Page 11 of A Divided Duty

Maybe that meant I could still make him understand, even if I had to talk to Luna and get her to pull back on her threats. Maybe there was still a chance. “I’m sorry I haven’t brought Andi to meet you yet,” I said. “We haven’t really been taking her out of the house. After everything that happened when she was born, I’m a little more anxious than I probably ought to be about keeping her safe, and Tybalt’s been more than willing to go along with it. We’re not going to lock her up, play princess in the tower, do what Amandine did to me in the other world and August in this one, but we’d like her to be a little older before we move her around too much. Still, we can ask Chelsea to portal us over. We’ll go straight from the safety of our home to the safety of yours, and there won’t be any danger. I want Andi to know you. I want her to grow up with her Uncle Sylvester, who looks too much like her Grandpa Simon and gives her cookies after I’ve said she can’t have any before dinner. I want you to be a part of her life.”

“So why haven’t you been asking me to be?”

“I was waiting for you,” I said, with complete honesty. “You’re the one who pushed me away, Sylvester. You’re the one who said what Luna wanted was more important than our friendship, or my fealty, or the fact that we’re family. And she’s your wife. I understand how I feel about Tybalt, and how I’d react if you asked me to choose between him and you. I wasn’t going to put you in that position.”

“I … see.”

“Simon wants a relationship with you, too,” I added. “I was there when the two of you talked, after Titania attacked Muir Woods. I thought … it seemed like you were going to find a way back to each other, even if it was a complicated one. It seemed like you thought there was a chance.”

“I did,” said Sylvester. He lifted his head and looked at me. “And then I saw a world where he was happy and I wasn’t allowed to be. Where he had his family and his own life to lead, and barely needed me anymore. Both of us, when we have a home, we turn inward and we focus on that home. You do the same. I like to think you learned that from me, because you certainly didn’t learn it from your mother.”

I blinked. “Wait. Are you telling me you’re not reaching out to your twin brother because you’re jealous that Titania liked him better? Has someone explained to you that she only gave him the better life because she was planning to use him as the sacrifice that would let her lock in her version of Faerie forever? He got to be happy because the sacrifice requires seven years of paradise before the spell can work properly, Sylvester! She hates you both, for whatever ridiculous reason.”

“Because we were born changelings,” he said. “Because we’ll never be good enough in her eyes, and nothing we can do will change that.”

“I’m not sure I’d want to be good enough in her eyes. She’s a bigoted megalomaniac. Not the best role model.” I paused, taking a deep breath and trying to settle myself. “And it doesn’t matter. Titania doesn’t matter. She’s gone.”

“For now,” he said, grimly.

“She’s gone, and we’re here, and I came to tell you, with all honesty, that if you try to force Raysel back to Shadowed Hills before she’s ready, you may keep Luna—for now—but you’re going to lose your daughter.”

He flinched like I’d just jabbed him with a needle, breath catching in his throat, and simply stared at me.

“She’s scared, Sylvester. She’s still trying to put her head back together after everything that’s happened to her, and because of the way she grew up, she doesn’t have much of a baseline for what her version of ‘normal’ looks like.”

“Her mother—”

“Loves her, I know. And I know you love her. I know how badly it messed you up when she went missing the first time. You’re not doing any of this to be cruel. But Raysel needs stability right now. She needs to stay where she feels safe, and she needs to keep seeing her therapist, and she needs to not feel like she’s disappointing her mother just by breathing.”

“Luna is … biologically, Luna is a plant more than she’s a mammal,” said Sylvester haltingly. “We were only able to conceive Raysel because Luna’s body had been tricked into believing it was something else. Now that she’s shed that borrowed skin, Jin believes we’ll be unable to have another child.”

That was probably a mixed reality—I couldn’t call it a blessing, because I knew how much joy Sylvester had taken in being a father, and how much he had hoped to give Raysel a sibling someday. Torquills have historically been unusually fertile, with Sylvester being one of three children. Most pureblood fae are lucky to have one. It was understandable that he might have hoped the Torquill fertility would translate to him as well. And Simon had three biological children, between August and the twins. That had to sting, knowing that his twin brother had been able to achieve what most fae could only dream of.

“There are other ways of having children,” I said, thinking of my relationship with Quentin—or hell, my relationship with Simon. “You could adopt. You could foster. There are so many changeling kids who need a home…”

“No,” he said. “No. I love my wife. I want to have children with her or not at all.”

“Okay. You’re not losing Raysel, Sylvester. Not if you can loosen your grip enough to let her breathe. She’s not done recovering yet.”

“And she can’t recover here?”

“Honestly, without betraying her confidence, no, I don’t think she can.” I shook my head. “She would try if she thought she could manage it, because she loves you and she misses you, and we’re a safe place to be for now, but that doesn’t make us her home. But this is where everyone expects her to be the adult version of the little girl they knew. Even Etienne does it. They look at her and see something that’s been broken, something that isn’t the way it was supposed to be. And that’s not fair. She’s not broken. Maybe she’s not who she would have been if Evening hadn’t interfered, but that doesn’t make her any less herself.”

“You mean if my brother hadn’t abducted her, stolen her away from her home and family, and shoved her into a hole to rot.”

I took a deep breath. “Yes, what Simon did was terrible, and unforgivable, and I still have issues with it myself sometimes,” I said. “But if he hadn’t been the one Evening sent to hurt them, they’d both be dead. You know that, right? He was trying his hardest to keep them alive. It was just a matter of having no good options left.”

“Like I have no good options left?” Sylvester laughed, low and unsteady and terrible. “Let my daughter stay with you, lose my wife forever, and I’m alone. Bring my daughter home, betray her in a way that she’ll never forgive me for. My brother and I already share a face. Why shouldn’t I replace him as the subject of her nightmares?”

“Right.” I took a step back, spreading my hands. “I love you, Sylvester. You’re my liege and my friend and I love you. But I have a duty to that girl, and I won’t let you hurt her.”

“You have a duty to me. You swore your oaths to me.”

A shiver ran through my entire body, cold and sickening. “Yes, I do,” I said, voice going soft. “I owe you my fealty. But if you order me to bring her back to you when I’ve already told you it will hurt her, I will counter by asking you to release me. You haven’t been acting like my liege for a while now, and this will be the last straw. You can lose Luna for the hope of keeping your daughter, and me, or you can keep her and lose us both. I’m not the one forcing your hand here. Neither is Raysel.”

“No. My wife is.” He sighed. “I think you should go now, before one of us says something that we’re both going to regret.”

“I think you’re probably right.” I began to turn toward the study door. “Open roads, Your Grace.”