The downtown San Francisco Safeway was practically deserted. No surprise there, given that it was nearly one in the morning. May—my Fetch and current roommate—was in the produce department, tormenting the resident pixies. Their shrieks of irritation were almost enough to distract me from the task at hand. Almost; not quite. We had a mission, and I was by-Oberon going to accomplish it.
Casting my eye along the row of cereal, I considered my options with exquisite care before reaching out and grabbing a box of Lucky Charms. The stuff’s delicious when you combine it with enough coffee, even if it does mean putting up with that stupid cartoon leprechaun. I hesitated before taking a second box. It’s not every night that I get to splurge.
My name’s Toby Daye. I’m half-fae, half-human, and depressingly excited by the idea of being able to pay for name-brand cereal.
The empty Safeway was doing wonders for my mood. I hate shopping where I used to work, and the last thing I wanted to do after spending three days on stakeout was deal with my former coworkers. They seemed to share the sentiment, since they’d all vanished into the back as soon as they saw me. That was cool with me. I wasn’t friendly when I worked at the store—“hostile” is a more accurate description—and I didn’t “quit” so much as “walk out and never come back.”
I wasn’t meant to be a checkout girl. I probably wasn’t meant to do anything that involves dealing with the public, which makes my career choice of “private investigator-slash-knight errant” all the more ironic. Still, when you live in the shady borderland between Faerie and the mortal world, neither beggars nor changelings can be choosers.
The stakeout was for the first of my two vocations, the one that lets me pay the bills with a telephoto lens and a minimum of magic. My employer was a Silene who wanted to know where her husband was spending his spare time. Silene are horses from the waist down, sturdy, practical, and jealous as hell. She should never have married a Satyr if she didn’t want him looking at other women, since that’s basically what Satyrs are built to do. Her suspicions weren’t unfounded: her goat-boy husband was getting a little extramarital action from the Hind two streets over, a doe-eyed lady if there ever was one. A couple nights in the car, a few incriminating photos, and I was in the rare position of being able to pay for groceries.
The lack of clerks wasn’t a problem, thanks to my shopping companions. May was racing through the store fast enough that she might as well have been on roller skates. Our mutual friend, Danny, was moving more sedately; it’s just that he was doing it while being more than seven feet tall. He’s not actually all that big, for a Bridge Troll, but he’s good for getting things off of high shelves.
“Hey!” May jogged toward me with an armload of cantaloupes. She dumped them unceremoniously into the cart, without regard for what might be crushed in the process. “Did you know there were pixies in the produce section?”
“Yes, and so did you.” I tapped my temple. No one’s ever quite figured out what makes Fetches appear, but when they do, they come equipped with all the memories of the person they mirror. They’re death omens; once a Fetch with your face shows up, your days are supposed to be numbered. Lucky for me, May has about as much innate interest in following rules as I do, and she’s actually saved my life on at least one occasion. As far as I know, I’m the first person to live more than a month past the arrival of a Fetch—and I’m definitely the first person to ask their Fetch to move in.
May’s store of borrowed memories includes my mind-numbing stint as a Safeway checkout girl. That’s not a period of my life I like to dwell on, although the cynic in me insists on pointing out that fewer people were trying to kill me in those days. And yet, without all those attempts on my life, I wouldn’t have needed a Fetch, and I’d have missed out on May’s excellent vegetarian lasagna. There’s a bright side to everything.
May pouted. Yet another expression never worn by my face until the universe decided to make a copy of it. “You take the fun out of everything.”
“That’s me,” I agreed. “Toby Daye, assassin of fun.”
“You should put that on your business cards,” said Danny, chuckling as he came around the corner. I promptly elbowed him. I just as promptly winced, making him chuckle even more. Bridge Trolls have skin like granite. Hitting them is a good way to break a knuckle.
I glowered. “Not funny.”
“I disagree,” said May amiably.
“Oh, go get the bread,” I said.
“On it!” She saluted before zipping off again.
Danny gave me a sidelong look. “You okay? You seem tense.”
“It’s the store.” I shook my head. “I know this is the best place to get groceries, but there’s a reason I mostly live on things that come from drive-thru windows.”
“Maybe that’s why you got a Fetch. She’s the nutrition fairy, here to punish you for all those double cheeseburgers.”
“Well, that explains why she keeps trying to make me eat salad.” I started dropping boxes of Pop-Tarts into the cart. Danny rolled his eyes and moved pointedly toward the granola bars.
