“I allowed you to be treated as . . . as something less than your sister,” he said. “I was willing to lie with Amy, whom I have foresworn, in violation of my marriage vows, even if she did not choose to have me. I bowed before the woman I swore never to serve again, and while the tasks she set me in this world were less cruel than the ones she set me in ours, they were still bitter things, and I still did them willingly.”
“We were all enchanted,” I said. “And anything you think you remember doing more than four months ago didn’t actually happen. Thankfully. She didn’t change the past, she just . . . changed the way we remember it. So come on. Let’s go change it back.”
He frowned, slow and deep. “You should hate me,” he said.
“Yeah, maybe, but I don’t, so I guess that’s one more thing I’m not doing,” I said, and shrugged. “I really hate doing what I’m told when I don’t understand the reasons behind it, y’know?”
“You know, now that I can remember you more properly, I had missed your irreverence,” he said. “Manners and civility have never been your strongest suit.”
“Titania sure tried to make them my strong suit, but yeah,” I agreed, and smiled at him. “So what do you say, Dad? You going to come and help us kick Titania’s teeth in?”
Garm winced at the threat of physical violence toward the Summer Queen, but Simon smiled, somewhat cautiously. “I would be honored.” He took my hand, letting me pull him to his feet. Then he hesitated. “You still think of me like that?”
“I’m always going to wish my mortal father could have been a part of my life, but he wasn’t, even if that wasn’t his fault,” I said. “I remember a life where you raised me—and you didn’t do all that terrible a job, especially not when you consider how much Titania tried to convince you to do. She couldn’t make a world where you were actively abusive to children you considered your own. You were a pretty good dad. I think I’ll keep you.”
This time, there was nothing cautious about his smile. This time, it could have outshone the sun. He pulled his hand out of mine and embraced me, quickly, then asked, “Is the baby . . . ?”
Of course. Simon was one of the few people who’d actually known I was pregnant before everything went to hell. I nodded. “Baby’s fine,” I assured him. “I heal like it’s my job, and I guess that extends to keeping bad choices made while under a world-revising enchantment from completely destroying my life. Now let’s see what horrible thing the Luidaeg is doing.”
The horrible thing the Luidaeg was doing was picking the lock on the iron door with her daggered claws, working them into the keyhole and wiggling back and forth until she either heard a click or smoke started to rise from the lock and she pulled her claw free, showing char marks where it had been pressed against the iron. Eight of her ten claws were already scorched when we approached, and she was scowling as she wiggled her ninth claw in the lock.
August moved to my side, looking a little lost. Raysel was standing nearby, watching intently. I was half-afraid she was going to produce a set of lockpicks and ask if she could have a try. Dean leaned against the wall, eyes shut, four months of waiting having worn him into a resignation of waiting forever.
I looked at the Luidaeg’s hands and blinked, alarmed. “Luidaeg, are you—?”
“I’m fine,” she snapped. “This hurts like a fucking bitch and a half, but it’s nothing I can’t handle, and if you just shut up and let me—get—this!”
She made a triumphant sound as there was one final click and the door swung open, leaving her shaking her scorched and blistered hands as if she could brush the pain away. The talons didn’t transform back into fingers.
“We’re out,” she said. “Now we storm the castle with . . . no weapons, not enough fighters, and two people who still think this is the way the world is supposed to be. Isn’t this going to be fun?”
“No,” said Dean bluntly.
“I do some of my best work while dramatically underprepared,” I said. “Good job on the door.”
She was old enough that I wasn’t always sure the rules around saying “thank you” applied to her, and she had thanked me in the past. Even so, I didn’t want to push it by thanking her directly.
She looked at me speculatively for a moment before she jerked her chin upward in acknowledgment, made a small, almost-neutral sound, and stepped through the open door.
The rest of us followed. No one wanted to spend any more time in that cell than they absolutely had to. Tybalt stayed close to me, with Simon and August following only a little farther back. Raysel and Dean walked behind them, while Garm brought up the rear. As a group we moved into the hall, which was long and narrow, made of plain gray stone lined with more of those iron doors. This wasn’t a show prison, wasn’t the place you put people when you wanted to frighten them before you let them out again. This was where you put the people you wanted to forget about if you possibly could.
There were no sounds apart from our footsteps and our occasionally labored breathing. Simon and Raysel seemed to have taken our time in the iron-drenched confines of the cell harder than the rest of us. Simon especially was breathing more heavily than I liked, and moving slowly, like every step pained him. I stopped to frown at him, trying not to look as panicked as I felt.
“Hey,” I said. “Are you okay?”
His smile was a dreadful thing. “So much better than I was yesterday, or the day before, or four months ago, when you pressed the blood back into my body and compelled my heart to beat. Truly, October, I’m fine, and will only improve from here. I have never had this much to live for.”
The Luidaeg moved to stand next to me, her own face concerned. “The Daoine Sidhe have always been more sensitive to iron,” she said. “I never worked out exactly why it should be so, only that it is. It does their First no more damage than it does to the rest of us, but her descendants burn with it. Dean’s Merrow heritage will have shielded him, at least a little. Simon will suffer.”
“Will they be all right?” I asked. I’d dealt with iron poisoning in myself, in Tybalt, and in Nolan and Dianda, none of whom were Daoine Sidhe.
“They should, if we keep them away from iron long enough for their systems to purge the poison and recover.” She held up her own taloned, blistered hands. “All things heal, with time. Right now, we need to find Titania and stop her from Riding.”
“If this place is modeled off the false Queen’s knowe, there should be a stable.”
“Great.” She looked at me expectantly. “Where is it?”
“I have no idea. You think she invited me to go hunting with her? She would have been happier having an excuse to turn me into a rabbit and go hunting for me.”
“Oh, please, Toby. Think more highly of yourself.” The Luidaeg scoffed. “She’d have turned you into a coyote at the very least. Something she could call vermin and feel good about killing.”
I eyed her. “I can’t tell if that was supposed to be a compliment or not.”
“Good.”
“Excuse me.”
I turned toward the sound of Simon’s voice. He was half-leaning on Dean at this point, one hand on his side, like he was trying to press away a stitch. “I may be able to help.”