Like a Dream

by

Seanan McGuire

And we the fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecate's team
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream...

--William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

November 15th, 2014

I spent the four days following August's blunt attempt at making me feel better about my time in the dubious care of my Firstborn and the owner she had assigned to me sleeping in my own room. During the nights, I locked myself in my work room when not called upon to come to meals, and to their absolute credit and honor, neither Patrick nor Dianda said a word or raised a hand to stop me.

The first night, I mostly wasted in weeping, between cups of Aster's remarkable calming tea. I had been able to help her in refining some of its calming properties, but could not mix a batch without her aid; something in her touch infused the floral ingredients in a manner I could neither understand nor replicate. But as that infusion lasted for several full tides, I was able to pass the night with her assistance, whether or not she understood she offered it.

Had August spoken truly? Did I have the right--the moral authority--to forgive myself after the things I had done, the things I had allowed myself to be used in doing? She had told me that I didn't have a choice, and to some degree, she was correct. In other degrees, she was more than simply wrong. Oleander's many passions had extended to a love of pain, both causing and receiving it. And some of her tools-turned-toys had been made of iron.

Even at the very height of my subjugation, I had had access to the necessary instruments to remove myself from the situation. I could have stopped my own dancing at any time, had I been brave enough, had I been willing to take myself out of Eira's hands. But I had been so very in love with living, and during those days, in the midst of the tangled forest of terrors my life had become, I had lost the ability to see the trees.

I could lay with Oleander during the day and convince myself, even if only fleetingly, that I had come willingly to her bed, and not been given as pet and plaything by the woman we both served. Convincing myself that consent existed between us, that I agreed to and enjoyed her attentions, had been essential to retaining my sanity. I could carry out wicked deeds in my lady's name, things that made the very flesh attempt to crawl from my bones and leave me, things that had curdled my magic in my veins, turning it into something rotten and rancid, something that hated me as much as I hated it.

I have always been an excellent liar, and to survive, I turned those lies upon myself, and I thrived in the poison garden of my lady's attention.

So there had been a choice for me. It had only ever been a brutal one.

If I had gone to join the night-haunts, I would have been free...and I would never have seen my daughter again.

That thought carried me to the distant, unseen dawn, and when the knowe shifted into the sleepy softness of the daytime, I went to my own quarters, to my own narrow, solitary bed, and I slept uneasily but unchained.

The second night, I ran out of tea. In its absence, I set myself to picking apart the water-breathing potion that we were all required to take if we wanted to find safe passage to the surface. It was a clever thing, more complicated than it seemed on the surface, with layers of worked-in protection that would keep those who drank it from being affected by the changing pressures of the deep as they sank or ascended, and elements to warm the skin as it passed from sunlit lands into the cold embrace of the sea. True, the waters of the Summerlands were warm, but to reach them, it was necessary to pass through the mortal ocean. Without the potion's protection, the drinker would surely freeze.

It seemed to draw upon the inherent magic of the various water-breathing types of fae, chief among them the Merrow and Cephali. That gave me pause. If I were to enhance the potion with ground Merrow scales and some attributes of the Asrai, might I be able to grant the drinker more attributes of the Undersea? The potion as it currently existed was foul to the taste and left the drinker with lungs full of water when it wore off, necessitating forced purging in the gap between reaching the air and the potion losing its efficacy. If I could somehow give the drinker actual gills...

The challenge was sufficient to carry me nearly all the way to dawn, and my dreams that day were softer, sweeter things, less tangled in the machinations of wicked women, more washed in pleasant shades of alchemy and artistry. Two things I had cultivated on my own, and too often despite the people around me.

The third night, I realized that I had no right to examine someone else's brewing for flaws, as if I were somehow an authority on what made something true and safe. Who was I to think that I possessed the authority to question another's recipe? True, Dianda had agreed to it, and even seemed pleased that I might be able to make the process less onerous on her air-breathing family members, but surely she had been humoring me.

I was a failure. Failure the Luidaeg had named me, and the sea-witch could no more lie than I could rewind time and undo all my crimes. If she called me failure, then failure I must surely be, from now until the end of everything. I could never improve upon the work of a true artist. It was an insult for me to even think to try.

I smashed several pieces of glassware and sobbed for a good stretch of time before it occurred to me that I might wish to go seeking for more tea. But dawn approached, and it seemed rude to trouble Aster so close to the knowe's senescence, and so I swept up the wreckage of my night and retired to my bed, alone.

The fourth night, I rose and, upon checking to be sure my spouses had already left our shared chambers for the breakfast table, made my way out of my room and down the hall, heading for Aster's quarters. It was my sincere hope that the Undine, who served as one of Dianda's Court healers, would be in residence upon my arrival.