I wasn’t always a connoisseur of fast food hamburgers and microwave burritos. I’ve never been a very good cook—my ex-fiancé once compared my meatloaf to road kill—but I used to make more of an effort. Then my liege lord asked me for a “little favor” and I wound up spending fourteen years as an enchanted fish. It was difficult to work up any enthusiasm about learning to make a casserole after that.
Curses and contradictions are the story of a changeling’s life, mine maybe more than most. Changelings aren’t stolen human children; we’re crossbreeds, born to both worlds, belonging fully to neither. My mother was fae, and my father…well, wasn’t. I was raised human until Mom’s family found us and hauled us off to the Summerlands. Mom didn’t want to go, and she mostly raised me through neglect after that. I ran away as soon as I thought I was old enough, and immediately fell in with a bad crowd. It’s a sadly common story, but I got lucky. Good luck and good friends got me out of a bad situation, and I swore fealty to Sylvester Torquill, a man who didn’t care how mixed-up my blood was. I met a human man, fell in love, and made my mother’s mistakes all over again, even down to deserting my own little girl. Like mother, like daughter.
May eyed the Pop-Tarts as she returned with the bread. “Do we really need those?”
“They’re part of a balanced breakfast.”
“In what reality?”
“Mine.” I grabbed another box of Pop-Tarts. “Danny, we got everything?”
“We do,” he said, and lifted the three industrial-sized bags of cat litter from the floor, hoisting them with ease. “Let’s get out of here.”
“That assumes we can get somebody to ring us up.” I started pushing the cart forward. “We could be reduced to shoplifting if my former coworkers stay in hiding.”
“That’s our girl.” Danny patted my shoulder with one huge hand, nearly knocking me off my feet. “Making friends wherever she goes.”
“Something like that,” I muttered.
May can be as susceptible to colorful displays as any six-year-old; she tossed five candy bars into the cart while we waited in the checkout lane. I raised an eyebrow. “Do you need that much chocolate?”
“You get to criticize the amount of chocolate I eat when I get to criticize the amount of coffee you drink.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Low blow.”
“Yet so well aimed.”
The door to the employee break room opened, and Pete—the night manager and my former boss—started toward us, expression suggesting that he’d just bitten into something sour. He usually looked like that when he had to interact with customers. That the customers included me was just a bonus.
“October,” he said. He had the decency to try sounding surprised. He just lacked the acting skill to pull it off. He glanced at May and Danny, eyebrows raising in much more realistic confusion. Whoever warned the staff that I was in the store hadn’t bothered to pass along the fact that I was traveling with my identical twin.
“Pete,” I replied. “Busy night?”
His cheeks reddened. “Inventory.”
Inventory would mean more staffers in the store, not fewer. I didn’t call him on it. “Right. Well, this is my friend Danny,” Danny nodded, his sheer size making the gesture intimidating, “and my sister, May.”
“Hi!” May grinned, rocking back on her heels. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for being so awesome to Tobes when she worked here.”
“Uh,” said Pete. “Right.”
I couldn’t blame him. Meeting May has that effect on people, especially the ones who’ve known me for any length of time. She looks almost exactly like me, and people don’t expect that level of pep to come out of my mouth. She’s taken steps to distinguish herself from me, piercing her ears six times and getting a feathered bob before streaking her ashy brown hair with magenta and electric blue, but the underlying bone structure has stayed the same.
Pete rang up the groceries on a sort of swift auto-pilot, bagging them himself when no one came out to help him. He didn’t try to make conversation. In a rare display of mercy, May didn’t try to force him.
The total was over three hundred dollars: painful, but not unexpected, considering that we’d been down to ramen noodles and mystery cans from the back of the cupboard. I paid cash. Pete frowned but didn’t comment. Sometimes it’s better not to know.
“Nice to see you again, Pete,” I said, starting to push the cart forward. Danny and May followed, both keeping quiet for once.
We’d almost reached the door when Pete called, hesitantly, “Are things...you were pretty miserable when you were here. Are things better now?”
I looked back over my shoulder, breaking into a wide, honest smile as I said, “Things are wonderful.”
Pete nodded. I nodded back, and we left the store without another word.
We were trying to fit everything into the car when May stiffened, eyes narrowing. “Someone’s coming.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Someone’s coming,” she repeated. “From…” She turned to scan the shadows edging the parking lot before raising an arm and jabbing her forefinger decisively toward the spot where the building gave way to the surrounding bushes. “Over there.”
