Three #3
It’s rarely truly daytime in the Summerlands.
The best we tend to manage is a sort of storybook twilight, the sky studded with multiple moons and glowing in shades of purple and blue that the mortal world only sees when atmospheric conditions are somehow precisely right.
Shadowed Hills is unusual in that it does experience daylight on occasion: Luna’s gardens need the sun if they’re going to thrive.
So I wasn’t sure what to expect when I stepped outside.
I just knew it wasn’t the rosy gold and pink of dawn.
But that was precisely what I walked into, the sky like a teenager’s prom dress, still sequined with the last stars of the night, and beaded with at least six moons slipping down toward the horizon.
I stopped where I was, blinking. The weather and the time of day in and around the knowes both reflect the needs and mental states of their holders.
In the case of Shadowed Hills, that meant responding to Sylvester and Luna, since he had long since made her his equal in the eyes of his land.
Dawn is so rare in the Summerlands that I just didn’t have a frame of reference.
The balcony itself was clearly being decorated for a party.
Staff and courtiers buzzed everywhere, explaining the semi-empty halls: they’d all been here, getting things ready for whatever they were intending to celebrate.
Lines of refreshment tables divided the balcony into discrete sections, this one with small tables and chairs, that one with a temporary stage for the band to occupy.
A few Hobs I recognized from the groundskeeping staff were arranging flowers in vast bouquets, dominated by roses, yes, but studded with daffodils and branches of flowering dogwood.
A few more groundskeepers stood nearby with arms full of mustard flowers and blackthorn branches, and my heart sank.
I knew what this was all about. I started toward them, and stopped as I spotted a more-familiar figure fussing with the banquet tables.
I swerved, heading for her instead. If anyone could explain the situation to me, it would be Melly.
Melly and Ormond had been with Shadowed Hills longer than anyone else I knew on the staff, running the kitchen together with practiced ease that radiated out through the rest of the staff.
They were both Hobs, but weren’t a couple, and weren’t related so far as I knew; their relationship was strictly professional, born of the shared desire to keep the kitchen running smoothly and make sure everyone in their orbit was properly fed.
Melly was the mother of one of my closest childhood friends, Kerry.
Kerry is a changeling, much like me. Her father was half-Hob, half-human, and left Shadowed Hills long before I arrived there for the first time, pursuing other opportunities, whatever that meant.
Kerry baked my wedding cake, and while Stacy, who was our childhood partner in crime, turned out to be Titania in disguise, I was almost certain Kerry wasn’t secretly Maeve.
Almost. Sure enough that I was still willing to hang out with her in the wake of what had happened with Stacy, which was impressive under the circumstances.
“Melly,” I called.
She looked up, eyes widening in surprise, and then turned, a pleased smile creasing her well-worn face.
Fae stop aging when they reach physical adulthood, but some descendant lines wear their years differently than others.
Hobs, like Coblynau, tend to wrinkle as they get older, softening and sweetening until they look like the ideal of mortal grandparents.
Kerry used to grumble that it wasn’t fair that she was the only one of us who was going to get crow’s-feet when she was older, but I always thought it was nice how at least some of us got to look like we were out of our twenties. Eventually.
“Toby-girl!” exclaimed Melly, sounding delighted.
She put down the table she’d been adjusting and moved toward me, reaching out to take my hands in hers and squeeze them firmly.
“What brings you home? Oh, we’ve missed you, sweetling.
Where’s that baby of yours? I want to pinch her little cheeks and tell her what a lucky child she is, to have a hero for a mother. ”
“Miranda’s at home with May, having her nap,” I said. “She spends a lot of time sleeping, unless her father and I are trying to sleep. Then she spends a lot of time refusing to sleep. It’s an endless adventure.”
“Stubborn, then, just like her mama,” said Melly, delighted.
“And her father,” I said. “He’s here, waiting in the hall, since he and Duke Torquill haven’t always gotten along.”
“Oh, and he doesn’t want to make things worse for you if the Duke is with the Duchess, no?” Melly sounded truly sympathetic, fully aware of how strained things had become between myself and Luna, and understanding the reason I might be taking precautions.
