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A single tear trickled down her cheek, gleaming like a diamond, faceted with a hundred perfect prisms. "He lost his mind. He ran in the woods for months at a time with the animals. One day the Prince of Oaks found him and brought him back to my barrow. He chastised me—me! Titania, Queen of Faerie. He scolded me like a wayward child." Her voice rose, and her cheeks flushed. She paused a moment, then continued.
"He made me promise to try to help Tam adapt, and he gave him a pendant to protect him. So Tam Lin became Tom Lane, and for a time each century, he resides in the world. I use my contacts to get him the accoutrements he needs for human society. It's harder now that humans require such extensive identification. Then, we find him a simple job that keeps him occupied. Near the end of each cycle, when he begins to tire or when someone gets suspicious, my darling comes home with me, and I wipe his memory of that life. After a time spent in my chambers sleeping, he wakes to yet a new life."
Speechless, I stared at her. How selfish could you get? First, she'd bound Tom to her when she snatched him out of his world and kept him captive. Then after he escaped and returned home, she encouraged him to come back to her. Instead of wiping his memory and sending him back to his family, she'd given him a life span his mind couldn't cope with.
"By all the gods, why don't you just let him sleep? Put him in stasis until the end of time? He'd probably be happier." She could blast me if she wanted, but what she'd done went against every code I'd been raised with. Unfortunately, a lot of my full-blood kin would have a good laugh at the situation.
Titania shot off the bench. A nimbus of anger flared around her, and I automatically shielded myself.
"You're so righteous, so virtuous, are you? I can smell the Svartan on you. Don't play coy. You're playing the devil's mistress, so what gives you the right to judge me, you half-breed? I am Titania, Queen of Faerie. Tremble before me!" Her eyes flared with magic, but there was no oomph behind the fireworks, and I realized that all Titania had left were illusions and memories. A faded beauty queen, clinging to old photos.
"I'm not compromising anyone else with my actions," I said, striding forward. "I didn't deceive anyone." I pushed her back down on the bench and leaned over her. "Listen to me, and listen good. You chose to give up your crown and remain earthbound. Well, I've got news. The Queen of Elves adapted. And there's a new Queen of Sidhe and she'd eat you alive."
Titania's glamour wavered in the wake of my words. Yep, I knew how to pitch a fit, all right. "You're alone, Titania. Your time is past and you'd better walk into the shadows gracefully before I report your actions, in OW. Now, let us talk to Tom. By the powers of the Y'Elestrial, the OIA, and the Guard Des'Estar, I will take him with me."
Morio stepped up to my side. The Queen emeritus hung her head as I pulled out my badge. Leather-worked, it was enchanted so that if it were out of my reach for more than a day, the emblem would self-destruct. That I held it in my hands was enough to prove authenticity.
Titania wrung her hands, and I almost felt sorry for her. For a good share of history she'd been the most beautiful creature on earth, commanding thousands of the Fae. Now she was forgotten. A dinosaur.
"What if we take her—" Morio started, but I stopped him, knowing what he was going to say. I pulled him off to one side and kept my voice low.
"She'd never fit into Otherworld. She'd lose it for good, just like Tam Lin lost it. Titania has too much pride to admit that she's outlived her time. Some of the Sidhe drag on millennia, but most choose to exit mortal life far earlier, when they grow tired or bored."
"I'll call Tom," Titania said, looking up. I had a feeling she'd heard us. "You may do as you like with him. We've played this game for a thousand years. I suppose it's time to call it a draw."
She rose and glided to the far wall of the cave, peering down a tunnel. I could hear her whisper faintly on the wind, calling for Tom to join us. Returning to us, she gazed into my eyes, and all artifice was gone.
"I suppose I should thank you, Witchling. You've reminded me of what I was. I will not fade into a walking shadow, nor will I subject myself to the rule of a jaded Queen who deserted the world to which she was born. Take Tam Lin and leave. The dragon will let you pass if you present him with this." She held out a sigil, cast in silver that had been forged under the moon. I could feel the power coursing within the talisman, and glanced up at her.
"You don't have to do this," I said, and she understood I wasn't talking about Tom.
"Oh, but I do," she countered. "The world has grown too small, and with Otherworld rejoining the human race, there's no place for me. I couldn't walk in the cities if I wanted to, and the wild places of the Earth are few and far between."
I turned the talisman over in my hand. Dragon rune. So Smoky had formed an alliance with Titania. Without the talisman, Titania would have no leverage to protect herself. Slipping it in my pocket, I noticed that Tom was standing in the archway to the cavern. Grizzled and worn, he was a true lumberjack, a man who had once been a knight. But his eyes were empty, and I realized that he'd long ago left the world. Where Tom's soul roamed, I wasn't sure, but he was walking wounded, half a man, his spirit existing only in the fragments of selves that the Faerie Queen had provided for him.
A pendant hung around his neck, an emerald cabochon caught in a gold and silver weave. The gem flickered, swirling into a new pattern every time I looked at it. The first spirit seal.
"My Tom, listen to me," Titania said, her voice gentle.
Morio and I exchanged looks. Regardless of her reckless choices, Titania cared for Tom. She had loved him once. Now, fractured into a hundred lifetimes, I had the feeling he'd become her pet, a beloved old lapdog whom one took care of until the end.
"You are to go with these people. They will treat you well."
He looked confused. "Where will I sleep? Who will feed me?"
Morio stepped up and gently tapped him on the shoulder. "We'll make sure you have all the comfort you need, Tom. Will you come with us?"
Tom hesitated. Then, with a prompting from Titania, he nodded. "All right, I'll go."
I drew Morio to one side. "We could just take the pendant. That's what we're after. Now that I've seen him, it seems wrong to separate them."
Morio shook his head. "I think the seal is connected to him. If we separate the two before consulting a wizard, we could drive him utterly mad. We have to take him with us."
"This just keeps getting worse and worse. What was the Prince of Oaks thinking?" I could only see chaos and destruction coming from the mess we were in. "A lot of innocent people are going to be hurt before this is over."
I glanced back at Tom and Titania. She had brushed aside a lock of hair that fell across his forehead, and he caught her hand, bringing it to his lips.
"I wish we didn't have to do this," I said. "I was wrong to speak so harshly to her. But I guess there's no going back."