Hope has, occasionally, served me well, and she answered at my knock, opening the door and beckoning me inside. The smell of fresh-brewed tea and some sort of muffin wafted out, and I blinked as I stepped through the door, asking, "Forgive me if this is importune, but do your quarters contain a kitchen?"

"They do," she said, as she eased the door shut behind me. "I find baking to be a soothing addition to my labors, and some of the flavors I find fine would be poison to another, so it's best to keep my culinary efforts as well-confined as possible. What brings you to my threshold, Consort Lorden?"

The topic of my title was still one of some debate within the household, and likely to remain so for some time. The subject of my name, however, had been well-settled. While I could have remained a Torquill if I had so chosen, I had preferred to leave all the trappings of my life on land behind me. While I did not yet feel I had the right to declare myself a Lorden, much of the Court had made the assumption, and as Patrick smiled every time he heard it, I was in no hurry to correct them.

"I'm afraid I've run short of your delightful tea," I said, trying to look winsome.

Four days of little food, poor sleep, and near-constant weeping had left that expression well outside my reach. Fortunately for me, she took pity on my obvious dismay, and said, as she moved toward the apothecary jars along one wall, "You know, some of our fishers have had encounters with the great trawlers the humans use to sweep the bottom of the sea."

"Truly?" I inquired, moving to take a seat.

"Truly. There they are, daring the mortal oceans for a chance at sweeter fare, hunting deep-water fish or crustaceans, and then, abruptly, they find themselves ensnared in all-but-invisible netting, the lines cutting into their flesh, pulled along by a force beyond their understanding."

"That sounds dreadful."

"Indeed. They cut themselves free, or their companions do, but no fishers are allowed to go out alone any longer, for fear of being swept away. Those who have been so caught return to us, bruised and bleeding, and their bodies heal with a reasonable quickness, unless the nets are old and made of woven steel--something which happens only rarely any longer."

"I see," I said.

"Your tone tells me you don't. you wonder why I tell you tales of injured fishers when you came here seeking tea." She plucked a few jars down, paused, then added several more. "Their bodies, as I tell you, heal quickly. Their souls take longer."

I frowned, but found no answer.

"The humans speak of trauma as a sort of injury that lingers in the mind like a bruise can linger on the body. It takes long and long to heal. But unlike a bruise, no one can see it, and unlike a bruise, it rarely heals entirely on its own. There is no ointment for the mind, no liniment to take away the sting and ease the process of recovery."

She turned to face me then, walking over to put her jars on the table between us. "We acknowledge, all the time, that the heart can be broken. Why are we so loathe to admit that it can also be bruised?"

Before I could answer, she turned to retrieve her kettle from the hearth, then moved toward the herb garden. As before, she plucked leaves and buds with practiced care. This time, however, she also turned to the second garden, the one which contained a small pond and her submerged pearl.

From that garden she selected some delicate water flowers, and a few of the rushes that grew around the edge. Returning to me, she began placing all she had gathered inside the kettle.

"Forgive me for my current lack of cleverness; I have not been sleeping well," I said. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because trauma is a wound, Consort Lorden, and you have been wounded since you came here." She began adding dried ingredients to the kettle now, more than had gone into any previous pot she had brewed for me. "Injuries of the mind are more troubling than injuries of the bottom. They prove, almost always, far more resistant to healing. A flesh wound is a simple thing. A mind wound is more complex."

I frowned. "I am not wounded, Lady Aster."

She gave me a calm, appraising look, replacing the lid on her kettle. "Do me one favor, Consort Lorden, and I will brew for you as long as you have need of me: tell me no lies. Be honest with me, and I'll extend you the same favor."

"Forgive me, but...why are you so anxious for my honesty?"

"Because I love my Duchess." Aster picked up the kettle, moving it in quick, concentric circles. "She allowed me to settle here when she had no cause to think an Undine--a freshwater creature--would be an asset to her household. She granted me an opportunity many would have denied. More, you're in the Undersea now, Consort Lorden. They don't operate the way the Courts on land do. They believe in bluntness and in telling the truth. No one here will claim offense over something said in sincerity. Your new husband has been through this same process of adjustment. I have as well, but expectations are different of a Court healer than they are of a Ducal consort. They're easy with you now, because you're new and shaken and unfamiliar. Given time, the Court will start to expect things of you. Honesty is among them. Your wife needs you whole and healthy, and she needs you honest. Anything else will reflect poorly upon her."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing as she finished swirling her kettle and finally began to pour the tea.

This time, it was a bright, buttery yellow, like a child's impression of the sun. It smelled like sunlight as well, warming and clean. She filled two cups, set the kettle down, and offered one of the cups to me.

"Before you drink this, let me tell you what it is," she said. "The tea I serve for the healing of small wounds is calming, as you know. It calms enough to wipe the strain of recent injury away from the drinker, and is thus a small manipulation. Small enough to be included in permission given for a healing. This is...stronger."

