Page 73 of Night and Silence

“Can you get her to the couch?” The Luidaeg sounded very far away.

“I can carry her to the ends of the earth.” Tybalt was there with her. I hoped they were having a nice time in whatever strange new land they had discovered. I hoped they would come back and get me.

Alive.

“That won’t be necessary,” said the Luidaeg, with a hint of amusement. “All you need to do is get her to the couch.”

Tybalt half-carried, half-dragged me across the room to the Luidaeg’s couch, an overstuffed antique blotched with mold and leaking stuffing from every seam. He settled me on a cushion, and there was no weakness in the frame or scent of decay. Like so much else about the apartment, the rot was an illusion.

Sitting upright suddenly felt like too much trouble. I allowed myself to sink into the cushions, that single word—alive, alive, alive—still echoing so loudly that it drowned out almost everything else.

The Luidaeg sighed. “She’s in shock. What fun.”

“Will she be . . .” Tybalt hesitated. “Gillian. Is she . . .” Both times he stopped before the question could fully form, leaving his words to hang in the empty air.

“That’s a conversation I need to have with October, and just because you’re planning to marry her, that doesn’t make you her surrogate for this sort of thing. Don’t you have somewhere to be? Somewhere that isn’t here?” When Tybalt hesitated, the Luidaeg sighed again, angrier this time. “She’s not going to come to harm while she’s in my keeping. You have my word about that. On my own ground, this close to the sea, there’s none among my siblings both living and awake who could take her from me.”

“Quentin and May were elf-shot in the false Queen’s knowe,” he said reluctantly. “October contacted Master Davies before we came here, to ensure he would have his cure prepared for me to collect and carry to them.”

“There you go. Shoo. Go wake the rest of your little gang of fools, and we’ll be here when you get back.”

There was a long pause. Then the smell of musk and pennyroyal washed through the room, and I knew that he was gone. Someone settled on the couch next to me.

“October. Look at me.”

I turned my head, forcing my eyes to focus. The Luidaeg appeared, studying me gravely. Her eyes were green as glass, green as the eyes of the Roane who had been her children, before almost all of them were killed. Evening’s doing. She had already hated her sister, even so long ago as that. The Luidaeg understood what it was to be a mother and bury her children, and more importantly, the Luidaeg couldn’t lie. I seized on that thought with everything I had. The Luidaeg couldn’t lie.

And yet . . . “Alive?” I asked, in a very small voice.

“Yes,” she said. She put her hand, nails still dark with whatever that substance had been, over mine. “October, can you understand what I’m saying right now? We need to have this conversation—we need to have it as soon as possible—but I’m not going to try to explain this to you while you’re checked out. Are you here for this or not?”

“I . . .” I hesitated, trying to figure out my answer. Finally, slowly, I nodded. “I’m here.”

“Good girl.” She reached into the pocket of her overalls, producing a small cut-glass bottle filled with a cherry-red liquid that glittered in the light, catching it and flinging it back in prismatic shards. She held it out to me. “I want you to drink this.”

“What is it?” I asked, already taking the bottle and worrying at the stopper. When the Luidaeg tells me to drink something, I’ve found it easier to just agree. Maybe this explains the amount of time I’ve spent transformed into something I’m not or marooned on roads that were never supposed to be accessible to me, but it’s also the reason I’ve managed to survive for as long as I have. There are worse allies to have in my corner than the sea witch.

“It’s something that will make you feel better.”

I gave her a sidelong look. “Because refusing to tell me what I’m drinking is the way to calm me down.”

“It’s already working, if you’re being sarcastic,” she said. “Drink.”

Arguing with the Luidaeg is like arguing with a mountain: in the end, all you wind up with is a sore throat and an implacable landmark. Only in the case of the Luidaeg, she might wind up turning you into a toad for your impertinence. I drank.

It tasted like cherry syrup mixed with steak sauce—not a pleasant combination—and although it was cold, it sent a wave of warmth through my body, relaxing my limbs and draining the tension from my back and shoulders. I slumped further into the cushions, blinking, as the Luidaeg reached over and plucked the vial from my suddenly limp fingers.

“The paralysis will pass,” she said pleasantly. “Not that you were moving that much before, but this way I know you’ll hold still and listen to me, with the added bonus of helping you regenerate some of the blood you’ve lost.”

“’S not lost,” I managed, through lips that didn’t want to cooperate. “Know exactly where it is.”

“Again, sarcasm. You’re still in there.” She touched my arm. “I’m glad.”

The concern in her eyes was clear enough that my own eyes started to burn with tears. I tried to turn my face away. I couldn’t move. She had locked me into facing her, and despite her insistence that Gillian was alive—despite her inability to lie—it felt like I was standing at the edge of a very high cliff, waiting to step off into nothingness.

“You’re going to start asking questions and demanding proof in a second, and I’d like this to be over before that happens, so let’s go,” she said. “Yes, she’s alive. I want you to understand what a miracle that is, all right? I want you to comprehend how impossible it is for your daughter to still be a part of this world. When my sister created elf-shot, she did it to curry favor with our parents—‘look, see, we don’t have to kill each other anymore. Aren’t I clever? Aren’t I the absolute best?’”

Her voice spiked on the word “best,” becoming the sound of glass breaking. She paused, catching her breath. When she continued, she sounded calmer . . . and sadder.