Her hands twisted together. She looked nervous and frightened, and if the back of Cuan’s head hadn’t still been throbbing from her blow with the frying pan, he would have dismissed the suggestion immediately. As it was, he found himself giving it serious consideration.
Shining Ones. She really did half knock my brains out if I am genuinely contemplating leading five human women—however valiant—against Morcant.
…I would not bet against them, mind.
“You can’t go, Cathy,” Jack said, while Cuan was still entranced by the arresting mental image of Daisy squaring off against Morcant. “You can’t leave your son. Kevin needs you. But that still leaves the rest of us. Who’s with me?”
Daisy bounced to her feet, brandishing her weapon. “You have my sword!”
Jack rolled her eyes. “Daisy, that’s a crochet hook.”
“You have my crochet hook!” Daisy proclaimed, in exactly the same portentous tone. She cocked her head, eyes widening. “Oooh. Can I get a sword?”
“Nobody is getting any swords,” Betty said firmly. “And nobody is going to the fae realm. I mean, technically, according to tradition, someone could offer to take Tamsin’s place as tithe—”
Daisy’s hand shot up. “I volunteer as tribute!”
“But that’s not an improvement,” Betty continued, as Hope gently pushed Daisy’s arm back down again. “We’d just end up with someone else trapped and in danger. I mean, if I could, I’d take her place, but unfortunately that’s out of the question. As a hellhound shifter, I’m technically a fae beast, so I’m not eligible.”
“And the two of us can’t just storm the place and grab her, much as we’d like to,” Hope said. She grimaced at Cuan. “I’m sure you understand what would happen if members of the Wild Hunt attacked an unseelie sidhean.”
“It would mean open war between the realms.” He rubbed both hands across his face, massaging his aching temples. “You cannot risk that. Not for one woman. I understand.”
She put a hand on his shoulder, her blue eyes soft and sad. “We would if we could. Tamsin is our friend. But we’re bound by certain restrictions, just like you are as a member of the unseelie. Our rules are a bit different to yours, though. We can cross into the fae realm, sometimes, but only under strict conditions. We’re not allowed to attack the unseelie in their own lands, or interfere in their business. That’s why we have to rely on the seelie for any kind of direct opposition.”
“I’m still don’t understand why no one from the seelie seems to have tried to rescue Tamsin already,” Cathy said, frowning. “Hope, you did say that they’d sent a message that they would, right?”
“They did,” Hope confirmed. “And he or she should have been there by now. I don’t understand what’s happened to them.”
A dry, pained bark of laughter escaped his tight throat. “They are seelie. You put faith in their honor?”
“He’s got a point,” Betty muttered. “You’re too trusting, Hope.”
Hope wrinkled her nose at her mate. “I have to be, to balance out your suspicion. The seelie have come through for us before. This isn’t the first time the Wild Hunt has had to enlist their help to haul a tithed woman out of an unseelie sidhean.”
Cuan looked up sharply at that. “You have freed other tithed women?”
Betty blew out her breath. “Well. Not entirely. Our mysterious seelie friend assured us that the women are safe and sound at a secret hideaway. But we haven’t been able to bring them back home yet. We have to break the tithe-curse on them first.”
“A mage of my acquaintance has been turning his considerable skills to that end,” Cuan said, thinking of Aodhan. “But to no avail as yet. Have your own mages managed to progress further?”
“We don’t have mages,” Hope said, one corner of her mouth quirking up. “The Wild Hunt has a rather more direct approach. We hunt down whoever offered the tithe at this end. Then we strongly suggest that they give back whatever they got from the fae.”
Betty’s eyes gleamed with a red flash of hellfire. “Very strongly.”
“That’s all?” Jack asked. “Dude just hands back the gold or magic stick or whatever, and the tithed person is free to go?”
“Well, usually the Wild Hunt has to kill the wizard.” Betty shrugged, looking distinctly untroubled by this. “They don’t tend to give up their gifts quietly. But in my opinion, the world is better off without the sort of person who would shove a fellow human being through a stone circle into the arms of the unseelie.”
“Wizards are generally not nice people to start with,” Hope put in. “And getting power from the unseelie makes them even worse. Kind of a corrupting influence.”
“Anyway, undoing the bargain with the fae—either voluntarily or not—breaks the tithe-curse,” Betty went on. “Problem is, we haven’t been able to track down this particular wizard. He’s really good at evading us, somehow. That’s why the Wild Hunt ended up stationing guardians at every known active sidhean. We hoped we could catch him in the act.”
“I take it you have still had no success in locating this man,” Cuan said. “And that you are unlikely to be able to do so within the next span of minutes.”
Betty grimaced at him. “Right. And I can’t promise that we’ll be able to get him any time soon. How long do you think you could keep Tamsin hidden in the unseelie lands?”
“Wait, wait,” Jack said, waving her hammer. “Isn’t there a more obvious solution? You said the tithe-curse breaks if the bargain is broken. It takes two people to strike a bargain. Cuan currently owns Tamsin, right? So can’t he just give her back, whether the wizard dude likes it or not?”
“Technically, yes,” Betty said. “In practice, no. Cuan’s unseelie. The unseelie can’t break a bargain.”
“You mean the same way that he can’t lie?” Cathy asked.
“That is because I am high sidhe, in fact,” Cuan said. “But it is true that no unseelie could ever—”
And the answer came to him, just like that.
Only a few hours ago, he would have found it a nightmarish prospect, if he’d even been able to entertain the idea at all. But now…joy filled him, bright and pure. It was so simple that he almost laughed.
“Mistress Betty.” He smiled at her. “I think I have a solution.”