“Yes, business,” I said. Offending him on his own turf might be the last thing I ever did. “The attack in the park—”
He frowned. “What about it?”
“It wasn’t random; someone paid for it, and I need to know who.”
“Do you think I know?” he asked. A ripple ran through the crowd, low and dangerous.
“No. I think he knew.”
That made him pause. He sat up a little, attention focusing on me. “He’s dead, October.”
“And I’m Amandine’s daughter. You know what she could do.” I squared my shoulders, standing a bit straighter. It helped hide my terror. “I told you when the attack happened that I needed his blood. I can follow it to answers.”
“You’d do that?” Tybalt frowned, something like respect creeping into the expression.
“I’ve done it before.” I carefully didn’t mention when. Half the Kingdom seemed to know about Evening’s curse: I didn’t need him joining their ranks.
“Is it safe?”
“Does it matter?”
“No. I suppose not.” He rose, walking toward the back of the alley. The cats parted to let him pass, closing ranks again behind him. “I’ll be back in a moment. Wait for me.” When he reached the deepest part of the shadows he spread his hands and they opened like a curtain, letting him step through and disappear.
I was still watching the shadows when something slammed into my back. The impact had me on the ground before I could react, slamming the gun in my pocket up against my thigh hard enough that I knew it was going to leave a bruise. “What the—” I yelped, as I went down.
The only answer was an incoherent snarl. I tried to lift my head and it was shoved down again, knocking my cheek against the pavement so hard that it left my ears ringing. The cats around me were yowling at the top of their lungs. Well, it was nice to know they’d noticed. I went limp, letting whoever was above me think that I’d given up, and then pushed myself into a roll, ignoring the renewed pain as the gun dug farther into my leg. I was rewarded with an earsplitting shriek, and found myself pinning Julie to the alley floor. She howled, bucking against my hands, and managed to flip me over. At least I’d gone from my stomach to my back; she was straddling me now, face bestial with fury.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, just before she grabbed my throat with both hands. Conversation didn’t seem to be high on her list of priorities: banging my head against the ground was. I screamed, scrabbling for the purchase I needed to shove her away.
I was still screaming when hands grabbed her from behind and Tybalt threw her against the nearest wall. She rebounded and bounced back to her feet, hands crooked to expose her claws. He roared at her, full-throated, and she paused in apparent chagrin before opening her mouth and roaring back. Her tone didn’t even begin to approach his in strength or primal fury. Stalking forward, he smacked her across the face, knocking her to the ground. Julie hissed, more kitten than tiger, and he roared again.
That was the end of it. She whimpered and flattened herself against the pavement, rolling over to expose her neck. Tybalt knelt and ran one clawed finger down the length of her jugular vein before pulling her off the ground into a rough hug. The message was clear: she could have died, and he had spared her. Now she would obey.
I pushed myself to my feet, watching them despite the pain in my head. I’d never seen that sort of fight before, but I understood it. Julie’s attack was unexpected, but it wasn’t just an attack on me: when Tybalt involved himself, it became a dominance challenge. Unsurpris ingly, the changeling lost.
“Kill her,” Julie hissed, pulling away from him. “Kill her or let me.”
Tybalt frowned, lowering his arms. The shirt that he’d been wearing in the park was draped over one shoulder, pale cloth mottled with dried blood. “No,” he said, voice rough. There were undertones of the jungle there, dark and alien. “I will not. She’s here under truce.”
“Then I’ll follow her, and kill her when she’s not under truce,” Julie said, glaring.
“Why do you want to kill me?” I demanded.
The look she shot me was so full of hate that I stepped back, surprised. “You killed Ross,” she hissed.
“I did not!” I protested. I might have led him to his death, but I didn’t kill him. Sometimes semantics matter. “It wasn’t my fault!”
“Yes, it was, you stupid bitch!” She started to rush me again. Tybalt raised one arm to block her.
“I’d leave now if I were you, October. This Court is closed.” He took the shirt from his shoulder and threw it to me. I caught it one-handed, crumpling it in my fist. The bloodstains covered half the fabric: it would be enough.
