Page 99 of Sleep No More

August jerked like she’d just been jabbed with a pin, eyes going briefly wide. Then they narrowed again, as she said, “I am furiously angry with my mother right now, and will never forgive her for this, but how dare you imply that she stepped outside the bounds of her marriage bed in the getting of me!”

“I didn’t,” said the Luidaeg. “Is there any Daoine Sidhe in you, child? Any Daoine Sidhe at all?”

August was quiet.

The Luidaeg sniffed. “Yeah, I thought not. Amandine didn’t need to cheat on Simon. He was there at your conception, and then she pulled his blood out of yours while you were sleeping in her womb. I can’t say for sure whether she knew she was doing it. I can say she was never sorry. You’re his child because parentage is so much more than blood. Parentage is showing up and being present, is love and learning and compassion and care. I was a parent to my siblings when my mother wouldn’t—or couldn’t—be. October is a parent to her squire. That there’s no blood shared there is no measure of a family.”

She turned back to Tybalt. “On a technical level, most Firstborn aren’t related. The magic that splits us into our own descendant lines sees to that. If, when we reach the Ride, October can tell me honestly that she still doesn’t think of the man we’re on our way to save as her father, she can stand aside. But if she can’t, she has to do this. I know what you’re afraid of, kitty. You’re not wrong to be scared. And at the same time, your fear doesn’t outweigh the needs of all Faerie, even if we both wish that it did. October?”

I froze inside, although my body kept moving automatically forward, following her across the fens. My mouth was dry, and my head was spinning with the pressure of her question. I swallowed, hard. “Simon was my enemy for a long, long time,” I said. “He hurt me, badly, and that doesn’t go away because he’s been trying to make amends. In some ways, it’s worse because now I know what kind of man he’s capable of being, and what he did anyway. But . . . you can’t go on as many wild quests to save someone as I have for Simon and not develop a little bit of love for the person you keep saving. Add that to the last four months, and the things I spent them believing to be true, and—yeah. He’s my father. I’m sorry, Tybalt. If I can save him, I have to try.”

Tybalt looked at me, utter betrayal in his eyes, and I managed not to cringe away. Then he sighed, and said, “I said I wanted the woman I married back, and it seems I have her. If you must do this, I do it with you. He’s the father of my beloved, and that makes him my family as well.”

“He’s my uncle,” said Raysel.

“He’s my stepdad,” said Dean.

“Then we should have enough hands to break the Ride. After all, Janet did it alone,” said the Luidaeg. She stopped walking, looked speculatively at the edge of the boardwalk, and added, “Follow me,” before stepping off and plunging into the water below.

When the sea witch tells you to do something, however ridiculous, you do it. One by one, the others followed, until Tybalt and I were alone on the boardwalk. I shook my head, eyes on the murky water. Unlocking my memories of the real world had brought back my transformation and time in the pond, and with it, my fear of being submerged in water. I knew it was irrational—I had just taken a long, glorious bath in Golden Shore, for Maeve’s sake!—but the thought of stepping off that edge made my heart race.

And I would have to do it. I turned to Tybalt, grabbed the front of his shirt, and pulled him into a passionate kiss. He didn’t fight me, either understanding what I was trying to do or so glad to have the opportunity to kiss me again after so long apart that he didn’t care why I was doing it.

I wrapped my arms around him, trying to focus on nothing more than how wonderful it was to be kissing him again. I had missed him, even if I hadn’t been capable of knowing it at the time; a feeling like something was missing from the world, under the surface but always there, like an itch I couldn’t quite scratch. He kissed me back with unending hunger. Unlike me, he had been capable of knowing what was supposed to be there and wasn’t, thanks to Titania.

As we kissed, I inched us toward the edge of the boardwalk, and finally tilted hard to the side, dropping us both into the bog.

There was a momentary chill when we broke the surface, and then we were standing on a hillside somewhere in the Summerlands, still wrapped around each other. The sky was clear overhead, spangled with stars like jewels, and the air smelled like autumn. The Luidaeg cleared her throat.

“Whatever gets you into the water, I guess, but it’s go time,” she said. “Meaning let go and focus.”

I stepped away from Tybalt, turning to properly see our surroundings for the first time.

The land was wild around us, high grass and verdant forest, and no visible structures, not even in the farthest distance. Four moons shone above us, casting almost as much light as a single sun, and I could hear the approaching hooves of horses. “You have to get him off that horse,” she said, voice firm and cold. “I’ll handle the recitations, but you have to get him off the horse.”

Grimacing at the effort, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the jar of pink gems she’d made from Acacia’s blood. She tossed it to me. I snatched it out of the air, frowning quizzically.

“Before you pull him down, swallow two,” she said. “That should give you the boost you need to break all the way through. Blood of her blood works best. I, on the other hand, just have to invoke my father.”

She extended one blistered hand then, running the longest talon of her other hand across the palm. The skin parted, and more of those little white worms came out, accompanied by a gush of cloudy water. There was no blood. She grimaced.

“Fuck,” she said. “That’s a complication we don’t need. Who’s down to bleed for me?”

“Titania told me to know my place, and I do,” I said. “I bleed when Faerie needs me.” I shoved the pink jewels into my pocket as I turned to Tybalt, holding out my hand. “I don’t have a knife. Can you?”

He looked pained but extended one claw and split my palm from the heel of my hand to the base of my middle finger. The Luidaeg hurried over to grab me by the wrist, turning my hand so the wound was aimed at the grass as she hauled me in a wide circle. Wide enough to contain us all. When the wound healed, she split it open again with the talon that had failed to draw her own blood, until she finally let me go and I stumbled back, clutching my hand to my chest.

The skin was already knitted back together, the muscle beneath doing the same. The blood was spilt, the circle drawn.

“I forbid you maidens all who wear gold in your hair to come nor go abroad this night: the Faerie Host rides there,” chanted the Luidaeg, and stomped her foot dead at the center of the circle she had drawn with my blood. White light blazed up around us as the blood seemed to ignite from within, sending a column of flame into the sky. “And none that fall within their sight but they are lost and gone, sacrificed by moonlight long before the break of dawn.”

The hoofbeats were getting louder by the moment, and then Titania’s Host came over the rise of a small hill.

There were easily forty of them, on horses of all different colors, their tack polished and perfect, their attire even more so. All of them were too beautiful for me to look upon directly; even trying hurt my eyes.

“First let pass the black steeds, and then let past the brown,” chanted the Luidaeg. “Quick run to the milk-white steed and pull the rider down!”

I scanned the horses, looking for traces of white, and when I found them, I froze.