I looked at the cup. "In what regard?"

"The humans have things called 'anti-anxiety medications,' which they use to treat people who have been traumatized in some way, or who were simply born with an excess of anxiety about the world around them." She lifted her own cup. "They...reduce the strength of those thoughts. It isn't a healing! You should find someone who you feel you can talk to, to try and find a path through the damage that has been done. But it is a...soothing, of a sort. A blunting of the hardest angles."

I looked at the cup again, more dubiously. "So you would sedate me?"

"No. The effect is not what you're imagining. I drink it myself, when war looms, or when things are uncertain, and I simply need to feel less terror about the world in general. It isn't addictive, save in the sense that feeling like the sky is not about to fall can be addictive, and I wouldn't have brewed it for you if you didn't look as if you needed it."

Slowly, I raised the cup and took a sip.

The tea had no flavor at all. I could feel warm liquid on my tongue, and when I swallowed, there was something there. But it was as if I were drinking only air.

And then, close on the heels of that first swallow, the sun arrived. There was no change in the appearance of the room, but it was as if my entire body was bathed in the long, slow sun of the afternoon, the stuff that had nothing to do with the destruction of enchantments, but wished only to warm. It was soothing beyond all measure, and I felt myself relaxing into the chair without deciding to do so. My senses still seemed to be entirely about me, and I could think with all the ease to which I was accustomed, but the distant sound of screaming that had been haunting me for so long that I had ceased to take any notice of it was gone.

Aster sipped her own tea, watching me, before she nodded approvingly. "There you are, Consort Lorden; it should be easier to breathe now."

"I--how--"

"A Merrow changeling brought me a bottle of something she called 'Lorazepam,' and asked if I could find a way to replicate its effects," she said. "She had lived with her father on the shore until his passing, and when she came to join her mother in the sea, she found the environment emotionally draining in ways she had never anticipated. She's where I learned most of these things. I have some books she recommended. Peter purchased them for me, on the computer connection his friend April has helped him to establish and maintain. Now. If I read your expression correctly, you're considering the virtues of running to your marriage bed and telling your spouses that all is well, you'll have no more episodes of grief or panic or dismay. Please. For your own sake, don't do that."

"But I feel..."

"As if you've just had your first dose of something intended to be part of a larger therapeutic protocol," she said, firmly. "As long as you do not lie to me, I will brew for you. But I will be telling the Duchess I'm doing so, and recommending that she find you a therapist familiar with the realities of the fae world. I believe several such are operating in the local coastal cities. Some of them will also do what's called 'virtual care,' using the same systems Peter used to order my books. You are injured. There is no harm or shame in seeking treatment."

I thought of what August had said to me, and to my surprise, the memory brought no pain. Perhaps, with my emotional connection to the things I had done, the things that had been done to me, weakened, I could find a way to live with them.

At the very least, I felt as if I might finally be able to sleep.

"Finish your tea," Aster instructed. "It works better when taken in the full dosage. After you're done, I'll see you back to your chambers and inform the Duchess and Ducal Consort that you are under my care. I'm quite sure they'll be relieved, after this past week. Helmi will leave soup and toast outside your room, and you will remain in your chambers until you are rested and prepared to rejoin the knowe. Do you understand?"

I started to reply, then hesitated. "How long have you been waiting for me to show up at your door?" I asked.

"Since your daughter informed me that she was worried she had upset you, as you took to your rooms right after you spoke with her. When you're ready to come out, you may wish to seek her company and tell her she did nothing wrong. That girl adores you, and she worries so."

The thought that I might have hurt her with my misery was a painful one, even with the tea dulling the edges of the world.

More meekly than I intended, I asked, "Do you truly think Dianda could find me one of these 'therapists'?" I had lived in and around the mortal world long enough to have encountered the concept before, and knew that many humans swore by them. The idea that some might have extended their practice to include the fae was all the more surprising because it was such a reasonable idea. Fae live a long time--potentially forever. And while the oldest purebloods will sometimes go into a deep fog and disconnect themselves from their memories, until what they have instead of passion and pain is an old photo album of things that happened to someone else, not all of us have had that luxury.

Amandine wandered lost at one point during August's absence, rattling at doors that most assumed were imaginary, as they could see nothing there, but I knew, from conversations with my...keeper, were actual sealed doors to deeper Faerie. She saw her father's handiwork, and while she could not muster the grasp to unlock it, she tried as best she could, seeking our absent child.

I, to my eternal shame, had thought her mazed with grief, lost in her own mind like so many others. And when she returned, she had been...changed. First she had slipped away to the human world and come back with a changeling. Then, when that did not ease or end her sorrows, she had slipped away again, more profoundly this time, passing into the fog of disconnection.

