The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,145

her now.”

“The Selkies are not Titania,” I said. “Are you going to stand there and tell me the sins of our parents are things we can never, ever put down, no matter how hard we try? Because Pete is Titania’s daughter, and you seem to love her. I’m Amandine’s daughter, which is awful, and Janet’s granddaughter, which might be worse. People keep attacking Gillian because she’s my child, even though she’s never done a thing to any of them. Where does it end, Luidaeg? When do we stop even seeing each other, because we’re so busy attacking over the crimes of our ancestors? When do we get to rest?”

She stared at me, threads of black drifting through her seaglass eyes, and asked, “Would you be this calm if someone were standing here talking about your child’s body, your child’s murder? Would you be willing to listen to mercy masquerading as reason? Or would you want to raise the seas and drown them all?”

“That last one,” I admitted. “At least at first. I like to think that after a couple of centuries, I’d be able to see things more clearly—and you’ve had a lot more than a couple of centuries. But most of all, I believe, I truly do, that I could forgive the children of the children of the children of the people who hurt her. We have to start forgiving somewhere. If we can’t even do that, why are we still bothering?”

The Luidaeg took a deep breath, and then another, visibly composing herself. Finally, in a light tone, she said, “I should turn your organs into fish and watch you die as they suffocate inside your skin for speaking to me like that.”

“Should, but won’t,” I said.

She pulled her lips back in a snarl. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because you were lonely. When I showed up on your doorstep chasing a killer, you let me in, even though it was Luna who sent me, even though you didn’t have a lot of love lost for her. You let me in, because you were lonely, and you let me keep coming back, because you were lonely, and you let Quentin in, and Raj, and even Poppy. You don’t like being by yourself. I don’t think many people do. Your family died or left you or turned out to be assholes, and that sucks, I can’t even start to say how bad that sucks, but Luidaeg—Annie—there’s a lot of different ways to make a family. We’re your family, too. All of us.” I waved a hand, encompassing Quentin and Tybalt. “We’re your weird, dysfunctional, foundling family, and we love you, and I think you love us. So you’re not going to turn my intestines into eels or my heart into an octopus. You’ve spent too much time grieving to do that to someone you’d have to mourn.”

For a moment—just a moment—she looked stricken. Then, in a small voice, she said, “You know I can’t lie.”

“Yes.”

“You know I’ve said I was going to kill you. Repeatedly.”

“Yes.” I shrugged. “I try not to think about it most of the time. When I have to think about it, I figure we’ll find a way to break Titania’s geas before you get too close to the knives. It’s going to be okay. I really do believe that. But we need to figure out what to do about the Selkies. We can’t punish them for the crimes of their ancestors.”

“And I can’t let them swim free,” said the Luidaeg. “I made a promise. I have to keep it. We’re trapped, Toby. This is a closed cove: no one who swims here gets away.”

“No.” I shook my head. “We’re fae. We’re not trapped. I refuse to be trapped. We’re just not sure yet where the exit is.”

“May I?” asked Tybalt. His voice was surprisingly timid.

I turned.

He had moved forward a bit, closing half the distance between us and himself, so that we formed a line across the room: the Luidaeg, me, Tybalt, Quentin. His hands were out in front of him, palms turned toward us in a beseeching gesture that was oddly theatrical, like he was getting ready to deliver a grand soliloquy. I guess it was someone else’s turn for a change.

“When I watched the players of the Globe, they were forever mending their costumes,” he said. “Money was never so plentiful that a thing could be discarded when it still had life left in it. A gown would be cut down to become a