“Danny?” I put down the bag I was holding, reaching for the silver knife belted at my left hip. I keep the iron on the right, for emergencies that don’t let me play nice. I have that sort of emergency way more often than I’d like.
“Got it.” His human disguise crackled around him as he took a step forward, blurring to show the true slate color of his craggy skin. He curled his hands into fists. One punch from him would stand a good shot at stopping a freight train.
Neither of us questioned May’s conviction that we were about to have a visitor. The normally transitory nature of Fetches means no one really knows what they’re capable of. Every day with her is a whole new adventure.
The source of all that new adventure was shifting uneasily from foot to foot, eyeing the shadows she’d indicated. “I’m feeling a little unarmed here.”
“Get in the car, May,” I said.
“We sure this is somebody unfriendly?” Danny asked.
“If they were friendly, I wouldn’t know they were there,” May said.
Another bit of trivia for the growing compendium of Fetch abilities: she does laundry and she detects hostile guests. “Charming,” I muttered, and inhaled deeply, the copper and cut-grass smell of my magic rising around me.
My mother was the most skilled blood-worker in Faerie, before she went crazy. I’m not in her league, but I’m good enough to roll the air over my tongue and feel for the fae heritage of the people around me. May’s magic tasted like cotton candy and ashes, and her blood was pure Fetch. Danny was the heavy stability of granite, Bridge Troll through and through. Fetch, Bridge Troll, and changeling. What else? I pressed further, feeling the first warning tinge of a migraine in my temples. Changelings have limits. Some of us more than others.
“Toby—” began Danny.
“Wait.” I almost had it. The trace was slippery, probably because the person was invisible, but it was there. I grabbed for it, pushing as hard as I could...and caught it.
For a moment, I was too surprised to make sense of what I tasted. Part of me hadn’t expected that little trick to work. Then I swallowed, focusing on the point where the blood seemed strongest, and said, “We know you’re there. I didn’t think the Daoine Sidhe were into sneaking up on people.”
The taste of cardamom flared in my mouth, chasing my magic away and leaving a pulsing headache in its place. I winced, blinked, and missed the point where a man replaced the empty air.
He was tall, slender, and movie-star handsome, with dark hair and sharp-chiseled features that were about as natural as my own round-curved ears. The flicker of an illusion spell colored the air around him, hiding his fae nature from anyone who might glance out the Safeway window. And he didn’t look happy about being caught. “October Daye?” he asked.
“Correct,” I said. “You are?”
“The Queen of the Mists has sent me to inform you that your presence has been requested,” he replied. His expression smoothed as he spoke, becoming the still, calm mask of a properly trained courtier. “You are to come at once.”
“Still not answering my question.” I dropped my hand from my knife, disgusted. I don’t expect manners from the Queen of the Mists, or from anyone who works for her. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t appreciate them. “Did she give a reason?”
“My name is Dugan Harrow. As for the other, Queens are not required to provide reasons to their subjects.” His condescending smile barely concealed his irritation.
“Is this an order or a request?” I hadn’t seen the Queen since I finished settling the affairs surrounding the death of Evening Winterrose, Countess of Goldengreen. I doubted she’d been any more broken up about my absence than I was.
He raised an eyebrow. “I was unaware the two differed. Your arrival is expected within the hour. I don’t recommend disappointing Her Majesty.” He left that dire proclamation hanging in the air as he turned on his heel and stalked away. The smell of cardamom rose again, now mixed with cinnamon, and he was gone.
Since Daoine Sidhe aren’t teleporters, he was probably walking invisibly to whatever he was using to get home. The illusion was his way of making a big exit. That’s the purebloods for you: always going for the special effects.
It was effective in this case, because we all just stood there, staring after him. May finally broke the silence, asking, “Do you think we have time to take the ice cream home and get it in the freezer before she gets really mad?”
Danny and I exchanged a look, and I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“Looks like we’ve got a date with royalty,” I said.
“Well, crap,” said Danny.
I lowered my hand. “My thoughts exactly.”
