“Where’s Arden?” I asked.
Lowri’s ear twitched in a mix of annoyance and amusement. “Her Majesty is occupied with the business of the realm. You didn’t precisely call ahead to let us know you were coming.”
“She’s the one who sent us monster hunting,” I protested.
“Regardless, she can’t sit around waiting to hear whether you’ve succeeded.”
“And she has queen shit to do, right.”
Quentin audibly groaned. “As Sir Daye’s squire, I must apologize, again, for her having the manners of a kelpie.”
“Don’t be silly, Quentin,” said Danny. “Kelpies are politer.”
“Kelpies are aquatic murder horses that want to rip you apart and eat everything but your liver,” I protested.
Danny smirked. “As I was sayin’.”
The stairs widened as we approached the bottom, until we emerged into an open-walled sunroom with a latticed ceiling dripping with fruit-heavy grapevines. The grapes were pale pink and glowed from within. The pixies in my hair gave a pealing chime of delight and launched themselves into the air, racing to fill their arms with as much fruit as they could hold before darting away. Lowri chuckled.
“When did Arden plant grapes?” I asked.
“They were planted by the previous chatelaine, who hailed from a Kingdom in France before she came to the Mists,” said Lowri. “We found them here when we opened the lower levels. They’ve responded marvelously to care, haven’t they? We should have enough fruit to begin pressing our first wines in a season or two, once the Hobs figure out where the wine cellar is, and we’ll have drinkable vintages a decade or so after that.”
“You haven’t found the wine cellar yet?” Quentin sounded scandalized.
Lowri shrugged. “It hasn’t been a priority. This way.”
She led us across the sunroom to another set of stairs, this one made of redwood planks set into the side of the hill. More grapevines laden with glowing grapes twined around the trees around the steps, providing a soft light that led us down the last twenty yards or so into the valley, where a series of rough farm buildings had been constructed. There was something I recognized as a stable, a chicken coop, and several smaller, boxy structures that I assumed were for goats or sheep or the like.
There was also a dark-haired man in vaguely old-fashioned clothes, using a pitchfork to shovel hay into one of those smaller structures. It looked like a cross between a toolshed and an aviary, with wire mesh covering three of the four sides, and a door set into the fourth. He looked up at the sound of footsteps, smiling brightly at the sight of Lowri.
“Milady Glastig,” he said, bowing around his pitchfork. His accent was as outdated as the rest of him, like he hadn’t spoken to another person since sometime in the 1920s. Which, well, wasn’t far wrong. “I had wondered if you would grace me with your beauty on this night.”
“Sire,” said Lowri, bobbing her head in greeting. Her cheeks colored under the force of his attention. “I believe your sister asked me to remind you that it is no longer the custom to greet those of no family name with the name of their species.”
Nolan Windermere, Prince in the Mists, dismissively waved the hand not clasping the pitchfork. “So much has changed. How can I be expected to keep up?”
“Your sister bids you try.” Lowri stepped to the side, indicating our motley band with a half-sweep of one hand. “Sir October Daye, squire, and companion, to see you, sire.”
“Hi,” I said.
The change in Nolan’s demeanor was immediate. He straightened, returning his hand to the pitchfork, and offered a stiff nod. “Sir Daye. Squire Daoine. Master Troll.”
I could see the utility of calling people by the name of their descendant line when they didn’t have a family name—or, as in Quentin’s case, had chosen not to give it. Danny has a family name, McReady, but so far as I was aware, he hadn’t met Nolan before, and I wasn’t sure Arden could have told him Danny’s surname if she’d tried. There are a lot of fae in the Kingdom in the Mists. Arden was doing her best to meet as many of them as she could, but there was no way she was ever going to learn all their names. The numbers were against her.
“Quentin,” I said, pointing appropriately. “Danny.” Then I pointed to the trash can. “Arkan sonney, as requested, no longer running wild in San Francisco. Am I correct in assuming you’ve been preparing a, um, sty for them?”
