Four #2
I decided not to mention the fact that both her parents were Firstborn. Like me, Luna had a closer relationship to the First of our kind than was strictly normal, or advisable.
“If I had gone home when I realized I was with child, Raysel would never have been harmed,” said Luna.
“My father’s magic would have granted a measure of peace to the blood within her, with no need to change a drop of it into anything other than the brilliant blend that she was born to be.
Simon would never have been able to touch her, no matter who ordered him to do so.
Everything could have been perfect, if I had just carried her home when she was still safe within me. ”
Behind her, Sylvester looked absolutely stricken. I guess having your wife say she would have been better off if she’d run away while she was pregnant with your only child will do that to a person. I couldn’t even imagine the look on Tybalt’s face if I’d said something similar.
“But you didn’t do any of that,” I said.
“And as Titania has so helpfully just shown us, you can’t turn back time, whether or not you want to.
This is the world we get to live with. Raysel was hurt.
Raysel is hurt. She deserves the time to heal.
Please. Luna, if you love the girl at all, if you care about her feelings and what she wants, please, let her finish her term of service.
Maybe in another four months, she’ll say she’s ready to come home. ”
“You just don’t want to lose your little servant, do you?” she demanded.
I laughed, almost hysterical, unable to stop myself.
“As servants go, she’s pretty useless,” I said.
“She didn’t know how to do anything when she first came to live with us.
May’s been teaching her how to do things like laundry and the dishes, but she’s never going to be the kind of houseguest who makes things easier just by being there.
And that’s okay. I get to decide what it looks like to serve my house, and for Raysel, I’ve decided that service looks like working to get better.
Like talking to her therapist and going outside and having friends.
I want her to be able to have the life she wants to have, and not the life anyone else has planned for her. ”
I knew almost as soon as I had spoken that I had said the wrong thing. Luna’s face hardened. “You mean you know my daughter and what she needs better than I do,” she said.
“No, I didn’t mean that at all,” I said, trying to salvage some small fraction of her goodwill. “I just mean that sometimes it’s easier for people who have a little distance. The Luidaeg has done better with Gillian than I could ever have hoped to do—”
“You think I’m a bad mother.”
Yes. “No, no,” I said quickly. “I think you’re hurt, too, and you need some time to heal before you try to take care of someone else. I think you need to stop focusing so much on what you want Raysel to be, and more on how you can make it safe for her to be whoever she is.”
“You don’t know my child better than I do.”
“Right now, I sort of do. I’m sorry, but what you want from her is bad for her.
She can’t come back here and be your devoted little girl.
She can’t be part-Blodynbryd again. She can’t be someone she’s not.
But she’s a wonderful young woman. She’s smart and she’s funny when she feels safe enough to be, she’s an absolutely terrible cook, unless she’s making shepherd’s pie.
For some reason, her shepherd’s pie is always perfect.
There are so many wonderful things about Raysel, and you’re going to risk missing them all. ”
“Listen, you little bitch.” Luna took a step toward me, causing Tybalt to growl deep in the back of his throat, warning her off whether or not he intended to offer her that kindness.
“You have had my daughter away from me for a year. She has been outside of my halls and my hands for a year. You don’t get to keep her for another four months on a technicality, no matter what that hopped-up little bookseller—”
“Luna,” said Sylvester warningly.
“—no matter what the Queen in the Mists says,” amended Luna smoothly. “I don’t want you here.”
I shot a quick glance at Sylvester. This was his chance to prove he understood what was at stake, and if he didn’t take it—if he couldn’t take it—I wasn’t sure there was any point in continuing to fight for my place in his service.
“Luna,” said Sylvester again, more quietly this time, almost resigned.
“Sir Daye is a knight of my household, and she has never done anything but honor her oaths, not even when it would have been easier for her to set them aside. Her service has been impeccable. It doesn’t matter whether you want her here.
I want her here. She is my knight. You have no right to deny her place. ”
Luna shot him a shocked look, eyes going wide. She couldn’t have looked more betrayed if he’d hauled off and hit her. “You would choose her over me?”
