Page 59 of Night and Silence

“Gillian eats her sandwiches the same way.”

I nearly dropped the plate.

“Her father told her they were ‘mommy sandwiches’ when she was, I don’t know, four or so. He and I weren’t married yet. She tells people they’re my favorite, but we both know that isn’t true. He wanted her to have something of yours, even if he could never admit it.” Janet looked to the Luidaeg. “So my Tam lied to me. He was trying to save his life. You’d have done the same.”

“I would never have agreed to Mother’s bargain in the first place, and if I had, I would have kept my word,” corrected the Luidaeg. “He made a promise. He swore to die for Faerie’s sake. We kept our side of the bargain. All you ever were to him was a chance to turn his back on his obligations.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Janet’s laugh was bitter. “I know perfectly well what I was to him. He didn’t want to die.”

“All mortal flesh dies.” The Luidaeg shot me a sharp look. “I know you want to hear the end of this, but I want you eating that sandwich. Now.”

I took a bite. As with all the Luidaeg’s cooking, it was balanced and delicious. Having seen what her apartment looked like without the illusions, I wasn’t even worried about eating something I didn’t intend to. Much.

“Not all mortal flesh,” said Janet. “Mine’s still here.”

“Only until Mom comes home and releases it.”

Janet smiled tightly. “And won’t that be a day? Yes, I went to Caughterha. Yes, I fancied myself in love with a man who said I was beautiful, said I was perfect, said I could save him from the fae. I wanted an adventure. I got one.”

“It really happened. You really did it,” said Quentin, horror and awe in his voice. “You were the one who broke Maeve’s last Ride.”

“It was the only way to save him,” said Janet. “On Halloween, when the fae Rode, I had to pull him from his horse and hold him fast. I had to refuse to let him go, or everything would be lost forever. I did it. God help me, I did it, and the fairy queen had to go in his place.”

“This is the good part,” said the Luidaeg. “I mean, ignore the part where she’s trying not to brag about going out to the forest with the express intention of killing my mom. Look at the rest of it. The way the humans tell the story, Tam Lin told her how to save him from us, because he didn’t want to die and we were going to condemn him to Hell and how dare we. But you know how well we can stop a tongue that might say things we don’t want said. Do you honestly think my mother—my mother—would set her little pet free to wander the woods with the key to her downfall ready to tumble from his lips and into the hands of the first pretty maid to happen by? She was smarter than that. She was better than that. Who gave you the key you needed, pretty maid? Who told you how to break us?”

I looked from the Luidaeg to Janet, and I knew what she was going to say, and I didn’t want to hear it. Five hundred years. That should have been long enough that the villains of the piece would change, and yet . . .

“She said her name was Eira, and that it wasn’t fair for an innocent man to die for Faerie’s sins. She told me what to do.”

“There we go.” The Luidaeg toasted the air with an imaginary glass. “My sister’s greatest crime. Shattering our world. And the stories call me a monster.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” muttered Quentin.

“I lost the baby,” said Janet quickly, like she could sense her time to speak was coming to an end. “All that magic, all that effort, holding onto my lover as he became beast after beast—it was too much. I lost the baby, but my father already knew I’d been touched, and he demanded Tam marry me. I suppose I should have known he wasn’t the kind of man to keep his promises, but I thought . . . I thought I was different. We were both human, and Maeve’s curse was so fresh on my skin that I didn’t realize yet what it would do. When Tam ran, I did the only thing I could think of. I tied my skirts and I braided my hair and I went back to Caughterha looking for the fae. They were the ones who had ruined my life. I wanted them to restore it.”

“We told you,” said the Luidaeg. “We told you. ‘Don’t go to Caughterha.’ When that didn’t work, ‘don’t touch the favorite of the queen, the man condemned to die.’ We told you, over and over. You ruined your own life.”

Janet ignored her. “It was easier to find the fae in those days. They were less hidden, less secretive. I found their Court, and I found their King, and I demanded he do right by me. So he did. He took me into his service, and he took me into his confidence, and one night, after too much wine and too much conversation and too many regrets, he took me into his bed. Not against my will—never that—but still, we both knew we shouldn’t have done it. Amandine happened not long after that. My pretty, perfect Amy. The best thing Faerie ever made.”

Tybalt shivered and turned his face away. I took a step to the side, still cramming sandwich into my mouth, and leaned over so my shoulder rested against his. He glanced at me and relaxed, very slightly. That was enough. That had to be enough.

“We know the story from there,” I said brusquely, and turned toward the Luidaeg before Janet could resume singing Mom’s praises. “Gillian’s missing. Whoever took her used her clothes to lay several false trails, including one to a courtyard Janet owns that no one’s supposed to know about, and another to the lair of a Baobhan Sith. She bled a lot when she was taken, but the blood I was able to retrieve didn’t contain a death. I think she’s alive. She’s being held captive, and I need to get her back as soon as I can. Can you help me?”

“With your debts where they are, I doubt my father himself could help you,” said the Luidaeg, grimacing. “She’s a mortal girl, October. She’s outside my reach.”

“Can’t blame a mother for asking.”

“That is one of the things I would never try to blame you for.” She tilted her head, looking at me. “You’re calmer than I’d have expected. Is this the blood loss speaking, or do you know where you have to go next?”

“I know who took her.” I kept my eyes on the Luidaeg, not wanting to see my companions react. If any of them looked like they didn’t believe me, I was going to start swinging. “I caught a scent in the Baobhan Sith’s lair. Nothing I could follow, but enough to give me an identity.”

The Luidaeg raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t care if it’s impossible. I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense. The false Queen was in that room. She knows about Gillian. She met her, when Gilly was a baby. I took her to Court to present her as my daughter.” Even then, with Gillian’s fae blood as thin as it was, I’d wanted her to be taken care of. I had wanted the purebloods who barely allowed themselves to see me to see her as someone worthy of protection if something happened to me. “Rowan and ice. That was what the room smelled like. And it was fresh. This wasn’t a trail from before she was deposed.”

“I thought you left the imposter queen sleeping in Silences,” said the Luidaeg mildly. Her eyes flicked toward a point behind me, and I knew she was quizzing me for the sake of the others, the ones who hadn’t been there, who didn’t know the way I did.

I could have kissed her, if she wouldn’t have ripped my head off for doing it. “We did. I even had Walther contact them. He says she’s still there. I say she’s not. We can find out what they have in their basement after I bring my daughter home.”