Ashes of Honor
Page 29
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Tybalt got out slowly, leaning on the car door as he got his feet under him. The last of my anger fled in an instant.
“Tybalt?” I whispered.
He managed a smile. “Now you see my urgency, little fish. Or at least, you see the shape of it.”
His clothes were torn and ash-blackened, and a bruise discolored the left side of his face. He couldn’t have been beaten that badly without being seriously injured, but—I breathed in deep, testing the air for traces of blood—he wasn’t hurt. I would have known in an instant if he’d appeared in the car while he was bleeding, but it was still a relief to taste the air and find nothing. I started to step forward and stopped myself.
“What happened?” I asked.
“A fair question.” He looked down at himself, then back up at me. “A fair answer is owed. And as to the question you’re so thoughtfully not asking, yes. I was hurt, and hurt dearly. A King of Cats can, and will, recover from a great deal more than one who is not a King of Cats, and I simply did not feel it would be appropriate for me to lie down and die with things in their current state. If you would come with me?”
“I can’t leave Quentin,” I said. I had to fight not to run around the car and fling my arms around Tybalt. That bruise…“Can you take us both?”
Tybalt hesitated, clearly trying to decide what his answer was going to be. “I can get myself to campus,” said Quentin. “If the Court of Cats needs you, you should go.”
“I’m your knight. I shouldn’t leave you on random street corners.”
“I’m your squire. That means sometimes I’m the one who gets to stable the horse.” Quentin smiled, the concern not leaving his eyes. “Or, you know, the Civic. I’m not a great driver, but I’ll stick to side streets, and I know where the faculty parking lot is. Walther can get me a pass.”
Or he could make the car vanish altogether. Either way, he had things covered. “The keys are in the ignition. Do you have cash for the cafeteria?” I asked. “You need to get some breakfast in you.”
“I have my emergency twenty,” said Quentin.
“I hereby decree this an official emergency,” I said, teasing a slightly bigger smile from him. “I’ll call you as soon as I get back to a place where I can use my phone.” I was already walking toward Tybalt, my feet seeming to operate without direct instruction from my brain. “Leave me a message if anything comes up. I’ll check them as soon as I get back.”
“Got it,” said Quentin. He turned his attention to Tybalt. “Don’t break my knight.”
“I haven’t done so yet,” said Tybalt, with odd solemnity. He cast a pained smile in my direction. “This is the point at which I ask you to take a deep breath.”
“I think I know the drill by now,” I said, and offered him my hands. He took them, and pulled me backward, into shadow.
The first time I used the Shadow Roads, I was terrified, cold, and confused. Since then, I’ve been dragged along them for miles, hauled onto them without my consent—and without enough warning to catch my breath—and even stranded alone in the dark, once, when it was throw me into the shadows or let me get shot with a potentially poisoned arrow. You’d think a place of absolute blackness where I got hypothermia would never manage to seem comforting. You’d be wrong.
Every time I was on the Shadow Roads, Tybalt had me, or Tybalt was coming to get me out of the dark. No matter how cold it was, no matter how dark it was, I always knew someone was going to come and bring me home. There’s power in that.
We fell through the dark for what felt like less than a minute—not even enough time for my lungs to really start aching—before we stepped back into the light. I took a breath, instinctively seeking oxygen after the airless passage along the Shadow Roads, and promptly started to cough as I got a lungful of smoke. Tybalt put a hand on my shoulder to steady me, producing a damp cloth from somewhere inside the tatters of his jacket with the same motion.
“Here,” he said. “Cover your nose and mouth.”
I took the cloth with a quick nod of gratitude, not even bothering to wonder how he’d been able to carry something wet through the Shadow Roads without it freezing solid. The ways of the Cait Sidhe are strange. Tybalt produced another cloth from his pocket and mirrored my motion. His eyes were watering. I chose to believe that this was due to the smoke, and not due to the damage around us. If I thought he was crying, I’d probably start doing the same thing.
Putting the cloth over my face helped with the smoke, and my coughing stopped almost immediately. What it didn’t help with was the smell of blood. It had been masked before, since it’s hard to pay attention to subtleties when you’re trying not to choke to death, but now…I am my mother’s daughter, whether I want to be or not, and blood is not a subtlety for me. Blood is a reality. As soon as the smoke was removed, the blood made itself known.
“Oak and ash,” I whispered.
All the blood was Cait Sidhe. It spoke to me in whispers and almost-words, identifying the wounded and the slain in a language that was no less valid because it didn’t exist. Some of the Cait Sidhe who bled in this room were familiar to me. Others weren’t. And at least one…
At least one had magic that tasted like pennyroyal and musk, and eyes the color of malachite, and a wonderful, annoying tendency to show up where he was least wanted but most needed. My heart dropped, suddenly aching like a coal in my chest. I turned to face Tybalt, lowering the cloth as I stared at him. “Tybalt?”
“Keep your nose covered.” He grasped my wrist with his free hand, pulling my hand back up. Most of his face was covered, but I could still see his eyes, bloodshot from the smoke, worried, and so very, very tired. “I told you I’d been hurt.”
“You didn’t tell me you died.”
“I got better.”
I glared at him. It was the only thing I could think of to do.
This wasn’t the first time Tybalt had died—or come close enough that there was practically no difference—and miraculously recovered. Taking the “cats have nine lives” folktale literally was a perk of being a King of Cats. But I didn’t know how many lives he got, or how many he’d used up before he met me. I didn’t know when he was going to run out.
Tybalt sighed, letting go of my wrist and putting his hand against the small of my back instead. “You can shout at me for dying later. For now, we have larger things to worry about. Come.” With that, he pushed, guiding me into the worst of the smoke.
