“Not aging is a problem in the human world, and I don’t have your hand with illusions: once cosmetics stop doing the job, I’ll have to fake my own death and disappear for a decade or so,” said Janet. There was genuine regret in her tone. “I settled here to be close to my daughter, and later, to you. Oberon himself granted me that land. No one should have been there.”
“Someone was. Someone wanted whoever went looking for Gillian—meaning me—to find the place, which means someone not only knew about the courtyard, they knew about you. They wanted me to . . . find . . .” I stopped. “We have to get you out of here.”
“What?” asked May.
“What?” asked Janet.
“I’ve been acting on the assumption that whoever kidnapped Gillian was trying to get to me. Maybe I’m looking at things the wrong way. Maybe they’re trying to get to you.” I shook my head. “We have to get you out of here.”
Janet stared at me, eyes wide. “You can’t be serious.”
“Someone violated your space, which was apparently granted to you by Oberon himself. Someone stole a human child most people would assume was your daughter and yours alone.” The false Queen knew Gillian was mine. The false Queen was aiming for us both. I couldn’t say that until I was sure, and not until I had Janet out of harm’s way. “They’re trying to hurt you, either by setting us against each other, or by ignoring my part in things entirely. You can’t stay here. You’re in danger.”
“I can’t be killed,” said Janet.
“Cliff can,” I said.
She went still.
“You think I put him in danger by loving him and being fae? I was a changeling, I was barely more than a child, I had no power and no position and nothing to lose. You? You’re a legend and a monster and an impossibility. You need to come with me, or you’re going to get him killed.” I shook my head. “Leave a note. Say you’re looking for Gillian. Say whatever you want. But I’m not leaving you here.”
“Dear God,” breathed Janet. My earlier assumptions about how pale she could get were clearly not good enough, as even more blood drained from her face. “I . . . how long do you think this will take?”
“However long it has to,” I said. “May, you stay here and help Janet get whatever she needs. I’m going to go and tell the boys what’s going on.”
“Wait!” Janet took a step back, visibly alarmed, and stopped only when her hips hit the counter. “Who are ‘the boys’? You’re not going to tell them who I am, are you?”
“Lady, I don’t think you have any right to ask me to keep secrets after what you’ve done to my family, but I’m not going to put that same family in danger by broadcasting your identity all over the Mists.” I made no effort to keep the weariness out of my voice. I was exhausted. A few cinnamon rolls weren’t enough to counteract the amount of blood I’d lost, and I was going to need real food soon. “At the same time, yeah, I’m telling my squire and my fiancé. We don’t keep secrets in our house.” Not anymore. Not with the way every secret we’d tried to keep had ended up playing out.
Some things aren’t worth risking. My family—the one I had made for myself, the one I was going to fight for until the end of the world—was on that list.
“I don’t suppose I have a choice here, do I?” asked Janet.
“Not really,” I said.
“Nope,” said May, with malicious cheer. She glanced at me. “Go. I’ll make sure she doesn’t do anything any of us will regret later.”
Leaving the two indestructible women alone seemed like a dandy idea. More importantly, I wanted to be away from Janet, at least for a few minutes—at least long enough to get my head together. This was all too much. My daughter was missing; her stepmother, the woman I had spent so much time envying and despising for taking my place, was my grandmother. It was enough to make my head spin, and I wanted a moment to wrap my mind around it.
I practically bolted for the front door, not allowing myself to look back. That isn’t just a bad idea in Bible stories and Greek myths: it’s what leads to a simple course of action getting complicated or disrupted, and things never getting done. Janet’s revelation was . . .
Janet’s revelation was a problem, and it was going to take me days, if not weeks, to process all the way through it. I needed to talk to the Luidaeg. She could explain what this meant, how it was possible for my mother to be a human’s daughter, whether it had somehow affected me even two generations down the line. And that was fine, that was absolutely great, because where could I go to hide someone who shouldn’t have existed, someone who stood at the center of the story that broke the world?
To the sea witch, of course.
Quentin and Tybalt both turned when I yanked the car door open and dropped myself into the front seat. Human disguises can mimic all the little parts of living, the blushes and the pallors, the changes of mood. The one Tybalt had woven for me wasn’t good enough for any of that. It let me pass for human, and that was about all it could manage.
Tybalt frowned, sniffing the air. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
I frowned. “How did you—?”
“You’re sweating. And you’ve been bleeding again, which is something you can’t afford to be doing right now.” His eyes narrowed. “Where is May? Did that former lover of yours strike you? I would take the greatest pleasure in taking him apart, if he did.”
“No. No, it’s nothing like that. It’s nothing . . .” I laughed unsteadily. “It’s nothing that normal. We’re about to have another passenger.”
“Who?” asked Quentin.
“Miranda. She’s coming with us. And her name isn’t Miranda, it’s Janet. And she’s my grandmother.” The words sounded ridiculous when I put them out there like that. I tried again. “I mean, she’s my mother’s mother. She’s human, and she’s my mother’s mother.”
“That does happen,” said Tybalt, carefully not looking at Quentin.
