“So I’m asking you to give August’s way home back.”
“I told you, I can’t.” The Luidaeg looked miserable. Openly, actually miserable. “She hasn’t fulfilled the conditions for its return, and I can’t give it to you without demanding something of equal value in exchange.”
“So it’s not that you can’t; it’s that you won’t.”
“I won’t take your way home, no. I won’t let you buy a spoiled pureblood brat who thought heroism was as easy as following the light of a candle at the expense of your own happiness and the lives of the people who love you.” The Luidaeg shook her head. “You’ve found one of the few places where I can refuse to do something. When an older bargain is involved, the rules shift.”
“If we’re speaking of rules, I have a proposal for you.”
We both turned. Simon was standing at the mouth of the hallway, hands empty by his sides, looking at us with calm, resigned weariness. There was nothing of Sylvester in him now. There was nothing of my old enemy, either. There was only Simon Torquill: husband, father, man who had paid everything he had to try and bring his daughter home, only to discover that he needed to find a way—somehow—to pay even more.
“I thought I told you to go to the living room,” said the Luidaeg.
“You did,” said Simon. “You did not, however, tell me to stay there. Loopholes, milady sea witch. Always, there are loopholes.”
The Luidaeg folded her arms. “I’m listening.”
“Only because you have no choice, and for that, I am sincerely sorry: for that, I apologize with all my heart and soul. You would refuse to hear me, were you allowed.”
“Damn right,” said the Luidaeg. “What do you want, failure?”
“I want to change my estimation in your eyes by doing what I failed to do so many years before, when I asked you the wrong questions and allowed my feet to be set upon the wrong path,” said Simon. His voice was soft, but there was steel behind it. “My name is Simon Torquill. I am the son of Celaeno and Septimius Torquill, third-and last-born of their children. I am the family disappointment, the one who refused to strive or aspire, but was happy to settle with my wife and daughter and live in peace. I have done my best. I have succeeded, and I have failed, and my greatest success was my child, August Torquill, born to Amandine the Liar. She is mine, Luidaeg. Do you contest that she is mine?”
“If I wanted to split a hair to thread a needle, I could,” she said. “Her mother pulled all that was of Titania’s line from her body before she was born, and she helped willingly if unknowingly, because the power belonged to the blood of my father. The power was in Oberon’s lines. You had the making and the raising of her, but by her bloodline, your bloodline ended.”
“Loopholes,” said Simon.
I looked between them. “Uh, one of you want to tell me what the hell is going on? Because you’re sort of losing me here, and I’m a little concerned about leaving my squire alone with August any longer than I have to.”
“She won’t hurt him,” said Simon.
“I’m more worried he’s going to find a marker and draw a mustache on her,” I said. “Quentin doesn’t actually like being attacked in his own home, and while he’s polite enough not to do harm to someone who’s been restrained, there are many ways to take revenge.”
The Luidaeg snorted, looking briefly amused, before the wariness returned and she focused back on Simon. “I don’t like people bending the rules to suit their own purposes; it’s messy,” she said. “No, I do not contest that she is your daughter. There’s too much Torquill in her for any sane person’s liking.”
“Then you agree that, as her father, I have the right—the obligation, even—to take her debts onto myself.” Simon looked at her coolly. “She need not be lost any longer.”
“Oh, oak and ash,” I said, the penny finally dropping. “You want to trade your way home for hers, don’t you?”
Simon shrugged. His eyes were weary, but his jaw was set; he was determined. I couldn’t tell whether that was a good thing, or a tragedy about to get started.
“I’m her father,” he said. “I didn’t save her the first time. I have to save her now.”
The Luidaeg took a step forward. “Simon,” she said, and from her lips, his name was an apology: she wasn’t calling him “failure” anymore. “When August gave me her way home, it wasn’t just a physical thing. She lost so much more than that. You’ll lose the same. You won’t know the face of your child, or your wife. You may not even know your brother. She hadn’t been lost before she came here. You have been. Taking your way home may mean taking all the ground you’ve gained.”
“Wait, don’t you get to decide that?” I asked.
The Luidaeg shook her head. “It’s my magic. That doesn’t mean I have perfect control. Or do you have perfect control of your magic? Because if you do, I want you to teach me.”
“I don’t.” What she was saying made a terrible sort of sense, even though I didn’t want it to. I could decide roughly what I wanted to achieve, but unless I was looking for a binary effect—like shifting someone’s blood from one state to another—whatever spell I cast would fill in the details. It knew better than I did how to put itself together.
“Didn’t think so.” She focused on Simon again. “I understand why you want to do this, but I don’t think you know how much ground you’ll lose. You smell of apples again, Torquill. What my sister did to you is going to leave scars, but you might get to be your own man again if you stay free, if you keep heading for home. Don’t you want that?”
“With all my heart,” he said. His voice broke. So did my heart. “But not all of my heart beats in my breast, and what of it sits in your living room must come before what stands in your hall. August is what matters. She’s gone too long without salvation, and besides,” he paused to smile at me, “when she works with October, I have all faith that the two of them will find a way to save me. That’s what Amy’s daughters do. They save me.”
The Luidaeg closed her eyes. “Simon . . .” This time, his name was not forgiveness. This time, his name was a plea. “Please don’t ask me to do this.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and it sounded like he meant it. Then, in a slower, more formal tone, he said, “Luidaeg, daughter of Maeve, I ask a boon of you. I come prepared to pay.”
“Of course you do.” The Luidaeg opened her eyes. “What do you want?”
“I am the father of August Torquill, who bargained with you unwisely and against my express wishes. I have come to take her debts onto myself. I ask you to return what you have taken from her, and take it, instead, from me.”
“Right.” The Luidaeg shook her head. “I guess we’re doing this.”
TWENTY-FOUR