While she wandered, wrapped in a fugue of her own composition, none in Faerie had harmed her. The wild beasts and the thorns themselves will slide away from the purebloods caught in such inward contemplation. The sages and strangelings of the wilderness are always so preserved. And when she made her second return, so many old hurts had been purged, so many old kindnesses and cruelties washed away.

We had been long separated by then, and I wondered sometimes, in the long hours of the afternoon, when the knowe slept around me and all Faerie seemed turned against my heart's desires, whether it would have been easier or harder to divorce her if I had been present upon her second return. Did she remember our childhood together, our courtship, the day she had identified the human heritage in my blood, still etched like a shadow on the walls of me, even if the mortality had been purged? Did she remember choosing me over my brother?

Did she remember loving me at all?

If she did, I would still have been able to walk away with an easy mind, a settled heart, of that much I was sure. But if she didn't, I thought I might have felt myself bound to remind her, at least a little. To find any lingering ember of the girl she used to be and fan it back into a phoenix fire, so that we could fall in love all over again.

The trouble with loving a woman made of flame is that she will never be the one who burns.

So no, therapy was not a notion much practiced among our kind.

Aster waited for me to finish my tangled thoughts before she nodded, sipped her own tea, and said, "I do. She's assisted others of her subjects--the Merrow I mentioned before, a few of the fishers who've had bad encounters with the trawling boats. And Peter, of course."

"Of course," I echoed, somewhat numbly.

"He's very confined down here, given the limitations of his magic. All his sessions are remote, but his therapist is a Siren changeling, and understands what it is to both fear and desire the sea. Really, I think the only limitation is time."

"Time?" I was unaccustomed to thinking of time as something that could be limited.

"Yes, time," she said, sounding halfway-amused. "There are only a handful of therapists both trained for this work and aware of the existence of Faerie, and each of them has only so many available slots for patients. All of them have to eat in the mortal world, and pay bills, and most fae clients aren't able to provide human-approved currency, so they also must take other clients to make ends meet. This means it can be difficult, but I have faith the Duchess will find a way. And given the shipwrecks we have within our borders, payment should not be an issue."

"Not only the shipwrecks," I said, quietly. "My previous work required a certain amount of moving through the human world. I have bank accounts, with mortal money in them, that I can use in paying for my own care. I will not be a burden."

"A loved one is no burden when they need healing," said Aster. "But I understand, and am sure the Duchess will appreciate your offer. Now. Finish your tea."

This time, I obeyed.

Even the dregs, which should have been bitter, tasted of sunlight.

Aster set her own cup aside as she rose to claim mine, smiling gently. "I can walk you back to your chambers if you aren't sure you can follow my instructions," she said. "Return tomorrow when you wake, and I can brew you another cup. I do recommend it. You may feel wonderful right now, but the feeling is likely to fade as you sleep, and the anxiety return."

"Will I need to see you every day, forever?"

"No. Treatment and time can lessen the need for alchemical aid. That said, as long as you feel as if you're to blame for everything that's gone wrong in Faerie, or like the walls are closing in around you, or any number of other bad sensations that cause you difficulty in your daily life, you may come to me. I would prefer that you feel as well as you possibly can, and not allow your pride to keep you at a distance."

"That...would be an easy thing for me to do," I admitted, and stood. "I feel excellent now. The temptation to say that I'll feel excellent tomorrow, with no outside intervention."

"But that's not how the mind works," said Aster. "So many of our healing magics allow us to shrug off dire mortal injury in an instant, rendering a broken leg an inconvenience, rather than a long and arduous recovery. There are no such magics for the mind. This is the best approach we have to the situation, and I am honored to assist you in your journey."

I knew a dismissal when I heard one, offering her a shallow bow, I made for the door. "Your assistance is an equal honor. Perhaps together we can improve things until we are able to walk alone."

"There is always hope," she said, following me to the door and then out into the hall, where she matched her pace to mine as we walked back toward the chambers I shared with my spouses. Due to the hour, no one intercepted us or even seemed to see us go, although the ability of the Cephali to both climb walls and match their skins to their environments meant that we could have been surrounded by members of the staff.

Prior to Aster and her tea, I would have found that notion deeply disturbing. Realizing that it wasn't was like a weight lifting from my shoulders--and also a source of shame at the same time. I had never stopped to think about how uncomfortable it made me to know that I could be watched at all times and anywhere I went.

Aster paused at the door to the suite I shared with Patrick and Dianda. I looked at her expectantly, and she flashed me a quick smile.

"The door is not keyed to my entrance, Consort Lorden," she said. "I'll need you to open it for me."

"Oh! Oh, yes, of course." I touched the door, the hinges flashing with a wave of pearlescent light, then pushed it open.

