“Papa?” She turned her head slowly, like she was afraid this was some kind of a trick: that she’d turn, and it wouldn’t be Simon at all, but some stranger. The last hundred years must have been an unending nightmare for her. First exile—and pureblood or not, exile is not a fun time—and then San Francisco after a century of mortal progress and rebuilding, with all the doors that should have led her back to the familiar closed against her.
I wasn’t anticipating a close sisterly relationship with August. I already had a sister I loved and who loved me, and while May might have foretold my death when she first came home, she had never tried to make it happen. That didn’t mean I couldn’t feel terrible for August. The things she’d been through had earned her a little pity.
Her eyes locked on Simon and filled with tears. The tension went out of her body as she stopped straining against the tape that bound her, although her fingers twitched, like she was trying to reach her hands out and embrace him. She leaned forward—not far, only as far as her restraints allowed—and Simon’s hand found her cheek, curving to cup her face. I started to reach for the silver knife at my belt, and hesitated, unsure how I should continue.
The Luidaeg looked at me and nodded approvingly. Then she snapped her fingers. The tape fell away, dropping like so many harmless silver ribbons to the floor, all stickiness gone. It was a neat trick. I almost said so. Then I closed my mouth and swallowed my comments, because August had fallen out of the chair and into Simon’s arms, clinging to him for dear life.
She was sobbing. My sister was sobbing. She pressed her face into the side of her father’s neck, crying in great, shuddering gasps that seemed to rack her entire body, originating somewhere deep below her breastbone, where the swallow-tailed bird that was her sense of home now roosted, once more intangible and safe.
“Oh, Papa, Papa, I’m sorry,” she wailed, voice muffled by his skin. “I got so lost, Papa, I’m sorry.”
“My brave girl,” said Simon, stroking her back with one hand. He was holding her as tightly as she was holding him, leaving no space between them, nowhere for the world to grab hold and drag them apart from one another. They were reunited, a single entity that happened to occupy two bodies, and seeing them like that healed and hurt in the same measure, because I knew it couldn’t last. Even if the Luidaeg had wanted to let Simon out of his bargain, she couldn’t.
Could she? I looked at her. She looked back, shaking her head, making no effort to hide her own sorrow. The blackness was bleeding out of her eyes, leaving them the frosted green of driftglass thrown up on some distant, unforgiving shore.
“You know better,” she said, and her words were an apology and a condemnation at the same time, like she was pronouncing sentence over us all. In her way, maybe she was.
August was still mumbling apologies into Simon’s hair, while he stroked her back and told her over and over again that no, no, he wasn’t angry with her, he didn’t blame her; he understood the lure of heroism. Their magic must have been high, because even I could smell the traceries of smoke and roses in the air. Smoke, roses . . . and cider. Inhale as I would, I couldn’t find the faintest trace of rot, or of oranges.
August wasn’t the only one who’d been lost. She was about to be the only one who knew what it was to be found.
Slowly, the Luidaeg moved to stand behind Simon, hesitating before she reached down and touched his shoulder.
“It’s time,” she said.
He raised his head, twisting enough to see her, never letting go of August. “Please,” he said. “Please, just a few moments more. I beg you.”
“If it were up to me, I would give you all the time in the world. It’s not up to me. This door can only be held open for so long.” She held out her hand. “Come.”
Simon’s shoulders slumped as the fight went out of him. “All right,” he said. “All right.” He turned back to August, pressing a kiss against her forehead before he began, gently, to peel himself away from her.
“Papa?” She didn’t go easy. She kept trying to reassert her hold on him, grabbing for his hands until he pushed her firmly away. August looked at Simon with wide, wounded eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“We had a bargain, and it stands as yet unfulfilled,” said the Luidaeg. She grabbed Simon’s shoulder, half urging and half hauling him to his feet.
August made one last grab for her father before falling back, kneeling on the floor and staring at the Luidaeg in slowly dawning realization.
“What’s happening?” murmured Quentin.
I jumped. I had almost forgotten he was there. “It’s time for Simon to pay his daughter’s debts,” I said.
“Please don’t do this,” whispered August.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” said Simon. His smile was like a hundred years of heartbreak, stretching out from here to eternity. “I believe in you. When you bring Oberon home, you’ll bring me home, too.”
“Papa, no!” August scrambled to her feet, lunging for Simon.
The Luidaeg’s hand whipped out like a snake striking its prey, so swift that there was no time for anyone to react, striking August across the face. August froze where she was, becoming a sculpture of a woman, not even seeming to breathe.
“I have tolerated a lot from your bloodline over the years,” said the Luidaeg. “First Amy, and then you, and then your sister. I’ve put up with more than any of you have ever had any right to ask, and I’ve done it because I loved my own sister, once, and because I wanted to be a good aunt to my newest nieces, and most of all, because I miss my own father. Amandine’s line will bring Oberon home. You thought a century without your father was hard? You know nothing. Nothing. But I will not tolerate disrespect in my own home, and I will not allow you to cheapen what this man has done for you. You made a choice. This is the consequence.”
The Luidaeg spun around before Simon could say anything, slamming her hand into his chest. It passed through skin and muscle, into the space behind his breastbone, and for a terrible moment, everything seemed to stop, because she was standing there with her arm buried halfway to the elbow in another person’s body. Simon went stiff, his jaw going slack and his arms dangling useless at his sides.
“I truly am sorry,” said the Luidaeg, and pulled her arm free.
In her hand was a bird, slightly larger than the one that had flown to roost in August’s breast. Its wings were green, and its tail was forked like the ribbon on a Christmas present. The Luidaeg moved her other hand, and was suddenly holding a bottle like the one that had contained August’s way home. Maybe it was the same bottle. It was large enough to hold the bird, but barely; when she drove the stopper home, the bird beat its wings against the glass, clearly pinned and uncomfortable, unable to comprehend its captivity.
“The price is paid,” said the Luidaeg, and tucked the bottle into her gown. She snapped her fingers. August collapsed to the floor, gasping as the Luidaeg’s spell released her.