The Winter Long
Page 3

That had been a different time, in a different knowe, and Oleander was dead. I allowed Tybalt to hand me a tall flute of something that bubbled like champagne, but was the pale purple of lilacs. I sniffed it. It smelled, perhaps predictably, of blackberries. “Let’s find Sylvester,” I said. “I need to present myself to him before things get too hectic.”
Unsurprisingly, Tybalt made a face. “Must we?”
“Yes,” I said firmly. “We must.” Sylvester Torquill was my liege, and had been for most of my adult life. Civility said that if we were both at the same party, I should find him and make sure he knew I was there. Tybalt wasn’t bound by the same rules of fealty and propriety, which was a good thing, since he would have committed murder if he’d been forced to deal with Sylvester as often as I did.
Tybalt counted Sylvester as . . . not an enemy, quite, but definitely someone he wouldn’t think twice about leaving behind if the situation required it. That was because of me. They’d been almost friends before I came along and complicated things. Yet somehow I couldn’t feel too bad about it, since the “complication” had involved Sylvester refusing to let Tybalt stay with me when I was sick and on the verge of dying. Tybalt took that sort of thing personally.
He wasn’t the only one.
“Must I be pleasant?” he asked.
“Yes, unless he starts something.” I scanned the throng. “He’ll probably be near the refreshments. Come on, I think I see an ice sculpture this way.” Keeping my arm linked through his, I plunged into the crowd. If he didn’t like it, tough. Turnabout was fair play.
He didn’t fight me. He understood where my duty lay, just like I understood about his. Faerie is a feudal society: Kings and Queens, knights and lords and ladies. I’d earned my title. It was the only way for someone like me to get the honor, since changelings—human-fae crossbreeds—can’t inherit titles from our parents. It would have been a moot point in my case anyway, since my mother, Amandine, is untitled. I guess people figured that since she was Firstborn, she didn’t need a title to get respect. I did. Part of having that title was maintaining it, doing all the things that a good little changeling knight was supposed to do. And as much as I didn’t want to be at the party, it was nice to have an event that justified me and Tybalt attending together. Being a King of Cats meant that Tybalt’s responsibility to his people had to come first. Sometimes I didn’t see him for days. Other times . . .
I’d been in relationships before. One of them had been serious enough to result in my now-teenage, now-mortal daughter, Gillian. But what I had with Tybalt was something special.
The crowd fell away as we emerged into the bubble of empty space between the dance floor and a refreshment table laden with sparkling sugar desserts. Towers of cookies and less recognizable confections surrounded a huge gingerbread reproduction of Arden’s knowe as seen from the Summerlands: a palace that was half redwood forest, half fairy-tale dream. There were even tiny lights inside, shining through the stained sugar glass windows.
“Whoa,” I said.
A pointy-eared man with hair the color of fox fur was standing near the table, speaking earnestly to a slender woman of evidently Chinese descent. He was wearing the blue and gold of Shadowed Hills, as perfectly groomed as any fairy-tale prince. Her dress looked like it had come from fourteenth century China, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, except for the silver circuitry patterns stitched into the wine-colored fabric. They turned when I spoke, and their smiles were radiantly bright.
“October!” said Duke Sylvester Torquill of Shadowed Hills, my liege lord and lifelong friend. He stepped forward and enfolded me in a hug. I hugged him back, closing my eyes briefly as I breathed in the reassuring dogwood flower and daffodil scent of his magic. It was something that was uniquely his in all the world, and it had meant comfort to me since my childhood.
When he released me, I moved back a step in order to dip into a curtsy, at least pretending that I had retained some of the manners I’d had drilled into me. “Your Grace,” I said. “It’s a pleasure to see you.”
Sylvester laughed. “Oh, stop that. You and I both know that you’re not cut out for being respectful. I think it’s bad for your health.”
“Entirely possible,” I agreed, straightening and turning to his companion, who was still smiling brightly as she waited for my attention. “Li Qin.”
“Hello, October.” Li Qin was the current regent of Dreamer’s Glass, the Duchy that occupied much of the South Bay Area. Her only official claim to the land was a sort of “finders keepers” situation, since the previous Duchess had disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving Li Qin holding the keys. I knew exactly where Duchess Riordan was: stranded in Annwn, one of the deeper, sealed lands of Faerie. She wasn’t going to be coming back any time soon.
Every race in Faerie has its own magical talents. Li Qin’s race, the Shyi Shuai, bend luck. It was easy to wonder how much of Riordan’s predicament had been helped along by the woman who now held her fiefdom. It was also difficult to care. Riordan had dug her own grave; let her lie in it. Maybe my attitude toward “rightful rulers” is a little case-by-case, since I had no trouble with Li Qin holding Dreamer’s Glass, but I’d had major problems with the false Queen holding the Mists. Then again, Li Qin was a better regent than Riordan had ever been. If the line was drawn at “do your damn job, and I won’t mess with you,” well, there are worse standards to uphold.
“You look lovely tonight,” I told her.
She brightened. “As do you.”
“With that out of the way, I have a pressing question for October.” Sylvester turned to me and bowed. “I know you have come here with an escort, but may I have this dance, my dear?”
Tybalt scowled. He didn’t object. Having my liege offer to dance with me was a great honor, and one that I had no way to politely refuse. I pulled my hand from his elbow. “I’m a terrible dancer,” I said.
Sylvester’s smile grew. “Perhaps. But as you’re still sworn to my service, it would behoove you to indulge me.”
I handed Tybalt my drink, which he took without comment. “Fair enough.” I curtsied before slipping my hand into Sylvester’s extended one. “Tybalt, Li Qin, if you’ll excuse us?”