Page 46 of Be the Serpent

“What word is that?”

“The first time she comes to you offering the crown, you must say no, for her sake. The second time, you must say no, for your own sake. The third time, you may rise and take your father’s throne.”

Nolan blinked before laughing nervously. “I’ll never be King,” he said. “If that’s all you want from me, that’s an easy-enough agreement. Am I required to take the crown if she offers three times?”

“No, but you will,” said the Luidaeg. She turned to Mitch. “Your turn.”

“No one’s going to be offering me a kingdom any time soon,” he said.

“That’s true. You’re an ordinary man, Mitch Brown, and you deserve none of this. So from you, I’ll have your greatest gift and dearest burden.” She smiled, and her teeth were sharp and plentiful. “I’ll have your children.”

“What?”

“I’ve been a mother in my day, and a grandmother well-beloved. I have the space to keep them safe, and the skill to teach them properly, as you know full well you never could. You must have realized by now that their magic doesn’t follow any path you understand. So I’ll save you and I’ll have them, or you’ll refuse me and die, and I’ll have them anyway.”

Mitch shook his head. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, but I have to be. I’m literally forbidden the sweet comfort of falsehood, thanks to a woman you know better than you think you do—a woman who lies better than any of us could ever dream to do. For me to be anything less than serious would be to violate the geas that binds me, and I’m sorry, but you’re not worth the consequences of that choice. Not even for the sake of the children you’re going to give over to my keeping, one way or the other. The only question is whether it’s voluntary.” The Luidaeg looked past him to Cassandra. “Tell your father, little chatelaine. Tell him that I only speak the truth.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” said Cassandra. “The Luidaeg can’t lie.” She sounded almost ashamed, like that was somehow her fault, or like she should have figured out a way to change the fundamental rules of Faerie for her father’s sake.

“My life isn’t worth theirs,” snapped Mitch. “I’m not giving my children into servitude to have a spell that may or may not even exist unmade. My magic isn’t very reliable. Never has been. So how do I know it’s not out of reach because it doesn’t want to come when I call it? Wouldn’t be the first time, especially when I’m under stress. And even if this spell is real, I’m mortal. I’m going to die with or without magic.”

“You’ll die faster without it,” said the Luidaeg.

“Maybe so, but I’ll die knowing I never sold my children to the sea witch.”

The Luidaeg sighed. “I’m trying to give you the best path out of this that I can. It’s not easy. My geas doesn’t want me to. It wants me to find a way to make you suffer, as if you’re not already suffering enough, as if you’re not going to be suffering even more as the next few days unfurl around you. None of this is your fault. None of this is something you deserve. And it’s not fair in the slightest that you don’t have a way to set it aside and say ‘No, thank you, I’m an ordinary man who lives an ordinary life and just wants to kiss my children before I tuck them into bed.’ You shouldn’t be a part of this at all. You are, though. And yes, I would be teaching your kids anyway, but if I tell the magic I’m trying to take them, it will let me save you first.”

“You have just reminded us of your inability to lie, milady,” said Nolan, sounding anxious, which he probably was. Most people aren’t that used to talking back to the Luidaeg. “If you say you’ll take his children, are you not bound to do precisely that?”

“I never said I wouldn’t take him too, or that I wouldn’t let them stay in the home they’ve always known for as long as they wanted to, although that home may be less welcoming than they remember,” she said, sounding frustrated. “Dad’s ass, you people were less annoying when you were properly afraid of me and didn’t try to negotiate or ask for clarification of perfectly reasonable portentous statements! Yeah, I’ll have his kids. They’ll learn to control what they can do under my tutelage, and he won’t have the authority to tell them to find another teacher. But they’ll have the free will to do it if they come to that conclusion on their own.”

“Do it, Daddy,” said Cassandra abruptly. She was looking at a point somewhere above the Luidaeg’s head, her eyes moving in short jerks, like she was following the motion of something small and only partially visible. “She’s the only teacher we have available, at least right now, and Andrew is going to need her really badly in a few years. The rest of us read air, one way or another, but he reads fire. Pyromancy isn’t common outside the Burning Kingdoms, and their monarchs will come for him if he doesn’t have a protector. He’s not fireproof. It would be fatal. This is how you keep him safe. This is how you keep us all safe.”

Mitch’s face fell, his shoulders slumping, and for a moment, he looked very small, and very exhausted, which was strange in such a big man. He looked to me, not the Luidaeg, and asked plaintively, “How did this happen? Why is this happening to us?”

“If you’re gearing up to blame Toby, don’t,” said the Luidaeg. “Your little chaos charm isn’t the reason everything’s going to shit right now. If anything, she’s the reason it took this long for things to get as bad as they were always going to get.”

Mitch stared at her. Then, with a convulsive shudder, he shook his head, turned once again to me, and demanded, “Where’s Stacy? October, where is my wife?”

“Yeah, I’m not going to get through this,” said the Luidaeg. She turned to Walther. “Okay, alchemy-boy, here’s what I need you to pay: you will never unmake one of my workings, however little you may care for what it does, and if you and the little oracle have children, you’ll give them over to me for training until such time as I’m finished with their education.”

Walther blinked. “Us having kids without involving magic would be a neat trick,” he said.

“Faerie,” said the Luidaeg. “Neat trick or not, I’ve been a party to stranger.”

He glanced at Cassandra. “Is it fair for me to agree to this, since it doesn’t only concern me?”

“It is,” said Cass. “Trust me, if it were possible for us to have kids, there’s no one else I’d want responsible for their education. And even if we’re not going to have kids, I want you around to keep not having them with me. Please agree to this, with my blessing.”

Walther nodded before returning his attention to the Luidaeg. “Then yes, you have my agreement, with the small caveat that if I don’t know something is one of your workings, I may unmake it out of ignorance, rather than intent.”

The Luidaeg quirked a very small smile. “Negotiating with the sea witch? Oh, brave boy. So much braver than you think you are.” She reached for him, and he didn’t shy away.

As with Jin, she ran her thumb across his forehead. And as with Jin, it left a line where it passed, this one bright and beaded with blood. It was redder than it should have been, redder than rubies, and almost frothy, like it had been carbonated before it was released from underneath his skin. Walther hissed between his teeth, shoulders going tight with the effort of not pulling himself away from her.

The Luidaeg lowered her hand, shaking it a few times, like it had gone to sleep and needed to be woken. “Hey, Toby?”