Page 65 of Night and Silence

And on the ground, at the false Queen’s feet, was Gillian.

She was on her hands and knees, panting, a red mark on one cheek where the false Queen had slapped her. There was blood on her clothing, and one sleeve of her sweatshirt was torn, revealing the scrapes beneath. She looked . . .

She looked amazing. She was injured and terrified, surrounded by things she didn’t know or understand, and she was still struggling to keep herself upright, refusing to give in to fear. My brave, beautiful girl.

“Let her go,” I snarled. “You have no right—”

“She has no rights, thanks to you,” purred the false Queen. “The rights of changelings may be negotiable, but the rights of mortals? Those are nonexistent. I could slice her into pieces and hang them from every tree in the Mists, and I would have done nothing wrong in the eyes of anyone who matters. Even your precious pretender queen can’t claim I’ve broken the Law by taking her, because the Law was never intended to protect her. She’s no better than a beast in the field, ready for the slaughter, and you did this to her.”

She grabbed Gillian’s arm, wrenching it behind her back. Gillian moaned, pain and exhaustion in equal measure, and my heart broke again. If this didn’t stop soon, there was going to be nothing left of me.

“But I am a merciful Queen,” continued the false Queen. “I understand that everyone makes mistakes. Everyone lies. I’ll give her back to you, if you return what you stole from me.”

“Do it, Mom,” moaned Gillian, seeming to see me for the first time. The desperation in her eyes was something no mother should ever have been forced to see. “Whatever you took, whatever you stole, just let her have it. Please.”

“I can’t,” I whispered. Louder, I said, “I can’t. What you’re asking for is impossible.”

The false Queen narrowed her eyes. “Oh,” she said. “You can do better than that.”

I shook my head, hoping desperation would convey my honesty. “I can’t. When I pulled the Siren blood from your veins, it was lost. I don’t have it to restore to you. I’d give it back if I could, I swear I would. Please don’t take this out on my daughter. Please let her go.”

“You simply need the right incentive to unlock your abilities,” said the false Queen. She reached into the cascading folds of her dress and pulled out a blunt arrow, no longer or thicker around than a pencil. Someone had tied a bundle of owl feathers to the end in a vague attempt at fletching. The point gleamed, as oily and shimmering as the base of the false Queen’s gown.

I stared and continued staring as Tybalt stepped out of the shadows at the back of the dais, his eyes glowing green, his hands hooked into claws.

“You took as much from her as you did from me,” said the false Queen, and moved before either of us could react, jamming the “arrow” into Gillian’s shoulder. My heart lurched as a veil of sudden déjà vu engulfed me, making it difficult to breathe. Gillian shrieked, the sound cutting off as she slumped forward, already unconscious.

Tybalt roared, lunging not at the false Queen, but at my child. He swept Gillian into his arms and leapt to the floor, stopping when he reached me. I reached for the sides of her face, lifting her head, checking for her pulse. She was still breathing. Her heart was racing, hammering so hard that it felt like it was going to burst, but she was breathing.

“What did you do?” I moaned. I turned. The false Queen was gloating, seemingly unconcerned by the loss of her hostage. “What did you do?”

“Either you’re a liar and you’ll restore your child, proving you can do the same for me, or the human brat will die, as she should have done the moment she rejected our world,” said the false Queen. “I have done nothing wrong.”

Jocelyn frowned at her. “What about me?” she asked. “You promised me.”

“Hush,” said the false Queen. “You’ll get your turn.”

I ignored them both, pulling the arrow from Gillian’s shoulder—thank Oberon that it had a smooth point, and not a proper arrowhead—and dipping my finger into the blood. I didn’t dare taste it, not with the elf-shot running through her veins, but I only needed to sniff it to know there was nothing left in her but humanity. I couldn’t change what wasn’t there.

Elf-shot kills humans. My daughter was human.

I moaned, low and agonized and unthinking. “Walther,” I said, raising my eyes to Tybalt’s, seeing my own despair mirrored there. Tybalt didn’t know Gillian, didn’t love her like I did, but he had buried his first wife and their child, and he knew what it was to feel the ground crumbling beneath his feet. “The cure.”

“She won’t make it as far as Berkeley,” he said, voice hushed. “I could carry her, but not alive, Toby, I’m not fast enough.”

I stared at him and knew two things for the absolute truth: that he would never lie to me, and if I ordered him to carry my daughter’s corpse through the Shadow Roads, even with the added danger of the Baobhan Sith lurking somewhere in the dark, he would do it. For me, if I asked him to try, he would do it.

And I couldn’t. There had to be another way, there had to—

I leaned in close, close enough to whisper, “The Luidaeg, and then Dianda. Save my child and then save my ass. Go.”

He pulled back, understanding clear in his banded green eyes. Then he turned and ran for the wall as fast as his legs would carry him, diving into the shadows, taking Gillian with him. She wouldn’t know to hold her breath. She wouldn’t know anything, because she was asleep, and she was dying, and he was running a race against the impossible.

I turned, slowly, back toward the false Queen and Jocelyn. The false Queen looked thoughtful. Jocelyn was pouting, actually pouting, like a child denied a treat they really, really wanted to have.

“I see,” said the false Queen. “So committed to your lies that you’d let your own child die rather than give back what is rightfully mine. I thought better of you. You call yourself a hero, and yet you behave like the very basest of villains.”

“You kidnapped my daughter.” I took a step toward the dais. “You tried to lure me into a forbidden place.” Another step. “You elf-shot my friends and my little girl, knowing the potion would begin to kill her as quickly as it could. You want a villain? Look in the mirror.” I held up the elf-shot arrow I’d pulled from Gillian’s shoulder. “It’s time for you to go back to sleep. You shouldn’t be here.”