The room around me flashed into light, threads of white tied neatly around threads of gleaming black, glistening like opals, and I knew, on some level, that I was looking at Li Qin’s magic, at the spells and effects she had woven into the knowe since she claimed it as her own. Around me stood four figures, each outlined in threads like the ones I’d seen in the blood memory. The three whose locations matched January, Etienne, and Li Qin were wrapped in that same prismatic pink, with more muted colors showing through the gaps between the threads that I presumed matched their innate magic. January’s was the flashing white of lightning; Li Qin’s was opalescent black. Etienne was a soft and lambent gold, like candlelight. The fourth figure, presumably April, was wrapped in green so bright, it almost hurt my eyes, gleaming and glowing, occasionally flashing with moving specks of white.
“January,” I said, without opening my eyes, “there’s a spell on you that doesn’t match your own magic. May I remove it?”
Pulling it away without asking her could be interpreted as assault. April coming at me with a knife wasn’t a crime, but for me to assault a pureblood would mean dishonor at best, death at worst.
“None of this makes any sense,” said January. “There aren’t any spells on me.”
The blood was running out, taking the lines with it. I was going to need to cut myself again. Resigned to the approaching pain, I opened my eyes.
“Please,” said Li Qin. “I know you’ve just met me, but please, let her do this. If you do, my Duchy will owe you a great debt.”
“Placing a lot of store on luck and a story, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Those are the only things I’ve ever placed any faith in at all,” said Li Qin. She kept her eyes on January, pleading.
January sighed, sweeping her hair out of her face with one hand, and turned to me. “Fine,” she said curtly. “If you must do this, do it. But remember that I allow this only out of respect for a fellow noble, and not at the request of a changeling.”
“You are very kind.”
I drew the knife I’d been given and reopened the back of my hand. It was so well healed that it hadn’t left a scar, but my body remembered the pain, and all I had to do was trace the aching line across my skin. Blood welled up, bright and clean and smelling, oddly, of roses.
My own magic has never spoken in roses. There wasn’t time to get distracted, though; if I did, I’d just heal again and need to make a third cut. I was getting awfully tired of bleeding.
Hopefully this would be the last time. If not forever, then at least for today.
I closed my eyes and lifted my hand, sucking as much blood out of the healing wound as I could. Then I turned back toward January, pushing the red-veiled memories away as they tried to rise and overwhelm me.
The pink lines were back, brighter than before, sparkling with veins of prismatic crystal. Like the black lines knotted through the knowe, they were almost opaline, and so beautiful that the thought of breaking them made me feel like a criminal. Lines of flashing lightning-white and yarrow-gold ran beneath them, both tamped down and ensnarled by the pink. The white and gold seemed to be natural, January’s own, while the pink had been tossed over the top of them, pushing them aside and keeping them from maintaining the pattern they were meant for.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” I said apologetically, and reached out with the part of me that could see the lines, grabbing hold of the nearest strands of pink.
I wasn’t touching them with my skin, but I still went cold when I grasped them, like all the warmth was being jerked out of me through some half-approved exchange. She’ll know I did this, I thought, and the idea was enough to leave me giddy with terror and something that felt almost like excitement. I wasn’t disobeying anyone. I had been put into a position where the only way to obey my betters was to unweave this spell, whatever it was and whoever it belonged to, and obedience was a changeling’s first duty. If this caught Titania’s attention, surely I wouldn’t be the one to take the blame.
I grabbed several more pink strands, until it felt like the “hands” of my magic were full, and my physical hands were so cold that it felt like I was burying them wrist-deep in snow. Thus entangled, I yanked as hard as I could.
January screamed.
I couldn’t let go, not yet, not with the cold freezing my fingers and locking them into place, and this magic—whatever it was—was too new for me to know the difference between my real fingers and the spell’s fingers now that I was losing feeling in both. I managed to yank even harder, pulling until the first of the pink threads snapped.
January screamed again. The rest of the pink threads fell away, unable to hold their integrity without that first one holding them in place. Pain lanced through my head and I sagged. The white and gold threads snapped tight, outlining the shape of her as she collapsed in a heap on the floor. I managed to stagger several feet back, and opened my eyes.
January had pushed herself far enough on the floor to be sitting up, propped by her hands. There were tears in her eyes and a stunned expression on her bloodless face. She didn’t move, just stayed exactly as she was, staring into nothingness.
April appeared in front of her, stooping to put them eye-to-eye. “Mother?” she asked, in an anxious tone.
“Oak and ash, April, what did you do?” asked January, in a tone I’d never heard from her before, and April fell into her arms, laughing and crying as they clung to one another.
Li Qin stayed in her chair, watching them, her own face stricken.
“What did you do?” asked Etienne.
Explaining everything would take too long, and my head was already throbbing from the effort of breaking the pink threads on January. I couldn’t let myself think about the threads still clinging to Etienne and Li Qin, which might also be clinging to me. Still, I tried: “Duchess Zhou requested my help with a mysterious box she said could only be activated by a member of my family bloodline. When I pressed the button on the front, that little girl over there came out of it, and began telling a wild story about modified memories and shattered families. She claimed my cousin and the Duchess were her mothers, were married, and had been taken away from each other, while she’d been sealed in the box to keep her safe from the force that was doing all of this. Oh, and apparently, we can add ‘breaking complicated spells’ to the list of ‘things Dóchas Sidhe can do that no one ever thought it was important to tell the changeling about,’ because they needed me to unbind Countess ap Learainth’s memories.”
“It’s not ‘ap Learainth,’ it’s ‘O’Leary,’” said January. “I didn’t want to keep my father’s name when I couldn’t have my father, and at the time, declaring myself a Torquill seemed to be out of the question. Although I understand the family’s improving in recent years; I might want to reconsider.”
“I do not wish to change my name,” said April, still clinging to January as the older woman unfolded herself from the floor and stood.
January gave a little laugh. “Consideration finished, then. I’m an O’Leary, and my daughter’s an O’Leary, and we’ll stay O’Learys for as long as we choose.” She bent to press a kiss to April’s forehead before glancing to Li Qin. “You really don’t remember us?”