Page 57 of Night and Silence

“I know the story. Sort of. I was never sure how much of it was accurate and how much of it was people who weren’t there making things up.”

Everyone knew the story. Maeve’s last Ride, the night that broke Faerie forever. It was history and legend and cautionary tale, it was the moment when an empire fell and became an afterthought, all because of one human girl and her outstretched, grasping hands. It was the end. It was the beginning.

It was where we got lost.

“Then let me tell it to you,” said the Luidaeg, voice like high tide rolling across the beach. “Let me tell you about a time when Faerie was open to her children, when my father and his Queens still kept Court and counsel. It was my mother’s turn to host the Ride, and she had chosen her sacrifice, a mortal man by the name of Tam Lin. He was a liar and a poet and a sybarite, and he’d been more than happy to take his side of the bargain. For near seven years he’d feasted on the fruits of Faerie, growing fat and happy and rich beyond mortal measure at our expense. And then, when time was almost up, he decided he didn’t want to die for us after all.”

“Die for us?” blurted Quentin. “Why would he need to die for us?”

I kept my mouth shut for a change, glad that he’d asked before I could. It was nice to look like I knew what the hell was going on.

The Luidaeg looked briefly uneasy. “Things were different then,” she said, finally. “Every seven years, we made an offering to Faerie, to keep us healthy and strong. Tam Lin was to have been the latest in a string of brief, bright lives, stretching all the way back to our beginning.”

“You were going to murder him,” snarled Janet, seeming to forget her fear.

“He was destined for the gallows when my mother found him,” said the Luidaeg. “We gave him seven years that might as well have been stolen. We gave him everything he asked for.”

“Except for his freedom,” said Janet.

“Who among us is free?” The Luidaeg spread her hands, indicating the apartment walls. “We’re all bound by promises and obligations and fealties we had no say in. No one’s free, not unless they’ve slit a hundred throats to get that way. He made a promise. He took a vow. He said he’d die for us, and when he didn’t—when you broke my mother’s Ride—Maeve had to go in his place or throw everything out of balance. Only it turns out that taking one of my father’s queens away throws everything out of balance in a whole different way. Everything we’ve suffered, everything Faerie has suffered in the last five hundred years, it’s all down to you.”

“I didn’t know,” said Janet.

“Oh, didn’t you? They told you not to go to Caughterha, didn’t they, Jenny?” The Luidaeg’s lip curled as she looked at Janet. “They told you what you’d find there wasn’t yours to have. But you went anyway. Greedy little girl. Had to have it all.”

“I’ve paid for what I did, and not everyone said to stay away,” said Janet. There was no fire in her voice. “I was a child.”

“You were a thief.”

“I was a child.” Janet shook her head. “I paid for what I did. I paid, and I paid, and I paid, and no one came to save me from the consequences of my own actions. No one even said I deserved saving. You can be as angry with me as you like, but there’s no way you can pretend I haven’t suffered.”

“You don’t know what it means to suffer, human,” said the Luidaeg. “You have no idea.”

“Maybe she does and maybe she doesn’t, but we brought her here because we need you to keep her safe,” I said. “Please, Luidaeg. Can you protect her?”

The Luidaeg turned and stared at me. Then she sniffed the air. “Blood,” she said, sounding disgusted. “How much blood are you wearing right now?”

“Some,” I said. “That’s not the point.”

“Oh, isn’t it?” She snapped her fingers. The air briefly became a haze of conflicting scents as our illusions—all of them—were ripped away, leaving the four of us with something to hide fully revealed.

Janet gasped. Whether because of the blood or because she was suddenly in the presence of four unmasked fae, it was difficult to say. Quentin and May made almost identical noises of displeasure.

“Do you have any blood left inside your body?” Quentin demanded.

“I asked her much the same,” said Tybalt.

“Dad’s eyes, Toby, sometimes I wonder how you’ve lived as long as you have.” The Luidaeg stood. “I’m making you a sandwich before you fall over. That’ll give me a minute to calm down, and when I get back, you’re going to eat, and you’re going to tell me exactly what the fuck you think you’re doing. If I like what you have to say, maybe I’ll let you keep all your limbs.”

“They’d grow back, and you know it,” I said.

“That’s what makes threatening to pull them off so much fun,” she said, and swept out of the room.

Janet started to rise. “Now’s our chance. We can run.”

May pushed her back down. “No,” she said coldly. “We stay.”

Janet gave her a wounded look. “You’re a Fetch. You’re new to Faerie. You shouldn’t share their preconceived notions of who I am.”