Ashes of Honor

NINETEEN

I STARED. SO DID QUENTIN, Jin, and Li Qin. April frowned, irritation evident.

“I did not consent to your presence,” she said peevishly. “Please depart, and attempt your political assassination on someone else’s property.”

Tybalt just smiled. He took my hand off his shoulder and stood. Then he raised my hand to his lips, pressing a light kiss against my fingers, before letting me go and walking, with the utmost calm, toward Raj.

“Tybalt, what—”

“It’s all right, October,” he said, and kept walking. Raj trained the revolver on his uncle’s chest, the shaking spreading from his hands to his arms, until his entire body seemed to be caught in a wind that none of the rest of us could feel. Tybalt reached out and placed his hand atop the muzzle of the gun, pushing it gently downward.

Raj didn’t fight him. If anything, he looked relieved. Glass green eyes brimming with tears, he looked up at Tybalt and repeated hopelessly, “I’m here to kill you.”

“With a firearm? In a fiefdom belonging to the Divided Courts? My dearest boy, do you truly believe this is a fight you could win?” Tybalt’s voice was soft, his words reasoned and calm. I didn’t feel nearly that serene, and I wasn’t the one who’d just had a gun pointed at me.

Raj shook his head. His eyes flicked to me, desperation evident in their depths, before returning to Tybalt.

“I’m sorry,” said Tybalt, still calm. “I didn’t hear that.”

“N-no, Uncle,” said Raj. He swallowed hard, and added, “I figured it was a fight I’d lose. I hoped it was.”

“But you came.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who sent you?”

Raj said nothing.

Tybalt sighed. “This is senseless, and we do not have the time. October?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Can my beloved nephew, the assassin, stay with you for a short time? I fear the Court of Cats may not be safe for him at present.”

I glanced toward Quentin, who shook his head, looking as baffled as I felt. Right. We were winging it again. That’s my favorite way to deal with crazy. “Sure,” I said. “Raj knows he’s always welcome in my home.”

“Thank you,” said Tybalt solemnly. It was the third time he’d thanked me in an hour. It was starting to feel like something I could get used to. He turned his attention back to Raj and said, “If you would like, I can banish you. It would be a fitting punishment for a failed challenge to my throne. I’d prefer not to do so. I’ve spent a great deal of time and energy preparing you to take my place. We both know you’re not ready and that you have no desire to depose me like this, without honor or the validity of fair combat. Now. What did he tell you?”

Raj’s face fell. I’d only seen him look that miserable once before, the day his mother died. Then he threw himself into Tybalt’s arms, heedless of the blood covering the older Cait Sidhe. “He said I had to come here and kill you, you were dying anyway and if I didn’t, I’d be useless, because I wouldn’t get the throne, and then he’d kill everybody! Quentin and Jazz and everybody!” He sniffled before adding, “He said Toby was already dead.”

I raised my hand. “Not dead.”

“Who said he was going to kill me?” asked Quentin.

“I’m pretty sure that was Raj’s dad,” I replied.

“He said he gutted you like a fish,” said Raj. He pulled away from Tybalt, just far enough to scrub at his eyes with the back of his hand. “There was no way you’d survive that.”

“Surprise,” I said grimly. “Tybalt? Is this normal?”

“Not in the slightest.” Tybalt pushed Raj the rest of the way away from him, holding his nephew and heir at arm’s-length. “Raj, I am sorry to do this, but I have no choice. Your father has seen to that. Do you stand with him? Or do you refute him as your parent and stand with me?”

Raj’s eyes went wide. “What?”

Tybalt sighed. “You were misled, and I am sorry. I allowed this to happen. I knew he wanted you to hold power because he never could, and I allowed it because I wanted you to be happy. I wanted you to know your mother’s eyes. I wanted to give you what most Princes never have. I was a fool. Perhaps your father is right, and I am unfit to be King—but you are unprepared. If you are loyal to him, run. Go to him, tell him you failed and have to flee, because otherwise, I will be forced to kill you both. Do you understand?”

Raj nodded mutely.

“Good. If you are loyal to me…stay. Your father will be punished for what he has done, but you are still a Prince, and you are mine to punish or to pardon.” Tybalt looked at Raj, hope and anguish both clear in his face. “The choice is yours. The choice is always yours.”