Actually, it was too much: some of the blood had to be Tybalt’s. He was handing me the key to his own memories, and that’s not something any faerie gives lightly. “Tybalt . . .”
“Go.” He shook his head. “This isn’t the time or the place.” Julie shrieked, and he pulled her back again. The other human-form Cait Sidhe were standing now, their eyes glowing through the darkness. It was starting to feel like a scene from a Hitchcock film. I nodded, clutching the shirt, and managed a clumsy bow before I turned and walked toward the mouth of the alley. The cats parted to let me pass, their voices fading behind me as I stepped over the discarded mattresses and pillows of Tybalt’s throne.
When I had reached the sidewalk outside to find myself facing Golden Gate Park’s east gate I turned, looking back into the now empty alleyway. The Court of Cats never stayed in one place for long; as soon as I had stepped outside, it had probably moved on, leaving me and Tybalt’s bloodstained shirt behind.
I lowered the shirt, studying it. The blood was clotted in dark patches, staining the front and arms. I scraped at one of the larger stains with a fingernail. It wouldn’t flake off. All right: I’d try the direct method. I stepped back into the alley, out of view of the street, and raised the shirt in order to run my tongue across the stain. The taste was foul—blood, sweat, and dirt—but it was just a taste; there was no magic in it. I frowned. The blood had been dry for too long: if I wanted to ride it, I’d have to wake it up first. Maybe riding the blood wasn’t my best idea ever, but it was the only lead I had.
I turned to look at the park, just on the other side of the road. Lily was an Undine: water was her purview and the focus of her fiefdom, and if anyone could wake the blood, it was her. She might not like the idea, but she’d probably do it if I asked. She might even forgive me later.
TWENTY-FIVE
MARCIA WAS BEHIND THE TICKET booth, chin in her hand. I paused, trying to figure out what she was doing there before dawn, before shaking my head and continuing to walk. I didn’t have any money on me; hopefully, she’d let me in anyway.
She lifted her head and smiled as I approached, chirping, “Good morning! Lily said you’d be coming, and I should go ahead and let you right in.”
I paused. “Lily’s expecting me?”
“Of course!” she said, still smiling. I half expected her face to crack. “She was sure you’d be here. We were all told to watch for you.” She leaned forward conspiratori ally, and I caught the gleam of faerie ointment around her eyes. Maybe her blood wasn’t as thin as I’d guessed. “To tell the truth, I’m surprised you weren’t here sooner.”
“Right,” I said, slowly. “So should I just . . .”
“You can just go on in. Lily’s waiting.” Her smile faded, message delivered, and she looked at me with an odd coldness in her bland blue eyes.
“Right.” I know a brush-off when I see one. I walked on into the Tea Gardens, keeping my eyes off the water as I headed for the highest of the curved moon bridges. Its apex was almost hidden by a jigsaw-mesh of cherry branches, making it look like it ascended forever. That little optical illusion is more accurate than most people realize; it’s just that mortal eyes can’t see all the way up. Gripping the handrail, I began my climb.
The branches of the surrounding trees knit closer and closer together as
I climbed, hiding me entirely as I stepped onto the air above the visible top of the bridge. I continued to climb, and they continued to twist together, becoming a solid ceiling of green. My final step brought me from clear air to solid, marshy ground. Lily was kneeling by a low table not far away, facing me.
Two teacups sat on the table, and the matching pot was in her hands. All three were painted with curved black lines suggesting the arch of cherry branches or of bones. “October. Please, come sit.”
“Hey, Lily,” I said, walking over to kneel on the other side of the table. The gun in my pocket pressed against my skin. I felt the iron through my clothes, like the beginnings of frostbite. “I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, but I need—”
“I know what you want.” She leaned across the table, filling the first cup. “I knew it would come to this when I heard that Ross had died in shepherding you, that the King of Cats killed a man outside my fiefdom’s bawn, that Juliet would no more claim my charities.” A pained expression crossed her face, flickered, and was gone.