As far as either of us knew, my squire didn’t know his own mother had been born a changeling, or that her human heritage had been the price of marrying the Crown Prince and eventually ascending to her own place in the nobility. It wasn’t our place to tell him. I shook my head.
“Mom’s Firstborn, and her mother is human. Oberon loved a human.”
“Wait,” said Quentin. “That would make her at least—”
“Five hundred years old,” I said. “I know.”
Quentin shook his head. “That’s not . . . no. That’s just a story. It’s not real. She can’t really be that Janet. Can she?”
“I don’t know.” I paused. “I think so.”
“Root and branch,” breathed Tybalt. “How is this possible?”
“A second ago you were the one reminding me that human ancestors happen,” I said.
“Yes, and a second ago, you were not intimating that Janet of Caughterha was going to be in your car.” He shook his head. “This can’t be so. She spins a story well enough to ensnare you.”
“May remembers seeing her in Oberon’s Court. She’s from Scotland. She fits the description. She knows things she shouldn’t. I don’t want to believe it either, but I think maybe I should. Maybe not believing is a luxury we don’t have time for right now.” I took a deep breath. “She owns that courtyard we found. It’s hers. She’s been here since Gilad’s parents held the throne. Whoever took Gillian may be trying to hurt Janet as much as they’re trying to hurt me.”
“Is that why she’s joining our merry band?” asked Tybalt. “Because you fear for her safety?”
“In part, yeah,” I said. “Also because I fear for Cliff’s. She’s indestructible. He isn’t. And doubly also because I want to question her further, and I don’t want Cliff walking in on us. So we’re taking her to the safest dangerous place I know.”
“Where’s that?” asked Quentin.
I smiled. Tybalt raised his eyebrows.
“I am suddenly grateful that I can’t see the blood,” he said. “Your expression is frightening enough without it.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve learned from the best,” I said. “We’re taking her to the Luidaeg. Let’s see how many questions we get answered now.”
FOURTEEN
IF I’D THOUGHT the atmosphere in the car was uncomfortable before—with Tybalt brooding and Quentin exhausted, and me and May trying to deal with Gillian’s disappearance—it was nothing compared to what happened when we added Janet to the mix. She sat in the middle, crammed between Quentin and May, both of whom eyed her mistrustfully all the way across the city. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so damn tense. Janet looked like an ordinary housewife, rumpled and out of place. May had returned her purse, and she clutched it like she feared it was going to be taken away again. Quentin watched her warily, not saying a word. May slumped against the window on her side of the car, obviously exhausted, making no effort to conceal her hostility.
“Where are we going?” Janet asked, after we’d been driving for ten long, silent minutes.
“To see a friend of mine who may be able to clear up some of what’s going on, and better yet, who makes an excellent babysitter for unexpected grandmothers in need of temporary protective custody,” I said tightly.
Janet’s eyes widened. “What? I thought you were taking me with you.”
“No, we’re taking you away from your unwarded, indefensible home, so Cliff doesn’t get hurt when whoever may or may not be messing with you shows up.” Keeping my voice level was more difficult than I’d expected. “You’re not coming with us. We need to be free to go anywhere the trail leads, and I don’t feel like you’d be welcome in most places, especially if you want to play ‘innocent little mortal woman’ and not have us broadcast your identity to anyone who wants to know why we’re hauling you around.”
“Where are you—”
“To my favorite aunt. She can answer a lot of questions for me, and I know she has space. I mean, her guest room is currently full, but she has a couch. You can probably sit on it, assuming she doesn’t make you stand in the corner and think about what you’ve done.”
Janet stared at me, expression hurt. “I haven’t done anything to you.”
“You’ve done everything to me. To all of us. You broke the Ride, if you are who you say you are. That means this world is your fault.” I pulled to a stop on the street in front of the Luidaeg’s alley. Technically, it wasn’t a legal parking place, thanks to the combination of red curb and fire hydrant. I wouldn’t get a ticket. No one who came to see the Luidaeg ever had to worry about anything as mundane as the police.
Being turned into something unpleasant and chucked into the bay, on the other hand . . .
There was a moment when I thought Janet might bolt. I took one elbow. Tybalt took the other. With her safely pinned between us, we marched on, Quentin in the lead, May ready to tackle her if she somehow broke free and tried to run.
The Luidaeg’s door looked like it always did: rotten wood and peeling paint, set so far back into the wall that it would have been easy to miss if we hadn’t already known where we were going. Quentin hopped onto the stoop and knocked without any sign of hesitation. He’s known the Luidaeg since before he formally became my squire, and while he appreciates that she’s terrifying and all, he also seems to consider her as much his aunt as she is mine. He adores her. She returns the favor. With as long as she’s been one of Faerie’s greatest monsters, it must be nice for her to have someone who just loves her, no qualifiers, no strings attached.
Seconds ticked by. Janet squirmed.
“Your friend isn’t home,” she said. “We should go.”
“She’s here,” I said. “Wait.”
Janet was still glaring at me when the door opened and the Luidaeg appeared.