Aster followed me inside. There was no one in the main room. "I assume this door is yours?" She gestured to one of the doors to my sleeping chambers. I must have looked deeply impressed, because she smiled, and said, "I haven't been here since they expanded for you, and these doors are the only new ones. They tend to be arrayed in a predictable order, which would make this the most likely to lead to your bedroom."

"Yes," I said meekly. "I sleep there when not sharing with my spouses."

"Then, I discharge my duty by seeing you inside," she said, and gestured grandly for me to go in.

I opened the door and slipped through. Sleep seemed like a distant dream, but I had agreed to her conditions, and so I removed my shirt and shoes and crawled between the covers to close my eyes.

Unconsciousness took me promptly, and for the first time in days, I slept deeply, peacefully, and without even the slightest hint of dreaming.

I woke sometime in the small hours of the morning, rising and opening the door to find that Helmi, as promised, had left soup and toast outside my door, protected by a simple stasis charm to keep it fresh and hot for as long as necessary. The toast dripped with butter and the soup swam with chunks of potato and clam. There was also a jug of fruit juice, and while I might ordinarily have scoffed at being treated like a child, I was unsure as to the wisdom of combining Aster's tea with alcohol. Better to stay with something simple.

I took the tray and retreated back into my room, and slept again shortly after my meal was finished.

#

This time, my slumbers saw me all the way through the day, and I woke again as night was falling and the knowe was stirring itself to rise.

The strange, sunlit calm of Aster's tea had faded sometime during my second sleep, and I perceived the jangling of my nerves all the more clearly now that I had been briefly free of it. Perhaps her tales of bruised minds and trauma held more truth than I would have credited them with having, for it was very clear that there was something wrong with me, something imperceptible to the eye.

It hurt, to think that what had happened to me--what I had done, what had been done to me, whether with or without my consent--could leave such marks behind. It seemed counter to all reasonable rules. I had survived. Shouldn't that have been enough?

But as I walked the hall to Aster's room to request my second dose of tea, the tight, anxious feeling that always rose when I thought someone might be watching me was back, painting hidden Cephali in every corner, making my heart beat faster with every step I took. Aware of my anxiety in a way I had never been before, I forced myself to keep going, until I reached and knocked at Aster's door.

She opened it almost immediately, giving me a sympathetic look. "Let me guess," she said. "You feel worse now than you did yesterday."

"I wouldn't have thought it possible, yet here we are," I said. "May I enter?"

"Of course." She stepped to the side, and closed the door behind me as I entered. "The mind continues to protect itself, even once damaged, and many people find that relief brings them enough peace that they can rest and begin the process of true recovery. Part of why I asked that you seek help, true help, beyond my tinctures is...well..." She trailed off, apparently unwilling to continue.

I frowned. "I begin to feel as if I've been tricked into something I do not care for," I said. "I'd appreciate more details very much if at all possible."

Aster sighed. "Part of why I asked that you seek help from a trained doctor of the mind is because many people say that the early stages of recovery are the most dangerous. The mind is still wounded, and still trying to understand the events that led to this situation, but as you begin to get better, you may find yourself with the strength and injury to do yourself harm."

"Ah," I said, understanding. "I won't pretend that I haven't considered it in the past, as a means of escaping an inescapable situation. But here and now, I finally have a chance at a happy ending I could never have deserved. Both my daughters chose me. One of them accompanied me beneath the sea, and as the other has a household of her own, I could never have expected the both of them." Nor would that have ended well, given August and October's relationship to date. "The man I have loved longer than any other has chosen me, against all odds, and his lady wife not only accepts and allows this, but chooses me as well. I have experience with bleak and terrible ways of thinking. I have reason, for the time being, to turn myself away from them, and believe in my own ability to continue to do so, even in the face of dear temptation."

"That may be the floweriest way I've ever heard someone say that they're not going to hurt themselves," said Aster, sounding faintly amused.

"Flowery language has always been one of my greatest gifts," I said blithely. "My other great gifts are, naturally, alchemical talent and well-trained hands."

"I have no need of either gift," said Aster. "I do my own alchemy, and I tend my own garden."

"Sometimes it's nice, not to be needed."

"Yes. Sometimes that which seems unnecessary is the most precious thing of all."

I paused then, and said, more delicately, "Last night, when we spoke, you indicated that you would inform my family that I was under your care. Was this accomplished?"

"It was, and as I had anticipated, they were greatly relieved to hear that this was the case. They had wanted to suggest it, but feared upsetting you if they implied in any way that you were less than perfect as you were."

"I have never once pretended at perfection!" I objected.

Aster speared me with a look. "Don't lie to me. Pretending at perfection is the whole of how you present yourself to the world, as if we would all abandon you at the first hint of anything less. The Duchess expressed great gratitude, both that you had come to me and that I would agree to aid you. The Ducal Consort was less restrained. He offered to kiss me, and was dissuaded only when I reminded him that kissing me while you were in my care might be considered a conflict of interests. They love you very much, you know. They want only the best for you."

