Page 44 of Silver and Lead (October Daye #19)

“Your line is susceptible to transformation, and that includes transformation of thought,” said Marcia.

“I just needed to get him out of the room for a few minutes in order for his head to clear. I tried calling your house, but no one’s picking up.

” She said the last part like she was worried I would start yelling immediately.

When I didn’t, she untensed and continued: “Do you have a plan for what to do from here?”

“Working on it,” I said. “Dean, can I borrow your phone, please?”

“Of course,” he said. He was already reaching into his doublet pocket, and he held his mobile out to me even as he asked, “Who are you going to call first?”

“Backup,” I said. I thrust the chain at Quentin, who unwound it from around my wrist and wrapped it tight around his own. I nodded my thanks and retreated to the other side of the courtyard, punching all the numbers on the keypad in reverse order.

When I held the phone up to my ear, it sounded like the sea.

I waited, trying not to let myself think about the reasons why Tybalt or May hadn’t answered the phone.

Raysel wouldn’t have answered it. Tybalt generally ignored it, but I wasn’t home, and he should have been worried.

Seconds ticked by, and the waves crashed against the shore.

A seagull screamed somewhere in the distance.

Even as I started to get impatient, I had to admire the Luidaeg’s dedication to the bit.

Finally, the phone started ringing. It was a distant, almost tinny sound, like something that had been traveling along the lines for a hundred years or more. There was a click, followed by an all-consuming silence that was finally shattered by the Luidaeg’s voice demanding, “What?”

There was a time when that voice speaking in that tone had filled me with more dread than I could properly express, when it had been enough to make me feel small and vulnerable and in danger.

Now, it sounded almost like coming home.

What a difference a few years can make. “Hey, Luidaeg,” I said, my own tone calm and mild. “Got a minute?”

“Right now, for you? I do. I’m not doing anything.

I will be soon, I think—Poppy’s seen a few changelings sniffing around the neighborhood, and that usually means they’re trying to work up the nerve to come and talk to me.

But they’re not here yet, and until they are, I’m free.

” Her feigned irritation faded as she spoke, becoming easy and relaxed. I smiled to myself.

The Luidaeg can’t lie, but she can still deceive.

She uses illusions and misdirection to shape the world as she wants it to be, and sounding angry when she’s not is one of those techniques.

She’s almost always got something to be genuinely pissed off about, thanks to the web of geasa and enchantments that control her life.

Her being able to relax around me was a victory beyond words.

“Okay, so, did Arden tell you about the thefts?”

“Thefts?” Her voice sharpened.

“Guessing not. Someone cleaned out the royal vaults while we were all under Titania’s spell, and our charming queen asked me to find her missing stuff. With me so far?”

“Yes…”

“After the nonsense at Court last night with the pretender queen disappearing, I went to have a word with Dame Altair about why she’d been targeted—twice.

Once to put her in the false queen’s place, and once in an attack on her household, using a stolen scabbard that turns anything metal it touches into iron. ”

The Luidaeg made a disgusted scoffing sound.

“My brother Hugleikr created that thing. It’s basically indestructible.

We all thought he was an asshole for making it, just because his descendant line was immune to iron, but I won’t deny that it came in handy when Titania’s kids were hunting us through the fens.

Being able to make weapons they couldn’t stand against out of rust and shrapnel saved a lot of lives. ”

“It’s not saving lives now. Dame Altair’s footman was killed with iron, according to Arden.”

“May he rest in the comfort of the root and the branch,” said the Luidaeg gravely.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Anyway. Went to Dame Altair’s knowe, and she invited me and Quentin inside to make polite conversation while she poisoned us. I woke up tied to a bed without my weapons, keys, or phone.”

“That explains the unfamiliar number, I guess.”

“Can’t call you from a phone I don’t have. I borrowed Dean’s.”

“So you got away.”

“We did. It hurt like hell, and I’ve definitely ruined this shirt, but I got loose, freed Quentin, and then found Dame Altair’s accomplice. Bucer O’Malley.”

“That Glastig kid from Home?” She sounded faintly offended, like she couldn’t believe Dame Altair would stoop so low.