It sometimes seems like Faerie reserves the hardest choices for the children. Raj bit his lip, glancing past Tybalt to me. His eyes widened again when he noticed my shredded shirt. Then they narrowed, his expression hardening. He turned back to Tybalt. “I won’t help you kill my father,” he said.

“I wasn’t planning to ask you to. Believe it or not, I have long since tired of killing.”

Raj nodded. “Okay.”

“Just ‘okay’?” asked Tybalt, raising an eyebrow.

“Okay,” repeated Raj. He stepped back and knelt, seeming not to notice the blood soaking through his pants. “My King, I beg forgiveness for my actions. I was misled.”

“I know, Raj,” said Tybalt tiredly. “Rise.”

“Being a King sort of sucks,” I said.

Quentin wrinkled his nose. “So does your outfit.”

“Blood is in this season.” I cleared my throat. “If we’re done with the political upheaval, can we move on to finding Chelsea, figuring out what Riordan thinks she’s doing, and stopping Samson from turning the Court of Cats against us? Because those all seem like high-priority items, and instead, we’re just standing around getting blood on everything in sight.”

“You need new pants,” said Quentin. “And a new shirt. And maybe new hair.”

“And we’re missing the point,” I muttered.

Tybalt turned to face me. “Not at all,” he said. “Samson has doubtless intended to have me overthrown for quite some time. He hasn’t been foolish enough to force his son to challenge me, but I’ve heard him talking to the guards, implying that I am not fit for my position. He lacks the power to take my place. Sadly, that doesn’t stop him from taking my life.”

“Only Raj isn’t strong enough to kill you empty-handed,” I guessed. “Hence the gun.”

Raj looked deeply embarrassed. He set the gun down on the nearest table, muttering, “Father didn’t think I could take Uncle Tybalt without help, even if he was wounded.”

“Your father is wrong about many things, but right about that much,” said Tybalt. “If Raj kills me, however he accomplishes it, he becomes King. Samson’s co-conspirators would then be absolved of their part in this. There is no shame in backing a revolution that succeeds.”

“And if you live?” I asked.

Tybalt didn’t say anything, but his smile seemed to hold far too many teeth.

I sighed, retrieving my jacket from the floor and shrugging it back on. “Okay. Raj, you’re with us now. Etienne, you go with Quentin. We know Riordan’s involved. I think she’s using a blood charm to call Chelsea back to her. Quentin has a duplicate of the charm I showed you. Take some of the power dampening solution from the cooler in the car. You see her again—”

“I’ll pour it on her,” said Quentin.

Etienne and Jin blinked. I raised a hand, signaling that I’d explain later, and said, “Good. Tybalt, can you reach the Shadow Roads, or are you still too beat up?”

Tybalt looked at Jin, who rolled her eyes, wings buzzing in annoyance. “I don’t suppose I can stop you from flying around like a pixie with its head cut off any more than I can stop Toby,” she said resignedly.

“No, you can’t,” he said, looking amused.

“Hey,” I protested. “I’m always careful after a healing.”

Jin didn’t dignify my blatant lie with a response. She glared at Tybalt instead. “Will you at least try to go easy on yourself for the next few days? I know it’s hard. Toby’s essentially a walking bad influence. But please.”

Tybalt quirked a faint smile. “I bow to the wisdom of milady chirurgeon.”

“Huh?” said Quentin and Raj, almost in unison.

Jin smirked. “It means ‘doctor.’ I’m glad someone here knows how to take medical advice.”

“He’s using words that are no longer recognized as valid in Scrabble,” I said.

“I don’t care, he’s a smart cat. And before you try to tell me where to go, I’m staying here. You people are going to need patching up, I’m sure of it.”

I wished I could argue with her. Sadly, she was probably right. “Fine. Tybalt and I will go to Berkeley on the Shadow Roads, see if we can pick up Chelsea’s trail where we saw her last. After that—”

My phone rang.

I blinked, digging for the phone. “What the—I thought my battery was dead.”

“It was,” said April cheerfully. “I recharged it for you.”

“Without taking it out of my pocket?”

April blinked. “Why would I need to take it out of your pocket?”

“Right.” The display said it was May calling. I flipped the phone open. “Hello?”

