The doors were heavy, but Quentin and I were able to get them open, revealing the spacious cavern of a room on the other side. We started across the black-and-white checkerboard marble floor, toward the dais on the far side. Everything smelled of roses. Not my mother’s roses, thank Maeve; these were cultivated things, pampered garden flowers, trained and raised up by a loving hand. Luna is one of the best gardeners in the Westlands, and she specializes in roses, which makes sense, since technically she is a rose. She’s of the Blodynbryd, a form of rose Dryad, and where she walks, flowers bloom.
That wasn’t always how I’d known her. Luna is Blind Michael’s youngest daughter. When we’d met, she had been claiming to be a Kitsune, wrapped so tightly in the stolen skin of one of her father’s victims that the change had run all the way down to the bone. The magic she used to make the change was similar to the spell the Luidaeg used to create the Selkies, but unlike the Selkies, Luna had never been able to put her Kitsune skin aside. She’d been trapped, wrapped in hot, mammalian emotions and biology, until her own daughter tried to kill her and, in the process, stripped the stolen skin away.
The Torquills are a complicated family. I’m still not sure how I feel about being legally one of them.
A door opened behind the dais, and Sylvester rushed out. He was wearing tan pants and a white muslin shirt, and nothing else: for a Duke, he was barely presentable. I didn’t care. Relief washed over me, coupled with a sudden hope that maybe, just maybe, we could find another way. Sylvester had loved his brother, once. Who was to say he hadn’t truly known his brother’s daughter?
“October,” he said, hurrying toward us. “What’s wrong?” He scanned our small group, and frowned. “Where’s Tybalt?”
There’s no love lost between my liege and my lover, but he still noticed when Tybalt wasn’t there. That made me feel even more hopeful. Sylvester noticed things.
“Is Etienne coming back?” I asked. “I don’t want to repeat this more than I have to.”
“I’m here,” said a voice behind me.
I turned. There was Etienne, with a yawning Grianne standing next to him, her Merry Dancers bobbing sleepily in the air to either side of her head. I’d been so distracted that I hadn’t even noticed the scent of his magic. That wasn’t good. This was not the time for me to start losing my focus. Not if I wanted to bring them home alive.
“Good,” I said, and looked back to Sylvester. “Amandine came to my house and demanded I find August for her. She took Tybalt and Jasmine as collateral against my doing what she says. The Luidaeg can’t help me. I need someone who knew August to help me figure out where she could have gone, before my mother does something that can’t be undone. Can you help me?”
“I . . .” He stopped, looking stricken. “I don’t know where my niece is. I’m so sorry. I tried to find her when she disappeared. I was still a hero then, I thought I could save her, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything but watch my brother break himself against walls that I couldn’t even see. I tried to help him. He pushed me away. He said it was my fault his family had been broken, that if I . . . if I hadn’t encouraged August to heroism, she would never have wandered from the path he had charted for her. I don’t know where she went. I don’t even know if she’s alive.”
Everything seemed to freeze. My breath caught in my throat as I stared at him, absorbing the true enormity of his final words.
What if August was dead?
What if she hadn’t just disappeared, all those years ago: what if she had died, and was no longer out there to be found? Would Amandine take proof of death as my bringing her daughter home, or would she say that I’d failed to do the one thing she had ever asked of me? Would she punish Tybalt and Jazz because I couldn’t raise the dead?
“I need to talk to Simon,” I heard myself say. It seemed impossible for me to be speaking, since my entire body was numb, but I was doing it. Good job, me. “He’s the only person left who might be able to help me find her.”
“If you wish to enter his dreams, I’m sure—”
“No.” I raised my head slightly, meeting his eyes and refusing to let myself look away. “I need to talk to him. Not in a dream. Not in a blood memory. I need to wake him up and make him help me find her, before Amandine hurts our people. Please, Sylvester. Please, I am begging you. Let me wake your brother.”
His face was stone. He didn’t speak, and so neither did I. I just looked at him, silently pleading.
Sylvester Torquill is Daoine Sidhe, like Quentin, like his brother: the descendants of Eira Rosynhwyr, daughter of Titania and Oberon. Daoine Sidhe trend toward the beautiful, with dramatic coloration and perfectly sculpted features, and Sylvester is no different. His hair is russet red, like fox fur, and his eyes are the clear gold of wildflower honey. He wore his face with kindness, and his twin brother had always seemed to wear it with cruelty . . . at least until I’d seen Simon elf-shot for my sake. Until I’d traveled through his memories, and seen how much he loved his family. The brothers have more in common than they might ever admit, and I needed both of them to be willing to help me.
Sylvester looked away first. “He hurt my child,” he said, voice thick with loathing. “He took her from me, damaged her in ways that may never heal. He stole my wife. Why? Because he was alone, and wanted me to be alone as well? Because he thought I didn’t deserve to be happy if he couldn’t be?”
“Sylvester—”
“He took you!” Sylvester spun back to face me, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me once, for emphasis. “You, who should have been my daughter, for all the care your mother offered you, for all the love I showed you! He stole the child of my blood, and then he stole the child of my heart, and I still don’t have either of you back! Why should I let you wake him up, when he deserves to suffer for eternity for what he’s done to me?”
“Because Jazz doesn’t deserve to suffer,” I said softly. “Because Tybalt doesn’t deserve to suffer. Because my mother has stolen my family, has stolen my friend and my husband-to-be, and I need them back, Sylvester, I don’t know what I’ll do if I can’t get them back. You can help me. You say I should have been your daughter? Well, be a father to me now, and help me. Give me what I need.”
“Luna won’t approve.”
“Luna doesn’t approve of anything I do anymore.” I paused. “But there is one thing I can offer to make her feel better about the idea.”
He frowned. “What’s that?”
“We haven’t woken Rayseline because she killed Connor. If we wake her, she has to stand trial, and she broke Oberon’s Law. You know what Arden will have to do.”
Sylvester’s frown became a grimace. “I do.”
“But the Luidaeg is technically the Selkie First. I can talk to her. I can talk to Arden. We can try to find a way to pardon Raysel for what she did.” It burned, talking about Connor’s death like it was a bargaining chip. At the same time, I didn’t think he’d mind.