“Something like that,” I agreed. I waved a hand, trying to encompass the fuss on the balcony around us. “Melly, what’s going on here?”
“Ah…” Melly hesitated, looking at my face. “I think I might prefer not to say.”
“Melly, come on. Please.”
“It doesn’t feel as if it’s my place to tell the Duke’s business, if he hasn’t chosen to disclose it.”
“Melly.”
“His Grace is arranging a celebration of his only daughter’s return, now that her term of offense is coming to an end,” she said.
“If you’re here as well, we might rightly be celebrating the both of you.
It’s been too long since you walked with us on any reliable sort of basis. We miss you awfully.”
“Yeah, well. I’ve been sort of busy,” I said, uncomfortably. “And the Duchess doesn’t much care for me right now, so it’s best if I keep away.”
Melly sniffed. “I don’t see where her likes and dislikes are more important than all the rest of us, but if that’s the position you want to take, I won’t try to stop you. I just wish you’d consider that people love you here.”
“I will. I mean, I do,” I said. “I was looking for the Duke. Is he around here somewhere…?”
“Toby! This is a pleasant surprise!” Sylvester’s voice boomed off to one side, before Melly could respond.
I turned to find him descending upon me, arms open and pale cheeks flushed red from the crisp dawn air.
I knew it was late afternoon. My hair was probably still warm from the sunlight in the park outside the knowe.
But the Summerlands keep their own time, and here, the coldest part of the night was still hanging heavy over everything.
“Welcome home, my darling. Welcome home.”
And then his arms were around me, embracing me, and I stood stiff and unsure what to do, letting him hug me.
After a moment he seemed to realize he was hugging me, but I wasn’t hugging him back. He let go and stepped back, giving me a perplexed look. “Toby? You … you are Toby, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m me,” I said. “May’s face is a lot rounder than mine these days, August is still a redhead, and I don’t have any other doppelgangers running around that I’m aware of. How are you, Your Grace?”
“Well, well, I’m well,” he said, tugging the cuffs of his shirt down to better cover his wrists and casting a quick glance around the balcony. “May I assume you’re here to see me?”
“Yes, I’m here to see you, Your Grace,” I said, and smiled as warmly as I could muster. Behind me, Melly crept discreetly away, and I was grateful: it let me focus fully on our mutual liege. “I wasn’t expecting to find you preparing for a party. What’s the occasion?”
As if I didn’t already know. Before Raysel’s blood had been shifted to make her fully Daoine Sidhe, her magic had smelt of mustard flowers.
Now, it smelled like crushed blackthorn fruit.
And since jars of jam didn’t make very good centerpieces for a formal party, the flowering branches were being used to substitute for the fruits.
It was an elegant solution. It might even have been a subtle one, if I were anyone else, but I knew the scent of her magic too intimately not to know bouquets representing the entire ducal family when I saw them.
“Walk with me,” said Sylvester. He turned back toward the door I’d entered through, and I followed him without objection.
Tybalt was still waiting there when we stepped inside.
He shot us a surprised look. I shook my head, as subtly as I could, and he nodded, staying where he was as Sylvester walked past him without acknowledgement.
I hurried to keep up, and he led me along the hall to a small oak door, which he opened to reveal a study, like something out of a period drama about bored rich people and their boring problems.
Once we were both inside, he shut the door, then moved to sit behind the desk.
“Raysel’s term of offense ends in three days,” he said.
“My lady has asked me to arrange a celebration of her return. It begins tonight, to let people get the majority of their reveling out of the way. People need to burn off a little steam every now and again, as you well know.”
I stared at him, aghast at how terrible an idea this was.
Raysel hated being the center of attention.
Even more than that, she still had trouble with crowds.
She got overwhelmed easily, and always needed an easy escape route from any social situation larger than just the kids getting together to watch movies in our living room.
Throwing a party for her was like throwing a party for a scared raccoon you’d managed to trap in your yard.
“Raysel’s term of offense ends, but only if she and I both agree that she’s fulfilled her debt,” I said. “She lost four months to Titania’s enchantment. You said you understood. You said you would let her stay with us for the full term of offense.”