Page 38 of A Divided Duty

“I need to talk to the Luidaeg,” I said.

“Very well.” He stepped forward and swept me into his arms, smirking only a little when I went without resistance. “How often I dreamed of a world where you would come with me willingly.”

“Down, Shakespeare,” I said, half-amused. “We need to focus right now. Raysel needs us.”

“I am aware,” he said, sobering. He began to step backward, and I inhaled quickly, squeezing my eyes shut just before he pulled me into the shadows.

As before, it was a race through the dark and cold, Tybalt’s arms around me and his heartbeat keeping time as I nestled closer to his chest and tried to focus on the sound of it vibrating through my bones. Everything seemed to slow. There was never going to be air again. I was never going to be warm again. I was—

—emerging back into the mortal world, the humid air of the San Francisco summer slapping me across the face and literally breaking through the ice. I gasped as he set me on my feet, then began pawing the frost out of my eyelashes, wishing I hadn’t bothered with mascara as it shattered and fell away in gritty clumps.

When I opened my eyes he was standing a few feet away, silhouetted in the mouth of the alley where we’d arrived, and already wearing an illusion that dulled the points of his ears, rounded his pupils, and made him look entirely too human for my tastes. I inhaled through my nose, exhaled slowly, and reached into the air, grabbing a handful of shadows from the space near the wall.

“Wee Willie Winky runs through the town, upstairs and downstairs, in his nightgown,” I chanted, staccato. “Tapping at the window, crying at the lock, my parents are going to lose custody of me due to neglect.”

My magic gathered around me, bursting in a glittering shell of cut grass and copper, and leaving me as human-seeming as my husband. Even my dress changed, becoming less ready for the Renaissance Faire, more suited to a night at one of the city’s nicer restaurants.

“All better?” Tybalt asked.

“Ready to get on with things,” I said, and stepped out of the alley, looking up and down the sidewalk before I started walking, Tybalt close behind.

San Francisco is a city of hills and humans. The hills come with the territory, the humans flock to the promise of nightlife and fine dining, looking for an adventure, ignoring the fact that many of their kin live in the city full-time, forced out of their homes and historical stomping grounds by the rapid gentrification of the area. We passed several small homeless encampments, walls made of cardboard and scavenged tents whose occupants watched us go with exhausted eyes, not questioning our presence in their territory, not calling attention to themselves lest we decide to involve the authorities.

Maybe it’s because fae are so much rarer than humans, but sometimes humanity exhausts me more than I can possibly say. I didn’t have any mortal currency on me, nothing I could offer to make their night easier, and so I walked on, staying close to Tybalt until we reached the short avenue that held our destination.

The Luidaeg has lived in San Francisco since before the city burned down, all the way back in 1906. She’s a landmark without foundations, an unchanging fixture. As far as I know, she’s been in the same neighborhood the whole time, holding her ground as the city grew and changed and gentrified around her. Her apartment building is shabby and run-down, in part because her presence discourages maintenance, while also holding the worst ravages of entropy at bay. As long as she’s there, paint will peel but roofs won’t leak, glass will break but pipes won’t burst. Don’t ask me how it works. That’s magic way beyond my pay grade. She casts her spells, she protects her home, and the humans who live nearby have lower rates of sickness and personal disaster than they do anywhere else in the city.

We walked halfway down the block, and while we had to step over a reasonable amount of broken glass, the sidewalk itself was smooth and unbroken, no potholes. That was better than probably any other low-income stretch of sidewalk in the city.

Then there was her building, and I pulled ahead, taking the lead up to her door. Tybalt trailed along behind me, not trying to push himself forward. He knew better than that. The Luidaeg isn’t always in the mood for company. And by “always” I mean “usually.”

Raising my hand, I knocked, then stepped back and waited.

Seconds ticked by, gathering until they became minutes. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, glancing over my shoulder at Tybalt, who was doing a much better job of feigning patience than I was. Turning back to the door, I took a deep breath, started to count, and kept waiting.

I had just reached five hundred when the door swung open and the Luidaeg was there, dressed in her customary overalls and electrical tape, and scowling at us.

“Whatever you’re selling, we don’t want any,” she snarled.

“Luidaeg, it’s us,” I said hastily. Illusions meant we could be anybody if she didn’t want to make the effort to see through them, but most illusions don’t do anything to disguise voices. Hopefully she would still know me.

Indeed, she paused, eyes briefly widening before she gave me a hard look. “Toby? And the cat, I presume? What are you assholes doing here? Shouldn’t you be home bonding with your little bundle of uncontrolled bowel movements?”

“We should, but we’re not,” I said. “There’s been an incident at court. Can we come in?”

The wording there was important. It didn’t matter whether or not we were allowed to come in: it was entirely possible it would be something we couldn’t physically do. The Luidaeg appeared to contemplate that for a moment, then stepped to the side, still holding the door open.

“Should be fine,” she said. “Come on in.”

We stepped inside, dropping our illusions as we did. The temperature in the apartment was several degrees cooler than it had been outside, and the air smelled of salt and high tide, as sweet as the sea ever was. The usual illusion of decay and disrepair that she liked to throw over the place was missing, revealing a fairly ordinary, well-kept city apartment, with a polished wood floor and walls painted a neutral shade of cornflower blue.

I shot her a curious look as she closed the door. She shrugged.

“Dad doesn’t like me pretending to live in squalor,” she said. “He says it makes it look like he didn’t raise me properly.”

“Luidaeg, he didn’t raise you at all,” I said.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he wants it to look that way,” she countered. “If it makes him more comfortable when I leave the illusions down, I’m fine with it. I want him to be happy.” Unsaid was that she wanted him to stay, and any deviation from his wishes might cause him to go.