She had only named two people. The most essential was yet absent. So I swallowed and sat as she mixed my tea, waiting until she was pouring it out before I asked, "And my daughter?"

"The Lady August was away when I informed the Duchess and your mutual husband of your condition, and she asked that I leave the handling of your child to them, who presumably know her better than I could hope to do. I assume she's also fine with it, as she made no attempts to storm my quarters, but I could always be wrong." She handed me the teacup full of sunshine. "Here. Drink."

"Yes, my lady," I said formally, and did as I was instructed.

Once again, upon drinking, a feeling of great calm swept over me, and my concern about lurking eyes in the halls receded, revealed for the unnecessary fear that it was. No one here was spying on me. No one here wished me harm.

"Now. Do you think you need another day in your rooms, or are you prepared to rejoin the knowe?"

I gave the question the consideration it deserved. The urge to say that of course I was fine to go back to my family and my sketchy duties was strong; the urge to go back to bed and stay there, possibly forever, was equally so. But I remembered August, struggling to eat a piece of toast to please me, and the question was settled.

"I think I've kept myself long enough apart from them," I said. "August will be worried, if no one else is."

"August is convinced that she's upset you beyond all recovery, and will hear no soothing to the contrary," said Aster, in the calm, unhurried tone she seemed to use for practically everything. "I would never think to tell you what to choose, but it seems to me that you've chosen rightly. All your family will be delighted to see you, your daughter doubly so."

The pang I felt upon hearing that was strangely complicated, and I paused, trying to puzzle through my own feelings on the matter. Guilt was present, yes, but also a fierce joy, as if a part of me rejoiced in remembering how to care for myself.

It was an art I had gone far too long without practicing.

I finished my tea in a long drink that felt almost disrespectful to Aster's art, then rose, offering her my cup. She smiled as she took it.

"If the chance arises, tell the Lady August I told her you'd be back."

I nodded. "I will, lady. I'll see you tomorrow evening, if not before."

She waved as I led myself from her chambers and out into the knowe.

#

First, I returned to my own quarters. In my hurry to get to Aster and ease my jangling nerves, I had neglected essential parts of my daily ablutions. While my clothes were still shabbier and more threadbare than I preferred, that was a dilemma for my vanity. My daughter still deserved to be greeted by a man who had bathed and brushed his hair before coming to her doorstep.

Helmi was in the main chamber when I arrived, her tentacles flowing across the floor like a tangled symphony of dancing ribbons. Describing the movement of the Cephali is no easy thing. they undulate, like the octopus they so remember. They dance, they flow like water, they roil. What they don't do is walk, or anything that someone from the land would recognize as coming close.

She looked up at the sound of the door, offering me a polite, strangely relieved smile. "Master Lorden!" she said, sounding delighted. "You're out and about again! are you feeling better, then? Rejoining the rest of us?"

"That's the hope," I said. "Lady Aster is helping me to find a sort of equilibrium. Is August in her chambers?"

"Aye. Are you to see her?"

"As soon as I've cleaned myself up enough so as not to frighten her. But I'm glad to have come across you. Speaking with Lady Aster has allowed me to pinpoint some of the things that have been making me uncomfortable."

"Am I upsetting you?" asked Helmi, the ends of her tentacles flushing white in her concern.

"No, no," I assured her. "You have been a true delight in my time here, and an excellent helper in adjusting to my new surroundings. And I would never ask for you, or for the other Cephali, to stop doing your jobs. I know you take comfort in them, and the knowe benefits greatly from your labors. But I..."

I stopped, not sure how to continue. Helmi said nothing, only watched me, tentacles still tipped in white.

"I lived a long time knowing that every move I made was watched by someone I couldn't trust to have my best interests at heart," I finally continued. "I was never alone, never safe, never unwatched. I know the staff of this knowe is trustworthy. I know you or Dianda can vouch for each and every one of them. But my nerves don't know those things. I look at empty spaces and imagine eyes there, watching me, knowing everything I do, and I...I can't breathe."

"Is that all?" Helmi relaxed, normal cherry coloration sweeping back along the length of her tentacles. "That's not an uncommon reaction to meeting us, when landers have cause to come here. I suppose it's just been so long since the consort came home to stay that we forgot how jarring it can really be. I'll ask the rest of the staff to become visible whenever you enter an area, and to ask their children to do the same. It may not be as dramatic as myself, but you'll have outlines and little spots of color to guide by. I promise."

"It's very appreciated, Helmi," I said, with a small bow. "Your consideration, especially, is a blessing."

"Doesn't do to harm people without meaning it," she said.

"And yet so very many do," I said, and proceeded to my room, to sort through my clothes and clean myself for the night ahead. Aster said August would be glad to see me. It was hard to truly believe that. I had let her down, again. My daughter's life had been a long line of disappointments, all of them flowing from her parents to her.