We reached a compromise and drove back to the apartment, where May and I shoved all the perishables into the refrigerator while Danny waited in the car with the engine running. There was no question of whether he’d be coming with us—Danny’s been driving taxis in San Francisco for fifty years. If anyone could get us to the Queen’s Court before she decided to get mortally offended, it was him. Of course, she could also decide his driving us meant he was officially “on my side,” and include him in her long-standing grudge against me and mine. Danny was willing to take the risk. I was grateful. I don’t go out of my way to endear myself to the Queen of the Mists, but I try not to antagonize her when I can help it.
I hung the belt that held my knives on the rack by the door while May stowed TV dinners. I don’t always think things through, but I’m not stupid, and going into the Queen’s presence armed might be the last thing I’d ever do. After a pause, I shrugged out of my leather jacket and hung it next to the knives. I love that jacket. It used to belong to Tybalt, the local King of Cats. I wear it almost every night, which meant wearing it to the Queen’s Court would be a terrible idea. The woman has an unfortunate fondness for transmogrifying my clothes.
My fingers were oddly reluctant to let go of the jacket’s collar. Wearing it would be a terrible idea, but this was a type of combat, and I hated the idea of going in without either my weapons or my customary armor.
“Toby?”
I jumped, twisting around to find May standing right behind me. She looked concerned.
“You ready to go?” she asked.
No. “Sure,” I said, dropping my hand from the jacket and reaching for the door. “Let’s hit the road.”
Danny gunned the engine as we approached, and hit the gas before I finished buckling my seatbelt, sending us rocketing out of the driveway at a speed that would have seemed unsafe with anyone else behind the wheel. Since it was Danny, it was almost soothing. I trusted him not to kill us, and if we were moving at these speeds, nobody was going to catch us in an ambush.
“Don’t taxis have speed limits?” asked May, leaning her elbows on the back of my seat. She hadn’t bothered with her seatbelt. There was no point in nagging her about it, since the only way to hurt a Fetch is to hurt the person they’re bound to. As long as I didn’t get smashed up, she’d be fine.
“Mine doesn’t,” said Danny, and tapped the muslin bag that dangled from his rearview mirror. The brief, sharp smell of sea salt and mixed herbs wafted through the car. “Friend of mine runs an auto shop, makes these for her customers. I don’t show up to the cops as long as I get it refreshed every few months.”
I studied the bag with new interest. “Gremlin?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Now I get to ask you a question.”
“Why does that sentence always make me shiver?” I settled back in my seat, folding my arms over my chest. “Go ahead.”
“What’s the Queen got against you, anyways? Last I heard, you’re the reason she’s got a knowe. She should be grateful or some such shit, not treating you like trash.”
I took a breath. Let it out. Took another breath, and said, carefully, “It’s complicated.”
“So un-complicate it.”
“Toby wasn’t supposed to take the credit,” said May.
I shot her a withering look. She shrugged.
“It’s the truth.”
“I don’t care. I still don’t like talking about it.” I looked back to Danny. “The Queen’s knights were looking for the person who killed Evening’s little sister, Dawn, and the Queen’s seers and scouts were looking for a place to open a new knowe. I got lucky. I found both.”
Sweet Oberon, that was an amazing moment. Everything came together for what seemed like the first time in my life. I’d been just one of Devin’s kids before then, another changeling street rat fighting for survival. The search for Dawn’s killer showed me I might be capable of something more important; something that didn’t leave me going to bed every morning feeling like I’d traded in another little piece of my soul.
It was never supposed to get out, of course. The Queen made that clear. She called me to a private audience in her chambers, praised my ingenuity, flattered my mother’s name, and even offered me a place in her household staff. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut and let her guards take the glory that would have been theirs to begin with, if I hadn’t gotten lucky. Only it wasn’t luck, damn her. It was hard work.
And I was going to let her take it away from me anyway, because growing up changeling in a pureblood world did an excellent job of teaching me my place. Sylvester was the one who insisted I take the credit I was due. The Queen never forgave me for listening to him…and I never forgot that he was the one who was willing to speak up.
“Luck?” Danny eyed me dubiously, seeming to ignore the road he was blazing down at twenty miles above the speed limit. “Didn’t think you traded much in luck.”
“Oh, she’s super-superstitious,” said May. “She just mostly believes in the bad kind. How are the Barghests? Are they still chewing up the furniture?”
I know a conversational save when I’m offered one. I shot May a grateful look and settled back into the seat, trying to pay attention to Danny’s cheerful stories of Barghest mayhem rather than dwelling on what the Queen could want me for. Danny runs a “rescue service” for Barghests—nasty, semi-canine beasts with horns, claws, fangs, scorpion stingers…basically everything but wings. Only a Bridge Troll could love something like that. Danny adores them.
