Once Broken Faith (October Daye #10)(40)

“That doesn’t answer my question,” said Karen.

“October still believes children can be sheltered,” said the Luidaeg. There was no blame in her tone: she was stating a fact, something plain and simple and immutable. “She forgets to ask herself whether they should. More, she forgets that everyone is a child to someone. Compared to me, you’re all infants.”

I sighed. “Okay. Point taken. We’re talking about the night-haunts, Karen. They’re going to come for King Antonio’s body, which means they’ll know what he knew, and maybe we can get some answers.”

“I hate it when you summon the night-haunts,” said Quentin.

“But I’m not summoning them,” I said. “I’m just going to be here when they show up. Totally different.”

Quentin did not look like he thought this was totally different. Quentin looked at me like this was the worst idea in a long string of bad ideas, stretching back to “hey, I think I might like to be born.” He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The kid has some of the most expressive eyebrows I’ve ever seen. I glanced to the Luidaeg, looking for support.

What I found was vague amusement, and a shrug so expansive that her hand hit the side of my arm. “You’re the hero of the realm here, Toby. I’m just the sea witch. You’re supposed to leave me slumbering in my watery cavern until you need a handy deus ex machina.”

Karen was looking back and forth between us, increasingly agitated. It had only ever been a matter of time before the dam broke. “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “There’s a man . . . he’s dead, Aunt Birdie! He’s right there, and he’s dead, and you’re making jokes! How can you do that? It’s mean, and it’s petty, and it’s . . . it’s not fair.” She sounded petulant as only the young ever could.

I missed being that upset by the cruelty of the world. I just couldn’t seem to work up the anger anymore. “You’re right, pumpkin: it’s not fair,” I said, walking over to put an arm around her shoulder. I kept my still blood-sticky hand behind my back. She knew it was there, but that didn’t mean she should be forced to look at it. “Nothing about the world is ever fair. You know that. We joke because we’re not happy either. King Robinson was a jerk, but he didn’t deserve to die, and we can’t bring him back. So we try to make ourselves feel better when we can, because we know the world isn’t going to suddenly turn kind. That sort of thing would take more magic than there is in the whole world.”

“He was a pureblood,” said Karen. The quiet puzzlement in her voice broke my heart to hear. She was so young. The Luidaeg was right that I never asked myself whether children should be protected: I knew the answer. They should be protected for as long as they could be, for as long as our shoulders could bear the weight of the world, because innocence was so fragile, and so easily destroyed. Karen had lost most of hers when Blind Michael had taken her captive. As for what remained . . .

There was so much more of it than I’d ever suspected. And it was so very, very fragile.

“I know,” I said. “Purebloods aren’t supposed to die. When they do, all we can do is try to make sure that justice is done. We’re going to figure out who killed him. I promise.”

It was a foolish promise to make. I’d made worse, and I could hear, distantly, the beating of paper-thin wings against the wind. The night-haunts were coming.

Quentin heard it, too. “Do you want us to go wait somewhere else?” he asked.

Karen was an oneiromancer. She could see the night-haunts any time she wanted to, just by visiting my dreams, or May’s. It might be better for her to see them in the flesh, not colored by whatever nightmare they were flying through.

“No,” I said. “Stay.” I turned toward the open balcony door. So did the others.

We waited as the air grew hazy with fragile, half-seen wings, and the night-haunts streamed into the room. The flock moved like smoke, buffeted by an unseen wind. The frailer, more faded night-haunts stuck to the middle, where they could be protected by the bodies of their more solid kindred. The night-haunts around the edges of the flock were doll-sized replicas of Faerie’s dead, wearing heartbreakingly familiar faces and forms, turned alien and strange by the tattered wings that grew from their backs, by the emotions hanging frozen in their eyes.

The flock circled the room twice, wings buzzing, searching for danger. None of us said anything. We simply waited to see what the night-haunts would do. Karen shivered against me but didn’t pull away. Finally, the night-haunts landed on one of the long banquet tables, the shadowy central figures clustering together while the others shielded them with wing and body. One night-haunt—slightly taller than some of the others, with eyes as purple as wildflowers, and the face of a decadent, black-hearted Peter Pan—stepped forward, eyes fixed on the Luidaeg.

“Auntie,” said the night-haunt, and his voice was the voice of Devin, my old mentor and first lover, and hearing it was like sandpaper on my soul. I had seen this night-haunt every time I’d faced the flock since Devin’s death, and it never stopped hurting. “Why do you come between us and our prey? The flock must feed. We’ve lost two to the wind in the last year.”

“Father did you no favors when he bound you,” said the Luidaeg. “Hello, Egil.”