I winced, looking away. “Lily, I’m so sorry. I . . .”
“You are more like your mother than you seem ever willing to believe,” she said, and sighed. “Are you sure there is no other way?”
“I’m sure,” I said, turning back to her. I hate it when I’m the last one to figure things out—but I’m getting used to it, at least where Lily’s concerned. “I have to know.”
“You may be your mother’s daughter, October, but you are not Amandine. This is not safe for you as it would be for her. Find another way.”
“There isn’t another way,” I said, biting back a bitter laugh. She had no idea how dangerous this was. “I’m running out of time. I need to know.”
“Why?”
I just looked at her. We held that tableau for a long moment before she put the teapot down, one webbed hand still wrapped around the handle.
Voice soft, Lily said, “Please don’t do this. For the sake of your survival, and your sanity, please. Can’t I make you change your mind?”
“I’m sorry, Lily. I don’t have any other options left.”
“Give it to me,” she said, holding out her hand. I handed her the shirt, and she took it, removing the lid from the teapot. It was empty. Still serene, she stuffed the shirt inside, replacing the lid before giving the teapot an experimental shake. It made a splashing noise, and she nodded, apparently satisfied. “Your cup, if you please.”
I picked up the still empty cup, and she tipped the pot over it. The liquid that poured out was thick and red, steaming in the cool air. If there was water in it, I couldn’t tell; it looked like blood, pure and simple.
“October . . .” Lily said. “It’s not too late. Put down the cup and find another way.”
“There isn’t one,” I said, and raised the cup to my lips.
The blood was hot and coppery on my tongue. I almost gagged, but then the taste of it was gone, replaced by the crimson haze of someone else’s memories.
The first memories that came were flavored with the sweet, sharp taste of pennyroyal filtered through a screen of gold. An alleyway, just before dawn; my own face as seen through someone else’s eyes, my hair blown wild with running, my expression tired and all but permanently wounded. So she’s back again, said Tybalt’s voice, soft in my mind’s ears. Lost and gone for so long, and now she’s come back to us, now she’s come back to me . . .
That wasn’t the memory I needed. I forced myself back into my body and took another gulp of Lily’s “tea,” riding the blood down, past those half-golden memories and into something darker, and far less familiar.
The memories that rose this time were bitter gray beneath the red, and they tasted like hawthorn and ashes. Rowan and thorn preserve me, but I’d found what I was looking for.
... it would be an easy job, very easy, not much to do: follow the changeling, catch her, learn everything she knows, and kill her, and the pay would be more than worth it. Maybe I could even keep her alive for just a little longer than I have to, have a little fun . . .
Swallowing bile, I took another mouthful. The mix of blood and Undine water burned my lips, but I didn’t care; I needed to go deeper, to what was waiting underneath. One way or another, I needed to know. The blood almost masked the taste of roses as I held my breath, clinging to the memory of my own body to keep myself from going completely under.
The air was smoky, filled with the blare of music. Stupid junk the kids were listening to these days . . . “Hey, I do this, you pay me, right? No matter what gets broke in the process.”
Devin turned. Slimy bastard. No honor among thieves; I know better’n to trust him, but the money’s so good. “Just bring me the box and proof she’s dead for real this time, not just lost in some pond somewhere,” he said. His smile was bitter; his eyes were empty.
Behind my own growing horror, I saw those eyes and understood that this was really happening. I worked for Devin. I was his flunky and his lover, and I knew what that look meant. When he looked like that, somebody was getting written off as a loss; somebody was already dead. And this time, it was me.
Devin was still speaking, voice getting more distant as my grasp on the spell faltered: “The Winterrose has managed to trick me before. Toby’s a little fool, but she’s Amandine’s daughter. I can’t trust her not to ruin this for me.”