As always, when not trying to make a point, she looked like a human teenager, somewhere in the baby-faced range between puberty and college. The ghosts of acne scars dusted her cheeks, and her thick, curly black hair was pulled into twin pigtails, one over each shoulder, both tied off with electrical tape. She was wearing a pair of denim overalls, her feet and shoulders bare, and the expression on her face was somewhere between annoyance and relief.
“I was wondering whether you assholes were going to come bother me today,” she said without preamble. “It’s been a week. I was starting to think you . . . had . . . forgotten . . .” Her voice slowed, finally trailing off as she stared at Janet. She took a step forward, stopping when her toes struck the edge of her threshold. She froze there, still staring.
“Hi, Luidaeg,” I said. “I finally met my grandmother.”
“October.” Her voice sounded hollow. “Do you know who that is? Do you know . . .” She stopped, swallowing hard. The blue was bleeding out of her eyes, replaced drop by drop with clear glass green. That wasn’t a great sign. Better than if they had been going black, but still, not great. “Do you know what she did?”
“Can we come inside?” I asked. “This doesn’t feel like the sort of conversation we should be having in the street.”
She looked at me with honest, raw confusion. I had never seen her at such a loss for words, not even when I had used blood magic to bring her back from the dead and loosened some of the geasa on her in the process. “Inside?” she asked. “Inside my home?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry to ask you to do this, but we don’t have anywhere else to go, and Janet may be in danger.”
The Luidaeg looked at her—scrawny mortal woman with her messy hair, sandwiched between me and Tybalt, both of us holding an arm so she couldn’t get away if she tried—and laughed. “In danger? Her? She is danger, and make no bones of that. But if you came all this way, I suppose you may as well come in.” Her gaze swiveled to Janet. “We’ll discuss the rest of this behind closed doors.”
Janet blanched, twisting in our hands as she tried, futilely, to break away. Tybalt and I both tightened our grips—I, at least, was still trying not to bruise her; I couldn’t necessarily say the same for him—and pulled her into the apartment, following Quentin and the Luidaeg. May brought up the rear, closing the door once we were all inside.
It latched with a sound loud enough to consume the world. Janet moaned, small and tight and, yes, terrified. I gave her a sidelong look.
“Why are you so afraid?”
“Why aren’t you?” she demanded, turning to face me. “Do you know whose door you’ve darkened?”
“Yeah. The Luidaeg is a friend of mine.” You couldn’t have told it from her apartment. The illusions that made it look like something that had washed up with high tide were back in place. Streaks of mold in a dozen virulent colors smeared the walls, all of them clashing with one another, and clashing even worse with the wallpaper behind them. The carpet was worse, seeming to squirm under its thick layer of slime and debris. It squished under our feet. Maybe it was just illusionary water, but the Luidaeg is a master of her craft, and the muck still felt like it was seeping into our shoes.
Janet wasn’t resisting anymore. She allowed us to drag her toward the living room, her eyes rolling wildly as she took in everything around her.
“You know, it’s pretty common knowledge that the Luidaeg is in San Francisco,” I said, tone light, almost conversational. I would have been lying if I’d tried to say I wasn’t enjoying seeing her so uncomfortable. This was the woman who had known I was fae, had known my disappearance was related to the world Cliff couldn’t touch, and rather than helping me make peace with my daughter, had used her knowledge as a lever to keep me even further away. “What the hell are you doing here, if you didn’t want to risk running into her?”
“I wanted to be near my Amy,” she said. “And I knew the sea witch was here, but she didn’t know about me. That made all the difference in the world. She’d never see me if I didn’t want her to.”
Tyb
alt and I exchanged a glance over her head. He looked baffled. Cait Sidhe sometimes seem to have a monopoly on arrogance, but this was a class above.
The Luidaeg was already seated in her favorite overstuffed armchair when we pulled Janet into the living room. She raised a hand and pointed imperiously to the couch.
“Put her there,” she said.
“Where’s Poppy?” I asked, as Tybalt and I led Janet to the couch.
“Sleeping, like all sensible fae should be at this hour. Which is how I knew it was you people on my porch. You can be accused of having many things, October, but ‘sense’ doesn’t even make the list.” The Luidaeg’s expression softened for a fraction of a second. Then it slammed down again, turning to ice as she looked at Janet. “Do you know what she did?”
“I know the story. Sort of. I was never sure how much of it was accurate and how much of it was people who weren’t there making things up.”
Everyone knew the story. Maeve’s last Ride, the night that broke Faerie forever. It was history and legend and cautionary tale, it was the moment when an empire fell and became an afterthought, all because of one human girl and her outstretched, grasping hands. It was the end. It was the beginning.
It was where we got lost.
“Then let me tell it to you,” said the Luidaeg, voice like high tide rolling across the beach. “Let me tell you about a time when Faerie was open to her children, when my father and his Queens still kept Court and counsel. It was my mother’s turn to host the Ride, and she had chosen her sacrifice, a mortal man by the name of Tam Lin. He was a liar and a poet and a sybarite, and he’d been more than happy to take his side of the bargain. For near seven years he’d feasted on the fruits of Faerie, growing fat and happy and rich beyond mortal measure at our expense. And then, when time was almost up, he decided he didn’t want to die for us after all.”
Night and Silence (October Daye) Page 22