Sixteen #2
I was exaggerating. She’d banish his wife and sister, but she wouldn’t banish the children.
She would never chase children out of their home, no matter what their parents had done.
After what had happened to her and Nolan, that was something she genuinely wasn’t capable of doing.
But that didn’t mean Eion’s choice was going to be any easier for him to make.
I turned to Chelsea. “Please go back to Cassandra’s quarters and tell her I’ve confirmed the identity of the second traitor. She needs to dispatch a guard to Eion’s quarters to take him into custody as quickly as possible. You and I have places we need to be.”
For the first time since all of this had started, she brightened. “Are we going to go get Raysel back?”
“You’re going to go get Cassie,” I said firmly.
She nodded, sketched a circle in the air, and was gone, leaving me alone with Eion. He looked me dead in the eyes and dropped to his knees, beginning to babble.
“Please, please, Guaidre was only six years old when the Riders took him in the morning’s brutal light.
He never had a chance to live, never had a chance to learn what it was to be a member of our world.
I went to bed a brother and woke to be told that I had never been one, that I likely would never be again, and all because that monster was allowed to run free when there were ways to stop him.
You stopped him. A changeling stopped him, and the pureblood heroes of yore did nothing, they married his daughters and sat in their walled towers doing nothing.
Something had to be done! They had to understand how to suffer as we had suffered, as I had suffered, because how could this be allowed to stand?
How could my brother, who had harmed no one, stop his dancing while the damned duke had everything he could ever have asked for, when he was a monster in his own way, sheltered in his halls of oak and ash? ”
I winced. This was more fallout from Titania’s spell: I could hear it in the agonies ringing through Eion’s voice.
He would never have blamed Sylvester so directly before being thrown into Titania’s twisted mirror of our feudal system, presenting its worst attributes as if they were its best and biggest. A world where his family were treated like chattel must have clawed some of his deepest traumas up from the depths of his mind, making them suddenly immediate and important once again.
A lot of changelings and people with changelings in their immediate families were probably struggling with sudden negative feelings toward the nobility.
We were almost lucky that Eion had lashed out at Sylvester and not, say, Arden or one of the other local monarchs.
None of them were innocent of the atrocities inherent in the system, but all of them were a lot more likely to strike back first and ask questions later than they were to say “Oh he just had his feelings hurt by Titania, better let him go home and get some more hugs.”
If he’d somehow managed to lash out at Dianda, we’d be looking at a blast radius, not a potential banishment.
The smell of Chelsea’s magic announced her return, and I turned around to see her stepping out of a portal in the middle of the room, closely followed by a now-clothed Cassandra and Walther.
Both of them looked substantially more composed and less distracted than they’d been before; Walther had acquired a short sword somewhere, belted at his hip like he was accustomed to carrying it.
And maybe he was. He’d been part of the royal family of Silences before he was effectively exiled.
I had no idea what that meant in terms of his training.
“Chelsea said you needed us?” said Cassie.
“You know Eion,” I said, gesturing to the groveling Hamadryad.
“He has some things he needs to tell you. I hope you’ll listen with an open mind, and let him explain what he’s done.
Then you should probably take him into custody.
I’m sure Queen Windermere will want to talk to him when she wakes up this evening. ”
“Where are you going?” asked Walther.
“To get my husband,” I said. “I know where Raysel is now, and I need to bring her home. You two can handle this from here.”
I turned fully to Chelsea. “All right,” I said. “Tybalt’s at the house with Miranda. Can you get me there? I promise, this is the last jump.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” she said. “If I were your squire, I could take you anywhere you need to go, always.”
“Tempting, but Quentin hasn’t graduated yet,” I said. “Do you really want to wait that long?”
“I might be willing,” she said, sweeping a hand through the air.
The portal that opened looked onto my living room.
Tybalt was still asleep on the couch in his bipedal shape, Miranda flat on his chest with her head resting against his shoulder.
It was a beautiful scene, and I was tempted to pull out my phone and take a picture.
I was just pretty sure Chelsea would kill me if I tried to make her wait long enough for me to do that.
I stepped through the portal, Chelsea close behind, and we were in the living room. “Damn, the Tuatha got it good with the teleportation,” I muttered. “I’d trade blood magic for never needing to find parking again.”
Tybalt cracked open one eye, and yawned enormously, showing off incisors far too large to fit the shape of a human mouth. Then he opened the other eye, turning a drowsy green-eyed gaze on me.
“Well?” he asked. “Is the voyage done?”
“We have one more stop to get through before we can call this finished,” I said. “You and I need to go get Raysel.”
“Wait,” squawked Chelsea. “What about me?”
“You get to take the baby while we go and get your girlfriend,” I said. “I’m sorry, but you can’t come with us.”
“Why not? I’ve been following your orders, even when they were stupid orders! I can do whatever it is you need me to do! I can—”
“You don’t understand,” I said, more gently.
“You can’t come with us.” I pulled the candles out of my pocket, holding one of them out toward Tybalt.
He took it reluctantly, pushing himself away from the couch with one hand before offering a somehow still-sleeping Miranda to Chelsea.
My breasts ached at the sight of her, which was almost a relief; it meant my milk was still flowing, enough that I wanted to give it to my child.
Once he was no longer holding our child, Tybalt tapped his candle’s wick to mine. Both of them burst immediately into blue-white flame, and a fog began to gather around us. I turned back to Chelsea.
“This is a trip that needs a special ticket, and I’m afraid both of ours have already been assigned,” I said. “We’ll be back soon, with Rayseline. I promise.”
I couldn’t promise what shape she was going to be—some things are beyond my power—but I could promise that we were going to bring her home. Because anything that tried to get in my way was going to learn why I’d been named a Hero of the Realm.
The fog continued to gather, getting thicker and thicker around us.
I turned, meeting Tybalt’s eyes. “Hear me, weary rover, and listen as you stand, for you’ll walk the wild world over, and not see Westmoreland,” I said.
“Long you’ll go and far you’ll walk, and never see the sun, but when you hear the night bird cry, you’ll know your journey’s done.
Hear me, weary wanderer, and know I tell you right: you’ll make it there and back again by just one candle’s light. ”
The fog closed over us, blocking everything else out so completely that the world might as well have not existed, and we were gone.