Page 82 of The Innocent Sleep

“In part, yes. I don’t think we have the best relationship in your Faerie.”

“No, not precisely, but it’s not as bad as it once was, either.” I was very aware that the muttering in the back had stopped, August now paying close attention to every word I said. “You were a boy when we first met, as was I, children in Londinium, wild things running feral through your family’s estate. We weren’t close as we grew, and when we met again as adults, you were a married man, a father, and quite content with where your life had gone. You had no need for your frustrating childhood companion, and Amy was . . . less than enamored with any reminders of those days. I let you be, and remained at a distance as the life you’d built so carefully began to crumble. First your best friend married a mermaid and went to the sea, and then—”

“My best friend—you mean Patrick? Patrick Twycross?”

“Yes. You know him in this Faerie as well?”

“I did. He died in the Earthquake, crushed when King Gilad’s knowe collapsed. If he’d been willing to take my lady’s offer of a place in Goldengreen, he might have lived. But instead, he was lost.”

Oh, wasn’t the real world going to be a revelation for this version of Simon? “Things didn’t follow that precise path in the world I know,” I said, delicately evading the topic. “But he left, and your service to the woman you call ‘patron’ became more intense and frequent, until it seemed to strain your relationship with Amy. Things might have recovered, had August not vanished during the Earthquake, leaving you desperate to find her. Your patron offered support and aid, if only you would give yourself over to her will completely. So you did.”

I stopped there. Simon’s hands tightened on the wheel.

“And?”

“She lied. The aid she gave was minimal at best, designed to keep you in her service as long as possible. She gave you as a pet to her favorite assassin, Oleander de Merelands, and together, the two of you terrorized the Mists in her name for decades. You broke your brother’s heart. Your wife did not divorce you, for Amy never gives up what she owns, but for a long time, you were estranged from her, and my October grew to adulthood not knowing your relationship to one another. She has only recently begun to acknowledge you as any sort of presence in her life.”

“All of which combined would explain the way you looked at me in those memories, like I was a danger who needed to be kept as far as possible from your family.” Simon sighed. “More and more, I come to believe that you’re right—your Faerie, being the original, needs to be restored, or many more will suffer than already have. But there are aspects of it that wound me, even held at such remove.”

“I don’t see why we have to put their Faerie back,” said August from the backseat, voice low and dangerous. “Can’t we just make Titania stop hurting people, and then fix the Faerie we have?”

“There are aspects of this Faerie that are entirely incompatible with the real one,” I said, slowly. “Even if we could, as you so naively suggest, somehow make Titania stop, we would no longer belong to the same reality as the Faerie outside the range of her enchantment. What would happen to us when we inevitably came into contact with the world unchanged? With the nobles who expected us to honor agreements we no longer remembered, or with the Firstborn furious that their descendant lines had been erased within this bubble? We would become a thorn jammed into the lion’s paw. Infection would follow, and rot, and we would inevitably be pulled loose. It’s better that we end this quickly and of our own volition, when there remains a chance that we might heal.”

“I hate it,” said August.

“That’s fair enough,” I allowed. “No one is asking you to feel otherwise. And at the same time, you can hate something—you can hate something with every fiber of your being, rage against it in every possible way—and still see it for the best choice in a bad situation. I’ve been forced to agree to things I hated on a fairly frequent basis, because of that terrible truism.”

“It’s not fair.”

I laughed. “Now I do believe you for my October’s sister. She makes that complaint with far more commonality than anyone else I’ve ever known.”

August slumped back in her seat, arms crossed, sulking. Garm frowned and watched her, but didn’t say anything.

As that had quieted their endless complaining, I didn’t object. We rode the rest of the way to Muir Beach in silence, reaching the parking lot reserved for beach-goers as the sky was beginning to grow light around the edges, darkness fading into a deep, plummy blue as the stars winked out of view.

Simon pulled into an open space even as the console announced our arrival at our destination, turning off the engine and getting out of the car. The rest of us followed him. August pointed at a sign.

“This says the beach isn’t open yet,” she said. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“According to October, the human authorities are unlikely to patrol this area so close to sunrise. If they see the car at all, they may issue a ticket, which it will fall upon Theron to pay. We won’t be here.”

“Where are we going?”

“There.” I pointed to the waterline. It wasn’t far, maybe five hundred feet or so by walkway, which was open and clear, the wood lightly dusted with sand. “Simple don’t-look-here spells will keep anyone from seeing us when we don’t want them to.”

“Or I could throw up a screen to keep any humans who chance by from noticing us,” offered Garm. He shrugged when we all turned to look at him. “Illusions are sort of my thing. Let me feel useful.”

“All right,” I said. “Shield us.”

Garm closed his eyes and lifted his hands. We were in sight of the sea, but for a moment, all that rose around us was marsh, the smell of moss and stagnant water. Nothing changed. Garm lowered his hands again.

“There,” he said, with some satisfaction. “Anyone looking in our direction won’t see anything out of the ordinary, and we’ll be able to conduct our business.”

“Assuming these allies of yours show up,” said August. “Are you sure they got your message?”

“Quite,” I said, and started down the walkway, forcing the others to follow or be left behind. “Whether they’ll be able to reach the surface is another question, and open for discussion until the sunrise passes.”

“If they don’t show up, what happens then?” asked Simon.