Chapter 4 In Which I Explain My Cat’s Name #2
“She brought her familiar to breakfast?” the Gray Knight asked Sahir. She had the loveliest cheekbones, high and broad against her narrow chin. “Did you not advise against this?”
“Miriam is unwilling to hear advice at the moment,” Sahir said, his fist clenching on the tabletop. The smooth line of his suit rippled over his forearm. I wondered if faeries had similar circulatory systems to us, if the vein in his forearm would pop when he flexed.
With a violent internal shake, I refocused my attention on the Gray Knight and my literal imprisonment.
“If I eat this food, will I get… more stuck in Faerie?” I tilted my head, took in the slope of slender neck into delicate trapezius.
Seemingly determined not to engage, Sahir picked up his spoon and started shoveling porridge into his mouth.
“More stuck?” The Gray Knight glanced at him.
My eyes caught for a moment on her free hand, laid out on the table, slender fingers close enough that I could have reached out and brushed my fingertips along her nails.
I looked away, feeling a hot flush creep up my cheeks.
“You will become no more or less stuck, as you put it, no matter what you do, my lady.”
With his left hand, Sahir snatched up a slice of bread with jam and took a huge bite. He had a smear of blue on his full upper lip. I fought the urge to wipe it away.
“How do you come up with these nicknames?” I stared at my plate. There was a bowl of porridge with golden berries on top, two pieces of toast spread with blue jam, and a glass of almost-orange juice.
“What is a Nick-name?” The Gray Knight rolled her shoulders back, like she was preparing for a fight. “Is it like a true name?”
“What you call me.” I put a hand on Doctor Kitten to stop him from squirming. “Lady of the True Dreams or whatever.”
“A title?” The Gray Knight finished her last bite of toast and pushed her plate toward the center of the table.
Doctor Kitten stretched out to lick her plate clean.
I snatched him back before he could make contact; I had no idea if cats could get stuck in Faerie, but I wasn’t planning on finding out.
“This is unhygienic,” she added, eyeing him dolefully. He’d borne my intervention with bad grace and now stretched out on his side across the table.
“We’re in a giant dirt building,” I muttered. “And Doctor Kitten is clean.”
“The cat is not a doctor, I do not think,” Sahir said. “A name that is a lie.”
“Well, he’s got his PhD,” I started, “only I’m his supervisor and I’ll never put him up for tenure. You could call him Adjunct Professor Kitten if that’s better.”
Both of them stared at me, eyes silver and brown.
“Is this a—” the Gray Knight started, and stopped. She put her chin on her hand and stared at me, like I was some sort of specimen. “Is this a riddle?”
“It’s a commentary on the state of academia,” I said, twirling my ring around my finger.
Sahir dropped his spoon onto his tray with a clatter and turned his entire torso to glare at me. “You have given your cat a name that is a commentary?”
“Well, aren’t all of your names commentary?” I stuck my spoon into the porridge-type thing.
“Our names are truth,” he growled. “Names are truth. Your cat’s name is a lie.”
He was, I felt, unjustified in his irritation.
“What’s the endgame with keeping me here?
” I spooned porridge into my mouth. My eyes rolled back in my head.
The berries were sweet and juicy, with enough of a bite to balance the smooth creaminess of the oats.
I took another bite—blissful. It was so hard to stay annoyed when this was probably the best breakfast I’d ever eaten in my life.
“What is a game at the end?” The Gray Knight looked nonplussed.
“You know, what will my being here accomplish?”
“Do not ask questions we will not answer,” the Gray Knight said, already sounding tired.
I looked to Sahir, who had scarfed down his entire breakfast. He still wouldn’t make eye contact with me. “I am going to work,” he announced. “The Gray Knight will take you to your room before your morning meeting.” He’d clearly decided to foist me off as soon as possible.
“It’s at nine a.m.,” I said automatically.
Sahir stalked out of the dining hall, shoulders tense as he slammed the door open. It swung quietly shut behind him.
“Oh, so it’s on double-sided hinges,” I said.
The Gray Knight frowned at me. “You are quite calm,” she said. “I anticipated more… shrieking.”
“My dad says I’m good in a crisis,” I said. “But I’m shrieking on the inside, I promise.” I sounded cheerful to my own ears. “Anyway, why can I call him Sahir but I have to call you the Gray Knight?”
“I am in the Princeling’s retinue,” she said. “And as Sahir said, names are truths. I am the Princeling’s Gray Knight.”