Well. If that was so, I would just have to work not to disappoint her further.

I washed and dressed, not allowing myself to malinger, and left the room to find Helmi gone and the chamber set to rights, as it was every evening, and again every morning. We didn't spend much time in the central gathering area, preferring the privacy of private rooms or designated spaces. The early morning was as like to find the three of us in Patrick's workshop or my lab as preparing sensibly for bed.

We liked each other's company. They liked my company, the man I was now, not the man I'd been before I'd sworn myself to my poisoned rose of a former master. The thought was staggering, and I ruminated on it as I walked along the halls to August's rooms. The doors were warded to allow only visitors she permitted, and I hesitated before reaching for the doorknob.

If her anger at me was such that I had been barred from her presence, there was nothing I could do but knock and hope to make amends.

Fortunately, my concerns came to naught. The door opened when I turned the knob, and I stepped into the central chamber of her suite. It was a mirror to the one I shared with Patrick and Dianda in shape and form, but decorated to my daughter's taste, rather than to my spouses'. Given time, we might change ours to reflect my presence. If I were able to stay that long.

The door to the room intended as her studio was cracked. There was no way she could have missed the sound of my arrival. I walked to it and hesitated before closing my eyes and knocking.

"Enter, Papa," said August, voice subdued.

I pushed the door open and made my way inside. She was seated at the drafting desk, the window in front of her displaying the knowe at Goldengreen, where I had once spent so much time as a semi-willing subject. It belonged to my stepson now, and not my mistress, but I couldn't stop the vague feeling of unease that crawled across my skin when I beheld it.

Her mapmaking supplies were laid out across the desk, jar of ink open by her elbow and quill still in her hand. She didn't lift her eyes from the paper she was working on, or turn to look at me.

"Hello, poppet," I said, my own voice low, respecting her quiet.

"You told me you would try, Papa," she said, and if the choice had been mine to make, I would have died a hundred times before hearing the reproach in her voice.

I tensed, biting my lip, and waited to see if she would say anything more.

"You told me you would try to let go, and your response was to lock yourself in your room for four days. I'm sure you've already formulated some excuse to absolve me of the timing, but it's difficult to look at your actions without seeing blame in them, directed entirely at me. It was my fault. I hurt you, and all because I asked you to try."

"No," I blurted. It was an awkward beginning, and I decided to continue in the same way. She didn't want me to be polished and practiced; she wanted me to be honest with her. True honesty didn't come easily to me. Never had, really, but I was well out of practice with the art after several years of embellishing, polishing the truth, and outright lying when it suited me or my keeper. By the end, I had difficulty telling the difference. Her desires had never been my own, but she'd been so skilled at the art of spinning what she wanted into a pretty web that most times, she won me without a fight.

"No?" August echoed, warily.

"No. No, you didn't hurt me, and if you had, it wouldn't have been because you asked me to try. August..." I paused, taking a much-needed breath. "I was hurt to hear that your disappearance had been under your own power. I had always managed to hold out some small sliver of hope that you had, in actuality, been tricked or trapped or somehow lured away. That perhaps Blind Michael had taken you--"

Her gasp interrupted me as she realized what I had just said, and she began to look frantically around herself.

"Peace, darling, peace," I said. "That particular terror of the night is gone. Your own sister slew him, and he shall not rise again."

"One more thing she accomplished, then," said August, with surprising bitterness. She still hadn't turned to look at me. "All I achieved in his lands was the abduction of a child already stolen and the stranding of myself in the deepest parts of Faerie. She goes there and slays the monster we all had so much cause to fear. She drives back the shadows in the night."

"She's a hero," I said, bluntly. "What you're feeling now is dearly familiar to me, even as I wish it weren't. That's the feeling that drove the first wedge between myself and my brother, when we were young men yet and Sylvester was just coming into his own heroism. Faerie all but bends fate around her heroes. She preserves them to her own ends, and she uses them hard, until the day they fall from favor. Too many have wound up monsters in their own ways, shells of the saviors they were when they began, crouching in mountain lairs or isolated in towers, setting themselves against the world they once protected. A hero unmoored and alone is a quest for the next who comes along. Had I clung more tightly to my brother when we were young, I might not have been such an easy target, and he might not have been such a tempting one. Remove the hero, remove the wall between the wood and the world."

"I don't understand what you mean, Papa."

"Amy was always going to be a target for...that woman. No matter what, she's the youngest of the Firstborn, and my former patron fancies herself the dictatrix of the fate of Faerie. Amy could have grown up to be anything. She could have been the answer you strove to be, she could have been the hero your sister is. She never had a chance to be anything more than a pawn in that awful woman's game. I, though...I had all the choices in the world. All the chances to hold onto my brother and say that we were meant to face the world together, as a united front, a hero and his sage, a sage and his hero. Instead, I let jealousy have me. Convinced myself that the only difference between us was that Faerie valued him more, and struck out to find my own path, unshadowed by my brother."