“No,” he said, with aching honesty. “She is my knight, and you are my wife. I can’t choose either of you over the other, because you play different roles in my world.
But in this conflict, in this fight, she’s in the right.
You can’t cast her out of the place where she belongs.
Not unless she does something to betray us. ”
“She’s keeping our daughter away from us!”
“She’s doing as Raysel has requested. She’s honoring our daughter’s wishes like they matter, like Raysel is allowed to want things.
Raysel is wanting things again, things that aren’t based on hurting people!
Do you understand how incredible that is?
She’s getting better, because October is giving her the space she needs to get better.
We can’t take that away from her in the guise of loving her.
That would be…” He paused. “That would be cruel, Luna. I don’t want to be cruel to my child, and I don’t think you want to be cruel to her either.
How could you want that? You love her. I know you love her. ”
Luna stared at him. “I had no idea you felt that way,” she said.
“I didn’t know either,” said Sylvester. “Not for sure.”
“I won’t forgive you for this.”
He seemed to wilt, shoulders bowing inward and chest sinking in, like he was trying to make himself seem as small as he possibly could. “I know,” he said.
Luna looked back to me, and to Tybalt. “I hope you understand what you’ve done,” she said. “I hope you learn what it feels like when someone turns your mother-love against you. You shrug off knives and arrows like they’re nothing. Let’s see you recover from this wound.”
She turned, then, a sweeping, grandiose gesture that was only slightly spoiled by the fact that she looked for all the world like a child throwing a fit after being denied a favorite treat, and went storming down the hall. A few passing courtiers flinched and shied away, trying to avoid her glare.
And then she was gone, and Sylvester put his hands over his face. I could only tell from the way he was shaking that he had started to cry. I shot an alarmed look at Tybalt.
He shook his head, looking as anxious as I felt. I stepped away from him, moving toward Sylvester, and put a hand on his shoulder, fingers spread to increase the area of pressure.
“Hey,” I said. “That was very brave of you just there. Do you want to go into your study before someone sees us?”
He nodded, not saying anything, and let me guide him to his study door, hands still pressed against his face to hide his tears.
The door wasn’t locked. I pushed it open and the three of us slipped inside, out of view of the household staff.
Not that it would matter: thanks to the courtiers who’d seen Luna storming off, some version of this story would be all over the knowe before the midnight meal, and there was nothing I could do about that.
Well. Almost nothing.
Once we were in the study, Sylvester pulled away from me and moved to stumble back to his desk, collapsing into the chair behind it and leaning his elbows on the desk itself, so that he could cradle his head in his hands.
The impulse to ask if he was all right was as strong as it was stupid: he wasn’t all right.
Anyone could see that. He was hurting, and I didn’t know how to help.
“Sylvester, is there someone I can call for you?” I asked. “Etienne, maybe? Or Simon?”
“He wouldn’t come,” said Sylvester, voice muffled by his hands. “He would never come for me. I abandoned him when I met Luna, I left him to fall into his liege’s clutches, and I didn’t even see that it was happening. I have no right to claim him as my brother.”
I exchanged a look with Tybalt. “This is bad.”
“Yes,” Tybalt agreed.
“Can you keep an eye on him while I make a couple of quick calls?”
He frowned. “Don’t go far. I don’t trust you wandering around the knowe while Luna’s this angry.”
“Just out into the hall,” I said soothingly. “I won’t go out of sight of the door, I promise.”
“All right,” he said, and moved toward the desk. “Sylvester? I’m going to stay with you, if that’s acceptable?”
“I don’t deserve your company,” said Sylvester.
“True,” said Tybalt. “I don’t like you, and a moment of bravery isn’t enough to pay for all the pain you’ve put my wife through.
But she still cares about you, and she’s told me stories of the way you treated her when she was a child.
I want Andi to have that sort of indulgent uncle in her life, and that means I need to tolerate you. ”
Sylvester sniffled, then chuckled. Reassured by that sound, no matter how brief and small it was, I slipped back out into the hall and pulled out my phone.