Page 43 of When Sorrows Come

“—this way, come on!”

“Slow down, kid, I don’t rush.” The Luidaeg sounded more amused than anything else. Good. This was going to be easier if she wasn’t already in a rotten mood. “I’m too old to rush. I did my last rushing in the 1500s. Didn’t want to hang out too close to a bunch of humans who’d gone and contracted the Black Death.Humans werefilthyduring the 1500s. I don’t know how we got any changelings out of that century. Yuck.”

“I left Toby alone and armed with someone she doesn’t already know.”

“Yes, so you’ve said, multiple times. I still don’t rush. It’s not in my nature.”

Quentin appeared in the doorway, a worried expression on his face. I had no idea how large the knowe was, but even assuming it was only the size of Goldengreen, he must have taken at least part of the trip at a dead run to be back so soon. I made a mental note to be properly impressed once I knew the actual distances involved.

“They’re in here,” he called, over his shoulder.

“Anyone bleeding?” The Luidaeg managed to make the question sound almost academic, like she didn’t particularly care about the answer one way or another. She appeared behind him, once again wearing her human teenager disguise: overalls, no shirt, no bra, electrical tape in her hair. She paused to take in the sight of me sitting on the floor in my drenched gown, next to a virtually dry Nessa. I raised one hand, wiggling my fingers in a small wave.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” she replied, and stepped around Quentin, into the room. “So why exactly am I here?”

“Nessa spent the last three days in some sort of big, weird water bubble,” I said. “At least, three days is the best guess I have so far for how long she spent there. Could have been longer if this has been brewing for more time than we currently think. Before she bubbled herself up, her captor forced her to cast an unbreakable illusion and hide the door.”

“Looks broken to me,” said the Luidaeg.

“I am a breaker of the unbreakable,” I said, aiming for the level of pompous portent that Tybalt could put into asking for a toaster waffle.

The Luidaeg snorted. “Sure, kiddo, keep telling yourself that. So if the illusion’s been broken, the problem is...?”

“She spun a really strong illusion and then spent three days in a bubble with nothing to eat and I’m guessing no real sleep to speak of,” I said. “She can’t spin the illusions that would make her safe to be around without water from the lake where she was born, and that’s in her quarters, which are heavily boobytrapped, and whichthe Doppelganger has had unfettered access to for at least three days.”

“Oh, isthatall?” The Luidaeg came fully into the room, walking toward Nessa, who kept her head bowed and her face hidden behind her hair. The Luidaeg bent, touching the top of Nessa’s head with surprising gentleness before grasping her upper arms and pulling her, carefully but inexorably, to her feet.

“I’ll hurt you,” cautioned Nessa.

“You won’t,” said the Luidaeg, and released her arms, reaching out to move Nessa’s hair delicately aside. She had angled the Gwragedd Annwn so Quentin and I still couldn’t see her face, but we could see the Luidaeg’s as she looked into Nessa’s eyes. Her expression softened, her own eyes bleeding from the muddy blue-brown she favored toward their true—or trueish, it’s hard to tell when you’re talking about the Luidaeg—clear glass green.

“Thereyou are,” she said, with absolute and unmistakable fondness in her tone. “Now I have to ask, Nessa, daughter of Donal, son of Tosia, daughter of Ismene, called Black Annis by those who speak of her in this modern world, will you consent to my concealing your splendor from those it might harm? Even knowing you will have to trust me to remove my own working?”

Nessa stiffened, not pulling away, but clearly startled. She started to raise her hand, then appeared to think better of it and stopped with it somewhere around the level of her heart. “You... you’re...”

“I am,” the Luidaeg affirmed.

“Then is... Ismene?”

“No,” said the Luidaeg, with deep and genuine sorrow. “Your First died as she was rumored to have died, when Conláed hunted her through marsh and fen with fire in his hands and murder in his unthawed heart. His own death followed on his heels, but not fast enough to save my sister.”

Nessa sighed, deep and slow. “And they... they know?” she asked, with a little gesture of her head toward me and Quentin. In that moment, I believed she could find the strength to drown us both if she felt like it would keep the Luidaeg’s secret and was glad beyond measure that she wasn’t going to have to.

The Luidaeg followed Nessa’s gesture, her eyes lighting on me. Then she smiled, a bright, earnest expression that would have seemed entirely alien on her face not all that long before. When I’dmet her, she had been an angry, bitter woman living in self-imposed isolation on the edge of the sea, where she could watch the descendants of the people who’d slaughtered her children without ever being a part of their lives, where she could hold her breath and let the world pass her by.

Now, she was still angry, and she was still bitter, and she had good reason to be both of those things. But she was also thawing out, one tiny bit at a time, mellowing into the warm, generous woman she must have been before Titania and her descendants had committed truly monstruous acts in their efforts to make her Faerie’s greatest monster. Protective and kind, within the limits of her geasa.

All she’d ever wanted was a family.

“They know exactly who I am,” she said, attention going back to Nessa. “Better than anyone has in centuries, and the best part is, they don’t care. The kid beat me at chess last week.”

I glanced at Quentin. He hadn’t told me that.

The Luidaeg continued, “Me, the sea witch, terror of the tides, he beatme, and he didn’t even have the common sense to look ashamed of himself. Called me an old woman and said I should learn some gambits invented in the last century because he knows who I am, and he knows what I am—and he’snot afraid of me. Now, normally, I’d have to charge you for an illusion, but in this case, both of the people behind you owe me debts for favors done, and I need them alive so I can collect. That means hiding your pretty face from the world is an act of selfishness, and I’m still allowed to be selfish, thank Mom. So, will you allow it?”

“It would be an honor,” said Nessa, sounding faintly awestruck.

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