Page 59 of Silver and Lead (October Daye #19)

But the false Queen of the Mists always favored the stuff.

She lined her dungeon in it. I’d always wondered how she could get that much iron, that pure, and now I knew.

Hire some Gremlins and Coblynau to do your construction—two of the only types of fae unbothered by iron—and use that damned scabbard to convert the metal you needed, one ingot at a time.

It was an elegant solution to an unnecessary problem.

She had probably been the one to suggest dipping a spool of copper or aluminum iron in the scabbard, converting it to something cruel and unforgiving.

I did wonder who had woven it with the rose boughs for a moment before my brain caught up with my speculation and reminded me that Janet was still human.

Immortal, all but indestructible, but human.

How much of my descendant line’s strength had been dictated by Maeve’s curse on Janet?

I knew from the Luidaeg that it had been proximity to Tam Lin’s transformations that made us so easy to change: our blood had learned to be protean just because my grandmother had been next to Titania’s spellwork.

What could being born to a cursed woman have done to us?

My wrists and ankles ached. The burn was getting worse, and I no longer dared to struggle, because if I did, I’d just drive the wires deeper and speed up the progress of the poison.

If I wanted to walk away from this intact enough to kick every person involved soundly in the head, I needed to minimize my exposure.

Did I believe that Dame Altair was going to let me use the fount to cure my iron poisoning when this was all over? I did not.

However fae I’ve become in the last few years, I’m still part human, and as long as I’m part human, I’m still a changeling.

I’d been hanging on to my humanity out of habit and comfort, trying to keep my human father a part of me for as long as possible, even though I’d long since slipped over the line into “mostly fae,” meaning there were more downsides than advantages to staying mortal.

Well, this was another downside, honestly: as long as I was a changeling, Dame Altair could kill me without fear of breaking the Law. Oberon’s Law doesn’t cover changelings.

After she sliced my baby out of my body, she could leave me here to die, and it wouldn’t matter one little bit.

The door she’d left by creaked open. I turned my head toward it, ready to spit at whoever stepped into the room, and blinked as no one entered at all.

Wait. No: no one entered that I could see.

The way I was tied to the bed, only the top half of the door was visible.

I blinked, straining to see anything below that, and heard claws clicking on stone a moment before the door slid shut again and Madden’s head popped up over the edge of the bed, ears pricked forward in evident concern.

He still looked like a Golden retriever.

I managed—barely—not to laugh in relief. “Madden,” I said instead. “How did you get here?”

He folded inward on himself, becoming a crouching man.

“Janet thought I was Walther’s dog. I barked and tried to bite her when they moved like they were going to grab me, and she said they could leave me outside.

Bucer didn’t tell. He went in with her and Walther, and she didn’t grab him, just said come and he came.

I don’t know whose side he’s on by this point.

Your rose goblin ran into the bushes and disappeared. ”

“Bucer is on Bucer’s side,” I said. “Can you untie me?”

Madden nodded as he turned to look at the ropes around my wrists, then recoiled, eyes going wide. “Toby, that’s iron.”

“Oh, believe me, I am exceptionally aware.”

“Doesn’t it… I know you’re a changeling, but doesn’t it hurt?”

“It burns,” I said, and was almost ashamed of how small my voice became when I spoke. “But I think that was the point. I can’t hurt myself to get away when it burns like that. My body wouldn’t let me, even if I was desperate enough to try. Please, can you untie me?”

He stood, moving to look at the bedposts.

“It looks like the loops are tied here and here,” he said, indicating something I couldn’t see.

“I don’t heal the way you do. Even if I wrap my hands in the sheet, if I let you loose, I’m going to burn my hands so bad I won’t be able to run after they’re paws again. ”

“I know,” I said. “The fount that lets us cure iron poisoning is here somewhere, based on what Dame Altair said, but it’s still going to hurt, and I’m sorry.”

“I could run and tell Ardy what’s happening,” he said, reluctantly.

It was clear that he didn’t want to run away and leave a pregnant woman tied to a bed when there was something he could do to help.

“Or I could run and find the cat-queen, tell her what’s happening.

