Jocelyn and Dugan were awaiting trial. They could make things easier on themselves if they testified against the false Queen. Dugan might never speak again, thanks to the damage he’d done to his throat, but he was alive despite the damage, and he could still hold a pen. If he was willing to tell everything, he might see the moonlight through something other than bars in a century or two.
“How . . . ?”
“I guess Gillian talked about it in one of her classes.” I shrugged, trying to express my ignorance of all things collegiate. Bridget would absolutely back up any claim that Gillian had mentioned the kidnapping, and Gillian had already been advised to agree that anything Professor Ames said was the full and absolute truth. “Some of her classmates thought it would be funny to pretend to be a terrorist group, kidnap her, and tell her that they were the same people who’d taken her before. They told her they were going to make her disappear so completely that her family would never know what had happened to her. She’d just be gone. So you can understand if she’s a little messed up right now, given our history.”
That last part had been my addition to the script. I no longer wanted Cliff to take me back—hadn’t wanted that for a long time—but that didn’t change the fact that what he’d done when I’d returned from the pond had been shitty, and small-minded, and wrong. He needed to accept that. Especially now that Gillian was going to, of necessity, start falling deeper into my world. Even if I still wasn’t a major part of her life, she was going to be a part of my world forever.
His cheeks reddened. “Are you saying that this is somehow my fault? That she wouldn’t have been kidnapped if I’d taken you back?”
“No.” I kept my eyes on his, trying to ignore the way his hands were tightening on my shoulders. I was suddenly glad Tybalt was at the house bringing Raj up to speed and making sandwiches, which he swore upon his honor he was going to make me eat. “This is the fault of the kids who kidnapped her. This is the fault of people not getting the full story. You asked me to find her. You came into my home and all but accused me of being the one who’d taken her. I found her. She’s with her stepmother now. She’s coming back to you. Do you think you could maybe, maybe find it in your goddamn heart to finally forgive me for something I never intended to do? Because every time you have come to me for help, I’ve given it to you. Every time you’ve asked me for anything, I’ve been there for you.”
I took a step back, twisting my shoulders and breaking free of his grasp. Cliff stood frozen where he was, hands grasping empty air. For a moment, I almost felt sorry for him. He was only human. He was just the man who had grown out of the boy who’d seen a girl on the sidewalk, two runaways looking for a better life together. It wasn’t his fault I’d never been able to give him what he needed.
And it wasn’t my fault, either.
“Let go of whatever it is you think I did to you, Cliff,” I said, voice soft. “I am the mother of your child. I am the woman who used to love you, who never meant to leave you, and I am asking you, let it all go. This is how you pay me for finding her. You stop fighting to keep me out of her life.”
“Miranda—”
“Miranda and I have already talked.” That was stretching the situation a bit. She had confessed, and I had listened. Still, she wasn’t going to argue when he said I needed to be allowed to hang around. There was a lot left that we needed to discuss.
He hesitated before saying, finally, “What if I don’t want you around?”
“What if I don’t care?” I looked at him flatly. “I broke your heart. I get that. I genuinely do. I didn’t mean to, but you’re never going to believe me, so whatever. You broke my heart when you slammed the door in my face. There’s a lot of bad blood between us, and from where I’m standing, you put most of it there. I didn’t have a choice. You did. Gillian needs to know me. I am her mother. No matter how much she wants to judge me or dislike me, she needs to know where I come from, because that’s part of where she comes from, too.”
Cliff glared for a long moment before he sagged, becoming nothing more than an aging mortal man whose world stubbornly refused to stop changing. He looked away. “You say I had a choice. I didn’t. You left me alone with a little girl who wouldn’t stop asking about you. Where you were, why you’d gone, why you weren’t coming back. Whether it was her fault you’d left us. I let you go because I had to, if I wanted to save her. Yeah, I slammed the door when you tried to come back. I had finally found a way to make things good again. You wanted to change all that. I couldn’t risk it.”
“So we both made mistakes. I let myself get lost. You refused to let me be found. Our daughter’s coming home, Cliff. Be glad of that and stop trying to turn me into your enemy. It’s never going to happen. Her existence means it can’t.”
“I . . .” He took a deep breath as he looked back to me. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll try.”
“That’s all I wanted.” I stepped backward, preparing to go.
“Toby?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
I smiled. Really and sincerely smiled. “Not a problem. Maybe next time ask before you accuse, though, okay? She’ll be home soon.” I turned and walked away.
The sound of the door closing behind me felt like an ending. A good one.
May looked up from her phone when she heard me coming. “Well?”
“We’re okay.” I opened the car door. “How’s Jazz?”
“Mad that we didn’t call her before we went chasing a kidnapper around Berkeley, but glad Gilly is safe.” May got in on the passenger side. “She says bring home donuts.”
“We’re going to Portland to find out how a deposed, elf-shot monarch was able to escape, make it back to the Mists, and arrange for the kidnapping and attempted murder of my daughter, and I’m supposed to stop for donuts?”
May shrugged. “I guess she figures you’ll have some free time.”