All the Barghest mayhem in the world couldn’t keep me from dwelling on what the Queen might have planned. But it was a nice try.
It was late enough that Danny was able to find a spot right at the edge of the parking lot, leaving us with only a short walk to the water. At least that meant we could get back to the car fast if we had to leave in a hurry. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Don’t look so gloomy,” said May, bouncing out of the car to open my door before I had the chance. “I think I’d know if you were going to be executed.”
“That somehow doesn’t make me feel better.” I shoved my hands into my pockets, trudging across the pavement to the beach. Danny and May followed. Of the three of us, I’d navigated this particular path the most. Given my attempts to avoid the Queen, that was almost sad.
Knowes are the reality behind the old stories of faerie mounds and hollow hills: Summerlands estates connected to the mortal world by hidden, magically-maintained doors. The door to the Queen’s knowe is tucked into a cave on a small stretch of the public beach that rings the San Francisco Bay. It’s not the easiest place to reach, especially when the tide is in, and it seems like the Queen somehow always manages to call Court at high tide. Funny thing, that.
The sand made walking harder but provided plenty of traction, at least at first. It was replaced all too soon by wet, slime-covered rocks, forcing me to scramble if I didn’t want to take a dunk in the Pacific. Danny and May navigated them more smoothly than I did, moving with the grace that comes so easily to the purebloods. Neither of them was going to wind up with a salt shampoo. It was hard not to resent them for it, especially when Danny grabbed my shoulder to keep me from falling and said, apologetically, “I think maybe I should go first. It’s sort of dark up there.”
My night vision is incredible compared to a human’s, but I’m running blind next to a pureblood. Not a desirable quality when you’re basically nocturnal. I stopped to let Danny go ahead, trying not to show how annoyed I was, and almost certainly failing.
“It gets slipperier up here,” Danny called.
“Oh, goody,” I muttered, climbing over the last kelp-covered rocks between us and the door to the Queen’s knowe. There was no sand here, just gravel, spindrift, and seaweed. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. I’ve got to be out of my mind.”
“Answering a summons from the Queen ain’t crazy, even if she is,” said Danny.
“True enough.” There was a splash behind us, and I turned to see May slogging out of the water, soaked to the hip. I raised an eyebrow.
May lifted her chin defensively. “The rocks are slippery.”
They were slippery, but were they slippery enough to make a pureblood fall when I’d been able to make it to the other side? May’s fall looked suspiciously like a sop to my pride. “I told you to be careful,” I said, a smile tugging at the corner of my lips.
“I was careful. Gravity won.” She grinned. “You need to lighten up before you worry yourself into an early grave.”
“It’s not worry that’s going to put me in an early grave.” I started for the cave, gesturing for her and Danny to follow. “Come on.”
Wisely, Danny let me lead this time.
The entrance to the Queen’s knowe is always dark, partly to dissuade human beachcombers, and partly, I think, because she likes watching changelings walk into walls. If there’s a way to make it from the beach to the entry hall without wading through stagnant, ankle-deep water, no one’s ever told me about it. I gritted my teeth and stepped into the muck, putting a hand against the wall to keep me on a straight line.
The dim light provided by the moon outside faded less than four feet into the cave, leaving me effectively blind. I kept going until a faint gray glow began coloring the air. The wall turned misty, my fingers dipping below the surface of what had been solid rock only inches before.
I closed my eyes and stepped into the light.
The more an entrance to the Summerlands is used, the more seamless the transition becomes. After two steps, I couldn’t hear the ocean anymore. After three steps, the air stopped tasting like salt. The water around my ankles thinned out, first becoming mist, then fading entirely. The ground leveled out, and the wet jeans clinging to my ankles were replaced by heavy skirts swishing around my legs—the Queen was up to her old tricks again. When the last of the wall wisped away I stopped, opening my eyes, and looked around.
The cave was gone, replaced by a vast, white-walled hall. Ivory pillars filigreed with intricate carvings stretched up to meet a ceiling of faintly reflective ice-white marble. The floor was made from the same stone. People who spend a lot of time at the Queen’s Court learn not to turn their heads too quickly, since an unexpected shift can cause a nasty case of vertigo.