“They’re not pigs,” Nolan said, sounding faintly affronted. It was a nice change from the stiff, awkward tone that had characterized most of our interactions thus far.
At least we could have interactions these days. When I first met Nolan, it was extremely one-sided, on account of his having been elf-shot and put into an enchanted sleep by the false Queen. It was all part of her campaign to keep Arden from seeking the throne, and it had worked for a very long time. Arden had been too busy worrying about what would happen to her brother if she got killed or captured to even think about politics.
Then the false Queen had been dethroned. Then Arden had regained her place and been officially recognized as Queen in the Mists. Then—as if all that hadn’t been enough—our friend Walther Davies had finally unlocked one of the doors alchemists throughout Faerie had been throwing themselves against for centuries and discovered the cure for elf-shot.
Nolan had been the first person Arden woke when the cure was approved by the High King. No one blamed her for prioritizing her brother, especially not me. I sometimes suspected Nolan might blame her a little, but if he did, he was smart enough to know it hadn’t been her fault. Her trying to take her throne sooner wouldn’t have woken him up or created the conditions that led us to the elf-shot cure. It might have ended with her dead and him waking up alone, in a world that had marched a hundred years into the future without him.
Elf-shot was created as an alternative to murder. Sometimes I wonder how anyone can possibly know that and still say the fae are kind.
“Pigs or not pigs, we have a bunch of them, and some of us need to drive back to San Francisco before bedtime,” I said. “Is that where they go?”
Nolan started to answer, only to pause and smile as warmly as I’d ever seen him do, eyes fixed on a point behind my shoulder.
“You don’t have to go back to San Francisco,” said the voice of Arden Windermere, Queen in the Mists. “We have plenty of guest rooms.”
“Last time we stayed in them, Quentin wound up elf-shot,” I said, turning to face her. “Plus, I need to feed the cats. May gets pissed when I assume she’ll take care of it.”
Arden smiled wryly. “Oh, Maeve forbid your cats should go unfed. They might wither away to nothing.”
I swallowed my first response. She hadn’t been talking about Tybalt. I knew she hadn’t been talking about Tybalt. That didn’t stop my temper from flaring. “According to them, it’s a constant risk.” I indicated the trash can. “We got your beasties. Can we put them in the pen?”
“That’s what it’s for.” Arden walked past me to stand next to her brother, not seeming to notice that her gown—dark blue velvet the color of the Pacific shore at midnight, with drifts of “foam” made from seed pearls and tiny opals stitched around the hem and neckline—was dragging in the dust. Then again, she never seemed to care much about that sort of thing. For her, queenship was a way to protect her family and her father’s legacy, like a jumped-up form of customer service. She was doing a good job so far. She was never going to be one of the great elegant monarchs from the history books, and she didn’t seem to have a problem with that.
Standing next to her brother, it was impossible not to see the resemblance. They both had hair the color of blackberries, so dark it managed to cross over into verging on purple, and mismatched eyes, one pyrite, one mercury. The order of the colors was reversed, his pyrite to her mercury, but apart from that, it would have been understandable to assume they were twins. I
knew they were a few years apart, with Arden the elder, but little things like that don’t tend to matter in Faerie, not once the parties involved are past childhood.
Tybalt has centuries on me. I have decades on Quentin. Someday we’re all going to be adults together, and I’m just human enough to find that unsettling.
“Were any of them hurt?” asked Nolan anxiously.
“We nearly were,” I said, guiding Danny into the open pen and helping him ease the trash can to the ground. Which was when we hit a snag. We didn’t have a way to get the arkan sonney out, not without dumping them and hoping for the best. “Quentin, bring the not-piglets over here.”
“There are babies?” Nolan actually clapped his hands as Quentin handed me the carrier. The prince looked as overjoyed as a kid being told they’d be getting a puppy for Christmas.
I groaned. “Look, Danny, I found you a new best friend. Introduce him to your Barghests. I’m sure they’ll get along swimmingly.”
