Page 101 of The Innocent Sleep

“No, but Titania’s illusions told the people she’d entangled that they had been living whatever life she scripted for them for however long she needed them to have been living it. The real Simon knows he’s making his own paradise now, that he’s living a better and more honest life beneath the sea, but a Simon who doesn’t remember leaving Amandine? Who doesn’t realize he has choices? For him, seven years with his beloved wife and daughters—the one he feels he failed and the one he never got the chance to care for, in the service of the woman who once promised to protect him—that would seem like paradise. Paradise doesn’t have to be real. It just has to be believed.” The Luidaeg’s tone was dark and unforgiving. “That’s what Titania has always done best. She makes people believe her. Little miscalculation on her part, though: Simon knows now that what he had wasn’t paradise. He doesn’t believe her anymore.”

“So the Ride will fail?” asked October, sounding almost hopeful.

The Luidaeg didn’t pause. “She can’t have been certain we’d break the spell protecting him from her when we did; she must have had a backup sacrifice. She can change directions in the middle if she has to. It just won’t be as convincing, and the Heart may not give her as much power as she wants. So she might only remake half of Faerie in her own image.”

“We are not letting her sacrifice our father!” said August.

“Glad you’re with the program, sis,” said October, and started walking faster. “Now come on. We need to go kick a Queen of Faerie in the teeth.”

“Violence is so rarely the answer, but right now, it feels right,” I said, deadpan.

October laughed. The sound was like balm, soothing without being immediately healing. The air changed around us as we walked, cooling and growing thick with fog. I smelled marshland, fresh water and sweet greenery, wrapped in an endless cycle of rot and renewal. The ground stayed firm underfoot, but I could see the swamp around us, lit up by the Luidaeg’s witch lights. As long as we didn’t suddenly start wading, I was fine with this arrangement.

“The Moorland Trail,” said the Luidaeg, sounding pleased.

“This looks more like a bog to me,” said October.

“People used to use the word ‘moor’ to refer to low-lying wetlands as well as remote hillsides,” said the Luidaeg. “Language changes. The underpinnings of Faerie don’t. My siblings and I used this as a shortcut, and some of them anchored their skerries here. Ismene and Hirsent and others who liked the freedom of the fens. You can’t get here unless you’re already on one of the older roads, and already know the way.”

October looked at me. “And see, I thought you were all special because you had these secret shortcuts through the Summerlands.”

I frowned. “I’m not sure how I’m meant to respond to that. Are we back to teasing each other, or are we still upset about this whole situation?”

“I can’t tell you what to feel, but I was teasing. Being grim right now doesn’t get us where we’re going any faster.” October returned her attention to the Luidaeg. “I still don’t see how Titania can take him.”

“My father protected people you think of as family, and if she can argue with the magic that he doesn’t make the cut, regardless of whether it’s in this world or our own, she can at least begin to Ride,” she said. “She hasn’t touched him. She didn’t put him on the horse. If you’re being technical—and believe me, she is—she doesn’t touch him until she feeds him into the Heart, and that’s powerful enough to undo my father’s work, if it decides it likes the deal she offers.”

October went pale. “Okay, that’s awful, for one, and I’m still not sure what happens when we break the Ride, for two.”

“A very good question,” I said. “Luidaeg?”

“Finally getting around to asking what you need to know, eh?” The Luidaeg looked back at us, not seeming all that worried about walking into the water. Then again, this was her place. The water would probably welcome her. “Anyone with a vested interest in a sacrifice can try to intervene, and if they succeed, the Ride is broken. But the Heart was primed when Titania led the first steed of her company onto the first leg of the trail. It’s going to expect a sacrifice. When Mom’s Ride was broken, she was compelled to go in Tam Lin’s place, and could no more resist the calling of her own origin than our children can resist us. Even though she had to go, I like to think she would have fought if she hadn’t believed that she’d be released in seven years, when the sacrifice came around again.”

“Why wasn’t she?” asked October.

“Titania didn’t Ride for her,” said the Luidaeg. “She said her sister had made her own bed, and would be well served by lying in it, and she left her there, and went about making the rest of Faerie miserable, until Oberon banished her for our own good. If we break the Ride, I expect we get at least seven years without Titania, until the Heart gets tired of sucking on her like an everlasting gobstopper and spits her right out.”

October snorted, and Dean looked amused, while Raysel and August looked bewildered. Some human thing, then, which they had yet to encounter. I kept my own face neutral.

October glanced at Raysel and August. “I’ll explain when we get home.”

“You better,” muttered August.

“All we have to do is break the Ride and the Heart will do the rest,” said the Luidaeg. We had reached a boardwalk, plain and low, unvarnished wood suspended barely a foot above the murky water. It looked unstable. “Do not try to engage with Titania directly, do you understand me? And I’m sorry, kitty, but as his daughters, October and August will be the ones positioned to intercede.”

“Then October should be spared through the simple fact that she’s not his daughter,” I said.

“Not by blood. But then, neither is August.”

August jerked upright, eyes going wide for a moment before they narrowed and she glared at the sea witch with an impressive intensity, given how brief their acquaintance had been. “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’s mouth moved. No sound came out.

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 me. “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?”