Home
My parents’ butler, Johnson, did not meet our craft when we landed at their house late the next morning.
Mom and Dad were there.
After we alighted the UtiliSport (again, on loan from the embassy)—and by “we,” that included Manny and Zyr—Mom rushed me, crying, “There’s my little girl.”
I was rolling my eyes as she hugged me like I’d been gone for five years when I’d seen her and Dad at the party last night.
Zyra, who came out on my side, was just smiling.
“And hello again Zyra,” Mom exclaimed after she let me go. “Oh my goodness, I’m so happy to host you in our home!”
Zyra got a hug (Mom was so human), but she didn’t seem to mind.
I got a cheek kiss from Dad.
Introductions had been performed last night, so this morning there were handshakes (and Mangold got a hug from Mom too), then we went inside.
As we made the main floor, all of a sudden, I had a strange feeling, one I didn’t like.
Zyra ooed and aahed over the art and décor. Dad, Tanyn and Mangold were talking and chuckling. Everyone seemed chill.
But my parents’ house was no citadel.
It was beautiful, and it wasn’t exactly cold and unwelcoming, but it was highly curated and the wealth behind it couldn’t be missed.
There were no warm, cozy fires nor throws to curl up in or even armrests to lay your head on.
So what were Zyra and Mangold going to think about my family? How I grew up?
On this thought, Tanyn was at my side, circling my waist with his arm.
“What’s up?” he asked quietly.
Of course he felt my unease.
“I want them to like each other.”
Tanyn shot me a look of surprise, then his expression softened.
“Baby, give your parents some credit,” he advised. “And Manny and Zyr some too.”
“Oh, sweet Lilith,” Zyra exclaimed, gaining Tanyn and my attention. She was standing by a sculpture. “This came from your gallery, Cat?” she asked. “It’s stunning!” she exclaimed before I could answer.
Mom was smiling adoringly at me.
Manny was staring bemusedly at the sculpture, which did, indeed, come from my gallery (Mom and Dad were two of my biggest clients, and I held zero shame at the nepotism).
The piece was made of cream limestone and consisted of some blobs with some spheres inserted into carved-out holes. It resembled a female torso, if she was listing to the side, had one detachable breast and partially melting.
It was a piece by Donetta Rothweld.
It was sublime.
And, according to me, it was worth every mark of the sixteen thousand, five hundred of them that it cost (just to say, this was not just my opinion, because I knew since they bought it, Rothwelds had increased in value).
“Don’t say it, mate,” Dad muttered to Manny. “I don’t get it either.”
Mom laughed gaily before saying to Zyra, “Males.” She then clapped and announced, “Cocktails.”
Day drinking.
Excellent.
Once Dad got us sorted with drinks, and we were sitting in one of their seating areas, Mom enthused, “You looked so beautiful last night, Catla.”
“She very much did,” Zyra agreed.
“You both looked beautiful too,” I replied.
“Cat did the Edge proud,” Manny proclaimed.
Oh gods, was I going to blush?
No farging way.
With effort, I beat back the heat in my cheeks while Zyra turned to Mom. “Everyone is saying she’s best dressed from last night,” she bragged about me to my own mother. “Outside of Laura, that is.”
“She’s also taking hits that she wore a Night’s Fallian designer and not an Edgian one,” Dad groused. “Like she hadn’t had a gown sorted for this weeks ago, seeing as it was her best mate’s party.”
Oh crap.
It seemed my parents were also doing that whole social tape thing, checking up on what beings were saying about me.
“You two need to avoid that nonsense,” I stated.
Dad ignored me and turned to Tanyn. “The article on Friday was excellent, but why aren’t you doing more of that?”
Before Tanyn could say anything, I butted in.
“The castle has more important things to do than try to spin beings’ minds to like me.
And…” I went on quickly, because Dad seemed to be about to say something, “we can’t saturate the media with me.
First, I don’t want that attention while I’m settling in.
Second, because it would seem weird and possibly like we’re doing what we would be doing, trying to spin beings’ minds to like me.
And last, this is early on for Tanyn and me, but for his citizens, it’s brand new. Give it some time.”
I mean…
Yeesh!
Mom leaned Zyra’s way and whispered, “She’s always been very savvy.”
Tanyn smiled into his cocktail.
I turned to my mother. “Chill, Mom. Zyr already likes me.”
Mom looked offended. “I didn’t say she didn’t!”
“Just to confirm, we do,” Zyra announced, then she said to Mom, “And I’m sure she told you we’re refurbishing the citadel. Has she shown you what we’ve done?”