“Tybalt?” I whispered.
He managed a smile. “Now you see my urgency, little fish. Or at least, you see the shape of it.”
His clothes were torn and ash-blackened, and a bruise discolored the left side of his face. He couldn’t have been beaten that badly without being seriously injured, but—I breathed in deep, testing the air for traces of blood—he wasn’t hurt. I would have known in an instant if he’d appeared in the car while he was bleeding, but it was still a relief to taste the air and find nothing. I started to step forward and stopped myself.
“What happened?” I asked.
“A fair question.” He looked down at himself, then back up at me. “A fair answer is owed. And as to the question you’re so thoughtfully not asking, yes. I was hurt, and hurt dearly. A King of Cats can, and will, recover from a great deal more than one who is not a King of Cats, and I simply did not feel it would be appropriate for me to lie down and die with things in their current state. If you would come with me?”
“I can’t leave Quentin,” I said. I had to fight not to run around the car and fling my arms around Tybalt. That bruise…“Can you take us both?”
Tybalt hesitated, clearly trying to decide what his answer was going to be. “I can get myself to campus,” said Quentin. “If the Court of Cats needs you, you should go.”
“I’m your knight. I shouldn’t leave you on random street corners.”
“I’m your squire. That means sometimes I’m the one who gets to stable the horse.” Quentin smiled, the concern not leaving his eyes. “Or, you know, the Civic. I’m not a great driver, but I’ll stick to side streets, and I know where the faculty parking lot is. Walther can get me a pass.”
Or he could make the car vanish altogether. Either way, he had things covered. “The keys are in the ignition. Do you have cash for the cafeteria?” I asked. “You need to get some breakfast in you.”
“I have my emergency twenty,” said Quentin.
“I hereby decree this an official emergency,” I said, teasing a slightly bigger smile from him. “I’ll call you as soon as I get back to a place where I can use my phone.” I was already walking toward Tybalt, my feet seeming to operate without direct instruction from my brain. “Leave me a message if anything comes up. I’ll check them as soon as I get back.”
“Got it,” said Quentin. He turned his attention to Tybalt. “Don’t break my knight.”
“I haven’t done so yet,” said Tybalt, with odd solemnity. He cast a pained smile in my direction. “This is the point at which I ask you to take a deep breath.”
“I think I know the drill by now,” I said, and offered him my hands. He took them, and pulled me backward, into shadow.
The first time I used the Shadow Roads, I was terrified, cold, and confused. Since then, I’ve been dragged along them for miles, hauled onto them without my consent—and without enough warning to catch my breath—and even stranded alone in the dark, once, when it was throw me into the shadows or let me get shot with a potentially poisoned arrow. You’d think a place of absolute blackness where I got hypothermia would never manage to seem comforting. You’d be wrong.
Every time I was on the Shadow Roads, Tybalt had me, or Tybalt was coming to get me out of the dark. No matter how cold it was, no matter how dark it was, I always knew someone was going to come and bring me home. There’s power in that.
We fell through the dark for what felt like less than a minute—not even enough time for my lungs to really start aching—before we stepped back into the light. I took a breath, instinctively seeking oxygen after the airless passage along the Shadow Roads, and promptly started to cough as I got a lungful of smoke. Tybalt put a hand on my shoulder to steady me, producing a damp cloth from somewhere inside the tatters of his jacket with the same motion.
“Here,” he said. “Cover your nose and mouth.”
I took the cloth with a quick nod of gratitude, not even bothering to wonder how he’d been able to carry something wet through the Shadow Roads without it freezing solid. The ways of the Cait Sidhe are strange. Tybalt produced another cloth from his pocket and mirrored my motion. His eyes were watering. I chose to believe that this was due to the smoke, and not due to the damage around us. If I thought he was crying, I’d probably start doing the same thing.
Putting the cloth over my face helped with the smoke, and my coughing stopped almost immediately. What it didn’t help with was the smell of blood. It had been masked before, since it’s hard to pay attention to subtleties when you’re trying not to choke to death, but now…I am my mother’s daughter, whether I want to be or not, and blood is not a subtlety for me. Blood is a reality. As soon as the smoke was removed, the blood made itself known.
“Oak and ash,” I whispered.
All the blood was Cait Sidhe. It spoke to me in whispers and almost-words, identifying the wounded and the slain in a language that was no less valid because it didn’t exist. Some of the Cait Sidhe who bled in this room were familiar to me. Others weren’t. And at least one…
At least one had magic that tasted like pennyroyal and musk, and eyes the color of malachite, and a wonderful, annoying tendency to show up where he was least wanted but most needed. My heart dropped, suddenly aching like a coal in my chest. I turned to face Tybalt, lowering the cloth as I stared at him. “Tybalt?”
“Keep your nose covered.” He grasped my wrist with his free hand, pulling my hand back up. Most of his face was covered, but I could still see his eyes, bloodshot from the smoke, worried, and so very, very tired. “I told you I’d been hurt.”
“You didn’t tell me you died.”
“I got better.”
I glared at him. It was the only thing I could think of to do.
This wasn’t the first time Tybalt had died—or come close enough that there was practically no difference—and miraculously recovered. Taking the “cats have nine lives” folktale literally was a perk of being a King of Cats. But I didn’t know how many lives he got, or how many he’d used up before he met me. I didn’t know when he was going to run out.
Tybalt sighed, letting go of my wrist and putting his hand against the small of my back instead. “You can shout at me for dying later. For now, we have larger things to worry about. Come.” With that, he pushed, guiding me into the worst of the smoke.