“Yeah. Also turns out Dame Altair is Dugan Harrow’s sister. Did you know?”

“I did,” admitted the Luidaeg. “I’m sorry. You didn’t ask, and I couldn’t volunteer the information.”

“I don’t actually expect transparency from you anymore. I wish I could, but I know why you can’t provide it, and I don’t see any point in making us both miserable by requesting something impossible all the damn time. Okay, so you knew. What’s the story there? Can you tell me?”

“It’s not protected information, and no one’s asked me to keep the secret,” she said, voice going thoughtful.

“She poisoned you after I offered to stand godmother to your child, which can be seen as a slight against me and my ability to protect the pair of you… yeah, I can spin this as selfishness. So.” She paused to take a deep breath.

“Dame Altair was born Eloise Harrow, younger sister of Dugan. She married an unlanded second son in Londinium, and the pair of them struck out for America in hopes of being able to move upward in the nobility. She made the crossing, her husband didn’t.

Once she got to the Mists, she threw off her widow’s weeds inside of a season, called her brother over to join her, and opened that little knowe she’s so proud of.

He stayed there with her until Gilad died, and then appeared in the pretender’s court inside of the year.

I don’t think they intentionally hid their relationship, so much as it just didn’t matter for their respective ambitions, whatever those happened to be. ”

“So Dugan could have been feeding her information about what was in the vaults the whole time the pretender was on the throne.” It made a horrible sort of sense. “And for some reason Titania let her keep that information when she spelled us all. Why would she do that?”

“Easy enough to mask dreams of treasure as just that—dreams. Wrap them up in veils and turn them into children’s stories, so Altair didn’t know what she was really sending her little thief after. People have done more for less. How did she find O’Malley?”

“He was already on his way back up the coast when everything got weird. He came back to the Mists, she recruited him. Only it turns out he’s still a shitty little thief at heart, and while he was stealing for her, he was also stealing from her—skimming off the things she didn’t specifically ask him to get, which means anything she didn’t know about may be out in the wild.

She caught on, and had him tied up, too. ”

The Luidaeg sighed heavily. “You released him, didn’t you?”

“He could have useful information about where things are, and why Dame Altair felt the need to poison me, although I didn’t know about Dugan when I released him, and her being the sister of someone who’s tried to hurt my family before probably has something to do with it.

We got out of her knowe, and on the way, we saw Dugan.

He used another of those borrowed blood charms to teleport away—and how long do those things last, anyway?

Doesn’t stolen magic have a shelf life?”

“Fae flesh doesn’t rot, fae blood doesn’t curdle, and charms made from either will stay fresh for centuries if that’s what their use requires.”

“Great,” I said sourly. “Anyway, we fled the knowe and went back to my house, which is where I get really homicidal.”

“What happened?”

“We got there to find Altair and Harrow were already in the house, disguised as me and Quentin. And when I realized what had happened, I turned around and walked away.”

“Glastig got you, huh?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “Marcia realized I wasn’t acting right and mixed me some sort of weird concoction that knocked me out of it, and Quentin’s fine now too, but I don’t know whether Bucer’s going to be stupid enough to try something like that again. He seems awfully worried about his own skin.”

“What does Altair think he stole?”

“The hope chest.”

The Luidaeg breathed in sharply, the world’s smallest sound of surprise. I held my tongue, giving her a second to recover her wits.

That second passed. More followed, a cascade of seconds rolling down the slope of her silence, until I couldn’t wait any longer: “Luidaeg?”

“You couldn’t have started by telling me that Goldengreen was missing?”

For a dizzy moment, I thought she was talking about the knowe.

Then I remembered that the hope chests all had proper names, once upon a time, and the one that had been in the kingdom vaults was Goldengreen, the namesake for the county where we now stood.

Its importance was such that Evening had named her county after it, to brag about the fact that it was in her care.

Now, even with the hope chest gone, the name endured.

“I wanted you to understand the whole situation,” I said. “She turned on Bucer when it wasn’t there.”

“But it really wasn’t there?”

“Not when he broke into the vaults, or so he says. I haven’t been able to check the truth of what he’s been telling us quite yet.”