The Brightest Fell

by Seanan McGuire

  “Right.” Excuses didn’t change the fact that my sister was looking at me like a misbehaving dog: something to be disciplined and, if necessary, put down. I frowned at her. “Where’s Quentin?”

  “Who?”

  “My squire. Bronze hair, lives here, probably wasn’t too thrilled to find you in his house?” That was a mild way of putting it. Quentin is in some ways even more territorial than me. He doesn’t want people in his home uninvited. Ever.

  August blinked before offering me a slow, syrupy smile. “The boy’s important to you, is he? Unbind me and I’ll tell you where he is.”

  “Nope,” I said. “Not going to happen. But I appreciate you confirming that he’s in the house and alive. Simon? Watch her.” I turned on my heel and stalked out of the kitchen before I could think better of leaving Simon to watch his daughter.

  He’d been looking for her for so very, very long. When I had seen my own daughter after our separation, all I had wanted to do was hold her, to gather her close and never let her go. The urge to do the same had to be eating him alive. But August didn’t even know who he was, couldn’t know until we found a way to get her path home back from the Luidaeg. If he untied her, we would lose her, and I wasn’t sure how many more times we could run her to ground before time ran out or one of us was seriously hurt. Or both. Both was always on the table.

  The house was quiet. The air had that slow, dusty smell that spoke to hours left unoccupied, rooms left to settle deeper and deeper into stillness. Quentin was likely to have started by going to the kitchen—he was a teenage boy, with a teenager’s appetite and a fondness for bedtime snacks—and then made his way toward his bedroom. Since he wasn’t in the kitchen, I stuck my head into the living room long enough to be sure I hadn’t missed him, and then started up the stairs.

  It was funny, in its own sad way. When I had first returned from the pond, I would have sworn I was never going to have a home to call my own again. I would live somewhere, because everyone has to live somewhere, but that place wouldn’t be my home. There’s more to home than just walls that don’t fall down and a roof that doesn’t leak. There’s commitment, and comfort, and the knowledge that even if you have to leave today, you can come home tomorrow, because home will wait. Home waits.

  Somewhere between Quentin showing up on my doorstep with a message from Sylvester and today—somewhere in all the years and miles between us and that moment—I had found my own way home. He was a large part of what had helped to get me there. Quentin would have to leave eventually, going back to Toronto to finish learning how to be High King of the Westlands. That didn’t matter. He would always have a home in California, with me, because without him, I might not have been able to find my way.

  Cagney met me at the top of the stairs. Lacey, her sister, was nowhere to be seen. She creaked when she saw me, the rusty, back-of-throat sound that served her in place of a meow. Both my cats were perfectly ordinary Siamese mixes from the humane society, and they were getting old. Nothing will ever stop that from happening, sadly.

  “I know,” I said, in response to her creaking. “Do you know where Quentin is?”

  Cagney gave me a disgusted look and twitched her tail before getting up and stalking back toward my bedroom, where all her favorite napping spots were.

  Quentin wouldn’t be in there. Quentin never went into my room if he could help it, claiming it was haunted by all the times Tybalt and I had heartlessly had sex while my impressionable young squire was in the house. Since he hadn’t been sprawled in the hallway or on the stairs, I was assuming August had managed to sneak up on him somehow. I kept moving, pausing only when I reached his bedroom door.

  It was open a crack. I reached out, barely breathing, and pushed it open the rest of the way.

  Despite being a teenager, Quentin had always kept his room so clean and well organized that it was surreal. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place, down to the corkboards on the walls and the banners advertising a variety of hockey teams that I had never heard of in any other setting. There was a large framed poster for a band called Great Big Sea hanging above the bed.

  Quentin, on the other hand, was in the bed, flat on his face on top of the covers, hands clasped behind his back like they were tied. I squinted, and the fairy ointment showed me the glitter of an illusion in the air around him, something he hadn’t cast himself.

  Illusions can do more than just confuse. They can imprison, if they’re strong enough. I crossed the room and rolled him onto his back. His eyes rolled wildly, and his mouth moved like he was trying to speak but couldn’t. I smiled wanly.

  “Hey, kid,” I said. “Hold tight. I’ll be right back—and by the way, this is going to suck.” This dire pronouncement delivered, I trotted out of the room and down the hall to my own bedroom, where the weapons I wasn’t currently carrying were stored.

  Fun fact about being a changeling: the more human someone is, the more easily they can stand the touch of iron, which degrades and destroys magic on contact. There was a time when I could carry an iron knife at my hip with no damage to myself. It had been a gift. I still had it. The box that kept its effects from reaching me was lined with yarrow twigs and silk. I undid the box, moved the shielding away, and wrapped my fingers around the hilt. It fit perfectly. It always had.

  Sometimes it’s strange to think about how much I’ve left behind in the process of learning who I want to be. Iron knives aren’t an everyday part of my life anymore. But sometimes we have to go back to move forward. The knife clutched firmly in my hand, I left the room and walked back to where Quentin waited.

  His eyes widened when he saw and recognized the knife. Up until then, I think he’d been taking my darker hair and softer features as some sort of illusion that I hadn’t bothered, for whatever reason, to dismiss.

