I love both of my mothers. If my love for January was always a bit brighter, a bit more unwavering, Li Qin did not blame me for that. She loved January better, too.
Li Qin took a breath, held it a moment, and let it out unsteadily through her nostrils, centering herself. I waited. I did not want to wait. For her, I would do many things I did not want to do. For her, I would do anything.
“You know we don’t have an alchemist,” she said.
“Yes,” I agreed. Tamed Lightning was small, with a population that had never exceeded fifty, and had lagged well behind that number for quite some time. The one alchemist we had ever attracted, a Kitsune woman named Yui, had been among the victims of the incident which claimed my mother.
January had been a bit of an alchemist in her own way, inheriting certain skills and affinities from her father, my grandfather, who had been of the Tylwyth Teg. No ordinary alchemist could have taken a dying Dryad and a cracked server with a slipping drive and combined them into a single, vital whole. She had been outside of Faerie’s narrow definitions, strong when common wisdom said her blended blood should have made her weak, clever when her pampered childhood and noble heritage would happily have settled for foolishness. With her at the head of County and company, we had needed little more in the way of alchemy. She had never pursued it.
“I’ve been studying at the Library of Stars in San Francisco when I had time,” said Li Qin. “I’ve been reaching out to old friends, people I haven’t spoken to in centuries. Do you understand why, April?”
A sluggish flicker of alarm sparked at the edges of my thoughts. I looked at her, trying not to let it intrude on my expression, and wished—not for the first time—that I was still a child, able to retreat into the safety of my server when I didn’t want to handle the world.
Adulthood was my choice. All of this was my choice. If I had not chosen to assist Gordan when she came to me speaking of equality in the virtual world, of mothers who could tuck me into bed in earnest, who could hear me when I cried in the night, everything would be different. I would be different. A choice, once made, cannot be taken back.
Li Qin still had years and years for making choices. Why had I assumed her choices were already done?
“I would like to meet her first,” I said.
Li Qin frowned. “Meet who, April?”
“Your new wife. I would like to meet her.” I looked at my remaining mother imploringly. “I would like to know if she approves of me.”
TWO
Under other circumstances, Li Qin’s silence would have been comic. Her eyes bugged and her breath caught and her head drew back on her neck until the skin below her jaw wrinkled and pouched out at the same time, like she was working diligently at transforming herself into some form of frog. She sputtered. I cocked my head and waited. I have read many books on etiquette and courtly manners, but none of them included information on how to respond in the event of a widowed mother’s remarriage.
On the other hand, some of them had gone into great detail regarding the topic of divorce. My alarm intensified.
When purebloods marry, divorce is as simple as closing a file. They inform their liege lord that the marriage is to be dissolved, a ball is thrown, everyone dances until dawn, and the union is no longer . . . unless there are children. If there are children, everything is complicated and changed.
A child can only belong to one family. So Oberon said, and so it is done. While January and Li Qin had been married, I had been their daughter, and happily. They had been my mothers. Now January was dead, and she wasn’t coming back, and I wore her last name like a layer of bark, wrapped around me to protect me from the cold. April O’Leary. That was me. Who I was, in two names, both given to me by the mother I failed.
If Li Qin was going to remarry, was going to create another family, did that mean she was divorcing my mother? Did I need to declare which of them I belonged to, whose daughter I really was? Because I loved her—Mother of Trees, believe me, I loved her—but when it came down to a contest between the living and the dead, the dead would win every time.
I was going to lose her, too.
Li Qin recovered her breath, seeming to read my thoughts in my increasingly unfocused expression: she grabbed my hands, yanked me toward her, and embraced me hard enough that the edges of my projected form briefly blurred, returning to the light from which they were formed.
“You foolish, ridiculous child,” she said, her breath a feather-touch against my neck, like the wind blowing through the branches I no longer have. “Even if I were finished mourning—even if I thought I would ever be finished mourning—there’s no way I would give you up. Put it from your mind. I am your mother, and you’re not getting rid of me so easily.”
Her grip was remarkably strong for such a small woman. I hesitated, unsure how to respond, and my body’s instincts took the question out of my hands, disappearing in a spray of pixelated light and reappearing some feet away. I knew without looking that my clothing had changed in the transition, going from simple jeans and T-shirt to a skater dress patterned with thunderclouds and lightning bolts. My control over my form is precise, but it can be shaken by the unexpected.
Li Qin smiled indulgently. “I remember that dress,” she said. “January bought it from a vendor at a trade show. She said it matched her mood. It’s reassuring, the number of hand-me-downs you programmed for yourself.”
“If you’re not remarrying, what are you doing?” I demanded. “Why are you going to the Library?”
“I’d like to know why you think the Library is involved with marriage, but that’s a confusing conversation for another time,” she said. “I need your help. I need you to listen to me.”
“I always listen to you.”
“Yes,” she said patiently, “but you don’t always hear what I’m saying. Like right now. You’re so busy worrying about what I might be saying that you don’t want to listen. Can you listen?”
“I am an excellent listener,” I said.
Li Qin smiled, indulgent and motherly. “Of course you are,” she said. The smile faded. “I’ve been looking into a solution for the bodies in the basement.”