Page 31 of Sleep No More

Her hair, shaggy and brown, was pinned atop her head in a loose knot, held there with several pencils that had been shoved haphazardly through the tangles. Her skin was a few shades lighter than Etienne’s, a few shades darker than mine. And she seemed entirely unsurprised to find him standing on her porch.

“Etienne!” she said, stepping back and holding the door open wider. “Come in, come in. I’ll make you a cuppa. Who’s your friend?”

There was a wariness I couldn’t quite read in her question, but I still followed Etienne as he stepped over the threshold. He placed his hands to either side of her face and kissed her forehead while she tilted her head back and beamed at him, utterly at peace, utterly trusting. It ached, for some reason I couldn’t quite define, to see them so.

“This is October,” he said, letting her go again and gesturing to me. “She’s the younger of the two girls I told you about.”

“Ah.” She looked at me, expression sharper now. “You’ve gotten an agreement, then? Or you’ve abducted the poor child for your own ends?”

“A bit of both,” he admitted. “October, this is Bridget. Bess.”

He paused then, stepping closer to her and putting an arm around her shoulders. Seeming to catch her cue, the human woman—Bridget—leaned up against him, sending a polite smile in my direction.

“My wife,” said Etienne.

I stared.

The creation of changelings is among the most essential duties of the pureblood Courts. Firstborn and titled nobility are required to provide at least one, for the enrichment of Faerie; the fact that Uncle Sylvester has managed to avoid his duty for as long as he has is something of a miracle, and a source for much of the idle gossip about Shadowed Hills that August has brought back with her from her travels with Mother. All of this is true.

But the mortals the changeling children are gotten upon are playthings, intended for a night of company, perhaps several, as even a fertile mortal womb can take time to quicken, and destined to be cast aside as soon as a child is secured. If their fairy lover is of a line that can manipulate memory or cast strong-enough illusions, they may be allowed to live after they’ve been safely relieved of their offspring; if not, they meet with terrible, unpreventable accidents.

It’s not a kind system. It’s not a system I would have created. It’s the system I was born of, and into, and the one Titania has set for us, which means it must be perfect, for all its cruelty.

And nowhere does it include the possibility of marriage. If I was horrified by the suggestion that I’d been married to a beast in some other version of our world, the thought of Etienne being married to a human was far worse.

My revulsion and confusion must have shown on my face, because Etienne scowled.

“I cannot bring her before my liege or to my home, but we were married in the proper way, outside beneath the ash and oak, in full view of both the wilds and the water,” said Etienne. “My life is bound to hers, and my only regret is that there is no means known to magic by which I can stretch her life to keep her by my side.”

“This is . . .” I took a step backward, shaking my head. “I’m sorry, Etienne, this is a step too far. I don’t know what you think I could possibly do here to help you with this . . . with this abomination, but I can’t do it, and I can’t keep this—”

“We have a daughter,” blurted Bridget.

I froze.

“Her name is Chelsea. She’s nineteen, smart as a whip, just finished high school, and started at the university where I teach this semester. She’ll be home in a few hours. She knows what she is. How could she not know, when so many things about her differ from her peers? And she knows she can never be considered an equal in the world her father comes from.”

“I’m sorry, I truly am, but what do you think I can do about it?” I asked. “If you want me to tell her what life as a changeling in the Courts is like, I can, but honestly, Etienne, you should have brought her to the Duke as soon as she was born. A live changeling is a gift from Titania to Faerie. This is wrong.”

“I don’t want you to indoctrinate her,” said Etienne, tone going cold. “The hope chests were destroyed after Maeve betrayed us, but Faerie has returned them to our keeping in the form of the Dóchas Sidhe, even if your mother hides that truth. Your own father was born a changeling, and transformed for the sake of his family’s honor. His brother was born the same. Your mother changed them both when they were all children together. I believe that you, and your sister, share that ability. Your magic will let you strip the mortality from my daughter, if you command and she consents.”

I stared at him. What he was saying was nonsense . . . wasn’t it? But then, this whole day had been nonsense, and Father had always looked quietly ashamed when the subject of changelings and his eventual duty arose. I had assumed he didn’t want to dally with a woman other than Mother, but Uncle Sylvester had been able to avoid the same edict, when it shouldn’t have been possible. Not unless they had been given some quiet, unremarked exemption.

Father was always kinder to me than he had to be, always encouraging me to think well of myself, never allowing me to tear myself down over the things I could not change. Had he done that out of love, or out of guilt that he had been given a great gift that my own mother had not seen fit to offer me?

If I had been born before August, when Mother was among those in need of an heir, would I have been a changeling at all?

“I knew . . . I knew Mother’s skills extended to the balancing of the blood,” I said, very carefully. “She adjusts changelings for noble houses, to make us more suited to whatever work we might be required for, but even if she can do what you’re asking of me now, I don’t know if that means I can. I’ve never wished to dwell on that possibility, for reasons I should hope would be obvious.”

“Not to me,” said Bridget, and I remembered that I was still wearing the human disguise Father had spun for me. The itching was still present, but so constant that it had faded into a small annoyance, especially in comparison to my head. “You look like a lovely young woman, if a somewhat angry one, and I’m truly sorry our first meeting has to be me asking you for something you find so upsetting.”

She had a faint accent, something I couldn’t entirely place, but her words were otherwise kind, and seemed sincerely meant.

“Even if I could do what you would ask of me, I have no idea how,” I said. “The magic of my line is all but bound in blood, and I’ve received little-to-no training in such work. I could do more damage than good.”

“I’m willing to take the risk,” said Bridget. “I won’t speak for her, but I believe Chelsea will be as well. She doesn’t want to be an outsider forever. If that means eventually going into Faerie and claiming to be her own father’s cousin, she’s willing to make the adjustment.”

“My family can never be together,” said Etienne. “I told Bridget so when she informed me she was pregnant, and she chose to marry me anyway, to have a father for her child. I’ve been here as much as I could be, but the girl is grown now, and her magic grown with her. She yearns to see what she’s been denied. Nineteen years of mortality can be enough, if she decides.”