“There’s no reason to make fun of my babies just because you don’t like them,” Danny said reproachfully.
“Your babies are venomous, poisonous, and aggressive.”
“But they love their daddy.”
I let the matter drop, turning to face Arden and Nolan as I asked, “Any idea how we’re supposed to release these things?”
“Come out of the pen and close the door,” she said.
Dutifully, we did as we were told. There are times when it’s good to argue with a queen. I do it all the time. At the moment, I just wanted to get this over with, so I could go home and crawl into my own bed before the sun came up.
As soon as the door was latched, Arden and Nolan exchanged a look, nodded, and sketched two virtually identical portals in the air with matching sweeps of their left hands. Hers smelled of redwood bark and blackberry flowers; his smelled of crushed blackberries and sap. They stepped through, still in unison, and appeared inside the pen.
Lowri grimaced. “I wish she’d stop putting herself in harm’s way like this,” she muttered. “She’s the queen. She doesn’t have to.”
“I think she wants to,” I said, watching as Arden knelt to open the carrier door, while Nolan gingerly tipped the trash can onto its side. He removed the lid, and the three adult arkan sonney spilled out, wings flared, eyes blazing, looking around for danger. They calmed when they saw the piglets, luring them out with soft grunting noises before surrounding them in a protective ring. Arden grabbed the empty carrier, Nolan grabbed the empty trash can, and they both stepped back through their portals, which closed behind them, leaving the arkan sonney in their new enclosure.
The winged pigs snuffled at each other and the ground, the boar flaring his wings and snarling like it would keep us from coming back in. Then the whole group moved to the corner and began grooming one another, seeming to calm down.
“That felt sort of anticlimactic,” said Quentin.
“Word of advice, kid: take it,” I replied. “Any monster hunt that ends with the monsters safely contained and us not gored is a good one.”
“They’re not monsters at all,” said Arden. “They’re adorable. And very lucky. They’ll bring good fortune to the knowe. Are you sure you won’t stay?”
“We’re sure,” I said, before Quentin or Danny could contradict me. Arden looked disappointed but didn’t try to argue. I was grateful for that. I can be a smartass when I want to be, but there’s disagreeing with a queen, and then there’s fighting with one. I try to avoid the latter unless it really, really has to be done. “Can you tell Cassandra I said hello, and I’ll try to grab lunch with her the next time I’m in Berkeley?”
“I can,” said Arden. “You’ll come back soon?”
“I will,” I promised. “Quentin, Danny, come on.”
We waved and made our escape, heading for the stairs while Lowri and the Windermeres were clustering around the pen, making cooing noises at the arkan sonney inside.
“Keep walking, don’t look back,” I said softly. “We might get away.”
“Why can’t we stay and look at the piggies?” asked Danny. “They’re cute.”
“They’re cute, but I want to go to bed,” I said.
“I’m supposed to call Dean before dawn,” said Quentin. “The reception here is terrible.”
“Aw,” said Danny. Then, with a pointed look at me, he added, “At least some people remember how to talk to their boyfriends.”
I didn’t respond. I could argue as much as I wanted without convincing him that I wasn’t the one who didn’t want to talk. To be fair, in the past, all too often I had been the reason communication wasn’t happening. Now . . . I would have gladly talked forever, if only Tybalt would let me. I was tired. We’d been running around for hours. It was time to stop.
Danny seemed to realize my silence meant he’d pushed things a bit too far. He didn’t say anything else as we made our way out of the knowe, and I was grateful. The pixies rejoined us for the walk across Muir Woods, wings chiming as they flew. I slouched, letting the lights guide me. Some people need to worry about pixies tricking them into bogs and streams, but the pixies who know me like me, for a lot of reasons, and they wouldn’t do that sort of thing. I hoped.
Maybe I needed to pay more attention to where I was going.
Danny dropped the don’t-look-here as we approached the cab. I climbed into the passenger seat and Quentin got into the back, leaning his head against the window and closing his eyes. I looked at Danny. Danny looked at me.