  “I’ll explain in a second,” I said. “I’m going to be as careful as I can, but I may still touch you, and I’m sorry. Are you ready?”

  He couldn’t really move. He could manage the very faintest of nods. I nodded back before bending forward and beginning, with the utmost care, to run my knife along the places where ropes would have been if he had actually been tied up. The blade dipped once, brushing the side of his left hand. He inhaled sharply through his nose.

  “Sorry,” I said, and kept cutting. Blisters were already appearing where the knife had touched, angry red and vicious-looking. I didn’t let that slow me down. I couldn’t unravel a spell any other way right now, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to untie August.

  When I “cut” the “gag” away from his mouth he gasped, licked his lips, and asked, “What happened to you?”

  “I missed you, too,” I said. “We found August. She’s a little . . . angry right now. She attacked me, and it turns out some people aren’t nearly as polite when it comes to the bloodlines of others.”

  “She tried to turn you human?”

  “I guess she takes after our mother,” I said. “Can you move? I think I’ve cut away the whole illusion, and I’m not comfortable waving an iron knife over you more than I have to.”

  “My knees,” he said apologetically.

  “Got it.” I bent to cut the last of the illusion away.

  As I did, Quentin pushed himself up onto his hands and asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Yes and no.” I glanced back at him. “It hurt like hell. I need fairy ointment to move in the world, and my magic is virtually nonexistent. But I’ll be okay. I’m still fae enough to use a hope chest, so it’s not like this is permanent. And I have August tied to a chair down in the kitchen, so we’re not going to lose her again.”

  Quentin blinked slowly. “How did you . . .”

  “I hit her with a baseball bat until she stopped moving.”

  He blinked again, even more slowly, before laughing helplessly. “Right. Baseball bat. That’s the best way to solve that sort of prob
lem. Hit it with a baseball bat.”

  “I’ll have you know I used to solve a lot of problems with a baseball bat. Just because I’m more refined now doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten my roots.” I took a step back, sliding the iron knife into my belt. It couldn’t hurt to have a few extra weapons at my disposal, now that so many of my usual ones had been taken away.

  “Where’s Simon?” Quentin sat up fully. A pressure in my chest that I’d only been partially aware of unclenched.

  “Downstairs, keeping watch.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea? He’s her dad.”

  “He’s her father, and she doesn’t know who he is,” I said. “Remember when the Luidaeg said August had given up her way home?” Quentin nodded. Grimly, I said, “Turns out that means she can’t find anything that might bring her home until she either finds Oberon or gets this geas lifted. She looks at her father and she sees a stranger. Simon’s . . . he’s holding up as well as he can, but he’s pretty damn upset, and I can’t blame him.”

  “Wow,” said Quentin, after a pause to consider. “That’s horrible.”

  “Yeah, and he’s alone with her, so let’s get back there and save him from himself. You ready?”

  “Yeah,” said Quentin, and stood, and moved to stand beside me.

  Impulsively, I gave him a one-armed hug, careful to keep the side of my body where the iron knife rested well away from him. “I’m glad she didn’t kill you.”

  “Same,” he said, returning the gesture.

  We walked back down the stairs side by side, with Quentin lagging only slightly behind to keep from tripping me. The sound of voices from the kitchen was audible before we reached the door. I stopped, motioning for Quentin to do the same.

  “—please, August, you have to know who I am. Just look a little harder.” Simon was pleading, voice rich with raw, naked hunger.

  “I don’t have to do anything for you,” said August. “You’re not my father. You don’t look anything like him, and when I tell him you were telling me lies, he’s going to claim insult on you and duel you to the death.”

  There was a pause before Simon asked, almost bewildered, “Since when is that a thing I would do?”

  Quentin glanced at me, eyes wide. I nodded and gestured to the door. Catching my meaning, he nodded as well, and together, the two of us continued on, into the kitchen.

  Simon had not untied August. He was sitting in another of my chairs, well out of range of any motion she was free to make, with his clasped hands tucked between his knees. He looked young and small and scared. That’s one of the problems with purebloods: since they stop aging when they reach adulthood, even the oldest among them can look terrifyingly young and unsure to my sometimes mortal eyes.

  I wanted to hug him, and the mere existence of that impulse was one of the weirdest parts of a day that had already been singularly surreal. Instead, I stopped in the doorway and said wearily, “Illusionary ropes binding my squire so he couldn’t move or call for help. Nice. You’re a real sweetheart, aren’t you, August?”

  Her head turned in my direction, until she was straining against her bonds to see me. “I could have done so much worse and you know it.” She narrowed her eyes. “How did you free him? You’re a changeling. You don’t have that kind of power.”

  There were a lot of things I could have said, but none of them were going to provide a foundation upon which to build a solid sisterly relationship, and so I simply pushed the left side of my jacket out of the way, showing her the knife at my belt. She was too far away to feel the iron, but the tiny strip of visible metal was dark gray and dull, and there was really no mistaking what it was.

  August made a small, guttural sound of dismay, eyes flicking from the knife to my face like she was searching for some sign that this was a joke. She didn’t find one, and so she said, in a hushed voice, “You’re a monster.”

