The Luidaeg’s hall seems to change length to fit her mood, and we walked for quite a while before we saw the other end come into view. Quentin picked up the pace, his hand still locked in mine, and I let him drag me along.
The living room was as cluttered as ever, reeking of marsh and fen and decaying couch stuffing. Quentin paused for a moment, obviously not used to the smell. Then he saw Katie and froze.
She was sitting on the couch with her hands folded in her lap, gazing into the distance. Her hair had been washed and brushed over her shoulders, and her clothes were clean and new. She looked unhurt and human. The Luidaeg was next to her, one half-clawed hand resting on Katie’s knee.
“Katie?” said Quentin. Then he smiled, brightly enough that it seemed to clear the shadows out of the room. I relaxed, letting my own smile slip forward. Then I saw the look on the Luidaeg’s face, and smiling ceased to be an option. She looked troubled; almost bleak. I stopped, smile fading, and tilted my head to the side in silent question. She nodded, very slightly, and turned to watch Quentin’s approach.
Katie didn’t acknowledge Quentin’s presence, or even seem to know that he was there until he dropped to his knees in front of her and reached for her hand. When he touched her she flinched, cowering against the Luidaeg and whimpering. The Luidaeg lifted one hand to stroke Katie’s hair, whispering soothing words in a language that probably died with Atlantis. Katie shivered, returning to silence.
Quentin leaped to his feet and backed away, eyes as wide and shocked as those of a child who’s just learned that fire burns. Oh, baby. The fire always burns.
“Can you fix her?” he whispered, blinking back tears. His world was falling down around him; I knew how that felt. I’d have tried to offer him something solid to hang onto, but I knew better. I was too frayed already. I might snap.
The Luidaeg’s gaze was mild, but when she spoke, her tone was icy. “Fix her? I suppose. She has the potential to talk, laugh, cry, lie, and betray again, just like every other human. She can live; she’s not too broken for that. At least, not yet.”
“How?” asked Quentin, with raw longing in his voice. I winced.
The Luidaeg curled a hand over Katie’s shoulder, smiling bitterly. “Will you pay for her restoration? There are costs and choices to be made—one choice, actually, but it’s yours alone, and making it pays my fee. Can you bargain with the sea witch a second time, little boy?” Katie’s breathing calmed as she leaned against the Luidaeg; Quentin might be breaking, but she was broken, and it was our fault, every one of us. Not all the sparks that fly when the mortal lands and Faerie meet are bright ones.
Quentin stared at the Luidaeg, and I fought the urge to yank him away and take him out of the dark place where the sea witch held her Court and made her quiet bargains. She was my friend, but she was also something old and dark, and she could be the death of him. I wanted to take him away from there. I couldn’t. As the Luidaeg said, some choices are for one person and one person only; the blood I could still feel on my hands was a testimony to that. I couldn’t interfere. I could only watch and bleed with him, if it came to that.
“It’s a simple choice.” The Luidaeg smoothed Katie’s hair with a clawed hand, expression gentle. There was a time when I wouldn’t have realized that. “She’s not a changeling; she wasn’t made to sit on this line. She has to choose one side or the other. Take her to the Summerlands: tend her, keep her, and let her be the last casualty of my baby brother’s madness. Keep her, or let her go and never go near her again, because she’d love you if she saw you, and that love would make her remember our world. Keep her or let her go. But choose.”
“That’s not a choice!” Quentin balled his hands into fists. What was he going to hit? Reality? The laws of nature? Hitting the Luidaeg could be fatal. “That’s not even fair!”
“It is what it is,” the Luidaeg said with a shrug. “Who told you choices were fair, kid? I gave you the choice that must be given; I’m giving you the chance to decide. What do you want, Quentin? Her life and heart are in your hands, and she’s only a Daughter of Eve. The choice isn’t hers. The consequences are hers to bear.
“Whatever you want her to be, she’ll be. She’ll live or die as you command.”There was no pity in her tone;none at all. “Just choose, kid. This isn’t a game. Choose.”
