Page 54 of Sleep No More

“Upset, no. Polite, yes.”

“Fine.” August turned to Ginevra. “I won’t apologize for not wanting to lose my sister, but I can try to be polite. I guess the only thing that still doesn’t make sense is, even if we were to agree to help you, why do you need October? If she can do this, it should be easier for me. She shouldn’t have to be the one who suffers.”

“Would you have even listened to us, if we’d come begging for your aid? Or would you have driven us from your door, called your uncle to send his guard and hunt us down like the beasts you’d been taught we were?” Ginevra’s voice remained calm, but every word was a challenge, and I could see that it was bothering August. “As to why we sought your sister for the magic, and not merely the confirmation of her safety, in the world we remember, you have never been a particular friend to the Cait Sidhe, while October has very close ties to our Court. More, in that reality, you were missing until quite recently, and have never been seen to apply your magic in quite this manner. The Dóchas Sidhe are a new descendant line. There’s no guarantee that any specific application of their natural gifts will carry over from one to the next.”

What she was saying made sense. Lines normally settled into predictability by the second or third generation, after the direct children of their Firstborn had time to marry and have children of their own. It also conveniently left out the exact nature of my ties to the Cait Sidhe, and I was grateful for her not just coming out and saying it. Maybe she thought I didn’t know, and was trying to avoid frightening me. Or maybe she could guess how my father would react if she said anything about me and a marriage.

“Missing?” asked Father, sharply.

“Yes,” said Ginevra. “Missing. If you want to know what happened, you can ask October to unbind you. She might not be willing to help us, but I’m sure she’d be willing to help you. She seems very fond of you, after all.”

“My parents were the sort who felt that children should be raised in love, with the expectation that they will one day surpass their parents,” he said. “I have striven to raise my own daughters in the same way.”

“But you allowed one of them to be raised in a system that said she was less than her sister because of the circumstances of her birth, and always would be,” said Ginevra. “How was that raising her with love?”

Father said nothing, only stared at her. I felt the need to step in before anyone said anything that couldn’t be taken back.

“I won’t set myself against Titania for you,” I said. “I’m sorry you remember a different world, one where I was apparently a different person, but I live in this world, and in this world, I don’t antagonize royalty. Everything that’s happened since I found out about this ‘enchantment’ you say Titania has cast on all of Faerie has been bad for me. I’ve been effectively exiled from my home kingdom, I’ve bled way more than I ever thought possible, and I’ve had the worst headache of my life. The last thing I need right now is to upset the Queen of us all.”

Ginevra raised an eyebrow. “Why do I feel like I heard a ‘but’ in there?”

I looked down at my plate, not wanting to face my family as I continued on. “But if this isn’t the way Faerie’s supposed to be, if people are hurting and you think I can help, I do want to help. I just won’t set myself against Titania to do it.”

“We think we may have figured out a way to make the unbinding easier on you,” said Ginevra. “The Court of Cats is a fascinating place. You know we had three Firstborn, in the beginning, one claimed by each of the Three.”

“Erda, Malvic, and Jibvel,” I said, glancing up again.

“Yes. Daughter of Titania by an unknown father, son of Oberon by Titania, and son of Maeve by an unknown father. They were similar enough in feature and form that they came together as children, cleaving one unto the other, and their descendant lines combined such that they were only one manner of fae. Half of Erda’s children were sired by Jibvel, while Malvic roamed wild and came back to us from time to time with kits to be offered to his sister for the raising. In his roaming, he found many lost places, many lost things—treasures that would have fallen out of Faerie forever, had they not been gathered up. And he went to his father, who was still drawing the lines by which Faerie would function, and he asked if he could have those things for his den. Oberon was charmed by his boldness and eagerness, and he agreed that Malvic and the other Cait Sidhe could have them. Malvic called those lost places together, and the true Court of Cats was born.”

I frowned. “Why are we getting a history lesson?”

“Because I need you to understand that anything Faerie loses but doesn’t destroy has a good chance of winding up in the Court of Cats,” she said, and reached into her pocket, producing a key, which she held out toward me, clearly expecting me to take it.

Hesitantly, and half-fearing a trap, I put down my fork and did as she expected.

It was remarkably heavy for a key only slightly larger than the norm. It had been either carved from or poured as a single piece of silver, inlaid with strips of copper, bronze, and gold, the darker metals used to pick out and emphasize the subtler aspects of its design. Rings of ivy and roses were sculpted across the bow and even along the sides of the shaft, but they never neared the teeth themselves: for all that it had been so heavily ornamented that it seemed barely usable, that ornamentation wouldn’t interfere with the functionality of the thing. It was, in some concrete but undefinable way, the truest key I had ever seen. There were few doors it couldn’t unlock.

I could ignore the fact that it was warm, since it had just come out of Ginevra’s pocket, but I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t glowing, casting a pale yet rosy light that tinted my skin like I’d been spending hours in the sun.

“It’s a Summer Roads Key,” said Ginevra. “Its most recent known owner is among the missing, and we need to find her. This key will get us to the place we think she is. We believe that since you’ve used it before, in our version of the world, you’ll be able to use it again.”

“My lady has been searching for that key for years,” breathed Father, eyes on my hand. “That is the property of—”

“Don’t say her name,” said Ginevra quickly. “Just . . . don’t. There are a few people in this Faerie who shouldn’t be able to be here, for various reasons, and she’s one of them, but where I come from, if you say her name, you attract her attention.”

Father looked stung. “Why wouldn’t I want the attention of one of the most wonderful women who has ever lived?”

Ginevra didn’t answer, returning her attention to me. “Tybalt and I already agreed that it wouldn’t be a good idea for him to come if I was able to convince you to do this. Honestly, I wanted him to stay in the Court of Cats while I came looking for you, but he insisted. He thinks very highly of you, even if he hasn’t been at his best since we arrived.”

“I see,” I said, again grateful that she was continuing to avoid the details of my connection with Tybalt, and careful not to betray my actual understanding of the situation. “And if I do this, if I agree to use this key to find your missing friend, you’ll leave me and my family alone?”

“If that’s what you want, yes,” said Ginevra, sagging slightly. “But I hope you won’t be angry if I say I’m going to hold out hope you’ll change your mind.”

“I don’t think I will,” I said, honestly. I was angry at my parents for not telling me my mother had given my father what she hadn’t been willing to offer me, but I didn’t know what the whole situation had been then. My birth had been a public event, the last of the Firstborn finally doing her duty by Faerie, producing a changeling to serve her household. She couldn’t have removed my mortality while I was still in the womb, not without betraying her gifts, and there had been no opportunity to spirit me away and rebalance my bloodlines after I left it; even isolated as we were in our tower, eventually someone would have noticed if a second pureblood daughter appeared in place of a missing changeling. My paternal grandparents had been ordinary nobles, protected by the sheer number of their peers. Father’s birth would thus have been quieter, more easily overlooked and concealed. I shouldn’t resent them for not doing the impossible. I still did.

And even with that complicated emotional stone weighing me down, I liked my life. I had a good family who loved me, and maybe things weren’t perfect, but were things ever perfect, for anyone? Why would I want to throw all that away for a world I didn’t know, where I was married to a man who clearly hated me? I must have been mistaken about the way he was looking at me in that first memory. There was no way their world could be a better place for me.

“But even if I don’t change my mind, I’ll help you,” I added.