Thirteen #4
Danny scoffed. “Come off that. We all know the sea witch is her godmother. No such thing as too young to visit your godma. I was kinda hoping you’d have her along. I still need to meet the mite.”
“Sorry, Danny, she’s at the house with May,” I said. “And while that’s where you’re driving us first, we’re really not set up for company right now.”
“You’re never set up for company my size,” he said. “But sometime soon can I come over and get a look at her, if I promise to stay in the car?”
“Oh, Danny. We haven’t been keeping her away from you because you’re too big to be safe with her. We’ve been keeping her away from everyone, because the world is too big to be safe with her,” I said. “It was never about you.”
“Not even after everything that happened?” He shifted his reflected gaze to Tybalt, who still hadn’t fastened his belt. “Buckle up or turn your royal ass into a cat, Yer Majesty. I’m not driving you anywhere like that.”
In a hot rush of pennyroyal and musk, Tybalt was feline and leaping into my lap, curling up with his nose against the base of his tail. I ran a quick hand down his back.
“Coward,” I muttered.
He lifted his head enough to make a small chirping sound at me, then put it back down and closed his eyes.
I sighed. “What happened wasn’t your fault, Danny, and I haven’t been a very good friend to you if I’ve let you think that it was.
Dame Altair was working for a very bad woman with some very specific grudges against my family.
None of us could have known what she was going to attempt.
You did the absolute best that it was possible for you to do.
I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you that sooner. ”
“You’re really not mad at me?”
“I would hug you right now if you weren’t driving,” I said. “I don’t really want to test my indestructability by getting you to roll the cab.”
Danny drove like the roads had issued him a personal challenge, and he was damn well going to answer and exceed it.
Again thanks to the charms he had on the cab, I only knew how wildly he was driving because of the streets flashing by outside the window.
The ride remained perfectly smooth and even, which was part of how I could tell that it was magic.
There’s not a single street in San Francisco with that few potholes. And yet he didn’t hit a single one.
“You got no idea how nice it is to hear that,” he said, and took a curve so hard that the audible sound of screeching tires made it through the illusions—and the window—to remind me of how quickly we were going.
Tybalt flattened an ear. I stroked him again.
“You’re going to love Miranda,” I said. “She’s absolutely beautiful. Her hair has stripes like her father’s, and her eyes are— You know how we’re still trying to figure out what the Dóchas Sidhe are going to look like? Like how Bridge Trolls are all tall and gray and craggy?”
Danny laughed. “Yeah, I know that.”
“Well, it looks like one of the hallmarks of the Dóchas Sidhe is going to be that whatever color we have is going to look like it’s been diluted way, way down,” I said.
Danny laughed again. “I’ve seen yer sister. I coulda told you that.”
“She’s the most perfect baby to have ever lived.”
He looked up at the rearview mirror again, smiling as he met my eyes. “They all are, Tobes. They always are.” He hit the brakes then, bringing us screeching to a halt. “And with that, you’re home.”
“Great. Can you wait out here while I get Tybalt inside and update May on the situation? Quentin drove my car back from Muir Woods, so I can get myself to Shadowed Hills, but I want to be sure that May doesn’t need anything.”
“For you, the world,” said Danny, and turned off the engine. “I’ll keep the meter running.”
That was a joke, and we all knew it: Danny refused to take money from me, no matter how hard I tried to convince him that he should.
I’d done a favor for his sister once, years ago, and now my money was no good with him.
It was a matter of pride that he take care of the woman who took care of his sister—even though I didn’t remember doing a job for a female Bridge Troll.
I’d meet her someday, and that would probably be enough to jog my memory.
For right now, it was enough that Danny was my friend, and he would wait.
I undid my buckle, scooping Tybalt up and holding him against my chest as I got out of the cab.
It was early enough that the lights were still on at the front of the house, illuminating the large bay window despite the closed curtains.
Our household was awake. That was a good thing.
They normally went to bed shortly after dawn, so we were probably just catching them—or they’d been staying up for our sake.
Either way, I carried Tybalt up the steps to the front door, looking down at him as I reached the top. “You could walk, you know,” I said.
He looked up at me, making a chirping sound deep in his throat, and I rolled my eyes.