  “Says the woman who broke my nose, yanked out more than half of my fae blood, and again, tied my squire to his own bed with illusionary ropes.” That last one was the one that pissed me off the most, something I was absolutely sure came through in my voice. “How were you expecting him to get free? That kind of spell doesn’t dissolve with a single dawn.”

  “It would have snapped eventually,” said August.

  “Eventually doesn’t stop me from wetting the bed,” said Quentin. I glanced at him. He shrugged. “I have a sense of dignity.”

  “She’s carrying iron,” said August.

  Quentin blinked. “And? She does that when she’s this human. You made her this way, so it’s sort of your fault, I’d think.”

  August looked at him, utterly baffled. This wasn’t the sort of thing she encountered all that often.

  Entertaining as this was, it wasn’t solving anything. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Okay. This is fun and all, but this isn’t working. Simon, Quentin, pick her up. We need to put her in the car.”

  “Why are we putting her in the car?” asked Quentin.

  Simon looked alarmed.

  “Because,” I said, looking from Quentin to Simon and August. “We’re taking her to see the Luidaeg.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “DID WE REALLY HAVE to put her in the trunk?”

  Simon sounded less angry than plaintive, like he really, truly, wanted to understand why I had felt it necessary to stuff his daughter, my sister, in the trunk of my car. She hadn’t gone easily, either. Despite being taped to one of my good chairs—and there was no way we were going to release her while she was awake—she’d put up a fight, squirming as hard as she could, tilting her weight first one way and then the other in her attempts to throw Simon and Quentin off balance.

  Things might have gone easier if I’d been willing to help with the trunk-stuffing process, but my participation hadn’t been an option. I didn’t think she could strip out the last of my fae blood. Holding onto the vestiges of immortality seemed like something my body was determined to do, and I appreciated that. At the same time, she’d been stronger than me even when I was at full fighting strength, and I didn’t want to risk it. Some chances aren’t worth taking.

  “It’s daylight,” I said, resisting the urge to meet his eyes in the rearview mirror. Quentin had claimed the front passenger seat, and Simon was consigned to the back, where he’d have more trouble grabbing the wheel. There was no sign that he was planning to try anything like that, and I trusted him . . . or at least I had, before August had been stuffed in my trunk. People do foolish things when they’re around the ones they care about. The temptation to save her might prove greater than the desire to protect me. I’m a big girl. I’ve long since learned that it’s not safe to count on people just because they seem to be on my side, and being as mortal as I currently was, a car crash would kill me. Too many people needed me alive for me to be comfortable taking that risk.

  “I don’t understand,” said Simon.

  “She means people would be concerned if they looked over at the car and saw that we were kidnapping a lady,” said Quentin. He sounded annoyed. It made sense. He was having a hell of a day.

  And he was worried about me. I could tell from the way he kept glancing in my direction, brow furrowed, looking at me like there was a chance that I might break.

  “I could have cast a spell on the car,” said Simon. “We saved no magic doing things this way. Your squire and I would not have required individual illusions with a proper enchantment.”

  “Yeah, but my reflexes aren’t what they usually are, and I’m too exhausted for serious defensive driving,” I said. “Enchant the car, I cause a six-car pileup when I misjudge the distance between me and a semi, and then everybody’s day is ruined. This was the best way.”

  I meant that. Truly I did. But had I also taken a certain perverse satisfaction in slamming the trunk on my older sister, cutting her off mid-expletive? Yes. Yes, I had. Much as it pained me to a
dmit it, I would probably have been even happier hitting her with the baseball bat again, sending her into a serene slumber. She deserved a little hitting. Sadly, it would just have distressed Simon, who didn’t seem to appreciate me beating his child to a pulp.

  Amateur.

  San Francisco was awake around us. I couldn’t think of the last time I’d driven here during the middle of the day, and it was difficult not to gawk at how much the city had changed, all while staying exactly the same. There were more suits on the sidewalk than I was used to, worn by humans hurrying between the tall glass hives of office buildings, their infinite windows sparkling in the sunlight. Most of the odd little mom-and-pop stores I was used to seeing were gone, replaced by sleek new establishments with single-word names and signs made of seemingly untreated wood or steel.

  “Hipsters,” said Quentin in a dismissive tone. I followed his gaze to an open-air café, its seating area filled with humans who looked to be a few years older than him, wearing carefully casual clothing, all of it new but styled to look vintage. Several of them had beautifully groomed facial hair.

  “What’s a hipster?” I asked blankly.

  Quentin paused. “Sometimes I forget you’re old.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t get my hands on a hope chest, you’ll get to see me looking closer to my age.” I made a sharp left turn, leaving the populated main drag for the maze of tiny side streets that would take us to the Luidaeg.

  It’s difficult to say exactly when she came to San Francisco. Reports vary. But everyone who would know agrees she was here when the 1906 earthquake hit—she would have had to be, to sell August a candle. We lost half the city in the aftermath of that disaster. Whole blocks burned. The Luidaeg had already been there, already putting down roots, and when the city had grown back, it had grown around her and the careful enchantments she was weaving around her chosen neighborhood.