I bet she’d bring her cats to help if I told her. ”

Shade, Queen of Berkeley’s Cats, was an ally and—according to Tybalt—a much closer one than she’d been before Titania’s spell. He’d helped her save her Court when the Cait Sidhe were all held captive on the other side of the Shadow Roads. The idea was briefly tempting.

But not as tempting as not being here any longer.

I took a deep breath. “Dame Altair’s been trying to lure me out of my house for I don’t even know how long,” I said.

“She agreed to help her brother bust the false queen out of Arden’s custody because she knew that was the thing that would get me back into the field. ”

“Why?”

“Janet wants my baby.” Saying the words so bluntly made them feel real in a way they hadn’t before. It made sense. She’d been trying to get a child back from Faerie since Amandine was taken away from her.

Trauma moves in cycles. We pass it down, one to another, and there’s no time limit on how long that damage can endure.

I didn’t know who’d been responsible for taking Amandine away from her mother, but whoever it was, they had a lot to answer for.

And Faerie being Faerie, they might still be around to give those answers.

Madden looked horrified and immediately reached for the ropes looped over the bedframe.

“Nope,” he said. “That is not going to be happening today, no, not today, not tomorrow, not any day that I have a part in. We’re getting you out of here, even if I have to stay human until someone can treat my hands. Nope and nope.”

He hissed between his teeth, and the smell of his blood filled the air, perfumed with Scotch pine and dried lichen. I’d never smelled his magic before. Cait Sidhe smell of their magic when they transform. I turned to blink at him, confused.

“Madden, why don’t I smell your magic when you change forms?”

He kept working. “Little busy here, Toby. I want to be careful.”

“I identify people by the smell of their magic half the time, and I’ve never smelled yours before, which means I don’t know for sure that you’re actually you. Why don’t I smell your magic when you transform?”

He sighed, pulling his hands away from the rope. “Is this really important enough to interrupt me in the process of letting you go?”

“Yes,” I said, voice blunt.

“Right. Right.” He shook his head, flipping his hair out of his eyes.

“Cu Sidhe don’t change shapes the same as Cait Sidhe do, because we carry our magic differently.

They carry theirs in their hands, just the way a Daoine Sidhe does.

It’s always right there. It’s why they’re better at being part one shape, part another, while we’re either people or dogs, no in-between.

When we were first born, our father, Culann, looked at us and saw our noses would be our best advantage, so he took us to the shore and threw all three of his pups into the waves.

Two washed back onto the beach, and after that, their magic didn’t smell when they changed shapes.

They’d been washed in salt and struggle, and the sea granted them the ability to pass without leaving as much of a trail. ”

“What happened to the third pup?” I asked, half-curious, half-horrified.

“He was a Firstborn’s son, and they’re hard to kill, so some of us think he didn’t drown, just swam off and away to somewhere else, and maybe someday we’ll find a descendant line of sea dogs that want to be our friends,” said Madden. “Do you believe me now?”

“I want to,” I said. “I really do. But I’d never heard that before, and maybe it’s true and maybe it’s not, but either way, please finish untying me.”

Madden nodded. “All right,” he said, and started working on the ropes again. “You can ask Ardy when we get out of here.”

“I’ll ask the Luidaeg.” Any story that involved throwing children into the sea would be something she’d know. She wouldn’t approve of it—she doesn’t like people hurting kids—but she’d know it.

“All right,” said Madden again. The rope holding my left wrist slackened, making it possible for me to move my arm into a slightly less strained position.

“Try to keep still.”

“Sorry.”

The more he worked, the more the ropes loosened, and the harder it became for me to keep still while he untied me.

The thorns coupled with the iron made it slow going, and I was starting to worry when the ropes that held my hands finally let go, freeing my arms. I hurried to shake the remaining loops from my hands, revealing raw, red wrists that looked like they’d been the victims of some wild animal, then pushed myself as upright as I could, trying to lean down and help him untie my ankles.

I couldn’t reach, only watch from a slightly better vantage point as he began undoing the ropes at the foot of the bed.

Madden’s hands, when I glimpsed them, were even worse off than my wrists—at least I’d been healing as I hurt myself, body struggling to patch itself despite everything.

He didn’t have that benefit. His fingertips were burnt and blackened, and there were deep, painful-looking slashes across his palms. I hissed between my teeth.

“Madden, how are you still working?”