Page 47 of Be the Serpent

“Yeah?”

“Don’t drink that. He’s bleeding out magic his body was never meant to hold, and it wouldn’t be good for you.”

It seemed odd to be offended under the circumstances, but I still managed it, at least a little. Snorting loudly, I said, “I’m not a damn vampire, Luidaeg. I can have self-control when I need to.”

“Yeah, but you’re not great at knowing what you should and shouldn’t put in your mouth,” she said. “This is a shouldn’t.”

“It doesn’t look very appealing,” I said.

“Ugh, flower magic.” She focused once again on Mitch. “Last man standing. The kids aren’t bound the way you are. I guess the blast wasn’t set to take them down. So what do you say? Am I your new nanny, or are you going to die a slow and horrible death?”

“You said they’d have to pay you,” he said, clearly grasping at straws for a reason to tell her no, she couldn’t have the kids. No, his life wasn’t worth it. “I’m not selling them into slavery.”

“Why did we stop having a stable apprenticeship system?” The Luidaeg threw her hands into the air, eyes rolled toward the ceiling in an exaggerated plea for mercy from the universe. “There was a time when one of the Firstborn said they wanted your offspring, you handed them over with gratitude. And that was just ‘I want them,’ not even ‘I want to teach them how to use their magic, which no one else they have access to is equipped to do, and maybe help them stay alive for fifteen minutes longer than they would have managed without me.’ Yeah, the humans started acting like trade schools were somehow shameful, but they still want their air-conditioning fixed, so they can stuff it.”

“Luidaeg,” I said. “Come on. He’s had a hard day.”

“We’ve all had a hard day,” she said sourly. Glaring at Mitch, she said, “I live in a house the size of everything I could possibly want, and it isn’t very well maintained. So they’ll be asked to do chores and work for me to balance out the time I spend on their education. Cleaning and cooking and service for scholarship. They’ll still have time to be kids. They’ll still have lives. And they’ll survive to enjoy them.”

“Basically, she’s going to make them work in exchange for teaching them things they need to know,” I said. “Come on, Mitch. Just agree. Don’t leave them orphans.”

“Orphans?” He looked alarmed. “Toby, where’s Stacy?”

Crap. “I’m going to go and look for her as soon as we’re done here,” I said. “The faster you agree, the faster I can get back to work.”

So maybe that was playing a little dirty. I couldn’t track her through magical means, not without risking another Llangefni screen or this new magic binding thing, which seemed even worse, since the screen wasn’t likely to kill me. And I wasn’t actually sure how to start tracking someone by mundane means when their last known location was inside a knowe. Still, she’d been my best friend for almost my entire life. I owed her the effort.

I owed us all the effort. If she really was Titania in disguise—if my friend had only ever been a mask worn by the worst of us—I needed to find her and, more importantly, find a way to stop her, before a whole lot more people wound up getting hurt. I owed it to the woman I’d always believed her to be. I owed it to her family.

I owed it to the Luidaeg, who had already suffered enough at Titania’s hands, and didn’t deserve to have it all turn against her again.

“All right.” Mitch squared his shoulders, looking at the Luidaeg. “Unbind me, so Toby can get out of here and get back to finding my wife.”

“Be careful what you ask for,” she said, and sighed, reaching up to run her thumb across his forehead. Again, it left a shallow slice behind, and as with Walther, the blood that bubbled up was overly red, too bright to be real. I breathed in the scent of it, and my stomach churned with revulsion.

There was no trace of his magic, or of Walther’s, in the smell. Only the bright burn of roses, so many roses. Roses enough to choke the world.

“That should do it.” The Luidaeg stepped back, then shifted to the side and repeated the process a third time, with Nolan. He beamed bright as anything as soon as she pulled her hand away, looking like a child on Christmas morning.

“Everything is back as it should be,” he announced, joyously. “I can feel the whole of the world in my veins like lightning. Is there any place you would like to be, my lady sea witch? Only name the place, and I’ll move mountains to have you there.”

“I do believe you mean that,” said the Luidaeg, sounding amused. “I’m good where I am for now. Why don’t you get everyone to your sister? She’s still in the receiving room unless something has changed while we were locked in here arguing about whether or not to save your damn lives, and I’m sure she’s pretty panicked by now.”

Nolan nodded and sketched a circle in the air with his hand, opening a portal to the room where, yes, Arden waited. He gestured for the others to step through. Anthony and Andrew did as instructed, Anthony leaning heavily on Andrew, while Cassandra scooped Karen off the floor as easily as if the other girl were made of dried leaves and straw, then stepped through with Walther beside her. In a matter of seconds, Tybalt, the Luidaeg, and I were alone with Mitch and Nolan, and the wardrobe that still contained Jin.

Mitch looked at me grimly. “Find her,” he said, then stepped through.

Nolan hesitated, waiting to see if we were going to come. The Luidaeg made a little shooing motion with her hands.

“Toby’s got the cat, and I’ve got feet,” she said. “Get out of here.”

“As I am bid,” he said, and stepped through, the portal closing behind him.

The Luidaeg heaved a sigh as she turned to face me. “Well,” she said. “You’re nicely fucked now, aren’t you?”

TWELVE

“Not how I would have put it, but that sounds pretty accurate to me,” I said, and dragged a hand across my face. It didn’t make me feel any better. “Is this actually happening?”