Page 76 of Sleep No More

“How about Amy?”

“She was more distant. She made sure I knew my place.”

The Luidaeg nodded. “That all matches up with what I’d expect from them. So here’s Quentin, who knows changelings have no value, and here’s you, who has a sense of self-worth, even if it’s a twisted one, and a family that loves her like she actually belongs, instead of treating her like a disposable object. You would have been like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Oh, he’s going to be appalled when this is over and he realizes how he could have turned out.”

“I’m appalled right now,” said Dean.

“If you’re coming back to the Summerlands with us, you need to remember you don’t exist there; you never have,” said the Luidaeg. “He won’t know you. No one will know you.”

“What about Goldengreen?” asked Dean.

“Held by the Rose of Winter, as it has always been,” said Grianne. “We shouldn’t go there.”

“She’s asleep on the Thorn Road,” said Ginevra. “There’s another imposter behind her face.”

“Good to know,” said the Luidaeg. “If it’s one of the Browns, you’ve still got a Firstborn-sized weapon on the field. Power set won’t be the same, but that doesn’t make them less dangerous while Titania has them. So yeah, we stay away from Goldengreen. Sorry, Dean.”

“We have ways of getting to the Undersea if we need to use them,” said Ginevra. “Your parents are fine.”

Dean sagged, exhaling. “Okay.”

“Now that we’re done with that digression, Dean’s right,” said the Luidaeg. “Whatever Titania’s planning, it’s going to be geared to hurt. She doesn’t have any available Firstborn she’s both willing and able to sacrifice to the Heart, and she has a bone to pick with October here. So she’s likely to be going for someone close to her.”

“Father and August are in Golden Shore,” I said.

“You mean they were last time you spoke to them, but also, Dad bound her so she can’t harm anyone you genuinely think of as family, and right now, that protects them both. But it doesn’t protect Quentin, or May, or Gillian.”

Two of those names were unfamiliar to me, but both clearly meant something to Dean, who looked horrified.

“They’re still family,” he protested. “She can’t—”

“The binding was very specific,” said the Luidaeg. “It can’t be based on blood, not when half of Faerie is her distant cousin. If Toby doesn’t think of them as family, they’re fair game. It’s not arrogance to say that she could have set this whole thing up for just that reason. And it’s possible that because the Heart pre-dates even Oberon, feeding someone into it is the one exception to the clause against harm. But we’re ready. We can fight her.” She dipped a hand into her pocket, pulling out a small jar filled with bright pink jewels. “And the blood of her blood is going to help us do it. Acacia! We’re going to need an exit.”

“You’re not the master here, Annie,” said Acacia, moving toward us with Raysel by her side. “But yes, you do. Lovely as it is to have my daughter home, I want her here because she chooses to be, not because someone else chose to put her here. And I want her to know my grandchild.”

“Even if I don’t really want to talk to her right now, it sucks to have your mom forget who you are,” said Raysel.

“Great, so we have our field trip,” said the Luidaeg. “We head for Shadowed Hills, we ask Sylvester for help, and if he refuses, we unbind him immediately. He’ll help us once he understands what’s been done to him.”

“Excuse me,” I said. She turned to look at me, eyebrows raised.

“Wasn’t sure you knew those words,” she said. “Yes, Toby?”

“How is Uncle Sylvester going to help us?”

“He was a hero once, just like you are in my reality, and he’s going to be pissed. But he’s still a noble, which means he’ll have access to whatever knowe Titania is using as a base for her Ride. And he’ll be able to tell us who he remembers that he didn’t remember five minutes before, and who he doesn’t remember being dead or missing, which should help us find the other Brown kids.”

“If there is anyone else,” I countered. “Why are you so sure he’ll be able to tell us something we don’t know?”

“Because I’m hoping he’ll know where my mother is, even if he doesn’t realize it,” said the Luidaeg. “Oberon and Titania were both inside the radius of Titania’s spell, along with half a dozen Firstborn and your maternal grandmother, about whom the less said, the better. We’ve been gathering in the Mists for more than a century, and whatever pulled the rest of us there, it will have pulled her too. Mom was in range. We look for the people who should be there but aren’t, and then we figure out where Titania put them, and we’ll find my mother.”

“What if she doesn’t want to be found?”

“Well, then, we better pray we can break Titania’s Ride without Maeve’s help, the way Janet Carter broke my mom’s, because otherwise, we’re all a little more fucked than we were yesterday, and maybe her world becomes the real one after all.” The Luidaeg looked at me levelly. “No pressure.”

Nope. No pressure there.

TWENTY-ONE