Seanan McGuire - Chimes at Midnight

She was a pretty little thing, all scabby knees and elbows. Her face was a human-blunted mirror of Amy’s. She even had Amy’s no-color gray eyes, like the kind of mist that swallows ships whole. Her hair was darker than I’d expected, dirty dishwater blonde already trending toward brown. Maybe blonde hair wasn’t going to be a hallmark of the Dóchas Sidhe after all. They were a pretty new race. I was still sorting out what I could use to spot them at a distance.

There was nothing wrong with her eyes. She’d only gone tumbling down the slide twice more when she spotted me and waved, fearless as you please. I hesitated before waving back.

She seemed to take that as an invitation, because she scrambled up and ran over to me. Her feet were bare. I hadn’t noticed that before. She dug her toes into the sand and looked up at me, Amy’s eyes in a little half-human girl’s face, and asked, “Are you lost?”

“What? No. I’m not lost.” Shit. I hadn’t come prepared with an excuse; I didn’t expect her to spot me before I was ready for her. She had good eyes. “My dog is. Have you seen him? He’s pretty big and shaggy.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head for good measure. “I haven’t seen any dogs. Did you ask my Mommy?” And she pointed to Amy, who was, blessedly, looking down into the picnic basket. I should have gone then. I should have turned and walked away. But there was something out of place; something in the color of this little girl’s hair . . .

I squatted down, resting my elbows on my knees, and studied her as carefully as I could. “What’s your name?”

“October,” she answered, with prompt and dangerous honesty. “I’m seven.”

“Pleased to meet you, October. I’m Annie. I’m a lot more than seven.” And I stuck out my hand for her to shake.

There was no hesitation on her part—none at all. She took the hand I offered, and the feeling of her skin on mine told me everything I needed to know.

Seven years wasn’t long enough to wait.

Seven years was seven years too long.

The pounding on my apartment door started almost exactly when I expected it to. It had been three days since I had informed Sylvester Torquill of what Amy had been doing; three days since I had “suggested” he take steps to fix things. He was a good man, Sylvester was, and he’d done the honorable thing. October had chosen Faerie. That didn’t surprise me—no kid who did that little second-guessing was going to choose humanity—but it was still a relief. The line remained unbroken. Despite everything, there might still be half a chance in Hell.

I waited for a pause in the hammering before I opened the front door and said, very calmly, “Hi, Amy. Nice of you to drop by.”

“You—you! How dare you!” She shoved her way past me into the hall. It was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, now I could close the door. On the other hand, now she was inside my apartment, and there was a very good chance that she was going to start throwing things.

Amy always was a little temperamental.

“How dare I what?” I turned to face her, cocking my head slightly to the side. “Really. What is it that you think I did? I want to hear you say it.”

“You had no right! None !” The air around her crackled with the blood and roses smell of her magic as her human guise wiped itself away, revealing Amandine, daughter of Oberon, in all her seriously pissed-off glory. If looks could kill, I would have died at that moment. “I told you to leave me alone. I told you to leave us alone.”

“I gave you seven years. That was a lot longer than you had any right to ask for.” I stepped around her, walking toward the living room. I figured she’d follow me, and she didn’t disappoint.

“Do you know what you did ?” she demanded.

Dad forgive me, but that was the last straw. I whirled around to face her, snapping, “Yeah, I know what I did. I called Sylvester and told him what you were doing to that poor kid, because he didn’t have the right kind of eyes to see it. I told him he was almost out of time to get her out of there. Fuck, Amy, I knew you wanted out, but I never dreamed—”

“I was saving her!” shouted Amy, balling her hands into fists as the smell of blood and roses thickened in the air around her.

I dispelled whatever she was starting to cast with one sharp slash of my hand. “ You were killing her !”

Amy stared at me, colorless eyes filling with tears.

It was a trick she’d been using on me since she was born. Littlest sister, getting ready to cry, needing comfort. It usually worked, whether I wanted it to or not. But it wasn’t going to work this time. I stepped closer, moving into her personal space as I lowered my voice to a hiss. “You were killing her. Every time you twisted that little girl’s blood, you took centuries off of her life, centuries that weren’t yours to steal—”

“Annie, please . . .”

“No, you’re going to listen. Every time you twisted her blood, you took centuries off of her life, and you made her that much more vulnerable. Faerie is not going to treat her kindly. Not thin-blooded, and not as your daughter.”

She sniffled, trying to lift her head proudly. She almost succeeded. “I was going to make sure Faerie never had the chance to hurt her.”

I laughed before I could stop myself: a brief, bitter sound. “You think a lot of yourself, don’t you, Amy? You could destroy that little girl. For all I know, you already have. But you can never, never save her from Faerie.” A thin smile twisted my lips as I added, “It’s in her blood. Even you can’t change that.”

“You never gave me the chance,” she whispered.

“You never had a chance; it wasn’t mine to give,” I replied, as kindly as I could. “What you did to her, what you were clearly planning—that’s monstrous, Amy. That’s Eira’s territory.”

Her eyes widened. “Don’t you compare me to her.”

“Then don’t you act like her. You have to be better than she is. There’s no point if we can’t be better than she is.” As far as I know, Eira Rosynhwyr is the oldest of my still-living sisters. I’d kill her in a heartbeat if I thought I could do it. But she’s Titania’s eldest daughter, as I’m Maeve’s, and if there’s anyone in Faerie I fear, it’s her.

Amy wiped her eyes, looking at me beseechingly. “I don’t know what to do, Annie. Why didn’t you ask me before you went to them?”

“Because you would have cried. You would have said you just needed a little bit more time. And I would have given it to you, and by the time I realized I was making a mistake, that little girl would have been completely human, and completely unable to protect herself.” I shook my head. “You say I didn’t give you a choice. You didn’t give me one, either, Amy. The only one with a Choice to make was October, and she’s made it.”

“She didn’t know what she was doing.” Amy turned away from me, shaking her head. “I can still change her. I can still save her from all of this—”

“If you touch one hair on that little girl’s head, they will never find your body.” My voice was low and dangerous, filled with a warning that I knew she would never heed. My poor Amy. She never did learn when to leave well enough alone. “She’s not yours anymore. She made her Choice. She belongs to herself.”

“You’ve forgotten what it was to be a mother.” A note of smug satisfaction crept into her tone, and I was briefly, burningly glad that I couldn’t see her face. If her expression had matched her voice, I might have slapped the smug right out of her. “Children require sacrifice.”