A Local Habitation
Page 4

“Hey, Your Grace,” I said, taking his hands for a second before allowing him to pull me into a hug. A human disguise covered his true features with the dogwood flower and daffodil smell of his magic. I’ve learned to find that particular combination of scents soothing. It means safety. “Yeah, he did. I’m sorry I missed your call.”
“Oh, don’t be. You don’t sleep enough,” he said, letting go and stepping past me into the apartment. “I had no idea you and the King of Cats were getting on so well.”
I reddened. “We’re not. He followed me home.”
Sylvester raised an eyebrow, saying more with a gesture than words could have expressed. I shut the door, resisting the urge to hunch my shoulders like a scolded teenager. There are some conversations I never wanted to have with my liege. “Why was the King of Cats answering your phone?” was the start of one of them.
Clearing his throat, he said, “I would have called sooner, but I only recently learned that I was needed at the Queen’s Court.”
“Do I even want to ask why?”
A shadow crossed his face, there and gone in an instant. “No.”
“Right.” We fell quiet, with me looking at him and him looking at my apartment. There was an aura of bewildered disapproval from his side of things, like he couldn’t understand why I’d choose to live in a place like this when I had all the Summerlands to choose from. For all that Sylvester’s one of the most tolerant nobles I’ve ever known, I knew that confusion was sincere. He really didn’t understand, and there was no way I could possibly explain.
Sylvester’s one of the Daoine Sidhe, the first nobility of Faerie. His hair is signal-flare red, and his eyes are a warm gold that would look more natural on one of the Cait Sidhe. There’s nothing conventionally pretty about him, but when he smiles, he’s breathtaking. Even dressed in a human disguise that blunted the points of his ears and layered a veneer of humanity over his otherwise too-perfect features, his essential nature came shining through.
All the Daoine Sidhe are like that. I swear, if they hadn’t raised me, I’d hate them all on general principle.
“October, about your living conditions—”
I clapped my hands together. “Who wants coffee?”
“Please. But really, October, you know you’re always welcome at—”
“Cream and sugar?”
“Both. But . . .” He paused, eyeing me. “We’re still not having this conversation, are we?”
“Nope,” I replied cheerfully, turning to step back into the apartment’s tiny kitchen. “When I’m ready to come home for keeps, I’ll let you know. For right now? It’s hard to run a business when your mailing address is ‘third oak tree at the top of the big hill.’ ”
“You wouldn’t have to run a business if you lived in Shadowed Hills,” he pointed out.
“No, but I like running a business, Your Grace. It makes me feel useful. And it’s helping me get reconnected with everything I missed. I’m not ready to give that up yet.” I leaned out of the kitchen, passing him a mug of coffee. “Careful, it’s hot. And besides, Raysel would kill me in my sleep.”
He took the mug with a small moue of distaste, agreeing mournfully, “There is that, yes.”
Rayseline Torquill is Sylvester’s only daughter and currently, his only heir. There’s just one problem. Thanks to Sylvester’s brother, Simon—an evil bastard if there ever was one—she grew up in a magical prison, and the experience drove her largely insane. No one knows for sure what happened to her there, but from the look on her mother’s face when I’ve asked about it, Simon was actually merciful when he turned me into a fish. There’s something I never thought I’d say . . . but whatever happened to Raysel and her mother, it was worse.
Unfortunately, feeling sorry for Raysel doesn’t change the fact that she’s a sadistic nutcase. I would have been happy to keep my distance, but in addition to being the daughter of my liege, Raysel is convinced that her husband Connor—my sort-of-ex, and her spouse for purely diplomatic reasons—still has the hots for me. Even more unfortunately, she isn’t wrong. It wasn’t that we had an untrusting relationship; I simply trusted her to kill me if she got the chance.
I leaned up against the wall next to the kitchen doorway. “So what brings you here today? Beyond the urge to critique my housekeeping, I mean.”
“I have a job for you.”
“Figured on that part,” I said, sipping my coffee. “What’s the deal?”
“I need you to go to Fremont.”
“What?” That wasn’t what I’d been expecting him to say. I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d expected, but it wasn’t Fremont.
Sylvester raised an eyebrow. “Fremont. It’s a city, near San Jose.”
“I know.” In addition to being a city near San Jose, Fremont was at the leading edge of the tech industry and one of the most boring places in California. Last time I’d checked, it had a fae population that could be counted on both hands, because boring or not, it wasn’t safe. It was sandwiched between two Duchies—Shadowed Hills and Dreamer’s Glass—and had been declared an independent County three years after I vanished, partially on its own merits, but partially to delay the inevitable supernatural turf war.
The fae are territorial by nature. We like to fight, especially when we know we’ll win. One of those Duchies was eventually going to decide it needed a new sunroom, and that little “independent County” was going to find itself right in the middle. The formation of Tamed Lightning may have been a good political move, but in the short term, it guaranteed that living in Fremont wasn’t for the faint of heart.
I couldn’t think of many reasons to go to Fremont. Most of them involved diplomatic duty. I hate diplomatic duty. I’m not very good at it, largely because I’m not very diplomatic.
“Good. That makes this easier.”
Diplomatic duty. It had to be. “Easier?”
“It’s about my niece.”
“Your niece?” Talking to Sylvester is sometimes an adventure in and of itself. “I didn’t know you had a niece.”
“Yes.” He at least had the grace to look sheepish as he continued, saying, “Her name’s January. She’s my sister’s daughter. We . . . weren’t advertising the relationship until recently, for political reasons. She’s a lovely girl—a bit strange, but sweet—and I need you to go check on her.” Sylvester was calling someone “a bit strange?” That didn’t bode well. It was like the Luidaeg calling someone “a bit temperamental.”