“Hey, awesome!” said May, her reaction confirming that the Queen’s sense of propriety extended to re-clothing everyone, not just me. Steeling myself against the inevitable, I looked down.
My T-shirt and blue jeans were gone, replaced by a low-cut silk gown the color of dried blood. May’s dress matched mine in everything but color; it was an odd shade of purple, complementing the streaks in her hair. Danny, meanwhile, was wearing a basic brown gentleman’s suit of the sort that was fashionable in the early 1800s. He looked totally comfortable that way, like he’d always been a bouncer for the Fairy Tale Mafia in his spare time.
Their human disguises had vanished along with their street clothes. May didn’t change much. Her eyes had bleached from blue to their natural shade of almost colorless gray, while her features acquired a more delicate cast and her ears became visibly pointed. Danny appeared to have gained a foot in both height and breadth. His skin was gray, with the rough, craggy texture of granite, and his hair looked more like moss. I raised a hand to tuck my hair back, feeling the point of my own ear. No illusions for anybody tonight.
“At least she has a sense of color,” I said, and turned back to the ballroom.
The place was packed with fae from a hundred different races. They thronged around us, moving in slow eddies, like a living tide. Several of them stared shamelessly in our direction. I resisted the urge to flip them off.
The stares turned shocked as May stepped up beside me. She was gawking without a trace of shame, even going so far as to lean back on her heels and study the chandeliers. She looked too much like me to be anything but my Fetch, and while bringing her to Court was technically allowed—she was fae, and she lived in the Kingdom of the Mists, at least until she blipped out of existence—it wasn’t what most people would consider proper.
“I was never a big fan of propriety anyway,” I said reflectively.
May stopped gawking to blink at me, bemused. “Huh?”
“Never mind.” The crowd was turning away, buzzing about the tackiness of May’s presence. They didn’t even bother to pretend they hadn’t been staring. Why should purebloods—purebloods associated with the Queen’s Court, no less—care if they were rude to a changeling?
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” said Danny. The last of the spectators sniffed and turned away, patently snubbing us. Danny ignored them, slanting a glance toward me as he asked, “How long you think we’ve got before she shows?”
“I don’t know.” The dais at the center of the room was untenanted, the throne sitting empty. That wasn’t a surprise. The Queen knows the value of a dramatic entrance. “Go ahead and mingle. We’ve probably got a while to wait.”
May frowned. “So why did we hurry?”
“When the Queen’s late, it’s fashionable. When we’re late, it’s an insult. Now go on, go get on people’s nerves by existing.”
May laughed and grabbed Danny’s arm, tugging him into the crowd. I smiled and shook my head, turning to walk in the opposite direction. The courtiers whispered as I passed. Louder whispers in the distance told me where May and Danny were. I let my smile become a grin. My Fetch makes an excellent distraction, and I have no problem using her as one. What’s the point of having a personal incarnation of death if you can’t confuse the locals?
I found a clear patch of wall and settled against it, watching the Court return to its normal routine. Immortality makes ennui status quo, and not much is interesting enough to disrupt a gathering of purebloods for long. Apparently, traveling with your Fetch isn’t in the right league. Good to know.
People moved in short arcs, shifting from group to group as they shared information, spread gossip, and looked for juicy bits of blackmail. Someone moved up next to me, waiting a few seconds before clearing their throat in a polite request for my attention. I turned and found myself looking into a pair of inhumanly green eyes set in a sharp-featured face.
I blinked, trying unsuccessfully to hide my surprise. “Tybalt.”
“It’s good to see all those blows to the head haven’t impaired your ability to identify faces,” he said, the hint of a smile crossing his lips. His pupils contracted against the light, taking on a feline cast. “They haven’t improved your manners, either. In case you weren’t aware, ‘hello’ is typically what comes next.”
“I—what are you doing here?” The Cait Sidhe are the only race in Faerie with their own independent aristocratic hierarchy. Tybalt has been San Francisco’s King of Cats for years. He’s not exactly forbidden to visit the Queen’s Court, but he definitely isn’t someone I’d expected to see there.
His smile became real. “Picking wallflowers.”
I felt my cheeks go red.
Growing up around the Daoine Sidhe left me severely desensitized to “pretty.” Pretty is cheap in Faerie. Beauty is even cheaper. Tybalt has more than beauty. He has…presence. He can catch and hold a room without even seeming to try.
I’d have an easier time ignoring him if he’d stopped at pretty.
