Fifteen #4
“You’re not the knight of me, and according to Quentin, all you ever do is run off half-cocked,” she said stubbornly.
“Okay, one, he is grounded when I get home, and two, that’s me, not him. How often does he go off half-cocked?”
Chelsea looked away, not meeting my eyes.
“How often?”
“Not often,” she mumbled.
“Good. So I need you to stay calm and stay where I tell you to be,” I said firmly. “Or else I’m going to call your father to come and get you. Will you listen?”
“I’ll listen,” she said. She was a convincing-enough liar that I almost believed her.
Almost.
“Great,” I said, and took my hand off her shoulder, turning back to Cassie. “Back arbor, got it. Anything else I need to know?”
“Not that I can think of,” said Cassie. “Only that I’m not sure he’s your guy.”
“They never seem like the guy,” I said. “Chelsea, come on.”
I turned for the door, not looking back to see whether she was following me until I made it out to the hallway and she was still there. I nodded, once, and started walking in the appropriate direction.
“How did you know I wasn’t going to run?”
Chelsea’s question was quiet, subdued, and a little guilty. I finally glanced back at her.
“I didn’t. I would have run. When I was your age?
If I thought I knew where to find someone who’d hurt Cliff—he was my boyfriend back then—or even one of my friends, whew.
It would have been all over but the rushing stupidly into danger and getting myself seriously hurt.
But I also had really lousy role models.
No one like your mom, who would die before she’d let something happen to you, or your dad, who would die protecting you.
They love you a lot, Chelsea. Let that remind you why you can’t always rush in. ”
“It worked for you.”
“I got lucky. Except when I didn’t, and when I didn’t, I got hurt. I know Jin better than anyone should, because she had to put me back together so many times. It’s a miracle I survived long enough to find out what I was capable of. Let the people who care about you pass that miracle on to you.”
I knew the knowe well enough to know that I was walking in the general direction I wanted to go, and I trusted Muir Woods to make sure I made it the rest of the way to where I was supposed to be.
The knowe seemed to genuinely care about Arden, which was what mattered most of the time, and I made sure Arden stayed alive and on the throne—that had to count for something in the eyes of her ancestral home.
Just in case, I let my fingertips trail along the wall.
“I need to reach the back arbor,” I said, voice pitched as low as I could make it. “This will all go most smoothly for your mistress and her rule if I can just get to the back arbor.”
Chelsea watched me with interest. “Do you think that would work for me?” she asked. “Could I convince the knowes to listen to me?”
“I don’t know,” I said, honestly. “I don’t know anybody else who’s really tried.
The knowes have always been alive, but I haven’t heard of anyone else really negotiating with them, and you’d think someone else would have tried, at least once.
So maybe this is another function of my descendant line. ”
“Why is all your magic so weird?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe because Amandine put off making us for as long as she could, and only had a second child after the first one had disappeared; maybe because whatever it is I’m supposed to do for Faerie requires a seemingly ridiculous assortment of skills.
I don’t really know. I assume it’s all going to make sense someday.
If not in my lifetime, maybe in Miranda’s.
I have time to figure it all out, and in the meantime, I just have to keep using my magic to do my job, and not let myself get bogged down in details that may or may not actually matter. ”
“Huh,” said Chelsea. “I guess that makes sense.”
“Some things have to, I guess. A lot of things never will.”
The hallway we were walking along was slanting noticeably downward, although the windows were still built on the level, and the doors we were passing now had little step-ups, keeping them the same.
It was only the passage trending down, and almost as soon as I noticed, it became more extreme, until it felt like we were virtually walking along a ramp.
Chelsea blinked at the floor, then frowned.
“I guess knowes don’t need to be ADA-compliant,” she said.
“Try telling Dianda that, and then duck, because she’s going to be pissed at you for even suggesting she doesn’t have the right to go anywhere she wants within a knowe. I’m betting this is just because we’re getting a shortcut, and the knowe doesn’t trust me with stairs.”
“Why not?”
“Long story.” The hallway began to level out again.
I looked out the nearest window, taking note of the beautifully landscaped slice of orchard behind us.
The trees were planted in neat rows, apple, almond, lemon, and cherry, all of them fully mature and easily older than I was.
Some of them had probably been planted by Arden’s grandparents, newcomers to North America trying to carve out their own little slice of something that looked like home.