Avebury appeared a moment later with plates, forks, and an uncut carrot cake, all of which she put down in front of us.
Li Qin smiled at her. “Your baking is always excellent.”
“Will there be anything else, ma’am?”
“Just the tea.”
Then Avebury was gone again, presumably to fetch the tea service, and Li Qin was cutting the cake, serving me first, as if I were somehow her equal, and it all made me want to scream, because none of this was right. I was less than she was. I knew I was less. Even August, much as she adored me, never made any bones of the fact that I was born to be her servant; I was not her peer but her plaything.
But did she think that, or did I? I sank deeper into my chair, frowning, trying to puzzle through the conflicting ideas in my head. Some of them mentally tasted of copper, as if they were concepts or ideas I had stolen from the version of myself who’d never existed outside of impossible blood memory, the one who would offend Titania and allow the sea witch to marry her to an animal. The Cait Sidhe—all the shapeshifters—had been little more than beasts, cursed by their mother, Maeve, to such a degree that they were unfit for any reasonable company, seized by wicked instincts to rend and rip and destroy.
The thought turned my stomach just as Avebury returned with the tea, which was hot and sweet and tasted of peppermint, a flavor that made me think of pennyroyal for some reason. Close on that thought was a wave of rejection and revulsion so strong that it almost made me drop my cup.
I didn’t like it there in Dreamer’s Glass. I didn’t like the things it was causing me to think, or the way it was making me feel. The sooner I could get back to Mother’s tower and the safety of my family, the better off I would be.
Li Qin was talking quietly to April. The tiny, flickering Dryad seemed to be giving her more details on the world that wasn’t. I, resolutely, didn’t listen. None of that was true anymore, and I couldn’t really believe it had ever been true to begin with, no matter what the blood said. I had no training, by design. Perhaps if I did, I would have received the lessons on blood lies and how to recognize them. I would know that what they told me wasn’t true.
Li Qin finally settled with her own plate of cake. I pulled mine toward me and took a bite. She said Avebury’s baking was excellent, but what I tasted was heavy clay, sweetened with some sort of cloying sugar. I swallowed, rather than spitting it out, and set the plate aside.
“I believe she is in shock,” said April.
“Based on everything you’ve told me, it’s not unreasonable to think that Titania might have hit her especially hard,” said Li Qin.
I wanted to shout at them, to tell them I was right there, listening. I didn’t. Even if I’d been able to make my lips obey, raising my voice to a pair of purebloods went against everything I’d ever been taught. I couldn’t. I could want to all day long. That didn’t make it possible.
Wanting something doesn’t make it true.
A circle opened in the air, carrying the scent of evergreen trees and rain. Etienne stepped through, then stopped, turning back, and held out his hand for someone to follow.
Taking his hand in hers, Countess January ap Learainth stepped out of the circle, which closed behind her, and into Dreamer’s Glass.
As always, she was tall and lovely, with brown hair streaked in Torquill red and wide, golden eyes. She looked around the room, glancing at and dismissing me, finally landing on April, the child who wore what I now couldn’t deny was a younger mirror of January’s own face.
“What mischief are you making?” she asked, and her voice was high and formal.
“Mother,” said April, disappearing from the arm of the chair to reappear next to January and throw her arms around the woman’s waist. January blinked, looking mildly trapped.
“No mere mischief; actual trickery,” she said, voice turning hard. “What is this?”
“Toby, please,” said April, glancing to me. What did she expect me to do? Explain their wild story of a different world to my innocent cousin? January was the only cousin I had. I wasn’t going to pour all that nonsense into her ear.
“If you bleed and reach for magic, not memory, you can see spells,” said April, now a little frantic. “You can see the way they’re woven. You can break them. Please. Please, find the spell, and give me back my mother.”
I stood abruptly. “All right, that’s it,” I said. “Etiquette says I listen and agree to whatever you say, but asking me to assault my cousin is a step too far. I’m leaving. Sir Etienne? I’m ready to go home.”
“No,” he said, mildly.
“No?” I echoed.
“No. You said you’d help me if I got her for you, so even if we left here, I wouldn’t be doing it to take you home, but so I could take you to where I need you,” said Etienne. “But all of this ridiculousness makes me curious. I’ve always been a curious man. You can bleed for them. I swear, upon my honor, not to tell your mother.”
The thought that I was only refusing because I was afraid he’d tell my mother was nearly hilarious. I somehow managed not to laugh. “Well, I’m not cutting myself.”
“In that case, I apologize,” said April, and vanished with a snap of static. I turned, trying to see where she had gone, and was looking in the wrong place as she clicked back into existence next to me, the knife Li Qin had used to cut the cake in her hand. She lashed out, laying open the back of my hand, blood welling at once to the surface. I shouted, wordless pain and anger, but she was already gone, popping away and reappearing behind Li Qin.
Eyes hard, she looked at me.
“Bleed for me, and bring back my mother,” she said.
EIGHT
A DIRECT ORDER FROM A pureblood, even one I’d already decided not to listen to, was a difficult thing to ignore. My hand was halfway to my mouth before I caught myself and glared at her.
“You cut me,” I accused.
“It wasn’t a stabbing,” she said. “Your squire is persistently cross about how many shirts you’ve ruined by getting stabbed.”
“Sir Etienne, this girl assaulted me!” I said.
“I saw no assault,” he said. “Only a pureblooded child of high spirits making sport with a contrary changeling.”
I gaped at him.
“She gave you an order, October,” he said. “I would see it carried out.”
The wound in my hand was already almost healed, but the blood remained. Glaring at Etienne, I raised my hand to my lips and took a mouthful of blood, swallowing it.
Red memory rose, threatening to overwhelm me. For just a moment, I allowed it, trying to use my own blood to show me what she claimed I already knew:
Looking at the spell, I see threads of prismatic pink, and I know those are what I have to strip away to free him. My poor love. He’s going to be furious, but most of all with himself. The Shadow Roads are dark and cold, and still, I take hold of the threads and pull until they snap, one by one—
If I stayed in the memory any longer, all the blood would be used up, and I would need more. Part of me wanted that. The rest of me had been given an order and was finding it difficult to disobey. I shoved the memory away, closing my eyes and trying to see what that other version of me had seen.