Rituals (Cainsville 5)

When we came back, I had two lindens in my yard, one straight and true, the other leaning toward it, a branch wrapped around its trunk. And I cried. I'd managed to stifle my tears with Ida, but now I cried--for Ida, for the dryads, for everyone we'd lost, everyone who'd given themselves in that final battle.

I stood in that yard with Gabriel's arms around me, holding me against him as I cried.

--

I was back inside the house. Ricky had gone to help Ioan deal with the loss of a Huntsman and hound. Gabriel and I were with Rose in my parlor. Veronica, Grace, and Patrick were there, too. I'd never seen any of them quite as somber as they were that morning. Ida was dead. Walter was also dead, a traitor whose true story would never fully be known.

I thought about that. Mostly, I thought about it in relation to Ida. I remembered those noises on the stairs to the belfry when the sluagh had been talking about Walter's betrayal and his death. That had been Ida, I realized, listening to confirmation of her mate's treachery and his murder. What had that been like for her? He was her lover, her consort, her partner for centuries, and he'd turned on her and on Cainsville, and she would never know why. She died not knowing why.

I think that makes her more "human" to me than anything. It makes me grieve more, and I wonder if her sacrifice was in part to rectify the damage he'd done but also because, like Alexios, she'd lost her life partner. For her sake, I hope that, in those final moments, she was able to tell herself he'd done it for Cainsville--that, in a twisted way, he'd still done it for them.

But we weren't talking about Ida or Walter or what would happen in Cainsville now that they were gone. We were talking about Seanna. We'd found her, sleeping as soundly as when my mother had been poised over her with a knife. All that drama, and she'd never woken. She still hadn't, deep in her fae-induced sleep. Now we had to decide what was to be done with her.

"So what happens with her mark?" I said. "The elder sluagh is dead, but it's still there."

"As it will be, unfortunately," Veronica said. "The death of the sluagh only means that one specifically cannot take her soul. She'll still be collected, by other elder sluagh. However, now that the one who marked her is gone, I can remove it."

"And removing it means she won't be taken?"

Veronica glanced at Patrick. There was a long moment of silence.

"It doesn't mean that?" I said.

"It does," Patrick said. "But if you take away the mark, you give her back what they stole. Give her back her humanity."

"Then that's a no-brainer, right?" I glanced at Gabriel, sitting beside me on the sofa. "Sorry. I shouldn't be the one talking. In fact, I probably shouldn't even be part of this discussion."

Gabriel's hand reached for mine. "No, you should. What happens to her affects you, should she somehow regain her humanity and still decide to hurt you."

"She wouldn't," Veronica said.

"But it does affect you, Liv," Rose said. "If it affects Gabriel..."

She let that one hang, but we all knew what she meant. If this decision affected him, it would affect me. And it definitely affected him.

Gabriel said, "I believe, then, it is, as Olivia called it, a no-brainer. To restore her humanity--and annihilate that part that might seek to harm Olivia, either for petty pleasure or for profit--seems only positive. But the fact you haven't merely told us you're doing so suggests it isn't that simple. I certainly hope you aren't asking because you think I would want her marked, as punishment for what she's done to me."

"No," Veronica said. "We know you wouldn't. The problem..."

When she trailed off, Rose said, "Memories."

I looked over at Rose, seated on a chair, hands wrapped in her lap. She straightened and said, "The problem is memory. If they return her humanity, I'm guessing that means she'll remember everything. How she treated her parents, her family, her friends. All of that would be bad enough. But what she did to her own son...?" She shook her head. "It will break her."

I looked from Veronica to Patrick. "Is she right?"

"About the memories, yes," Patrick said. "About breaking her...I didn't know Seanna as a child. It'll be hard on her, yes, but--"

"It will break her," Rose said firmly.

"Rose is right," Veronica said. "If we restore her soul, we break her mind."

"What kind of a choice is that?" I said. "How the hell is anyone supposed to decide--?"

Gabriel's hand squeezed mine, cutting me short, and he said, evenly, "Is there another option? And, yes, I suppose we could take her mark and then give her a merciful death, but I don't believe we could ever agre

e to that. Is there another choice?"

"We can take the mark and make her comfortable," Veronica said. "Use fae compulsions and such to let her rest and dream pleasant dreams. She'd have periods of lucidity, where she would be calm, but she would never be about to live a normal life. It would be, I fear, a form of institutionalization."