Page 5 of The Unkindest Tide

The doorbell rang again.

I pushed myself off Tybalt’s lap with a groan, tugging my shirt into place before grabbing a handful of shadows and weaving them into a quick if clunky human disguise. Etienne would have been so disappointed in me. He liked elegant spells, and this wasn’t that. It relied more on making people not want to look at the sharp tips of my ears or the inhuman paleness of my eyes than on replacing those things with believably human facsimiles.

My irritation at the interruption made the process easier than it would have been otherwise. Titania is the mother of illusions, the font from which all flower magic springs, and she’s no ancestor of mine. Anything that relies on flowers has never come easily for me. Anger, on the other hand, gives my magic a pretty substantial boost. And boy, was I pissed.

Being a hero means people interrupt me, but that still didn’t make it okay for someone to be ringing my doorbell uninvited at ten o’clock at night when my fiancé was finally feeling frisky. My sex life had taken a massive hit since Amandine decided to come knocking, and I was going to be grumpy about interruptions for quite some time to come.

“If it’s your mother at the door, or your sister, or any member of your extended family, I am grabbing you by the scruff of the neck and hauling you into the shadows before they have time to do more than sneer,” said Tybalt darkly, getting off the couch and following me down the hall.

“Be my guest,” I said, and opened the door.

The woman on the front step looked at me blandly. “Took you long enough,” she said.

I didn’t say anything.

She looked like she was somewhere in her late teens, like she’d come to join Quentin’s impromptu slumber party because it was more fun than hanging around watching Shakespeare with the boring adults. Her hair was thick, dark, and curly, gathered into twin pigtails that hung over her shoulders and tangled around the straps of her overalls. They were tied off with strips of what looked like electrical tape. Sometimes I wonder how she ever manages to take her hair down without screaming. And then I remember that she’s so much older and more powerful than I am that she could easily swat me like a bug, and I keep my idle questions to myself.

She was wearing overalls, an old white tank top, and battered tennis shoes. The ghosts of old acne scars clung to her cheeks and forehead; her eyes were a murky, lake-bottom blue. She looked about as much like a powerful, unstoppable sea witch as I did, which was to say, she didn’t look like one at all.

“Trick or treat,” she said mildly. “Let me in.”

“It’s March, not October,” I said, and stepped to the side to let her pass.

She stepped into the hall, accompanied by the smell of wind blowing across the open ocean. “Some people will tell you Halloween is every day if you have the right attitude,” she said, flicking her fingers. The door slammed shut. Smirking, she ran her eyes first over me and then over Tybalt, taking in all the little signs of dishevelment that our hurried illusions hadn’t been able to conceal. “Am I interrupting something?”

“If I say ‘yes,’ will you leave?” I asked, folding my arms. Tybalt made a small sound, although whether of amusement or dismay, I couldn’t quite tell.

To be fair, most people don’t talk back to the Luidaeg. She’s the eldest of Maeve’s remaining children, with so many centuries behind her that I’m not sure even she remembers—or cares—how old she actually is. Like most of her siblings, her power outstrips that of her descendants like a hurricane outstrips a zephyr, in both strength and flexibility. She can do things the rest of Faerie can only dream of.

Or have nightmares about. I’ve had more than a few nightmares about the things the Luidaeg thinks are good ideas.

“No,” said the Luidaeg. She took another look around the hall. “Who else is here? I know it’s not just you.”

I wanted to ask her how she knew. I knew, of course, but that’s thanks to a kind of tracking that seems to be unique to the Dóchas Sidhe. I can follow the scent of someone’s magic almost to the ends of the Earth. If I breathed in deeply enough, I could identify every person in my house, from May’s cotton candy and ashes to Dean’s less familiar but increasingly well-loved eucalyptus and wet rock. No two people have precisely the same magical signature. Even if they possess some common element, such as roses or heather, there’s always something about it that’s unique.

“Tybalt, obviously,” I said. “May and Jazz are in their room. Quentin’s in his room, with Raj and Dean.”

The Luidaeg nodded. “Good. Good. You can let your lady Fetch enjoy her evening; I doubt her Raven-maid particularly wants to see me.”

“No,” I admitted. “Jazz isn’t a big fan of the Firstborn right now.”

“That’s going to make your wedding fun.” The Luidaeg cast a measuring, narrow-eyed look at Tybalt. “I assume I am invited.”

“We would no more dream of refusing you an invitation than we would of dancing naked through a storm of glass,” said Tybalt smoothly.

“Unless that was your way of asking whether the wedding’s still on,” I said. “It is. Cake and everything. We just need to figure out when the Mists can spare us both.”

“So next century; got it,” said the Luidaeg. Her expression sobered. “Fetch your boys.”

“Which ones?” I asked.

“All of them. This is relevant to all of them.”

Tybalt and I exchanged a glance before he stepped around me and offered the Luidaeg a shallow bow. “Shall I show you to the dining room? We have a few burritos and some salsa left from our dinner, and I would be delighted to fetch them for your consideration.”

“Sounds good,” said the Luidaeg. She swung her attention back to me. “Be quick. I have things to do tonight.”

“That’s ominous,” I said, and started for the stairs. When the Luidaeg says it’s time to hurry, I hurry. Anything else could be taken as an insult, and while I don’t actually think she’d hurt me on a whim, it’s better to be safe than sorry.