a life since then. A better life. And my little girl was happy without me, human and thriving and living without worrying about all the things that I was heir to crashing down on her head. Gillian had moved on. I had to do the same, if only for the sake of the people who loved me, and Simon was a part of that transition.

  “Most of all, though, you didn’t have to include me in that illusion. And don’t try to tell me you didn’t think before you acted, because if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you think before you act. You knew hiding me would activate Sylvester’s punishment. You did it anyway.”

  “August needs a hero if she’s going to find her way,” said Simon. “I’m not that. I never have been.”

  “Sometimes I think Faerie gets a little too hung up on defining heroism, and loses track of all the good things we can do that aren’t swinging a sword or slaying a dragon,” I said. “You saved me. You didn’t have to. You could have freed yourself from the obligation to help me by doing exactly what Sylvester bound you to do and no more, and you didn’t. So, yeah, I’m going to help you.”

  “I see.” Simon looked away. “I used to watch you, when you were younger. When Amy brought you to court functions, and after, when you’d run away. I saw you living in those hovels, working with those changeling ruffians, standing up to the purebloods, and I was . . . I was proud of you. I thought you were your mother’s daughter, finding a way to survive no matter what the world threw at you. I was wrong.”

  “Wrong how? Wrong to be a creepy person and spy on me?”

  “No.” He looked back at me and smiled sadly. “You are so much kinder than Amy ever was. I love your mother. I love my wife. But no one would ever mistake her for kind. She never had to be. I don’t know where your kindness came from. I don’t care. Hold close to it, and never, never let the world take it away.”

  I felt my ears redden, embarrassed by his praise. “I’ll do my best. I . . . how are we talking? Are you a blood memory, or . . . ?”

  “I’m a blood-worker, October, and so are you. We’ve shared blood, magic, and intent. When you touch someone’s blood, does it create a space? A . . . silence, carved out of the world?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is like that. Time is passing. We can’t stay here forever, or even terribly long, not without substantially more blood. But this used to be how the Daoine Sidhe would communicate, when we were separated by oceans, or by worlds. Two vials of blood, held in trust until an agreed-upon time.”

  “Why did you stop?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “There’s this mortal invention. Perhaps you’ve heard of it—the telephone? Much easier to use than a blood charm requiring perfect synchronization between people who might not have spoken in years. Once communication became easier, such archaic methods became impractical, even among traditionalists. Congratulations. You’ve stumbled upon something much older than yourself.”

  “I do that a lot,” I said. I took a deep breath. “Tell me how to unbind you.”

  The flicker of levity in Simon’s eyes died. “It will hurt.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “I don’t mean it will hurt me. My brother was never much of a blood-worker, but he has raw power behind him, and the form he used was composed by our First, may she sleep forever and never trouble us again. It will hurt you. Your blood is thin and fraying. The pain . . .”

  “Won’t be anything I haven’t felt before. Let me do this. Let me save you.”

  “And when I am forever in your debt, and you can never again be free of me, will you be glad you did? This is something I can’t repay.”

  “We’ll worry about that later. Please. Don’t leave me to deal with this alone.”

  Simon sighed, long and low and weary. I wondered suddenly how long it had been since he’d had a rest. Being elf-shot didn’t count. That sort of sleep didn’t renew the body or the soul, or else purebloods would have done it to themselves every time they needed a break, rather than wandering off into the woods to commune with nature and potentially get eaten by whatever happened to be lurking there.

  “All right,” he said. “Give me your hands.”

  I walked toward him. He reached out, and I slid my hands into his, letting our fingers knot together. This close to him, the smell of smoke and mulled cider was incredibly strong.

  “Why did it change?” I blurted.

  He paused. “What?”

  “Your magic. It’s not . . . when I smell it in the real world, it’s rotten oranges, not mulled cider. I didn’t know magic could change like that. I thought it was a part of you. Why did it change?”