Quentin turned to me, eyes wide and filled with silent hurt. He was still so very young. Faeries—true faeries, not their changeling throwaways—live forever, and when you have an eternity of adulthood ahead of you, you linger over childhood. You tend it and keep it close to your heart, because once it ends, it’s over. Quentin was barely fifteen. He’d never seen the Great Hunt that came down every twenty-one years, or been present for the crowning of a King or Queen of Cats, or announced his maturity before the throne of High King Aethlin. He was a child, and he should have had decades left to play; a century of games and joy and edging cautiously toward adulthood.
But he didn’t. I could see his childhood dying in his eyes as he looked at me, silently begging me to answer for him. I finally understood why the Luidaeg said making the choice would pay her fee. Whether he gave Katie up or not, he was paying with his innocence. There are choices you have to make for yourself, unless you want to spend the rest of your life lying awake wondering when the shadows got so dark. If he kept her with him, he’d be forcing her to belong to him until she died. There’s no going back on that kind of choice: she’d be his forever, no matter what she might have wanted. But love ends, and people change, and ordering someone to love you for as long as they live isn’t a good idea.
Katie was young and innocent enough for Blind Michael’s lands. Would she survive another kidnapping?
Love is a powerful thing; it makes us all equals by making us briefly, beautifully human. First love cuts the deepest and hurts the worst, and when you’re caught in its claws, you can’t imagine that it’s ever going to end. I was just a kid the first time I fell in love. I got over it, but it took time, and that was something Quentin and Katie didn’t have.
“I …” Quentin’s voice fell gracelessly into the darkness. He was shaking. There was a time when I wouldn’t have credited him with the humanity that required.
“Quentin—” I started. The Luidaeg silenced me with a look. This wasn’t my fight—it never had been.
He had to say the words alone.
He stood frozen for a moment longer, shivering. Then his shoulders slumped in defeat as he said, “I understand,” and began walking toward them.
None of us spoke as he knelt by Katie’s feet, and for a moment I saw him in all the terrible glory of his adulthood. Beautiful and terrible they are, the lords of our lands; beautiful and terrible beyond measure. But watching Quentin, I realized they also had the potential to be kind. When did that begin? More important, how do we make sure it never, ever ends?
“Katie,” he said, and reached for her hands. Maybe it was the slowness of his approach, or the resignation in his tone, but whatever it was, she didn’t pull away. “I never meant for you to get hurt. I really didn’t.” The words belonged entirely to his childhood, begging for forgiveness and unable to see past the punishment. “I thought it could be okay. I thought I could love you without hurting you. I thought we could be different. I’m sorry.”
Katie just kept staring away into the distance; wherever she was, it was a place past easy words. Quentin quieted and watched her for a moment, hungrily, like he was trying to memorize every detail. Maybe he was. Forever is a long time. You have to burn the edges of memory onto your heart, or they can fade, and sometimes the second loss is worse than the first one.
“I would’ve stayed with you,” he whispered. “When you got old, when you were sick, I would’ve stayed. I …”
He stopped, shaking his head. “No. I wouldn’t, and won’t. I loved you. That’s enough.” He looked to the Luidaeg like he was asking for permission, and she nodded. Crying bitterly all the while, Quentin leaned in and kissed Katie for the last time.
“We are done, we are done, with the coming of the sun,” the Luidaeg said, running her hands through Katie’s hair. Quentin pulled away, watching her. “Now the morning light appears, and the Faerie Courts draw near for the dancing of our Queens on the still and dew-soaked green. Human child, run fast away; fae-folk come with close of day.”
Something old and wild and cold brushed through the darkness of the apartment. I shivered as it brushed past me, remembering my own Changeling’s Choice, so long ago, when I rejected Eden for the wilds beyond.
Katie blinked, eyes going wide as the spell wrapped itself around her. “Quentin?” I wondered what she saw when she looked at him; what fiction her mind was using to cover what she knew damn well was really there. Did it matter? He’d given her up. She was no longer Faerie’s concern.
Quentin looked to the Luidaeg, and she nodded marginally, giving her consent. Turning back to Katie, he offered her his hands. “Come on. Let me take you home.”