I had to laugh at that. It felt good to be relaxed enough that I could. Things were beginning to knit themselves back together. Maybe they’d even make it all the way back to normal.
We drove back to the house singing along to the radio with off-key gusto, and nobody tried to kill either of us, and no one wound up drenched in blood, and it was awesome. Technically, I spend more time not being threatened than I do running for my life. It’s just that the moments of extreme stress and peril tend to loom large on my mental landscape.
May looked over at me as I pulled into our driveway. “You going to talk to him? Now that he’s halfway out of his head? Because he’s just going to crawl back in and refuse to come out if you give him a chance.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you.” She tapped her temple. “I remember. I know a lot of people the way I know you. Healing takes more time than anyone wants to think it will, and it takes more than one big gesture to be finished. He needs time. He needs you even more.”
“I have a plan,” I said.
She looked at me. “In Portland?”
“In Portland.”
“Good.” She got out of the car, leaving that as the final word of our conversation. I shook my head, smiling as I followed her to the kitchen.
Tybalt was putting the finishing touches on what looked like an entire picnic basket full of sandwiches when we walked in. We both stopped in the doorway, blinking. May spoke first.
“Are we feeding the neighbors?” she asked. “Because I don’t even know most of the neighbors. There’s that old guy two doors down who always glares at me like I kicked his dog. I don’t want to give him a sandwich. I’d be happy to give it to the dog, though.”
“You may have two,” said Tybalt imperiously. “The rest are for October.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “How much do you think I’m going to eat?”
“As many sandwiches as you can fit in your mouth during the drive,” he said. “I will feed
you if you have concerns about keeping your hands on the wheel. I would prefer to feed you, as I have concerns about your keeping your hands on the wheel. But you have lost substantially more blood today than I care for, and as you seem unwilling to take steps to replace it, it seems I must step up and do a husband’s duty even before we are wed.”
“If you decide you don’t want him, I’ll take him,” said May.
“You don’t like men,” I said.
“I can make an exception,” she insisted. “Jazz will understand.”
Tybalt laughed, and somehow that was the best sound the world had ever known. It was good enough to lure me across the kitchen to his side, where I had time to kiss him before he handed me the first sandwich.
“Roast beef and cheese, with blackcurrant jam,” he said. “Eat, or I shall stop catering the menu to your idiosyncratic taste in cuisine and start feeding you like a sensible person.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, and took a bite of sandwich. It tasted better than it had any right to, and my stomach growled in sudden approving hunger. Tybalt was right about one thing: I had done too much bleeding and not enough eating. I swallowed. “Where’s Raj?”
“Returned to the Court of Cats to hold sway in my absence.” Tybalt’s smile faded. “He has been doing an excellent job of late, picking up the things I had allowed to fall away. I do not deserve such a fine heir.”
“I think he’d disagree with you.” Raj’s father had led a brief-lived rebellion against Tybalt, and he’d died for his crimes. It would have been easy—even understandable—for Tybalt to cast Raj out in the aftermath of Samson’s actions. Instead, he had taken the boy even more concretely as his own. They weren’t related. They were unquestionably family.
“Perhaps so.” He turned to offer a shallow bow to May. “Milady Fetch. The return of my betrothed is appreciated, but we must to Muir Woods if I’m to convince her to sleep any time in the near future.”
“That’s fine,” said May. She snagged two sandwiches from the tray, waving one of them amiably before she added, “You kids have fun out there,” and retreated to the hall.
Tybalt picked up the tray.
“You can’t be serious,” I said.
“Oh, but I am. If I can convince you to eat every one of these, I will go to my grave a happy man.”
I blinked. “No.”
“Not in the near future, little fish. But someday, when all my lives are spent, I can still count myself a fortunate man, for I will have spent the greatest number of them with you.” He kissed my temple as he walked by me to the door.
I sighed. “You have got to stop defusing every conversation you don’t want to have by talking like something out of a Regency romance.”
Tybalt opened his mouth, like he was going to say something. Then he stopped, ducked his head, and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know how else to be. I am . . . I’m frightened, October. I’m trying to find my way out of the darkness I’ve been cast into, and levity seems a safe enough shield. I would not cause you harm if I had any choice.”
It should have been funny, him standing there with a tray of sandwiches, apologizing to me. It wasn’t. I shook my head as I looked at him. “You’re not hurting me, and you’re not going to hurt me by needing help, okay? I didn’t agree to marry you because I wanted everything to be moonlight and roses forever. I can’t even manage that on my own, much less with another person. I love you. I want to help you. The only way you’re going to hurt me is by refusing to let me at least try.”
He took a deep, shaky breath, holding it for a moment before he let it out and said, “Then let us hurry out, so that we may return home, together, and begin.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. We left the kitchen, and I had hope. Maeve help me, I had hope.
TWENTY-FOUR
ARDEN GLARED AT MADDEN as she said, “All right. Call me when you’re ready to come home and I’ll open a gate for you. Which wouldn’t be necessary if I were allowed to go to Portland with you.”