"So you think that if you had stayed closer to Uncle Sylvester, you might not have lost your way?" She sounded confused.

That was understandable. I felt a little confused myself.

"I'm saying that we both needed an anchor, something beyond being the bravest or the cleverest person in the room, and without it, we both wound up a little lost. October has her anchors. She found herself without them, and so she went and crafted them for herself out of the things the world offered her. You and I, we have to cling to each other now, and to our new family, and perhaps someday, to your sister as well." I sighed. "For all that my First would tell you blood matters above all else, blood doesn't make family. Family has to be earned, over and over again, for as long as you want it to endure. My brother and I, we stopped earning it some time ago. You and your sister don't have to follow our example."

"Is this a really convoluted way of telling me not to be jealous?"

I could have laughed at the peevish note in her voice. I didn't. My sense of self-preservation is slightly too developed for that. "Your sister has her trials, as you have your own. Regardless, Blind Michael holds no power here any longer, and you need not fear the monster, nor the man. Yes, August, you hurt me when you told me that you left of your own free will. Even lied to and misled, I would have hoped that you would come to me before you left. That you didn't is my failure as a parent, not your failure as a child, but still. I wish I had done better by you, somehow."

"Papa..."

"So yes, you hurt me, but not because you asked me to try. That you would trust me enough to ask that, when you couldn't trust me enough to tell me you were leaving, is a balm to a wound I didn't even realize I was carrying. I didn't take to my quarters because you hurt me."

"Then why?" She finally spun in her chair as she made the demand, her eyes flashing fury, her hands clenched until it looked like she was in danger of cracking a finger.

"Because like someone who brushes up against an invisible bruise that goes all the way down to the bone, you reminded me that I was already hurt, by other hands than yours. You didn't cause the injury, August. You allowed me to remember that it was there. And once I had remembered it, I couldn't ignore it anymore. I am trying. The Lady Aster is assisting me with her art--she's apparently been studying something the humans call 'anxiety,' and believes I may be suffering from an injury to the mind that manifests in very similar ways. She's been brewing me a tincture that blunts the edges of the world, and makes the anxiety less, without compromising my facilities. I'm still myself. I'm just not constantly afraid that a dead woman, or an elf-shot Firstborn, will lunge out of the shadows and drag me away."

August didn't say anything, but nodded slightly to show that she was listening. Under the circumstances, I'd take it.

"I'll be talking to Dianda before we go to bed in the morning, to see if she can help me find what's called a therapist who will be able to work with me on repairing what of the damage is still repairable, and on learning to live with what's become a part of me." I paused. "I doubt I'll ever be the man I was before. I doubt that's a great loss. He was a careless man in many ways. Careless with his family, careless with his heart. He's gone and buried, and I think that given the right architects to shore up my walls, I might be a more than worthy successor. But I can't do it alone, and you asking me to try has forced me to admit that."

August made a small choking sound, then began to laugh.

I pulled back a bit, blinking.

"August? Did I say something wrong?"

"No, Papa, no. You said all the right things. I couldn't have scripted them better myself. I've told you I learned things during my time among the humans. I know what a therapist is, and I quite agree that one could do you good, if they're competent and understand Faerie."

"The Lady Aster assures me they are both competent and properly educated."

"Then this is a wonderful gift. I'm still angry at you for shutting yourself away for days and days, right after you made me a promise."

My cheeks reddened. "I would apologize in more detail, but I had little choice in the matter. My mind refused to clear or to settle itself, and all was whirling and wilderness. You have my apologies, and my assurance that while I can't pledge never to have another bad episode, when I do, I will ask Helmi to bring the Lady Aster to my quarters, and I will do something to ease the hurt, not simply wall myself in my room and wait for it to be over on its own."

"That will be sufficient," she said, and started to cry.

I crossed the room in an instant, not waiting for an invitation as I dropped to my knees and put my arms around her, trying to offer her what comfort I could. August immediately shifted position so she could cling to me, crying even harder. She didn't speak, and neither did I. Without a word between us, I could tell that these were tears that had been a very long time coming. Oh, it wasn't the first time I'd seen her cry since her return, but those had been shallow tears, the sort anyone can shed at any time. These came from deeper down, from the places where she was as injured as I was, and I recognized them well.

She clung to me and cried, and I held her close and let it happen, and after a time, her tears tapered off and mine began, and she held me as closely as I had held her, and we cried together. After all that time and all that distance, and all those wounds too deep to do anything but fester or scar, we cried together, and somehow that was as cleansing as Aster's tea. We were trying, and we were neither of us in the slightest bit alone.