Page 49 of Be the Serpent

“What’s that?”

“Murder, mostly.” She said it so lightly, like it was nothing out of the ordinary. “Silver and iron for a Firstborn, silver and bone—or antler—for our parents. Not that we know that for sure, of course. It was just what the magic seemed to indicate, and what the oracles Saw, back when there were enough of us to ask.”

I kept staring at the knife. I couldn’t seem to take my eyes away. “So you’re telling me this knife could—could—”

“Could kill Titania, if you used it correctly and caught her off-guard, yes, I am,” said the Luidaeg. I finally looked up. She was watching me, eyes once more green as glass and filled with endless sorrow. “I know you don’t want to hear this, and I know you may not believe me, but I don’t want to be saying it, either. Stacy is gone. I can’t even say that she’s dead, because she never existed. Stacy was a pretty mask for an ugly woman to wear for a little while, and now that she’s taken it off, it won’t fit her anymore.”

“Like Luna and Hoshibara,” I said, lips numb. It felt like I was standing outside this scene and watching it unfold, like none of this had anything to do with me. Like I should have been able to smile politely, say, “No, thank you,” and walk away, leaving everything exactly as it was before I got out of bed this morning.

“Very much like that,” agreed the Luidaeg. “She became a child and she grew up with you so the mask would be a better fit, but the trouble with perfectly fitting masks is that they always crack when you take them off. She can’t go back. But right now, while she’s still bound to clean up the mess she’s made, she might still be clinging, just a little bit, to who she was.”

“The mess?” I asked. It was a silly question. I already knew the answer. I couldn’t let myself know the answer. If I knew the answer, then all of this would be real.

I could feel Tybalt’s hand on my shoulder, steadying me. This was already real. All the denial in the world wasn’t going to change a damn thing, and the fact that I wanted it to didn’t matter one little bit.

“The children,” said the Luidaeg. She sounded sympathetic; she understood why this was so hard for me. It would have been hard for anyone. It would have been hard no matter who it was. The fact that it was Stacy just made it borderline unbearable. “She has to eliminate the children in order to do what she was bound to do.”

“But—but she’s already left a trace,” I protested. “We know who she is, we know she’s here. Can’t that be enough?”

“You know compulsion spells don’t work that way.” The sympathy in her voice transitioned into genuine sorrow. She didn’t want to be doing this any more than I wanted it to be happening. She shook her head. “Letter of the law, not spirit. He told her to clean up after herself until she became a better person, and when she got the signal to either come home or change again, she chose to change again. She’s still Titania under everything else she’s been and become. She’s still the woman who told my sister there was no harm in eliminating monsters, and Faerie could only be improved by our absence. If she’d learned to be someone else, she wouldn’t have reacted to the return of her memories by murdering her own daughter.”

Jessica. Poor, sweet, silly Jessica, who had never fully recovered from what Blind Michael did to her, but had been trying so very hard to find her way back to us. Jessica, who was never going to make it all the way. I closed my hand around the hilt of my knife, sliding it back into its sheath, and looked at the Luidaeg.

“Stacy would never have hurt her own daughter,” I said. “That means this isn’t Stacy.”

“And I need you to hold on to that,” said the Luidaeg. “She may still look like Stacy. She’s still in flux, and parts of her will want to be the person she’s grown accustomed to being. You need to keep yourself from giving in when it looks like she’s someone you still love. She doesn’t love you anymore.”

I took a short, sharp breath. “You sure got used to this idea fast.”

She shrugged. “I’m a lot older than you are. It’s a lot harder to surprise me. Besides, you brought Dad home.” At my blank look, she sighed. “My sister followed me here. I came here because the tides told me this was where everything was going to either put itself back together or go completely to shit, forever and ever, the end. Sylvester winding up here was a surprise, but it probably shouldn’t have been; once my sister was here, Simon’s arrival was inevitable, and there was no way his brother wouldn’t follow him. They loved each other, once. Twins are rare enough in Faerie that they don’t often choose to stay apart for long.”

That sketched an interesting shape for my own potential future. I was no longer entirely sure I wanted to reconcile with Sylvester, not as long as he remained devoted to Luna. And so much was going to be guided by Raysel’s recovery. Until she was ready to face her parents—and mine—we were going to be giving them all a wide berth.

“Put me, my sister, and Amy all in one place, and if I’d been thinking in terms of it being possible, of course Dad would be attracted to the same region. Janet followed her daughter, and even without knowing who he was, he followed everyone he remembered on some level that he loved. That sort of gravitational force was going to pull Titania in. As soon as you found him hiding in a shape we couldn’t see, I began to wonder if my dear old stepmommy might not be nearby. I am truly sorry that she seems to have taken this particular form. You deserved better. Stacy deserved better. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if you found Mom lurking under a rock somewhere. Or maybe a pier. She always did like the water.”

“And you didn’t think that maybe, I don’t know, warning me would be a good idea?”

“Would it have changed anything? Would you have been more careful? Would it have turned back time and made Stacy into someone you would ever—could ever—suspect of being an enemy?” The Luidaeg shook her head in hard negation. “She hasn’t earned her release from Dad’s spell yet. She’ll come for the Browns. She’ll destroy them all, if she’s allowed. If you want to save them, you have to find her, and you have to stop her.”

I took a slow breath. “And you have to help me.”

“I do?” Her eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. “She’s the reason I can’t lie. She’s the one who made it so I can’t harm her directly, or any member of any descendant line she’s officially claimed. Right now, this second, I could slit Karen’s throat myself if I wanted to. All she has to do is say publicly that Karen is her daughter and claimed as such, and I won’t be able to do that anymore.”

“Did you want to?” I asked.

“Is that the point?” she demanded.

“It’s not,” said Tybalt slowly. “It never has been. To be forbidden something, even something you would never choose to do on your own accord, is a burden. I am a man and I am a cat, and neither of those things eats rocks.”

That was such a random thing to say that I just blinked at him for several long seconds before I said, “Well, yeah. It would be hard to order pizza if you ate rocks.”

“Oreads, on the other hand, eat rocks as a primary part of their diet. If you were to forbid me to eat rocks, I might look at you oddly, and would then go about my day, unchanged but annoyed. Forbid the same to an Oread, and damage them materially.”

“How does that have anything to do with Stacy?”

“It would be rude of you to forbid me the swallowing of stone, even if you did so in jest,” he said. “Our lady sea witch has never been in the business of killing children. By forbidding her to do so, Titania casts aspersions on her character, and prevents her defending herself at the same time.”

“Huh.” I love Tybalt more than I thought it was possible to love anyone but my own children, and sometimes it still feels like he’s intentionally confusing. I shook it off and focused on the Luidaeg. “I don’t need you to hurt her. I need you to help me find her. Which isn’t going to be easy when she’s not bleeding, I don’t know exactly what she can do, and even picking up the traces of her magic seems to give her the ability to screw my magic all to hell. I need some sort of shield to keep her from touching me, or I’m never going to be able to track her down.”