Balance the scales

She looked faintly miffed. “I do not know what happened between the time you left Justin and the time you came to me.”
“I see.” I grinned at her. “Do you think I just give away stories for free? To one of the Sidhe?”
She tilted back her head and laughed, and her eyes twinkled. Like, literally, with little flashes of light. “You have learned much. I began to despair of it, but it seems you may have acquired wisdom enough, and in time.”
“In time to be dead,” I said. “But, yeah. I’ve worked out by now that the Sidhe don’t give anything away. Or take anything for free. And after however long, I realized why that might be: because you can’t.”
“Indeed,” she said, beaming at me. “There must be balance, sweet godchild. Always balance. Never take a thing without giving such a thing in return; never give a favor without collecting one in kind. All of reality depends on balance.”
I squinted at her. “That’s why you gave Bianca Amoracchius years ago. So that you could accept that knife from her. The one Mab took from you.”
She leaned toward me, her eyes all but glowing with intensity and her teeth showing in a sudden, carnivorous smile. “Indeed. And such a treacherous gift it was, child. Oh, but if that deceitful creature had survived you, such a vengeance I would have wreaked that the world would have spoken of it in whispers for a thousand years.”
I squinted at her. “But . . . I killed Bianca before you could balance the scales.”
“Indeed, simple boy. Why else, think you, that I gifted you with the most potent powers of faerie to protect you and your companions when we battled Bianca’s ultimate progenitors?”


Ghost Story Chapter 30, Page 328