Page 82 of The Brightest Fell

“Quentin,” he said. “I’m her squire.” He indicated me.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m your sister.”

She frowned. “No, you’re not,” she said.

“If you were in charge of reality, maybe saying ‘no’ would change things, but sorry, I’m your sister,” I said. “Amandine is my mother. She’s yours, too. And she misses you. Badly. She’s waiting for me to bring you home.”

August frowned again, more deeply this time, like she was offended by my words. “Why would she send you? Why didn’t she come and find me herself?”

The Luidaeg put her hand on my shoulder, pulling me a half step toward her, so that it was clear to anyone with eyes that I was under her protection. “Amy has her limitations, as do we all, and you should know better than to question your mother. She sent October to find you. October found you. A hundred years gone, and it’s taken a changeling and your father’s love to bring you home. Don’t let his sacrifice be in vain.”

“What do you mean?” August balled her hands into fists. “What did you do to him?”

“Girl, I’m going to assume you’re too angry to think straight, because the alternative is that you’re too stupid and too far up your own ass to understand what these people have done for you,” said the Luidaeg. Her tone was calm, but her eyes were bleeding toward black again. “You sold me your way home for a candle and a promise. You said you would return my father. Do you remember?”

“Yes, but—”

“Oberon isn’t here. Your father has paid your debts. Until my father comes home, yours will remain lost. He will not know you, nor take comfort from your hands. He will not find his own way. And if you think that’s not fair, remember how hard I tried to talk you out of taking that same bargain. I begged, August.” The Luidaeg’s voice broke. In that second, she wasn’t the sea witch. She was just an aunt, talking to her niece. “I begged you to go home and not do this. Everything that’s happened here is your fault.”

“Especially the part that involved trying to turn me mortal,” I said, sheathing my knives. “Is that always how you say hello?”

“I was defending myself,” snapped August.

“I wasn’t attacking you,” I said. “You broke my nose and changed my blood before I even took a step toward you. That’s not self-defense, that’s assault.”

“You left me in Annwn,” she snapped.

“You got out.”

“Oh, yay, now there’s more of you,” muttered Quentin. “I can’t wait until May’s in the room, too, and everyone just keeps yelling.”

May. She had been waiting for us to come home and save her girlfriend since we’d left Shadowed Hills. I took a deep breath, swallowing the last of my anger, and asked the most important question I had left:

“Hey, Luidaeg, can we use the back door?”

TWENTY-FIVE

FIRST PROBLEM: AUGUST DIDN’T want to come. By which I mean “August had no interest in going on a road trip with her half sister, especially since I’d already hit her with a baseball bat.” She folded her arms and glared at me, and if there’d been any question of whether we were actually related, it would have been answered then and there.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she snapped. “You’re changeling filth and I don’t have to do as you say.”

“Does she heal like you normally do?” asked Quentin. “Because we could break her arms to distract her, and I bet I could carry her.”

August’s attention flicked to him. “You’re a bloodthirsty boy.”

“I learned from the best,” said Quentin coldly. “You hurt my knight. I think I’m owed a little nonfatal payback.”

“We could stand here arguing about this for hours,” I said. “It’s not going to change anything. You’re coming with us.”

“I will rip the last of the immortality from your veins and leave you human and weeping on the floor,” said August.

“You can try,” I said.

The Luidaeg looked between us. Then she turned to Quentin, lowered her voice, and said, “We’re approaching the part where I remind them that I’ve only been bound against harming the children of Titania, and neither of them is covered by that label. Which means if they don’t stop squabbling and move, I can gut them both like trout.”

“Can you gut someone who isn’t a fish like a fish?” asked Quentin.

“We could find out.” It would have taken a fool to miss the warning in the Luidaeg’s tone. Her patience—never her greatest attribute—was rapidly coming to an end.