Page 16 of Sleep No More

“I was expecting the older daughter, I’ll admit, but I meant it when I told your uncle that any of you would do perfectly well. I did somewhat hope it would be you. Everyone’s very curious about the hidden Torquill girl, and anything I can learn will be coin and currency the next time I go to the Library.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand why a Librarian would be curious about me. I’m no one important.”

“Ah, because your mother is Firstborn, and your parents have been very careful never to reveal or record more than the barest necessities. Your name, your date of birth, and the holding to which you’re bound are the extent of what the Library has on record about you.”

I knew changelings belonged to their fae parents in every sense of the phrase, but I still bristled at the word “bound.” The stranger, whom I assumed was Duchess Zhou, nodded at that, seeming oddly pleased. Then she bowed.

“My manners have faded in isolation,” she said. “I am Li Qin Zhou, Duchess of Dreamer’s Glass, and you are welcome in my domain. I extend to you the hospitality of my home; none will raise hand nor word against you in my presence or with my approval so long as you walk my halls, and should you give me cause to regret this, you will have three days to vacate my demesne before you will be held responsible for your presence.”

“I’m not going to be here past Moving Day, ma’am,” I said, then froze, feeling as if I had already made a massive misstep. “I mean, Your Grace. Your Grace, ma’am. I’m supposed to help with whatever you needed a Torquill for, and then go home before my mother gets back from her assignment in Silences and worries about me.”

“They haven’t taught you much in the way of subtlety, have they?” she asked, sounding amused, and beckoned for me to follow her through the doorway, deeper into the knowe. “Not that I suppose you’d have much need of it, confined to a tower and all.”

“I’m not confined,” I said, bristling again. “I could leave any time I wanted to.”

“It’s just that you’d have nowhere to go, I suppose.”

The hall on the other side of the door was more of the same, all of it very grand and towering. I was beginning to regret the human disguise Father had woven for me, but because it wasn’t my magic, I couldn’t dismiss it even if I tried. The itching in my ears was distracting enough that I missed half of what Li Qin was saying, and snapped back into the conversation just in time to catch:

“—odd configuration, so I asked the luck, and the luck seemed to think a member of your family would be the answer. I’ve got no idea why. The last time I saw your mother and sister, they couldn’t get out of here quickly enough. It would have been insulting, if it hadn’t been so damned funny. You really do live like it’s still medieval times out there in Shadowed Hills, don’t you?”

I blinked. “I’m not sure what you mean by that, so I’m afraid to answer one way or another. I don’t want to insult my home by accident, and I don’t want to refute something that’s actually a good thing.”

Li Qin laughed. “Oh, you’re charming! The unspoilt ones always are, of course.”

“Do you have any changelings here that I could speak with? I wouldn’t want to step on any toes . . .”

“Some members of the household staff have done their duty, and reduced the workload for their fellows, but they’re mostly in the kitchens or the scriptorium.”

“You have a scriptorium?”

“Naturally. This is the seat of modern human innovation. Silicon Valley is where the mortals go to dream tomorrow’s dreams. Faerie can’t be left ignorant of what’s going on outside our doors, however much we might want to pretend we can just ignore the humans and they’ll eventually go away. So my people watch them, work with them, learn their secrets, and write them out for other noble households to comprehend. We’re quite wealthy, really, since we’ve been able to get in on the ground floor of various human enterprises. Which is why you’re here today.”

I frowned. “Come again?”

“Sometimes my people stumble across . . . call them ‘business opportunities,’ and they have a certain amount of freedom when it comes to acting on them,” said Li Qin, stopping in front of a plain wood door and producing a key from inside a pocket. She slid it into the keyhole, flashing me a sunny smile as she did. “They bring all sorts of weird junk home. One of my better finders is a Coblynau named Siôn who has an incredible gift for finding human collectibles. He bought roughly eight thousand baseball cards a year ago, and I’d be annoyed about that, except that he more than quadrupled our money and taught half the Duchy a new game that many of my subjects really quite enjoy. So I find it best to let them do as they like.”

She unlocked the door. The room on the other side was . . . startling. The walls were gray stone, unornamented save by racks of metal shelving that I instinctively shied away from, even though they gave no sign of being iron. Some sort of rough gray-brown carpet was used to blunt the floor, which was made of the smoothest stone I had ever seen. I blinked down at it, almost more amazed by the fact that she’d been able to find a granite slab this size than by the unexamined wonders packed onto the shelves.

Boxes, bins, and crates of things I didn’t recognize stood everywhere. Many of the boxes were made of some sort of stiff white paper with strange words scrawled on the side in thick black ink.

“They really have kept you sheltered, haven’t they?” asked Li Qin, not unkindly. I still flinched, having almost forgotten that she was there.

I turned in her direction, aware that my eyes were bulging in my face but not quite able to make myself stop staring. “What do you mean?”

“A changeling your age should recognize most of the things in this room. Hell, a pureblood your age should recognize them. These are common things. Everyday things. The sort of things children are exposed to. They’re not doing you any favors by making it impossible for you to blend in with the world outside that tower.”

“I don’t think it’s your job to judge how much I’ve experienced,” I said stiffly. “You wanted me for something.”

“That’s true, I did,” said Li Qin. “Follow me.”

She led me deeper into the room, and the door swung shut behind us. Nothing in there was familiar except for her, a Duchess walking with all the calm, arrogant assurance of her kind, and so I kept my eyes on her, seeking comfort in what I knew.

“Another of my finders is a Gean-Cannah changeling who prefers to keep the two halves of their life entirely distinct.”

“I didn’t realize Gean-Cannah could make changelings,” I blurted.

Li Qin glanced back at me, sympathy in her expression. Sympathy for who? “They’re not supposed to,” she said. “They’re technically shapeshifters, but as they always look close enough to Daoine Sidhe to pass if they want to, Fair Titania spared them when she purged the rest. The fully fae among them can transform their bodies at will. The changelings have two entirely distinct entities sharing their bodies, and transform at sunrise and sunset whether they wish it or not. They can share information between their halves, but they don’t have to. Terrie and Alexander have chosen to live as individuals who happen to share an apartment and never see one another. Terrie works the night shift at a local computer company, with my consent, and tithes her wages to the Duchy; we do keep the major customs here. Alex prefers to roam a bit, and spends his days hunting for bargains and scrap sales. Human companies form, get a budget, spend it on whatever strikes their fancy, and collapse, leaving people like us to pick through the remains. Other companies frequently don’t want what’s left behind. Some say it’s because it’s been used, and they demand the best. Others seem to worry that things which belonged to a company that failed to thrive might be cursed, might carry that company’s bad luck with them when they find a new home.”