Ashes of Honor
Page 24
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“Toby…”
“Yeah, kid. I see it, too.”
The Luidaeg stopped at the end of the hall, turning back to scowl at us. “Are you going to come inside or not?”
Quentin and I exchanged a look before stepping into the hall. The door swung shut behind us, and we walked down the hall to the pristine living room. The couches—which had always been splotched with patches of muck and mold before—were clearly antique but well cared-for. There were even a few pictures on the walls, all images of oceans. I recognized one of them as having been taken at Half Moon Bay, near the home of Connor’s family. The Luidaeg has an…interesting…relationship with the Selkie families. They owe her their existence. She’s planning to call in that debt soon, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to involve me.
“What the hell happened here?” I asked, looking toward the Luidaeg.
“Like I said, the place isn’t ready for company. If you’d called first…”
The Daoine Sidhe are illusionists. Maybe that’s why Quentin was the one to say, indignantly, “You mean you’ve been pretending this place was a pigsty all this time?”
“I never said ‘this place is a pigsty,’ did I?” asked the Luidaeg. “I never lied to you. I’ve never lied to either of you. I just let you think what you wanted to think. If you’d ever asked…”
I shook my head. “But let me guess. If I’d asked, ‘Is the apartment always like this?’ you would have said, ‘No, sometimes it’s a mess,’ and let me think it just got worse instead of telling me that it was spotless under a glamour.”
“Yup,” said the Luidaeg. “Or if you’d asked, ‘Don’t you ever clean?’ I would have said I cleaned all the time. Lies and truth are all in how you’re looking at them. That’s something you, out of everyone, should have figured out by now.” She yawned, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “Now what the fuck do you people want? This is ‘rip your heads off and leave your bodies as a warning to others’ early.”
Quentin grinned. Apparently, threats of dire physical harm from the Luidaeg made him happy. Weird kid. At least I could take some small pleasure in knowing that I was part of what made him that way. “It’s good to see you, too.”
“Uh-huh.” She went stomping toward the kitchen. “I’m making some fucking tea.”
Sometimes I think the Luidaeg uses human profanity as much as she does just because she’s trying to shock me. I ignored it and followed her, with Quentin close behind me.
The kitchen was as clean as the rest of the apartment. None of the appliances were newer than the early 1970s, but they were all spotless, with no dents or signs of rust. “You want some?” the Luidaeg asked, picking up a kettle and moving to fill it with water from the tap.
“Depends. Is that freshwater or saltwater?”
She cast a wry smile in my direction. “You’re catching on to the way things work. No tea for you. Now what in Dad’s name are you two doing here? Shit’s got to be pretty bad if you’re showing up on my doorstep before I’ve had my beauty sleep.”
I couldn’t think of a way to ease her into the situation, so I didn’t bother: “Etienne has a changeling daughter that nobody knew about, including him. And now she’s missing.”
“So?” The Luidaeg put the kettle on the stove. “Sounds like that saves him the trouble of giving her the Choice.”
“Etienne’s Tuatha.”
“So?”
“So the ‘car trouble’ I mentioned? Was the roof of my car getting smashed in by an Afanc looking for a place to sleep.”
The Luidaeg turned to stare at me. I kept on talking.
“Sylvester assumed it escaped from someone’s menagerie. He’s taken it back to Shadowed Hills until they can track down whoever owns it. But they’re not going to find an owner, are they? That thing came straight from Tirn Aill. Chelsea—Etienne’s daughter—her magic smells like sycamore smoke and calla lilies. I smelled it on the Afanc.”
The Luidaeg paled. That, in and of itself, was terrifying. “It’s happening again,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Oh, sweet Mother, it’s happening again.”
“What’s happening again? Luidaeg, talk to me. I need to know what’s going on. I need to find Chelsea.”
“Oh, you need to find her, all right,” said the Luidaeg. She shook her head. Somewhere in the middle of the gesture, the humanity left her face, acne scars and tan fading away. She was left with a faint mother-of-pearl undertone to her skin…and the freckles. They seemed to be permanent, no matter what shape she took. The Luidaeg can be distressingly protean, and I may never know what she really looks like. I’m not certain I want to. “You need to find her now.”
“How?” asked Quentin. We both turned to look at him. He was frowning. “I know we need to find her. That’s why we’re here. We can’t teleport. How are we supposed to find her?”
I looked back to the Luidaeg. “How bad can this get?”
“Bad,” she said. “I’m assuming you’ve both heard about the changelings who go wrong when their magic comes in.”
“Instead of getting all the limits and none of the power, they get all the power and none of the limits,” I said. “I think everyone’s heard those stories.”
“Yeah, well. Have you ever met one of those changelings?”
“No.” Every changeling I’d ever known, myself included, was magically weaker than their fae parent. The horror stories about uncontrollable changeling magic destroying knowes and burning human cities had always seemed to be just that: horror stories, usually trotted out by pureblood kids who wanted to remind us that we weren’t just less than they were, we were potentially going to go bad.
“So if they’re that rare, why do the stories endure?” asked the Luidaeg. “Faerie is usually happy to forget the bad things. Hell, we practically race to see who can forget them first. Maybe some people don’t like changelings, but shouldn’t they still be happy to forget about the disasters that happened years ago, to somebody else?”
I didn’t say anything. Neither did Quentin. We just waited.
The Luidaeg shook her head. “We remember because when it does happen, when this sort of thing does go wrong, it’s so fucking bad that no one can pretend it didn’t happen. The last time there was a Tuatha de Dannan changeling with the strength to smash his way through the walls Oberon erected between us and everywhere else, it was…bad.”