“No,” Mom replied.
Zyra got out her Palm and now it was Mom ooing and aahing over our selections for Sigil.
I sucked back a cocktail I knew Mom had devised and strongarmed Dad into making, because it was high on the fruitiness and low on the alcohol.
I felt Tanyn, sitting next to me, press his shoulder into mine.
I turned to him.
“Never thought I’d have a meet-the-parents,” he said.
Oh gods.
“This is fun,” he finished.
Oh.
Well then.
I relaxed.
Dad and Manny shot the breeze while Mom and Zyra continued to go overboard to demonstrate it was all good, everyone liked each other, and this was all family.
All the while Tanyn and I kicked back and let them.
I leaned in the doorway of my room in Mom and Dad’s house, a room Mom had not touched since I left for college.
I was watching Tanyn wander through it.
There was something affecting about him being in the space where I grew up, hatched all my childhood dreams, pouted when I was having a tantrum, and eventually left to launch into my life, doing this having no idea I one day would be queen.
Sure, I was having mild fantasies of fucking him on my bed.
But mostly, after getting so much of him these last few weeks, I was simply enjoying him experiencing something that was a part of me.
He stopped at a digi-collage of old pictures of Aleksei, turned to me and raised his brows.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Every female in the Fall had a crush on him. I put that collage together when I was fifteen.”
And added to it when I was sixteen.
More when I was seventeen.
Ahem.
He shook his head, his lips twitching, and moved to a poster of a still life oil painting of flowers and fruits done by Magenna Twirlhammer back in the 1600s.
“It was rare females trained under masters of art back in those days,” I told him.
“If they had families with enough influence to pay for them to have spots, the masters would find ways to cow them, bully them, break them or ruin them.” I nodded to the Twirlhammer.
“Magenna right away showed signs her talent significantly eclipsed that of her teacher. Due to his jealousy, and because he’d never wanted to take her on in the first place, he did everything he could to thwart her career.
She just kept painting. Unfortunately, a sign of the times, he scored more victories than she did, and there are only four of her works still existing today.
But now, she’s known as the master, and no one but historians remember his name. ”
“This painting is in the Meko Museum in Abyssinia,” he noted.
“I know. I’ve seen it. Five times,” I replied.
He came and stood in front of me. “Why am I not surprised the teenage you was still you? Refined, chic, tasteful. Not including the collage of Lex, I’ll add.”
“I haven’t been in here in ages. I need to bring Laura in and remind her of it. She’ll laugh until she screams,” I mumbled.
“Catla.”
I re-focused on him.
“My beings will love you.”
He stated that apropos of nothing but in a way he knew it would be fact.
“Honey, honestly, I’m not really worried about it. At all,” I stressed.
He cupped my cheek and stroked it with his thumb. “I know.”
“Lunch is served!” Mom shouted from downstairs.
Tanyn’s hand dropped from my face so he could take my own and guide me down the stairs of my childhood home.
We sat down to lunch.
Mom and Zyra seemed to have calmed down on the whole “this is going to go well if it kills us” thing.
And by the time we left, it did.
But then again, it started that way.
So it would.
I was supervising another four cases of my stuff that would be going with us back to the Edge.
My case-minder spit out the first and it moved to hover against the wall, the second one in line clicked into place and I heard the soft whir of clothing being folded and set inside.
All of this while I finished with programming what I wanted to take.
Hitting save, my Palm went with a comm.
I looked at the display and took it.
“Hey there,” I greeted Gayle.
“Hey,” she replied. “Listen, Cormac and I aren’t going to be at Aleksei’s to meet the jet.
Since I’m down here, I’m going to take a couple of meetings in the office so they won’t come under the mistaken impression I’ve turned into an actual holo.
Then Cormac’s been called down to Land’s End.
He has a few things he wasn’t able to reschedule, and he can’t holo into them.
We probably won’t be back until the weekend. ”
There was something I was hearing that she wasn’t, due to the potion.
All of this “we” stuff between her and Cormac.
Gods, they were a couple without being a couple because of that stupid potion and Cormac’s stupid damage (whatever it was).
Since there was nothing for it, at least for another few weeks, I didn’t comment on it.
I considered her news.
This was happening, along with Aleece and Bain staying in the Fall, because she had another appearance she didn’t want to cancel.
They were then going to Dawn’s Break so he could sort out his own life for a possible long haul of all of us communing together while we figured out the situation at hand.