“And you’d be able to come with me if you weren’t the Queen in the Mists, but you are, and that means you can’t just pop into neighboring kingdoms without it being a big diplomatic thing,” said Madden patiently. This conversation had clearly been ongoing since the decision to go to Silences had been finalized. “Stay here, Ardy. Take care of your Court, keep an eye on Nolan, and trust us to act in your best interests. That’s why you have us, right? So that you don’t have to do everything by yourself.”
Arden looked like she was going to argue again. That was my cue. I cleared my throat, pulling everyone’s attention onto me.
“Look,” I said. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have things I want to do tonight. Important things, like eating a lot of ice cream and crying. So can we do this? Please?”
“Preferably before the sea witch decides what her demands are regarding the traitor,” said Tybalt. We all looked at him. He shook his head. “Time is inconsequential when you’ve experienced as much of it as she has. Gillian is a Selkie child now, and hence of her protectorate. This false Queen harmed one of the Luidaeg’s own. The sea witch is likely to demand recompense, and I would prefer we had all the slices of the story before that occurred.”
There was a chilling thought, and one that hadn’t previously occurred to me. “We move,” I said firmly. “Arden, please. The gate?”
“Wish I’d known becoming queen would involve playing taxi service quite this often,” she grumbled, and swept her hand through the air. The portal opened, glittering the purple-black of her hair around the edges as it showed us a view of the royal knowe of Silences. The colors were unusual, showing how much of a strain it was for her to transport us this far.
I offered her an appreciative nod and stepped through, Tybalt and Quentin close beside me. Madden, as the actual representative of Arden’s Court, brought up the rear. Given how concerned he was about Arden presenting a diplomatic beartrap through her mere presence, I wondered what he’d think of Quentin’s true rank. It was probably best if he never found out, all things considered. It would just hurt the poor man’s head.
Unlike Arden’s knowe, which had been built in and among the redwoods like a Tolkien calendar painting, the knowe of Silences was a solid, imposing structure of stone, freestanding, constructed to stand up to anything the weather might have to throw at it. Heavy walls surrounded a central courtyard paved in red brick, dominated by a golden fountain of dancing Tylwyth Teg and stags, surrounded by a filigree of yarrow branches.
The formerly featureless walls were a riot of night-blooming flowers and alchemically useful herbs, as if we had stepped into a garden in the process of breaking free of its gardeners. Walking toward us across the brick was Queen Siwan, her arms outspread in welcome. The resemblance to Walther was unmistakable, from her golden hair to the vivid blue of her eyes, and I spared a moment to wish he could have come with us. It would have been nice for him to see his family.
“Lord Madden,” she said. “Sir Daye. Your Majesty.” She finished with a low curtsy to Tybalt, not acknowledging Quentin at all. He didn’t seem to take offense, and neither did I. Some courtesies are basically scripted. “You honor me with your visit. I am so very sorry for its necessity.”
“So are we,” I said, before she could get much deeper into the formalities. “I’m sure Madden wants to hear you make every apology under the sun, and I bet if he looks real deep in his bag of tricks, he’ll find a few apologies he can say we need to make to you. Is Marlis available? She can show us to the place where the false Queen is supposedly sleeping, and I can verify whether or not it’s her.”
Siwan showed no surprise at my bluntness. Instead, she smiled, and said, “That sounds fine, and as expected. Marlis is waiting for you inside.”
“Excellent,” I said, and bowed shallowly before taking my leave, Tybalt and Quentin making slightly more for
mal bows before they hurried to keep up with me. Siwan might dress more like a steampunk pinup model than most of the queens I’ve known—she’s a practicing alchemist, and it turns out leather is better for playing with fire and caustic chemicals than, say, diaphanous spider-silk draperies would be—but she’s still a queen, and queens like their formalities. If I wasn’t imagining things, Madden had even looked relieved at the idea that I was going to go do something else. I have a tendency to mess up formal events.
As promised, Marlis was waiting just inside the entrance, a smirk on her face. Like Siwan and Walther, she had blonde hair and blue eyes, although hers were both a few shades darker, and she was dressed a little more formally than was standard for her brother or her aunt. “Did you leave or get sent away?” she asked.
“Left,” I said.
“I owe Walther a dozen of Aunt Ceres’ lavender cookies,” she said, and started walking, leaving the rest of us to catch up. She glanced at me as I pulled up level with her. “You really think we lost her?”
“It’s that or there are two of her running around,” I said. “I’m not trying to get you in trouble, but I’d really prefer the option that means we’re only dealing with one of her.”
“I can see that,” she said. “How’s Walther?”
“Good. We keep him busy.”
“That’s good.” She nodded thoughtfully. “That’s real good.”
I didn’t say anything.
The Kingdom of Silences—which overlapped with much of the human state of Oregon—had been one of the false Queen’s victims, back when her claim to the throne had been unchallenged. She hadn’t liked the way our neighbors to the north had been questioning her policies, and so she had declared war, crushing their forces, deposing their royal family, and placing her own puppet king upon the throne. Walther had been the only member of the extended royal family to escape from the new regime. He had created a new life for himself, finding his own way in the world, while Marlis had been compelled by loyalty potions brewed by her own hand to serve the man who had destroyed her family.
Night and Silence (October Daye) Page 34