“Yeah, kid. I see it, too.”
The Luidaeg stopped at the end of the hall, turning back to scowl at us. “Are you going to come inside or not?”
Quentin and I exchanged a look before stepping into the hall. The door swung shut behind us, and we walked down the hall to the pristine living room. The couches—which had always been splotched with patches of muck and mold before—were clearly antique but well cared-for. There were even a few pictures on the walls, all images of oceans. I recognized one of them as having been taken at Half Moon Bay, near the home of Connor’s family. The Luidaeg has an…interesting…relationship with the Selkie families. They owe her their existence. She’s planning to call in that debt soon, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to involve me.
“What the hell happened here?” I asked, looking toward the Luidaeg.
“Like I said, the place isn’t ready for company. If you’d called first…”
The Daoine Sidhe are illusionists. Maybe that’s why Quentin was the one to say, indignantly, “You mean you’ve been pretending this place was a pigsty all this time?”
“I never said ‘this place is a pigsty,’ did I?” asked the Luidaeg. “I never lied to you. I’ve never lied to either of you. I just let you think what you wanted to think. If you’d ever asked…”
I shook my head. “But let me guess. If I’d asked, ‘Is the apartment always like this?’ you would have said, ‘No, sometimes it’s a mess,’ and let me think it just got worse instead of telling me that it was spotless under a glamour.”
“Yup,” said the Luidaeg. “Or if you’d asked, ‘Don’t you ever clean?’ I would have said I cleaned all the time. Lies and truth are all in how you’re looking at them. That’s something you, out of everyone, should have figured out by now.” She yawned, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “Now what the fuck do you people want? This is ‘rip your heads off and leave your bodies as a warning to others’ early.”
Quentin grinned. Apparently, threats of dire physical harm from the Luidaeg made him happy. Weird kid. At least I could take some small pleasure in knowing that I was part of what made him that way. “It’s good to see you, too.”
“Uh-huh.” She went stomping toward the kitchen. “I’m making some fucking tea.”
Sometimes I think the Luidaeg uses human profanity as much as she does just because she’s trying to shock me. I ignored it and followed her, with Quentin close behind me.
The kitchen was as clean as the rest of the apartment. None of the appliances were newer than the early 1970s, but they were all spotless, with no dents or signs of rust. “You want some?” the Luidaeg asked, picking up a kettle and moving to fill it with water from the tap.
“Depends. Is that freshwater or saltwater?”
She cast a wry smile in my direction. “You’re catching on to the way things work. No tea for you. Now what in Dad’s name are you two doing here? Shit’s got to be pretty bad if you’re showing up on my doorstep before I’ve had my beauty sleep.”
I couldn’t think of a way to ease her into the situation, so I didn’t bother: “Etienne has a changeling daughter that nobody knew about, including him. And now she’s missing.”
“So?” The Luidaeg put the kettle on the stove. “Sounds like that saves him the trouble of giving her the Choice.”
“Etienne’s Tuatha.”
“So?”
“So the ‘car trouble’ I mentioned? Was the roof of my car getting smashed in by an Afanc looking for a place to sleep.”
The Luidaeg turned to stare at me. I kept on talking.
“Sylvester assumed it escaped from someone’s menagerie. He’s taken it back to Shadowed Hills until they can track down whoever owns it. But they’re not going to find an owner, are they? That thing came straight from Tirn Aill. Chelsea—Etienne’s daughter—her magic smells like sycamore smoke and calla lilies. I smelled it on the Afanc.”
The Luidaeg paled. That, in and of itself, was terrifying. “It’s happening again,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Oh, sweet Mother, it’s happening again.”
“What’s happening again? Luidaeg, talk to me. I need to know what’s going on. I need to find Chelsea.”
“Oh, you need to find her, all right,” said the Luidaeg. She shook her head. Somewhere in the middle of the gesture, the humanity left her face, acne scars and tan fading away. She was left with a faint mother-of-pearl undertone to her skin…and the freckles. They seemed to be permanent, no matter what shape she took. The Luidaeg can be distressingly protean, and I may never know what she really looks like. I’m not certain I want to. “You need to find her now.”
“How?” asked Quentin. We both turned to look at him. He was frowning. “I know we need to find her. That’s why we’re here. We can’t teleport. How are we supposed to find her?”
I looked back to the Luidaeg. “How bad can this get?”
“Bad,” she said. “I’m assuming you’ve both heard about the changelings who go wrong when their magic comes in.”
“Instead of getting all the limits and none of the power, they get all the power and none of the limits,” I said. “I think everyone’s heard those stories.”
“Yeah, well. Have you ever met one of those changelings?”
“No.” Every changeling I’d ever known, myself included, was magically weaker than their fae parent. The horror stories about uncontrollable changeling magic destroying knowes and burning human cities had always seemed to be just that: horror stories, usually trotted out by pureblood kids who wanted to remind us that we weren’t just less than they were, we were potentially going to go bad.
“So if they’re that rare, why do the stories endure?” asked the Luidaeg. “Faerie is usually happy to forget the bad things. Hell, we practically race to see who can forget them first. Maybe some people don’t like changelings, but shouldn’t they still be happy to forget about the disasters that happened years ago, to somebody else?”
I didn’t say anything. Neither did Quentin. We just waited.
The Luidaeg shook her head. “We remember because when it does happen, when this sort of thing does go wrong, it’s so fucking bad that no one can pretend it didn’t happen. The last time there was a Tuatha de Dannan changeling with the strength to smash his way through the walls Oberon erected between us and everywhere else, it was…bad.”