“Mind if I put the radio on?” he asked awkwardly.
I managed a smile. “Not at all,” I said.
He turned the dial. Rock and roll blasted out of the speakers, earning a small grumble from Quentin. I sank into my seat, turning to look out the window, and trusted Danny to get us where we needed to go. He hadn’t let me down so far. I trusted him not to start letting me down now.
It was hard, going home and knowing that—unless there’d been some sort of miracle while I wasn’t looking—Tybalt wasn’t going to be there. He’d been there less and less as the weeks went by. Mom was off playing happy houses with August. As far as I was aware, she hadn’t spared me a second thought since I’d fixed all her problems for her. And it didn’t matter, because he wasn’t getting better. He was getting worse, and I had no idea how to fix it.
San Francisco appeared ahead of us like its own kind of fairy palace, the lights in the high buildings glittering against the predawn sky. Danny drove like he’d never met a traffic law he didn’t feel like breaking, weaving around the few other cars on the road without slowing down. There were so many charms in and on his cab that the odds were good none of those drivers even realized they were sharing the road, much less took note of the specific car that was so nimbly cutting them off. That was a good thing. He would never have been able to pay all the traffic tickets he’d be accruing if there had been a chance of the police getting involved.
Quentin was asleep in the back seat by the time Danny pulled into our driveway, stopping behind my parked car. Both of us twisted to look at my squire, smiling in fond unison.
“He’s adorable like that,” said Danny.
“I know. He doesn’t. Don’t tell him.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Quentin had his cheek squashed against the glass, coppery hair falling to hide his eyes. He was drooling out of the side of his mouth, and he still managed to look perfect, elegant and composed and like every fairy tale prince Grimm ever decided to write about. That’s the gift of the Daoine Sidhe. No matter what, they manage to look irritatingly amazing.
Really, that should have been my first clue that my heritage wasn’t what my mother claimed it was. I have never looked elegant or composed a night in my life. In fact, it’s a rare night when I’m not covered in my own blood.
Danny looked at me, regret and apology in his eyes. “I’m sorry
I’ve been needlin’ you all night. I know it’s hard.”
“I understand why you’re doing it, honestly. But I can’t . . . this isn’t something I can fix with a wave of my hand.” I leaned into the backseat to shake Quentin’s shoulder. He responded with a grumbling noise. “Poor kid’s wiped out.”
“It was a big night,” said Danny, and sighed. “I do know it’s not goin’ to be that easy to fix. I just want you to be happy. It’s been so good watchin’ you work your way toward happy, I don’t want to let your mom get in the way.”
“We’ll figure it out.” I looked over my shoulder, flashing what I hoped would be an encouraging smile in his direction. Really, I would have settled for a smile that didn’t make me look sick to my stomach. “We always do.”
“Yeah,” said Danny.
I returned my attention to Quentin, shaking him again. When that didn’t get the response I was looking for, I cleared my throat and said loudly, “Sure, Dianda, come on in. I’m sure Quentin will be thrilled to see you.”
Quentin sat bolt upright, one hand already shoving his hair out of wide, very open eyes. Seeing me and Danny looking at him—Danny barely holding back his laughter—those eyes narrowed.
“Jerk,” he accused.
“Absolutely,” I agreed. “Get up, get inside, and call your boyfriend before you go to bed. We have about an hour before dawn.”
Quentin rolled his eyes. “Later, Danny,” he said, and slouched out of the car, heading up the driveway toward the back door. The kitchen lights were on. May was probably in there, baking something or having a last cup of tea before bed. No wards, not when people were home; he’d be able to let himself in.
I took a breath and reached for the door handle, only to pause as Danny’s hand engulfed my shoulder. All the illusions in the world couldn’t change the sheer size of him, especially when I wasn’t looking at him. My eyes couldn’t lie to me when they weren’t involved.
“You’re not alone anymore,” he said softly.
“I know,” I said, and opened the door. “Open roads and kind fires, Danny.”
Night and Silence Page 4