Screaming and the sound of something being smashed greeted me, followed by the sound of May shouting, “Toby! Get over here! I don’t know how long I ca—”

The line went dead.

I shoved the phone back into my pocket without thinking about it, already breaking into a run. “Tybalt! Shadows! My place! Now!”

Tybalt nodded, stepping back toward the wall. The others moved out of our way as I jumped for him; he grabbed my hands, and then we were falling into darkness.

The Shadow Roads were cold and airless, but nothing came to attack us as we ran through the black. That made it a more pleasant trip than our last one. When I inevitably faltered—I may heal like a superhero, but it takes a lot out of my body, and I hadn’t eaten nearly enough to make up for it—Tybalt caught me smoothly and ran on through the dark with me cradled in his arms, holding me tight against his chest. This close, the heat from his skin was enough to beat back some of the chill. I relaxed as much as I could with blood freezing in my hair and terror pounding in my veins and let him carry me home.

I knew we were getting close when he slowed long enough to drop me back to my feet, murmuring next to my ear, “Seconds, little fish. Hold fast…”

And then we were bursting back out into the warmth and light of my cluttered living room, where May promptly hit me in the back of the head with my own aluminum baseball bat.

The reverberating “bong” of metal meeting bone was still audible as I dropped to my knees, no longer interested in focusing on much of anything beyond the shooting pain in my head. Tybalt snarled, a sound as inhuman as it’s possible for a mostly human throat to make, and May yelped. I managed to twist around, squinting past the tears in my eyes, to see Tybalt holding her off the floor by her throat. May was scrabbling uselessly at his fingers, trying to pry them away. Jazz was in the hall behind her, face pale, eyes wide and terrified. The smell of their mingled blood hit me a split second later, washing the scene in red.

It was the blood that gave me the strength to speak, focusing past the pain as I said, “Put her down, Tybalt.” I swallowed, tasting the air, and added, “It’s May. Not an impostor. She bleeds right.” A wave of nausea washed over me, and I stopped speaking. I really hate head injuries.

“She hit you,” snarled Tybalt.

“She thought you were that man again!” shouted Jazz. There was a harsh note under her normally soft voice, like a raven’s shriek. She was a skinshifter, not a shapeshifter—she’d need her cloak of feathers to transform—but some aspects of her avian nature were bleeding through. “Put her down!”

May didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. Talking would have required air. She just went limp in Tybalt’s hand.

Tybalt sighed, looking clearly unhappy as he lowered May back to her feet and took his hand away from her throat. Livid red bruises shaped like his fingers remained behind, striping her skin. May took a hasty step backward, out of his reach. Jazz was right there to catch her, putting her left hand on her girlfriend’s shoulder and glaring murder in Tybalt’s direction.

The room was still spinning, and I was pretty sure that getting up was a terrible idea. I did it anyway, forcing myself first to my knees, and then to an unsteady standing position. Another wave of nausea hit me. I wobbled. “Wow, May,” I said. “I think maybe you cracked my skull. Please don’t do that again.”

Tybalt growled, low and deep in his throat.

“Chill,” I said. Moving as slowly as I could to avoid setting off any more alarm bells in my head, I looked around the living room. It wasn’t just cluttered, which would have been normal; it was destroyed.

The coffee table was shattered, as if something had been dropped on it from a considerable height. One of the legs protruded from the broken remains of the television set. Pictures and knick-knacks, some of which I hadn’t even known we owned, were shattered on the floor, amid the confetti remains of May’s gossip magazines and several of my books. Even the cat beds were shredded, bits of cloth and puffs of cotton filling scattered everywhere.

“What the hell happened here?” I asked.

“Why do you think I hit you with a bat?” May asked.

I turned to see her glaring at me. Jazz was doing the same, with a considerably more pained look in her eyes. Her right arm was dangling at her side, with a sharp new bend below the elbow. There were fingermarks on her throat, too, and I knew they weren’t from Tybalt.

“It was one of your people,” spat Jazz, that harsh croak still underlining her words. Her eyes flicked from me to Tybalt as she spoke, making it plain whose people she was referring to. “Gray hair. Green eyes. Tried to kill us both.”

“Samson,” said Tybalt, eyes narrowing. “He should not have done that.”