She stood up and nodded at me, indicating that breakfast was over. I hooked Doctor Kitten around the middle and followed her into the hallway.
“So do you change colors? Could you be his Blue Knight if he wanted?”
Unwilling to divulge the great secrets of her Court, the Gray Knight remained silent. I trailed behind her, shifting Doctor Kitten in my arms so that his slowly extending claws caught on my shirt and not the tender flesh of my upper arm.
Though so far, all of the hallways I’d been down looked the same, I felt fairly sure that the Gray Knight was leading me along a different path than the one I’d walked to get to the cafeteria.
I cleverly deduced this when she said, “We have time before your meeting; the Princeling will speak with you now.”
Good. I didn’t care that I wasn’t really presentable or that Doctor Kitten was still wiggling in my arms trying to get free.
It was time to get answers.
We finally stopped in front of a door inlaid with tiny blue and gray and green gems that glittered in the variegated light provided by the luminescent wisps darting overhead.
Taken together, the gems gave the impression of a sheer cliff face, pockmarked by moss.
The unsteady colors and brightness lent the blue gems life, and they flowed from the top left corner of the door down to the bottom right like sun-drenched droplets down a torrential waterfall.
Or was it the lights—was there some magic animating the mosaic?
Before I could decide, the Gray Knight swung the door open and strode inside.
I stopped on the threshold. The room was smaller than I’d expected, with a throne on a dais across from the doorway, and several chairs along either wall.
Otherwise, the room was empty—no garish decor on rustic shelves or grand portraits of the Princeling on the walls.
The Princeling sat on the throne. He was resplendent in a matching shirt and trousers embroidered with shining silver threads, legs splayed in a way that looked almost vulgar, his expression one of boredom.
The Gray Knight stationed herself at his side, her eyes trained straight ahead.
“It is time to explain to you some measure of my plans,” he said, instead of Good morning.
“Please do.” I strode into the center of the room and planted my feet, trying for a power pose.
When I first went into finance, I’d watched this video on YouTube about how to stand in front of director-level executives to command respect.
Now seemed like as good a time as any to try to bring that sort of confidence into a room.
Doctor Kitten mewled, so I shifted him onto my shoulder.
The Princeling inclined his head. “You are here in part as a response to the unrest among my people about our new company.”
I raised an eyebrow. It had been clear from the dinner that not every one of the Princeling’s constituents supported his working with humanity, but I wasn’t eager to be a response to any unrest.
He cleared his throat, glanced at the Gray Knight. She didn’t move: She continued to stare at nothing.
“The Queen is plotting an incursion upon my territory,” the Princeling said. “What do you know of Faerie politics?”
“I didn’t know there was a Queen,” I admitted, shifting Doctor Kitten’s weight in my arms. “So probably not much. I thought you were in charge of the whole realm.”
At this, the Gray Knight shot him a look. It was hard to interpret, dark and a little frustrated; did she not want him to share this information with me?
But he continued as though he hadn’t noticed. “There are several rulers in Faerie,” he said. “And our people bind themselves to us only so long as they feel loyalty. We protect them, and they support us.”
“Okay,” I said, watching the restless flutter of his iridescent wings. They beat against his chair, trapped between his shoulders and the heavy silver throne.
“My nearest neighbor is the Queen, who rules a cold, cruel Court. She is a monster, with shark teeth and a shark’s heart. If she wins the loyalty of my people, she will not stop: Her incursion will continue through Faerie, and maybe into New York, where they will hunt humans for sport.”
Throughout this little monologue, his wings beat faster and faster, until he’d kicked up a little maelstrom in the room: My hair whipped around my head, and Doctor Kitten burrowed into my arms.
“Hm,” I said, hoping I sounded thoughtful and not unbelievably freaked out.
His wings stopped moving.
“I don’t know how I can be particularly helpful there,” I admitted. “I don’t have any military experience. Have you considered requisitioning a general?”
Clearly already done with my bullshit, the Princeling plowed on.
“We need an example of a human, akin to the ones we might encounter outside, so that my people can become used to you and see that your kind is no threat to ours.”
I ground my teeth. “I’m not going to be a very useful show pony,” I bit out.
The Princeling leaned forward, shoulders tense, like a lion deciding whether to pounce. Belatedly, I realized I now lived in this guy’s realm. Possibly forever. I took a deep breath.