Poppy dipped her hand into the pocket of her dress, coming up with the diminutive, still-sleeping form of Simon Torquill. She held him out to me, a goofy smile on her face. “He’s cute when he’s this much smaller’n me,” she said. “Pixies seem this cute to you?”
“When they’re not trying to stab me, yes.” I put my cupped hands under hers, and she gently tipped Simon into them, careful not to shake him too much. I turned back to the Luidaeg, presenting him like a trophy. “Simon Torquill.”
The Luidaeg’s eyebrows made a valiant attempt to climb to her hairline. “So it is. I’m assuming he swapped sizes with your pixie friend because . . . ?”
“Because I woke him up using Walther’s countercharm, and it was still in his system when Poppy’s colony knocked us out. I think the magic is fighting. I can’t keep him conscious.”
“I . . . see.” The Luidaeg gave Simon a dubious look. “What do you expect me to do about it? He can’t make a deal with me. He’s not awake. You have to be awake before you can promise me anything.”
“To be fair, I wasn’t looking for you,” I said. “I didn’t even know you had a back door. As far as waking Simon, I could—”
“Don’t finish that sentence.” The Luidaeg shifted her gaze to me, and her eyes were green as the shallow edge of the sea. A person could drown there. “You’re already so deep in my debt that there’s no seeing the surface from where you are, and you weren’t careful when you acquired it. I’m not saying I blame you for that—you had people to save—but you may never finish paying me back. I’m not letting you go any deeper before you’ve started working it off.”
“I can do it,” said Quentin.
This time, I was the one to shake my head and say, “No. You’re not going into debt over Simon Torquill, not if there’s any other way.”
“Then you’ve got a problem, Toby, because this isn’t one I can give you for free.”
“Pardon.” We all turned to Poppy, who was twisting her hands in front of her, watching us anxiously. “Pardon, but why not do debts over Simon? He’s good folks. You’re good folks. Shouldn’t good folks help each other?”
“It’s not that simple.” Simon was a hero to the pixies. The sentence still felt strange, but there it was. “Simon did . . . some things, after he stopped coming to see you. Things he probably shouldn’t have done, that I don’t think he’d want me to tell you about.”
Poppy blinked. “Why not?”
“Because you’d look at him differently if you knew.”
“Oh.” Poppy frowned for a moment before she turned to the Luidaeg and said, “I don’t know the things you won’t tell me. I don’t look at him differently. So I’ll do debts for him. Can you do what needs done to wake him up, for please?”
The Luidaeg’s frown was slow and serious. “You understand that I will take payment from you for doing this, and you may not like what I decide to claim.”
“He was awake before we made him not to be,” said Poppy. “We didn’t know hitting him with our sleeping would mean he slept for longer than he should. Simon helped us once. He helped us so much. The only people who’ve helped as much as him are Patrick and her,” she pointed to me, “and now we’ve hurt two from the three of them, because she needs him and we took him away. So please, let me do debts. Wake him up.”
“Pixies,” said the Luidaeg—but there was a note of fondness in her tone, like she couldn’t believe she was dealing with this. She tilted her head, attention now fixed on Poppy. “Do you know where you come from?”
“Um,” said Poppy. “There was Maeve, and there was some sad, and she wanted some happy where she could see it. So she cut some of the happy out of herself, and she made it into pretty stones that sparkled in the sun. All different stones, blue and red and green and silver. Only they weren’t stones, they were eggs, and when they hatched, they were pixies.”
“One drop of blood for each of you,” said the Luidaeg. “That’s why your magic works the way it does. That’s why it’s so all-or-nothing. Because you’ve never had the size to master anything larger. My mother made you to make herself happy, and you did your jobs very well.”
“Sorry, but I wasn’t there,” said Poppy, with what sounded like genuine regret. “I didn’t start for generations after that.”
“Doesn’t matter. You still get the credit for making my mother smile. I’ll be right back.” The Luidaeg walked out of the room, heading for the kitchen.
I knew what came after the kitchen. Usually, it was a lot of blood, and we hadn’t even gotten to the question of August’s candle yet. I turned to Poppy.
“If you want to change your mind, this is when you run,” I said. “Take your magic back, return to your real size, and fly away as fast as you can, because when the Luidaeg makes a bargain, you pay what she asks of you. Do you understand?”
“We owe him,” she said gravely. “The whole colony, we owe him. I wouldn’t even have been living long enough for you to save if not for Simon. How can I repay you for what you’ve done if I don’t start with the repayment of him?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. I wasn’t sure there was one.
Footsteps from the hall told me that the Luidaeg was returning before she stepped into the room. It didn’t matter that we didn’t have an answer, because there was no longer time.
“We like to talk about the Firstborn and the Three like there was always a clear chain of creation through Faerie, even though five minutes in the real world will tell you there wasn’t.” The Luidaeg walked to the middle of the room, stopping when she reached the coffee table. She knelt, placing three objects atop it: a shallow bowl made from an abalone shell, a long bone needle, and a glass flask filled with something that twisted and swirled like captive moonlight. “Maeve created pixies with no Firstborn to call their own. Acacia gave birth to the Blodynbryd, and when they cut their hair, rose goblins are sown. The Selkies were born in slaughter, the Raven-mays in sacrifice. Sometimes the rules break. Poppy.”
“Yes?” said Poppy, in a hushed voice.
“Do you agree to pay whatever I ask in exchange for my removing the magic your people placed in the body of Simon Torquill? Do you understand that I am the sea witch, the mother of nightmares, and once I have taken what I want from you, you may never be able to buy it back, no matter how hard you try?”
“Yes,” said Poppy.
The Luidaeg looked at her gravely. “Do you understand that I cannot refuse you, but I cannot give this to you for free?”
“Yes,” said Poppy, more confidently.
“Then here we go. Toby, put Simon on the couch and step away.”
“Right.” I walked over to the couch and rolled Simon’s sleeping form onto the cushion. I didn’t think I’d broken him. It was hard to tell, with him refusing to wake up.
“Quentin, go stand against the wall,” said the Luidaeg.
He looked startled. “Why?”
“Because I said so.” She grinned, showing a mouthful of viciously pointed teeth. “Move.”