Denial ceased to be an option—and so did breathing as Evening’s curse slammed down without warning, knocking me deeper into the memories of the assassin Devin set on my trail. The memory of Evening’s death and my transformation became tangled in the curse, along with the sudden bitter addition of the night I followed my mother’s people into Faerie. The weight of that memory alone was enough to force me farther down until I was drowning in a rosy mist.
There were three deaths waiting for me: I could have my choice of suffocation, iron, or gunfire, and any of them could carry me home, stop my heart, and end the pain. All I had to do was stop fighting. I could write myself out of the play, just like Ophelia before me; it could be over. Maybe I could’ve kept fighting temptation if the curse hadn’t decided to start playing dirty . . . but like the Luidaeg said, it was a beautiful piece of work, and it had been strengthened past its original purpose by my own foolishness.
Wouldn’t it be nice to get what you were looking for? it whispered. I can give you peace. I can be your flight of angels. Just give up and let me in.
The taste of roses filled the world. Maybe it was right; maybe I was done. I’d done what I was bound to do. I found the killers, or at least the one who hired them. The hope chest was safe with Tybalt. There was nothing left for me to do, and I had no Home to go to. Blood and betrayal: who needs anything else? Devin was my mentor, my friend, and my lover, and he’d tried to kill me. He’d ordered the deaths of at least two people, and he’d lied about it without blinking. Nothing was the way I’d left it; my world was dead. Why did I bother fighting?
I went limp beneath the weight of memory, letting the phantom roses wrap around me. I was ready to die, to sleep, to dream no more. No more dreams. No more deaths. No more anything. The world started to slip away.
Something that burned hot and cold at the same time hit me in the middle of my chest. The roses lost their grip as I was jerked, gasping, back into my body. The pain didn’t stop. I opened my eyes, and Lily was standing over me, one hand clutching the other, the skin looking cracked and seared.
The gun I’d stolen was on top of me, the chamber open to let the iron bullets spill out. They were bitterly cold, even through my shirt. My cup was shattered on the ground beside me, the moss around it dark with blood.
I sat up, scooping the bullets into my hand and shoving them back into the chamber before snapping it closed. I didn’t turn back toward Lily until they were all out of sight.
“You left,” she whispered. “I told you it was dangerous, but you did it anyway . . . and you left. Your body was here, and there was no one inside it.”
I gla
nced at her burned hand. Iron hurts purebloods worse than it hurts changelings, and as an Undine, Lily was more susceptible than most; she was only flesh because she wanted to be. To an Undine, iron is like acid, and the fact that she was willing to touch it at all showed something more than friendship. I set the thought regretfully aside. There would be time to think about what she’d done for me later . . . and time to wonder whether I could ever repay it.
Her expression was slowly returning to its normal serenity, although her eyes were pained. “Did you find what you needed?”
What I needed? I looked at the gun I was holding and nodded, slowly.
“Yeah, I did,” I said.
“And?” There was a waiting, worried edge to her voice. She knew what came next as well as I did, even if she didn’t know why.
I sighed. “Can you call me a taxi?”
TWENTY-SIX
IN THE END, LILY DIDN’T CALL the taxi; I did. Danny said he could be there in fifteen minutes, and that was good enough, because it also gave me time to call Shadowed Hills and leave a terse, angry messageto with the Hob who answered the phone. “Tell Sylvester I’m going Home,” I said. “I’ll try not to die before I get there.”
“Wait for him,” Lily said, watching me drop the phone back into its cradle. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
“Time’s too short, and the stakes are too high.” If Devin was willing to kill me to get his hands on the hope chest, how long would it be before he started trying to find its hiding place? How long before there were assassins in the bushes at Shadowed Hills, hired killers watching the Court of Cats for targets? “This ends now.”
“Yes,” she said, anxiously. “It very well may.”
I paused. “Can you send a messenger to Tybalt?” She nodded. “Tell him it was Devin; tell him he knows why, if he thinks about it. And tell him I’m sorry I got him involved in this.”
“Toby . . .”
“Just tell him.” I kissed her forehead and left the Tea Gardens as quickly as I could, heading for the parking lot where Danny would be meeting me.
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