Ironically, the things about him that appeal to me are the ones that make most non-Cait Sidhe purebloods view him as “common” or “savage.” His face is eye-catching but too strong for most fae tastes; his hair is brown with tabby-streaks of black, cut practically short to display the subtle points of his ears. His canines are a bit too sharp, more cat than man no matter what shape he’s in.
Qualifiers aside, Tybalt’s one of those people who’d look good in a burlap sack. He could probably make burlap the hot new thing, and what he was wearing that night was a long way from burlap. Skin-tight brown suede pants and a crisply-cut white linen shirt made him look like a modern interpretation of a Victorian gentleman. His boots and vest were darker brown leather and fit just as tightly. I wasn’t sure he could breathe in that outfit. A tiny, traitorous corner of my mind whispered that the effect was worth losing a little oxygen.
I batted the thought forcibly away. “Seriously, why are you here?”
“Tonight’s festivities sounded like fun,” he said. “I like fun.” Something in his eyes conflicted with his smile, cautioning me not to dismiss him.
“Fun,” I echoed.
“Indeed.” Eyes locked on mine, he added, “For someone, anyway.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that.
Tybalt and I have always had what’s politely called a “strange” relationship. He used to hate me on general principles: I was half-human, and I annoyed him, and that was enough. Hate somehow gave way to grudging respect…and then things got really strange. Lingering-looks-and-cold-showers strange, at least on my side. Not that it can ever go anywhere. Tybalt’s a King of Cats, and I’m, well, me.
Our current pattern looked a lot like our old one, from the outside. He smiled more than he used to; I smiled back more than was necessarily wise. There was just one problem: Tybalt kept insisting someone was lying to me about something major enough that I wouldn’t believe it unless I figured it out for myself. And he was refusing to get any closer until I knew what it was.
The man can be insufferable when he wants to. Just like every other cat I’ve ever met.
He offered his arm with perfect courtly grace. “The Lady of Mists will be calling Court soon.” He wouldn’t call her “Queen,” but he was smart enough to be polite inside her domain. “May I stand as your escort?”
I glanced sharply at him, looking for any trace of mockery. It wasn’t there. Just the smile, and the guarded caution.
“I guess so,” I said, and slipped my hand into the crook of his elbow.
His smile grew, briefly chasing the caution from his eyes. “I know you object to others choosing your attire, but the gown suits you. You should wear red more often.” My cheeks burned. He laughed. “Not quite what I meant, but the compliment stands.” Standing straight and proper, like the gentleman his clothes proclaimed he was, he turned to lead me to the front of the room. I watched him as we walked, trying to figure out what he was up to. His expression didn’t offer any clues.
Tybalt pulled his arm away when we reached the edge of the crowd, and the bow he offered wasn’t mocking in the least. I offered a curtsey in automatic response, my blush rising once more. He glanced to the side while I was straightening from my curtsey, and for a moment, I thought his cheeks were as red as mine. Just a trick of the light; when he turned back toward me, he was as composed as ever.
“You’ll have a better view from here,” he said.
“Uh, right.” I frowned. “Tybalt, what are you up to?”
“Oh, no,” he said, waving a finger as he stepped closer. “Don’t question your betters. It’s not attractive.”
That was the Tybalt I knew. “Right,” I said. “You’re here to piss me off.”
“You seem to view it as one of my strengths, and I like playing to my strengths.” Suddenly serious, he stepped toward me again, stopping well within what I considered my personal space. Dropping his voice to a near-whisper, he said, “The Lady of Mists is planning something. Take care, little fish; she has no love for you.”
“Tybalt—”
“I need to leave you with anger on both sides. I’d rather she had no cause to think us friends.” His smile dimmed, turning wry and sincere at the same time. “You’ll do better if you keep me in reserve.”
I blinked. The Queen was plotting against me? It wasn’t totally surprising—I couldn’t stay off her radar forever. Lacking better instructions from my brain, my mouth seized on the point that seemed the strangest, asking, “We’re friends?”
Tybalt’s laughter was so soft it would have been inaudible if I hadn’t been close enough to feel the heat coming off his skin and smell the faint pennyroyal undertones of his magic. “When I can bear your company. And in the interests of friendship, I hope you’ll forgive me what I’m about to do.”
“Forgive you wha—”
My sentence was cut off as he clamped his mouth over mine, kissing me deeply.
Well. That was new.