“Raj’s father,” I explained, for Jazz and May’s benefit. “He tried to kill us a little while ago. Actually, he nearly succeeded.”

“Well, when he failed, I guess he decided to take out his anger on something a little more defenseless,” said May. For the first time, I noticed the blood streaking the back of her blouse. May saw me looking. Her expression hardened. “He was a little surprised when I didn’t die. I guess no one told him Fetches are indestructible.”

“Lucky us,” I said quietly.

Spike slunk out from under the nearest couch, thorns rattling like bones in the wind. It stayed low to the ground as it crept to press itself against my feet. The pain in my head was abating, or at least that’s what I told myself as I stooped to gather my rose goblin’s thorny body into my arms. It promptly plastered itself into my chest, making small whimpering noises. I gritted my teeth and let it nestle. The thorns hurt when they broke my skin. That was nothing compared to what I’d already been through, and the day wasn’t over yet.

“Why did Raj’s father come here and try to kill us?” demanded May. “Why did he try to kill you? Dammit, Toby, what the hell is going on? You disappear all day, you don’t call, you don’t tell me what’s going on, and then a man I’ve never met before is here slamming my girlfriend into walls! Why is this happening?”

I swallowed hard, trying to figure out what to say. “I’m sorry” seemed insufficient. She was right. I should have been here when Samson came; I should have called and warned her that she might be in danger, if nothing else. But it had never occurred to me that he might come here, or that he’d take his anger at me out on my Fetch and her girlfriend.

“I’m sorry,” I said finally, choosing insufficiency over silence. May’s expression hardened further, until she might as well have been made of stone. “I didn’t know he would come here. Please believe me, I had no idea.”

“And I don’t understand why he would,” said Tybalt. “There was nothing here for him.”

“We may not be Toby, but we’re not ‘nothing,’” snarled May.

Tybalt put his hands up. “I did not mean to imply that you were nothing, merely that there was nothing here for Samson to find. Whatever he was looking for—”

“He was looking for me,” I said. All three of the other people in the room turned to me. I kept talking, saying, “The last he saw, we were falling into a hole that Chelsea tore in the world. I was pretty hurt, but he’s smart enough to know that I was going to heal and you weren’t. The smart thing for us to do would have been to split up, send you one way to get medical care, send me the other way to take care of Chelsea. How was he supposed to know we’d be total morons and stay together?”

“And the logical place for you to go would be here?” asked Tybalt.

May sighed. “Okay. Now we’ve hit something that’s not her fault. It’s mine. Tracking spells sometimes decide that I’m Toby. Something about me being made from her blood and bone confuses them, even though I’m not Dóchas Sidhe.”

“So he used a tracking spell, it led him here, and then he got pissed when he couldn’t find me,” I said. “That’s a big risk to take. I mean, killing me is going to open a pretty big can of worms…”

“But if his son has just been elevated to the throne of the Court of Dreaming Cats, he need never again enter a place where those consequences are his to face,” said Tybalt. He rubbed his face with one hand, looking unbearably weary. “Milady Fetch, I beg your forgiveness.”

“I’m not the one with the broken arm,” said May, putting a protective arm around Jazz’s shoulders. “Is he going to come back here?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I glanced to Tybalt, then back to the pair of them. “Call a taxi. Have it take you to Goldengreen. Count Lorden will let you stay there, and Marcia—”

“Isn’t a real healer,” snapped May, her arm tightening. Jazz whimpered. May loosened her grip. “I’m sorry, baby. You need a healer. She needs a healer!”

“Jin is in Tamed Lightning right now, but we can’t take you both through the shadows,” I said. “Even if Tybalt could carry all three of us—”

“Which I could not do, at present,” interjected Tybalt.

“—even if he could, Jazz is hurt, and neither of you is used to it.”

May grimaced. “I remember the Shadow Roads. The first time…”

“Remembering them doesn’t mean your body has adjusted,” I said. “It wouldn’t work.”

“Goldengreen doesn’t even have a real healer,” said May.

“Marcia does okay with a first aid kit, and she can put together a sling until we can get Jin to Goldengreen or Jazz to Shadowed Hills. With Samson on the loose out there, you can’t spend an hour in a cab to get to Sylvester or two hours to get to Tamed Lightning,” I said. The pounding in my head was fading, replaced by spinning as the bones of my skull knitted back together and burned through more of my body’s denuded resources.

