Once Broken Faith (October Daye #10)(109)

“Hi,” I said softly, and sat on the edge of the bier, reaching out to take one of his hands and lace my fingers through his. I could feel the edges of the claws beneath his skin, and somehow, that was reassuring; somewhere in the last year, that had become the way a hand was supposed to feel. “Jin told me you’re going to be okay. Just in case you were wondering. Not that you can hear me, which I guess means this is a good time to tell you this.”

I took a breath. It shook, and felt like it was burning my throat. I forced myself to keep going. “The conclave is going to be over soon. They’re going to vote, or . . . whatever it is they do at something like this, and then the High King and High Queen are going to pass a verdict they think their vassals will be willing to live with. The vote doesn’t matter, but I figure they’ll at least consider it, because they don’t want to start a war. And maybe they’ll say the cure can be used, and everything will be fine, but maybe they won’t. I think we have to be braced for the idea that too many of the monarchs will be set against it, and the cure will be buried for another seventy years, or whatever seems reasonable to immortal people. They have time.”

Time. That was the problem. I paused before I said, more softly, “I know you’ve always said you love me like I am. I know you’d never ask me to change. But I meant what I said before. If the cure is buried, I’ll take the humanity out of my veins. I’ll learn to live as a pureblood, whatever that means. And I will be here when you wake up.”

What would I look like, with the last of my father’s influence sliced away? Would my hair turn golden, like Amandine’s, or would it just keep getting lighter? Would my skin bleach to bitter paleness, my eyes lose all claim to color, and leave me as an outline of a woman, looking for the artist who could fill me in? The copper in my magic would leave me completely, I was sure of that; it was already turning bloody. I’d smell like a slaughter every time I cast a spell or spun an illusion. I would see a stranger in my mirror, and iron would burn me so badly that I’d have to avoid it like the poison it was, and I didn’t care.

Maybe it was unhealthy to consider making a change that big for the sake of a man, but this wasn’t just about the man. This was about the boy on the next bier, the one I’d promised to usher into knighthood. This was about the mermaid who would have wanted me to look out for her family, and the alchemist who should never have been involved in this bullshit. Tybalt was my lover, yes, but this wasn’t about love. This was about family. This was about keeping my word to all of them. If I had to become a little less human to hold on to my humanity, then there was no question of what I needed to do.

I just had to be strong enough to do it.

The tears finally started falling as I curled up next to Tybalt, resting my head on his chest and tucking my hands under my cheek. I closed my eyes. “I don’t think you can hear me, but if you can,” I whispered, “if you can, please. Remember that I love you. I love you, and I am not sorry. No matter what it costs me. I am not sorry.”

His chest rose and fell beneath my hands, and for the moment, I could almost believe he was honestly sleeping, not enchanted to stay that way for a century. Healing, even magically aided, always put a strain on my body. Sometimes I didn’t even realize it was happening until the collapse came later. My eyes stayed closed, and eventually the tears stopped, and I fell asleep.

A hand touched my shoulder. “Toby.” The voice was soft, almost gentle, but it left no room for argument: I was going to listen. “You need to wake up now.”

I didn’t want to. I was warm, and I was comfortable, and since I hadn’t been elf-shot, I wasn’t going to get the questionable luxury of sleeping for a century. I just wanted to rest for a little while longer.

“You can be just like your mother sometimes, you know that?” The exasperation in the statement gave the identity of the voice’s owner away: the Luidaeg, sometimes called Antigone, my mother’s eldest sister.

Insults weren’t going to be enough to make me open my eyes. I nestled tighter against Tybalt.

The Luidaeg touched my shoulder again. This time, she left her hand there. “Toby, the conclave is over. They’ve voted, and the High King has given his decision.”

I opened my eyes but didn’t roll over. Instead, I stared at the slope of Tybalt’s cheek, and waited to hear the shape that my life was going to take.

“You want to know something funny? I think my jackass sister decided the vote, at least a little. No one wanted to side with her. She’s evil. You never want to side with the forces of evil, at least not where anyone can see you.” She paused. “But I think you decided it a lot more. You shouldn’t have been allowed to speak, and that meant that when you did, they listened. They heard you. And none of those assholes wanted to think about how confused they’d be if they missed a hundred years of Internet memes.”

I rolled over, staring at her. My heart felt like it was going to explode. “Do you mean . . . ?”

The Luidaeg smiled. Openly, honestly smiled. Her eyes were green as driftglass, and her features had settled in the broad, acne-scarred teenage face that I was most familiar with. “They’re going to allow the cure for elf-shot to be used.”

I was on my feet before I knew it, throwing my arms around her shoulders and squeezing her as tightly as Sylvester had squeezed me back in the hall. It was a full second before I thought to question the wisdom of hugging the sea witch without consent, and by that point, she was hugging me back, which made the question, if not moot, at least a little easier to answer.