  “Ah.” He looked down, refusing to meet my eyes. It didn’t look like he was preparing to lie. Instead, it looked like he was, well, ashamed. “Magic is a function of the blood. It tells the world who you are, something that can’t be hidden or denied. When I allowed myself to be yoked to someone who did not have my family’s best interests at heart, when I borrowed her magic over and over again—charms and cantrips and blood potions, and be careful, October, be very, very careful, because the things we consume become a part of us, and some transformations run deeper than the skin—when I did those things, I let myself be changed. I became someone else. Someone who had no right to Simon Torquill’s past, or to the love of those who would have saved him, if only they had known how much danger he was in. Magic is a function of the blood. It will change when the blood does.”

  “It’s changing back,” I said, and he looked up, startled. “I keep smelling apples on you. Have faith, Simon. Maybe the damage you did wasn’t as bad as you think it is.”

  “May Oberon have mercy,” he whispered. Then, more loudly, he asked, “Can you see any sort of flicker around me, any indication of the size or shape of the binding?”

  I squinted, willing the delicate web of Sylvester’s magic to come into view. There was a faint, distant whiff of daffodils, but that was all; no magical glimmer appeared. I shook my head. “No. There’s nothing. I think . . . I think I’m too human.”

  “The merlins were more human by far than you are now, and they brought a thousand towers down,” said Simon. “There’s no such thing as being too human, and anyone who ever told you that was lying, because they were afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  He leaned closer, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, “Of what you could do if you remembered that your heritage has more than one source. If you can’t see it, feel for it. Right here, right now, we share blood, and this binding was cast on your behalf. Find it. Make it your own.”

  I swallowed, hard. Then I closed my eyes.

  It’s easier to look for things I can’t see when I can’t see anything at all. Vision just gets in the way. So I held onto Simon’s hands, and I held onto the thin traceries of daffodil flowers in the air, and I strained as hard as I could, stretching a muscle that humans don’t have and purebloods never bothered to find a name for. It was the point of connection between me and the magical world, and while it might be smaller now than it had been, it was still there. As long as a drop of fae blood still ran in my veins, no one could take it entirely away from me.

  In the dark, the smell of daffodils was easier to find and follow, as was the scent of cut-grass and copper. I drew it around me like a cloak, and when that wasn’t enough, I bit the inside of my cheek, hard enough to draw blood. It tasted distant and dilute, probably beca
use this wasn’t really happening, not the way I saw it.

  Distant and dilute it might be, but blood was blood, and my blood wanted me to succeed. I swallowed, and reached, and filled my questing fingers with the scent of daffodils. I pulled. They pulled back, suddenly rooted.

  Simon moaned. The sound was tight and quickly swallowed, like it was something he hadn’t wanted me to hear. I gritted my teeth and pulled harder, chasing the source of the pain, chasing the thing that didn’t want me to catch it. It tried to slither away. I bore down.

  And it was there in my hands, the core of someone else’s spell, bright and burning and smelling of dogwood flowers. I needed it to stop. I needed it to go out. I looked for something I could use to extinguish it.

  All I had was blood. That was fine. I’d worked with blood before. I’ve been working with blood for most of my life. So I reached deep, tracing back along my own mental fingers until I found the blood I needed and cast it, hard and furious, against the fire. The geas guttered, swamped and overwhelmed. I doused it again.

  The flame went out.

  I opened my eyes, pleased, smiling. “See?” I said. “I—” Then I stopped, staring at the emptiness in front of me.

  Simon was gone. The basement walls had continued to recede; the only way I could tell that I was still in my blood-construct of the Borderlands basement was by looking at the rafters above my head or the cracked stone below my feet, and even those seemed a little too old, a little too medieval to be part of a modern human building in mortal San Francisco.

  “Simon?” I called.

  My voice echoed off the distant walls, traveling out, bouncing back to me. I bit my lip.

  “Hello, little fish,” said a voice from behind me.

  I whipped around, so fast that I nearly lost my balance. There, gilded red like everything around him, stood Tybalt. He was wearing the leather pants and open pirate shirt that had been his default wardrobe for so many years of our acquaintance, a smirk on his lips. He looked tired. He looked so very, very tired.