“Or I could keep carrying you,” I said. “I guess turnabout is fair play, since I didn’t let you carry me this time. Now hang on, I need to open the wards.”
I reached into the air with my free hand, grabbing a fistful of fog like misty ribbons, and began to tangle it between my fingers.
“There was a king, and a curious king, and a king of royal fame,” I chanted, my magic gathering around me.
“He had a daughter, but only the one. Lady Diamond was her name.”
The magic rose and broke, scenting the air with cut grass and copper, and the wards released with an almost-audible click, allowing me access to the house. The door was already unlocked. What good is a metal latch when magic does a better job of keeping out thieves?
Stepping into the light and warmth of the hallway after the night we’d had was an incredible relief. Tybalt leapt down from my arms, becoming a man again almost as soon as his paws hit the floor, and I closed the door carefully behind me, just in case Miranda was actually sleeping.
“You check the living room, I’ll get the kitchen,” I said, keeping my voice low.
“I’ll check both, since I’m staying here: you go upstairs and change into something easier to run in,” he said.
Much as I hated being told what to wear, he wasn’t wrong; that I had done this much in a floor-length gown without tripping and breaking my own neck was barely shy of a miracle.
I still wrinkled my nose at him as I made for the stairs, pulling my skirt up and draping it over one arm to make it easier to climb them.
Below me, I heard him heading into the living room. Lovely, ridiculous man.
The upstairs hall was cool and dark and exactly the way it always was, unchanged by the night’s events. I made it to the bedroom without incident, shutting the door behind me and beginning to claw at the laces of my gown, trying to untangle them without breaking out the knives.
I had just managed to get the main knot to release when there was a soft popping sound and a portal opened in the air in front of me, Chelsea tumbling out.
“Did you find her?” she asked urgently, not seeming to care that she was sitting on my bedroom floor.
I eyed her. “Not yet, but we’re still looking. What have I told you about closed doors?”
“That they’re a challenge to be answered, and that it’s easier to get out of that sort of dress when you have someone to untie you?” She bounced to her feet, trying to look winsome as she beamed at me. “Turn around, let me get those knots.”
I was getting tired of people being right about my clothes. Still, I turned as she had instructed, sweeping my hair over one shoulder and out of the way so she could undo the back of my dress.
“What have you found so far?” she asked, voice carefully casual.
“Luna definitely took her, and she took her home to her mother, in Blind Michael’s skerry.
But she lost track of her there, and we’re trying to find her,” I said, exhaling as the knots let go and the sides of my dress expanded, making it suddenly easier to breathe.
A well-fitted corset doesn’t impede breathing nearly as much as modern movies like to claim, but it’s still stiff and can get a little claustrophobic after being worn for too long.
“I can help,” said Chelsea immediately. “Where are we looking?”
I turned back to face her. “You can’t help,” I corrected.
“I understand why you want to, I really do, but we need to make sure there’s nothing Luna can use against us when this is over.
I’m a Hero of the Realm. The rules are different for me when it comes to interfering with the choices of the nobility.
You need to keep staying here and helping May keep things under control. ”
Chelsea frowned, apparently catching the secondary meaning I hadn’t been trying to convey. “Why here and not Shadowed Hills?”
“I’m heading there next, to talk to some people about what’s going on,” I said. “I know you’re worried right now. Your concern would complicate things.”
“Are you saying you’re not concerned?”
“No, Chelsea, I’m saying I can get away with things that you can’t, and your father is Sylvester’s Seneschal.
If someone knows something and is already afraid of getting in trouble, seeing you is just going to convince them that it’s not safe to talk to me.
I’m going to find her. I’m going to bring her home to us.
You just need to trust me long enough for that to happen.
You need to keep trusting me, all right? ”
“All right,” she said, resentfully. “But you need to tell me what’s going on! She’s my—she’s my Raysel, and it feels like sometimes all the adults forget that. You act like she’s just the Duke’s daughter, and that’s what matters, not who she is or what she wants or anything.”
“I know she’s her own person,” I said, reassuringly. “You want to help, and I get that. Right now, you can help by going downstairs and making sure that Tybalt’s taking care of things with May. I just need to get changed, and then I’ve got to go. Danny’s waiting outside for me.”