Simon didn’t say anything. He just kept wobbling. My stomach sank.
When Sylvester bound his brother, he ordered him to raise no hand and cast no spell against me. The illusion Simon had slammed down over the three of us was thick as molasses, and while it had been intended to save me from discovery, it could also be interpreted, in some lights, as an attack.
“Oh, oak and ash,” I hissed, rushing to his side. August was still looking around, lost. I glared at her. “Help him.”
“What? Who—who are you people? Where’s my papa?” The look August gave me was full of confusion and despair.
My heart sank. Home isn’t always a place. Sometimes it’s a concept, an idea: an ideal. When August had gone to the Luidaeg looking for a candle, the Luidaeg had asked for her way home in payment. Without finding Oberon, she couldn’t find her way. And for August, Simon was part of home.
“We don’t have time right now,” I said. “He’s not well. Help me with him.”
Her eyes narrowed, confusion fading. “Why should I help you? You were going to leave me in Annwn. You’re my enemy. How do you even exist? My mother would never lower herself to touch a human.”
“Great, good, this is a fantastic way to start a family reunion, August, but I’m telling you, this man needs help.” I glared at her, daring her to challenge me. “You sold your way home to the Luidaeg for a candle.”
“How do you—”
“I pledged myself into her service for a year in order to get another candle, all so I could go and bring you home. I don’t know what we are to each other, but I’m not your enemy, and this man needs help.”
August wavered. I could see it in her eyes. I decided to push my luck.
“August, this is your father.”
She looked at Simon again, still with no signs of recognition, and then back to me. “Liar,” she spat. Shoving Simon toward me, she turned and ran off into the darkness of the basement, quickly vanishing from my cellphone’s limited sphere of light.
Simon was a statue masquerading as a man. I staggered under the weight of him, faced with an impossible decision: drop the man who had saved me and run after the sister who had already ripped most of the fae blood from my veins, or stay here with Simon, letting August and the chance of saving Tybalt slip away.
My own body answered the question for me. My knees buckled and I fell, hitting the concrete floor with a jolt I felt all the way up into my hips. Simon fell with me, a dead weight holding me down.
“Oh, root and branch and fuck and shit and Oberon’s ass,” I hissed, struggling not to drop him. He didn’t heal as fast as I did. I didn’t heal as fast as I did. The pain in my knees was bright, intense, and not fading, even though it had been several seconds since I fell. Was it possible to get addicted to the idea of indestructibility? Because if it was, there was no question of whether I was a junkie. I was supposed to be unbreakable. That was the way the world worked.
“Simon, can you hear me?” He was staring at the ceiling, mouth shut. Sylvester’s geas had said if Simon raised a hand or cast a spell against me, his mouth would be sealed and his hands would be silenced. Well, this looked a lot like that.
“I can’t do this alone.” My voice sounded small in the empty basement. August was gone. I had no doubt of that. I supposed I should be grateful that Amandine hadn’t raised her to be a killer, or there would have been a knife in my neck and I would have been proving all the people who said my tendency to rush headlong into danger was going to get me killed right.
At least Quentin wouldn’t have been here to see. At least I could have spared him that image of me. But I couldn’t have spared Tybalt or Jazz anything by dying here. Amandine wouldn’t let them go just because I’d failed. Hell, she’d probably grab the night-haunt that became me and force them to finish the job, claiming that debts to her didn’t end with death. She might even be right. The Firstborn can be terrifying when they want to be.
There had to be a way out of this. There had to be. I closed my eyes, shutting out my cellphone’s meager light as I tried to think.
This wasn’t the most human I’d ever been. I could tell that from the texture of my blood. I wasn’t sure I could shift myself further toward fae without some sort of crutch—I needed a hope chest in the worst way—but I was still Dóchas Sidhe enough to see the watermarks in my veins, the places where the magic had moved me. Before I’d been mostly fae, I had been your standard changeling scrapper, working my way through an often confusing set of magical rules with swamp water charms and parlor tricks.
Parlor tricks. I opened my eyes and raised my phone, grateful to see that I still had battery power left, and that there was a flicker of a signal in the Borderlands basement. Scrolling through my contact list, I chose the number most likely to get me help in a hurry.
Please pick up, I thought. Please, please, please pick up.
“Borderlands Café,” said a cheery, unfamiliar voice.
Z’ev. It had to be. I took a breath and forced myself to sound as level as possible, like I didn’t have a care in the world. “Hi, it’s Madden’s friend again. Is he still on-shift?”
“I can get him for you, if you’d like.”
“Please.”
“One moment.” There was a soft thunk as he set the receiver down. I looked at Simon, who was resting half in, half out of my lap, and hoped I wasn’t making the wrong call. Not like it made much of a difference if I was. This might be the wrong decision. It was the only one I had left to make.
“Hello?” Madden sounded cautious but still warm. I wasn’t sure the man was capable of staying angry for long.
It was time to test that. “I don’t have much time,” I said. “August was down here. She attacked us, she hurt me, and Simon had to cast a spell to keep Alan from spotting us. I need honey, mint, ginger, hot water, and salt. Can you get them to me?”
“Toby?” Now confusion joined the mix. “I . . . yeah. Are you where you were?”
“I am. Hurry.” I hung up before he could ask me any more questions. Questions were just going to slow us down.
Magic lives in the blood. That’s all well and good for the purebloods. Their bodies can make and handle using as much magic as they need. Changelings, though . . . changelings are more limited. We always have been. So we need to understand magic. We need to find ways to convince it, things that can shore it up when it doesn’t want to hold.