“She’s right,” said Jazz. She straightened a bit, standing on her own. “Goldengreen is the best place for us right now.”

“Honey—”

“I mean it. We can’t stay here.” Jazz shuddered. “If he came back…”

“He won’t come back.”

“But if he came back. He’d kill us. And we can’t go to a human hospital, not without getting a whole bunch of questions I’m not ready for.” Jazz shook her head. “Goldengreen is the only answer. We have to go.”

“I’ll call us a cab. Danny will be thrilled to drive us, as long as we don’t bleed on the seats,” said May. Moving with surprising speed, she leaned over and grabbed my wrist, jerking me toward her. I somehow managed not to fall over as I stumbled across the floor. “Come on, Toby. You’re the one who has his number memorized.”

I knew the half-murderous, half-grim look on her face. I had to go with her, or she was going to start swinging. “Tybalt, keep an eye on Jazz,” I said, letting myself be pulled out of the living room and across the hall into the kitchen.

May let go of me long enough to close the kitchen door. Then she turned to face me, slowly looking me up and down. “How bad was it?” she asked finally.

“If you were still my Fetch, you’d probably be feeling pretty shaky,” I said. “And if Amandine hadn’t shifted my blood, I’d definitely be dead. I think I saw my own intestines.”

“You sure do know how to have a good time.” She rubbed her face with one hand. It was a gesture so familiar that it hurt. I know May’s memories don’t just come from me—she has Dare’s memories, too, and the memories of the night-haunt she used to be—but sometimes looking at her is like looking in a slightly sideways mirror. “How much danger are we in, October? And how much of it is your fault?”

“I…what?”

She dropped her hand. “You’ve been trying to find a cliff to throw yourself off of since Connor died. I won’t pretend I’ve been cool with it, but I remember dying so many times—I remember being the one mourned for and the one in mourning so many times—that I’ve been willing to let it slide. I figured you’d find your way back to yourself. Only now you’ve finally found a cliff that might actually stand a chance of killing you, and you’re going to take us right over the edge with you. Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you warn us?” She took a heavy breath, let it out, and asked, “Are you mad at us for surviving when he didn’t?”

Fetches are created when a night-haunt drinks the blood of a living person. It’s Oberon’s way of keeping the night-haunts from getting out of control and killing everyone they meet. One of the first things I did when I came back from my fourteen-year absence was go up against my former mentor, a man named Devin. He’d replaced me with two new kids, Manuel and Dare. Dare said I was her hero. I got her killed. But somehow, that didn’t change her mind, and when the night-haunt with her memories had the opportunity to help me, she took it. In the process, she got herself called as a Fetch. My Fetch.

She’d already died for me once. If she thought I was mad at her for not dying for me a second time, I was doing something unforgivably wrong.

My silence had lasted too long. Something hardened in May’s eyes, and she started to turn away from me. “Yeah. I thought so.”

“May, wait.” I grabbed her shoulder, stopping her. She didn’t look back at me. That was okay. She could hear me whether she was facing me or not. “I didn’t call because I didn’t think of it. That was stupid, and I’m sorry. I honestly didn’t think Samson would come here.”

“Are you going to try telling me you haven’t been attempting suicide every day since Connor died?” She looked over her shoulder without turning around, so that only a half-crescent of her face was visible. It was enough to let me see her eyes. They were the foggy no-color gray that had been in my mirror for most of my life, but the look in them wasn’t mine. It was the look I saw once in the brilliantly green eyes of a teenage girl who died because I couldn’t save her.

“No,” I said quietly. “I think you’re right. You’re all right. Tybalt accused me of the same thing, and I couldn’t even get mad, because you’re all right. But I’m done now. I’m done throwing myself off cliffs and hoping I won’t be there after I hit the bottom. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that to you. I’m sorry.”

The corner of May’s mouth pulled into a smile. “You just said you were sorry like three times.”

“It bears repeating. I have a lot to be sorry about.”

“Yeah. You do.” She finally turned to face me. “You’re sure you’re done being an idiot?”

“Well. I’m sure I’m done being more of an idiot than I normally am.”

“That’s a start.” May removed my hand from her arm. Then she stepped closer and hugged me, hard.

