“DID WE REALLY HAVE to put her in the trunk?”
Simon sounded less angry than plaintive, like he really, truly, wanted to understand why I had felt it necessary to stuff his daughter, my sister, in the trunk of my car. She hadn’t gone easily, either. Despite being taped to one of my good chairs—and there was no way we were going to release her while she was awake—she’d put up a fight, squirming as hard as she could, tilting her weight first one way and then the other in her attempts to throw Simon and Quentin off balance.
Things might have gone easier if I’d been willing to help with the trunk-stuffing process, but my participation hadn’t been an option. I didn’t think she could strip out the last of my fae blood. Holding onto the vestiges of immortality seemed like something my body was determined to do, and I appreciated that. At the same time, she’d been stronger than me even when I was at full fighting strength, and I didn’t want to risk it. Some chances aren’t worth taking.
“It’s daylight,” I said, resisting the urge to meet his eyes in the rearview mirror. Quentin had claimed the front passenger seat, and Simon was consigned to the back, where he’d have more trouble grabbing the wheel. There was no sign that he was planning to try anything like that, and I trusted him . . . or at least I had, before August had been stuffed in my trunk. People do foolish things when they’re around the ones they care about. The temptation to save her might prove greater than the desire to protect me. I’m a big girl. I’ve long since learned that it’s not safe to count on people just because they seem to be on my side, and being as mortal as I currently was, a car crash would kill me. Too many people needed me alive for me to be comfortable taking that risk.
“I don’t understand,” said Simon.
“She means people would be concerned if they looked over at the car and saw that we were kidnapping a lady,” said Quentin. He sounded annoyed. It made sense. He was having a hell of a day.
And he was worried about me. I could tell from the way he kept glancing in my direction, brow furrowed, looking at me like there was a chance that I might break.
“I could have cast a spell on the car,” said Simon. “We saved no magic doing things this way. Your squire and I would not have required individual illusions with a proper enchantment.”
“Yeah, but my reflexes aren’t what they usually are, and I’m too exhausted for serious defensive driving,” I said. “Enchant the car, I cause a six-car pileup when I misjudge the distance between me and a semi, and then everybody’s day is ruined. This was the best way.”
I meant that. Truly I did. But had I also taken a certain perverse satisfaction in slamming the trunk on my older sister, cutting her off mid-expletive? Yes. Yes, I had. Much as it pained me to admit it, I would probably have been even happier hitting her with the baseball bat again, sending her into a serene slumber. She deserved a little hitting. Sadly, it would just have distressed Simon, who didn’t seem to appreciate me beating his child to a pulp.
Amateur.
San Francisco was awake around us. I couldn’t think of the last time I’d driven here during the middle of the day, and it was difficult not to gawk at how much the city had changed, all while staying exactly the same. There were more suits on the sidewalk than I was used to, worn by humans hurrying between the tall glass hives of office buildings, their infinite windows sparkling in the sunlight. Most of the odd little mom-and-pop stores I was used to seeing were gone, replaced by sleek new establishments with single-word names and signs made of seemingly untreated wood or steel.
“Hipsters,” said Quentin in a dismissive tone. I followed his gaze to an open-air café, its seating area filled with humans who looked to be a few years older than him, wearing carefully casual clothing, all of it new but styled to look vintage. Several of them had beautifully groomed facial hair.
“What’s a hipster?” I asked blankly.
Quentin paused. “Sometimes I forget you’re old.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t get my hands on a hope chest, you’ll get to see me looking closer to my age.” I made a sharp left turn, leaving the populated main drag for the maze of tiny side streets that would take us to the Luidaeg.
It’s difficult to say exactly when she came to San Francisco. Reports vary. But everyone who would know agrees she was here when the 1906 earthquake hit—she would have had to be, to sell August a candle. We lost half the city in the aftermath of that disaster. Whole blocks burned. The Luidaeg had already been there, already putting down roots, and when the city had grown back, it had grown around her and the careful enchantments she was weaving around her chosen neighborhood.
Crime is low where the Luidaeg lives. The people who are willing to risk moving into apartments that look like they might collapse at any moment find, to their surprise and delight, that their power bills are lower, their windows never let drafts inside, and cockroaches are mysteriously nonexistent. Somehow—possibly because the Luidaeg is not above using magic on mortals to get what she wants—this has never turned into a rush to claim and gentrify those apartments. They stay open to the city’s poor and needy, and she keeps her safe barrier of mortals between herself and the rest of Faerie.
It was too bad she hadn’t chosen changelings as the recipients of her goodwill and passive aid. We needed it as much as the mortals did. Maybe more. We didn’t have a world to call our own, and we were falling off the edge of everything, day by day, night by endless night.
I eased my way through the streets, past buildings with good foundations and peeling paint, along sidewalks that somehow managed to be structurally sound while looking like horrifying tripping hazards. Even the potholes were more trick of the light than reality; it wouldn’t exactly be helping these people if driving home tore out the undercarriage of their cars. Finally, I pulled up to the mouth of an alley and stopped the car.
“We’re close enough to the apartment that we shouldn’t have to worry about anyone seeing us,” I said. “People look the other way when things happen near the Luidaeg.”
“That’s not terrifying in the least,” muttered Simon. “Yes, let’s visit the undying sea witch whose very presence causes the world to reject the normal consequences of our actions.”
“Great idea,” said Quentin, and got out of the car.
August started shouting as soon as I opened the trunk. “How dare you! Mongrel scum! You have no right! My father will kill you when he hears of this! He’ll turn your eyes to wood and your heart to stone and leave you blind and loveless to wander the world for eternity!”
“Wow.” I turned to Simon. “You’re going to do that? Really?”