“I thought you couldn’t lie.”
“I can’t.”
“So how are you telling me how he feels, if you don’t know?”
“I can’t lie, which means I can’t speak an intentional untruth, but I can say what I think, and as long as I don’t know one way or another, it’s allowed. I can’t promise you this is all going to be okay. I can’t say no one’s going to get hurt, or that you’ll definitely remember the last four months with enough clarity for the emotional ties to remain. But I can tell you Tybalt isn’t mad at you, because I know him better than that. If he’s mad at anyone besides Titania, it’s probably himself, for not somehow realizing this was a risk and whisking you off to the Court of Cats before she could cast her spell.”
She stood.
“Anyway, you’re awake now, and if Anthony’s going to sleep this off, he can do it with Acacia to watch over him while we go and get on with things. Feeling up for it?”
“Does it matter if I say no?”
“At this point, not really.” She sounded halfway sympathetic, which helped. Of course, she ruined it immediately afterward, by saying, “I spent years beating you into a properly heroic shape, and I can’t say I’m a big fan of this showroom shine you’ve got going on right now. Let’s fix it.”
She left the room, leaving the door hanging open as a rectangle of slightly brighter dimness in the dark. I rose, my bloody kirtle falling stiffly around my legs, and followed her out.
Grianne and Ginevra were in the main hall with Dean, Acacia, and Raysel, who looked much more relaxed now than she had before. Dean, on the other hand, was clearly even more anxious. He rushed out to meet me, grabbing for my arm.
“We have to go to Shadowed Hills!” he blurted.
“Not the best idea for me,” I said. “I’m sort of wanted for murder in the Mists right now, and I don’t think I can count on a second magical rescue from the Queen’s dungeons.”
“Grianne says Quentin is serving as Etienne’s squire!”
“He is,” I agreed, trying to pull my arm away. “He a friend of yours?”
Dean stared at me. “He’s your squire!”
I blinked. A lot of what he’d said before suddenly made a whole different shade of sense when looked at from that as a starting point. “He most assuredly is not,” I said. “I’m a changeling. Changelings don’t take squires.”
“You’re also a knight, and knights do,” insisted Dean.
“Changelings don’t get knighted!”
“Yet you did,” said the Luidaeg, wearily amused. “You were even a Countess for a hot minute, before you managed to shuffle that responsibility down the line to dear Dean here. Quentin’s been your squire for years. Somehow he’s not dead yet, which means one of you is doing a better job than I expected.”
“But . . .” I stopped, shaking my head. “But Quentin hates me. Always has.”
“Does he hate you, or does he hate changelings?” asked the Luidaeg. “Because I remember some of the ideas about changelings he had when I first met him, and it sounds to me like Titania would have been leaning pretty hard on those prejudices when she gave him his history. She told him changelings were inferior. That they exist so every pureblood gets to feel superior to someone, which probably helps her keep the court structure stable. And that changelings never deserve anything more than their existence. He knows the rules. He knows how the world works. And then you come along and screw everything up, the way you always do.”
I blinked at her. “What do you mean? I followed all the rules, just like everyone else.”
The Luidaeg laughed. “I don’t know which is funnier—that you believe that, or that you think I’m going to believe it. Kid, no matter how you slice the situation, you’re Amandine’s daughter, and this time you got to have Simon for a dad. He’s always been a soft touch, and nothing I’ve seen implies that Titania actually took the time to rebuild people from the ground up. She just gave them new histories and plunked them down to get on with it. Did he treat you like you mattered? As much as your sister?”
I nodded. “The rules were different for me, but . . . I was always his daughter. He always loved me.”
“How about Amy?”
“She was more distant. She made sure I knew my place.”
The Luidaeg nodded. “That all matches up with what I’d expect from them. So here’s Quentin, who knows changelings have no value, and here’s you, who has a sense of self-worth, even if it’s a twisted one, and a family that loves her like she actually belongs, instead of treating her like a disposable object. You would have been like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Oh, he’s going to be appalled when this is over and he realizes how he could have turned out.”
“I’m appalled right now,” said Dean.
“If you’re coming back to the Summerlands with us, you need to remember you don’t exist there; you never have,” said the Luidaeg. “He won’t know you. No one will know you.”
“What about Goldengreen?” asked Dean.
“Held by the Rose of Winter, as it has always been,” said Grianne. “We shouldn’t go there.”
“She’s asleep on the Thorn Road,” said Ginevra. “There’s another imposter behind her face.”
“Good to know,” said the Luidaeg. “If it’s one of the Browns, you’ve still got a Firstborn-sized weapon on the field. Power set won’t be the same, but that doesn’t make them less dangerous while Titania has them. So yeah, we stay away from Goldengreen. Sorry, Dean.”
“We have ways of getting to the Undersea if we need to use them,” said Ginevra. “Your parents are fine.”
Dean sagged, exhaling. “Okay.”
“Now that we’re done with that digression, Dean’s right,” said the Luidaeg. “Whatever Titania’s planning, it’s going to be geared to hurt. She doesn’t have any available Firstborn she’s both willing and able to sacrifice to the Heart, and she has a bone to pick with October here. So she’s likely to be going for someone close to her.”
“Father and August are in Golden Shore,” I said.
“You mean they were last time you spoke to them, but also, Dad bound her so she can’t harm anyone you genuinely think of as family, and right now, that protects them both. But it doesn’t protect Quentin, or May, or Gillian.”
Two of those names were unfamiliar to me, but both clearly meant something to Dean, who looked horrified.
“They’re still family,” he protested. “She can’t—”
“The binding was very specific,” said the Luidaeg. “It can’t be based on blood, not when half of Faerie is her distant cousin. If Toby doesn’t think of them as family, they’re fair game. It’s not arrogance to say that she could have set this whole thing up for just that reason. And it’s possible that because the Heart pre-dates even Oberon, feeding someone into it is the one exception to the clause against harm. But we’re ready. We can fight her.” She dipped a hand into her pocket, pulling out a small jar filled with bright pink jewels. “And the blood of her blood is going to help us do it. Acacia! We’re going to need an exit.”