Page 66 of The Innocent Sleep

“I thought I was already helping you.” He gestured to the room around us, golden walls and watching monarchs, people who were still more strangers than allies—all save Ginevra, who watched him with the wary unease of a feral cat trapped in a room full of humans. I had come to know Garm and Grianne reasonably well in the past few months, but without the ability to read my blood and know I was telling them the truth, there was only so far they could believe me, after all. I was a stranger walking into their lives and announcing that everything they knew had been a lie. That wasn’t an easy rock to swallow, no matter how I turned it.

“You’re helping October,” I said.

“You say she’s your wife. Doesn’t that make it the same thing?”

“You know better than that,” I said, voice low.

Simon looked at me, refusing to flinch away. “If you bleed for me,” he said, after a long and dreadful silence, “then yes. I will believe you believe the things you’re saying.”

“Not good enough. You can tell the difference between memory and delusion when it’s witnessed in the blood.”

Cait Sidhe don’t share that particular gift, but I’ve known enough Daoine Sidhe in my day to understand more about their magic than most. Simon frowned.

“Blood can’t lie. But blood can reflect lies.”

“You’re a smart man. I’m sure you can tell the difference between truth and fiction.”

“You’re both very impressive and awesome and smart and cool,” said Ginevra, stepping between us. “Stop flexing at each other and do something useful. Simon, if you’re willing to ride Tybalt’s blood, and he’s willing to let you, you should be able to say whether you’re going to at least try to believe whatever you see there. And Tybalt, you need to agree to focus on a memory that won’t upset the man.”

Simon thought of his daughter as a sheltered changeling who’d never been outside the tower or away from home. He would be equally horrified by seeing her image covered in blood or in the throes of passion.

The humans have a saying: “Don’t think about the white elephant.” It applies to the fae as well. Simon wouldn’t be able to pull my entire life story out of a single spoonful of blood, but he’d be most likely to see what I didn’t want him to, because those would be the things I couldn’t help thinking about. I didn’t want to show him sex or violence, and I didn’t want him to see October’s pregnancy. He’d learned of it before I did in the real world, when she’d used her blood to save his life and spilled her secret in the process. On some level, I took a small, smug satisfaction at knowing he’d forgotten immediately thereafter.

“I’ll do my best,” I said.

Simon exhaled, slowly, through his nose. “All right,” he said at last. “If you bleed, I’ll believe.”

“Father,” said August.

“What?” He turned to her. “The more we know, the better off we’ll be.”

She looked at him, uneasily, as he focused once more on me. “It is an insult to draw a weapon in the presence of a monarch you don’t serve,” he said.

“I’m well aware. I’ve been insulted by the Divided Courts more times than I can count. Fortunately, my weapons don’t need drawing.” I turned my left wrist toward the ceiling, laying the fingers of my right hand across it and flexing them, extending my claws in the process. The pain of them punching through my skin was almost grounding, making it easier to breathe.

I withdrew my claws as soon as I smelled blood. It was hard not to smile as I did, considering that October would have ripped her wrist open to get as much blood as possible, even before she’d learned how quickly and completely she could heal. My little fish always had been inclined toward the dramatic, even though I knew she’d deny it if asked.

I thrust my hand toward Simon, trying to focus on a memory I knew he’d find minimal fault with: October in her red-and-white gown, dropping rose petals like raindrops as she walked out of the wood on his arm, ready to be wed. Oh, there had been blood that day, and some of it my own, but that had come after Simon brought her to me.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“I’m bleeding,” I said, and he nodded, understanding my assent. Carefully, he took my hand and lowered his mouth to the wound, the gesture so like October doing the same that it ached to see. Still, I didn’t pull away, but thought of the way my heart had leapt at the sight of her, the feeling of my blood turned electric and effervescent at the same time, like it was going to come boiling out of my veins and leave me dead on the floor. She had been so beautiful, walking toward me—toward me—with that look on her face, like she had never seen anything finer in her life.

I could live another dozen centuries and never see anything as beautiful as she’d been in that moment. If I were trying to decide whether a strange man claiming to act in the best interests of my daughter was telling the truth, I would have liked to see a memory like that.

Simon swallowed once, twice, and then broke away, staggering several steps back and going still. His throat worked as his eyes went glassy and his eyelids drooped, making him look half-asleep.

I pulled my arm back, wrapping my hand around the punctures in my wrist. Ginevra was already moving toward me, producing a roll of gauze from inside her shirt and sighing.

“Here I thought that maybe Toby not being around would keep me from needing to use the first aid kit I carry for a change,” she said.

“Come now, you never use it on her anyway.” I smiled. “She heals too quickly.”

“Yeah, and she’d never let me if I tried.” She wrapped my wrist.

August, meanwhile, was moving to where Simon had caught himself against the wall, still staring off into nothingness. “Father?” she said, voice small and somehow meek. “Father, are you all right? Did he hurt you somehow?”

“He . . .” Simon sighed, voice faltering and failing him. Then he turned to look back at me. “He’s not lying to us.”