QUENTIN AND SIMON had pushed August’s chair up against the wall, well away from all the exits. It was a nice positioning job. Even if she got loose, she’d have to go through at least one of us to get out—and Quentin wasn’t going to be taken by surprise a second time. He was sitting on the couch, as far from her as he could get without leaving the room, and watching her with all the wariness of a cat in the presence of a venomous snake. He visibly brightened when I stepped out of the hallway, although he didn’t say anything.
August wasn’t so reserved. “Release me at once!” she howled.
“No,” I said, and stepped to the side, letting Simon and the Luidaeg enter.
As before, August’s eyes skated over Simon like he wasn’t there before focusing on the Luidaeg. She went very, very still. Lost due to an ill-conceived magical bargain or not, she still knew enough to know a bad situation when she saw one.
“Hello, niece,” said the Luidaeg, and there was no warmth or mercy in her voice, only weariness, and an unforgiving tide as deep and as wide as the sea. She walked across the room toward August. With every step, a little more of her seeming humanity melted away. It was a subtle process, enough so that when she reached August she had been fully sea-changed, without giving me a single moment to point to as the transition.
Her skin was smooth as water on a windless day, and her hair was a cascade of curls flowing down her back and over her shoulders, also like the water, but this time after it had been whipped into angry waves. Her eyes were black from side to side, bottomless, cold. Even her clothing had changed, becoming a form-hugging dark blue gown that shaded to white at the bottom, like waves breaking against the beach.
We were standing in the presence of the sea witch, and I was close enough to human that she wouldn’t even need to mean to hurt me. She could do it without intending to, with a twitch of her little finger. I suppressed a shiver, remaining exactly where I was. Maybe I could keep from attracting her attention.
Not that there was that much of a risk. She was focused fully on August, who was still staring at her, silent and afraid.
“A hundred years ago and more you came to me and insisted on something I did not want to give,” said the Luidaeg. “Do you remember?”
August said nothing.
“Speak, or it will go ill for you,” said the Luidaeg. There was something almost soft in her voice, at odds with her appearance and the formality of her words. She was trying. Trying to do what, I wasn’t quite sure.
“I remember,” said August.
“Do you remember what you paid?”
August swallowed hard. “You asked for my way home.”
“Did you know what that meant?” The Luidaeg took a half step closer. “Did you listen when I tried to tell you? Did you hear the words as they left my mouth? Or did you walk away with the candle burning in your hand, already bound for the Babylon Road, so confident of your ability to do what no one had been able to do that you felt no need to listen to someone as ancient and irrelevant as the sea witch, who cleaves to the shore and never sees the road’s end?”
August blanched. She looked around the room, finally focusing on me, eyes silently pleading. I was her sister. She didn’t know me; her first act had been to hurt me; but still, I was her sister, and she wanted me to help her.
I couldn’t. She’d made me too human, and the Luidaeg had set too much of her humanity away for the sake of this confrontation. I couldn’t move. No—that wasn’t quite true. I could twitch my fingers. If I reached for the iron knife at my belt, it would cut away enough of the spell cast by the presence of the fae to free me to do . . . what? The Luidaeg was being intentionally terrifying, but under the circumstances, I couldn’t blame her.
“Eyes on me, August,” said the Luidaeg. “Answer my questions.”
“I was trying to save us.” August turned back to the Luidaeg, the first fat tears rolling down her cheeks. Simon winced, every instinct clearly telling him to go to his daughter, to gather her in his arms and protect her. Like me, he didn’t move.
“You didn’t,” said the Luidaeg calmly. “You failed. I told you it wasn’t time yet. You didn’t listen to me.”
“I had to try.”
“‘Had’ is such a deadly word. Three letters, and it’s killed countless heroes in its day. What did I take, niece? What did you give me?”
“My way home,” whispered August.
“Your way home,” agreed the Luidaeg. “Until Oberon’s return, wander as you will, go where you may, but never will you find home, nor the light to lead you there. Your only guidance will be the light of a candle, and even that is gone now. Too much time has gone by.” She glanced at Simon, face softening slightly. “Time is always going by.”
“I thought I could save us,” said August.
“I know,” said the Luidaeg. She reached into the bodice of her gown, actually into her gown, hand breaking the surface of the fabric and sending ripples dancing across it, radiating out in a circle around the iceberg of her wrist. It looked like she was trying to tear out her own heart. Instead, she withdrew a small glass bottle.
It looked like every bottle ever thrown from the side of a ship, a message sealed inside to bring comfort to the people still standing on the shore. Inside, a bird so small that it seemed impossible beat its wings against the glass, straining to reach August. Its wings were blue, and its tail was long and forked, like the fletching of an arrow.
“Your debt has been paid by another,” said the Luidaeg, and removed the cork from the bottle. The tiny bird squeezed out the opening like a shot, wings tucked against its sides to preserve its speed. It spread them wide in the second before it slammed into August’s chest, vanishing through her clothing, into her skin.
August gasped, suddenly sitting ramrod-straight under her bonds, straining against them. Her tear-filled eyes went terribly wide, mouth forming a perfect, pained “O.” Then she slumped forward, struggling for her breath.
The Luidaeg turned to Simon. Her eyes were still black, but there was some mercy there now. I don’t know how it was possible for me to see it. I did. It hurt.
“Go to her,” she said. “You don’t have much time.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. Simon rushed across the room and dropped to his knees next to August, reaching for her face with one trembling hand.
“August,” he said. “My sweet girl, it’s me. I’m here.”