I’ve never been much of a hugger. There have always been people that didn’t apply to. I wrapped my arms around her, returning her embrace. Her skin smelled like cotton candy and ashes, the remnants of the magic she’d called up during the fight with Samson. Even fae who don’t have access to combat charms will tend to call their magic under that kind of duress. It’s instinctive, a way of grabbing the thinnest straws of hope the world has to offer. Since none of our races began knowing what they were capable of, it makes sense; one day, you might call your power and learn that you were capable of something you never guessed you could do.

May sighed against my shoulder, and said, “This is all fucked up.”

“Yeah, it is. But it’s going to get better.” I pushed her away. “We’ll call Danny and get him to come pick you up. Jazz will be safe at Goldengreen. Samson won’t be able to get past Dean’s wards, even if he’s dumb enough to try—which I doubt. You weren’t his target.”

“And what are you going to do?” May asked.

I managed a smile. “I’m going to eat a box of Pop-Tarts and drink all the milk in the fridge, because if I don’t give my body something else to work with, I’m going to collapse. Then I’m going to put on different clothes. What I’m wearing right now isn’t going to inspire much confidence in the people around me.”

“Those jeans are trashed,” said May. “There isn’t enough hydrogen peroxide in the world to deal with that much blood.”

“I know,” I said dolefully. “I’d just managed to get them broken in, too.”

“The true tragedy of the day is at last revealed,” said Tybalt from the doorway. “Not the assassination attempts, the injuries, or the betrayals. The loss of a pair of denim trousers.”

“Hey, man, I worked hard to make these jeans fit exactly how I liked them,” I said, turning. Tybalt was holding the kitchen door open. Jazz was standing behind him, still clutching her injured arm. “What’s going on?”

“We grew concerned when your disappearance was not followed by the sound of screaming, and I wanted to be sure our Lady Fetch had not elected to bury one of the kitchen knives in your eye.” Tybalt offered a bow toward May. “I appreciate your failure to stab her. I doubt she has any blood left to lose.”

“I took some of that Canadian Tylenol Quentin keeps in the medicine cabinet,” said Jazz. “It’s helping a little, but I’d still really like to get to Goldengreen.”

That was a hint if I’d ever heard one. May and I exchanged a look before I nodded and started toward the kitchen phone. “I’m on it.”

I dialed and handed the phone to May, not waiting for Danny to pick up. She was the one who needed the ride, and if I tried to explain what was going on, he’d want the whole story. We didn’t have time for that. Technically, I’d been wasting time by stopping to talk to May in the first place, but that part hadn’t been optional. It was my fault she got hurt. It was my fault Jazz got hurt. If she wanted me to explain myself, I owed her that.

May was still talking when I grabbed a pack of Pop-Tarts from the box and left the kitchen, heading for the stairs.

Tybalt followed me out of the kitchen. “Where are you going?”

“To my room,” I said. “I need to change my clothes. I would wash the blood out of my hair, but then it would freeze solid when we went back to Tamed Lightning. I’ll have to be a redhead for a little longer.”

“Charming.”

“Hey. I work with what I’ve got.” My stomach rumbled. I opened the Pop-Tarts, looking back at him as I climbed. “You probably need fresh clothes, too.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Are you about to tell me you have a pair of sweatpants in just my size sitting in a drawer somewhere? Because I think I would prefer to be naked.”

We still had all of Connor’s things in a box in the attic, but he and Tybalt weren’t the same height; Connor had actually been a few inches taller than Tybalt, probably because he was born more recently, and people are taller now than they were three or four centuries ago. I’m not sure why the human-form purebloods have continued getting taller along with the human population of the world; maybe it’s an automatic thing, one more form of subtle camouflage. Regardless, Tybalt would have looked like an idiot in Connor’s pants.

Even as I had the thought, I realized that it didn’t hurt. I was thinking about Connor, and it didn’t hurt. Maybe I was getting better after all.

“No, but if you want to run back to the Court of Cats, I can wait for you here.”

A shadow flickered across his face, there and gone in an instant. “Would that I could, October, but that door is not open to me at the present.”

I stopped as I reached the landing. “What do you mean? You’re the King.”

“Yes, I am. And if I return to the Court, I will need to begin the process of resolving the dissent Samson has so industriously sown.” Tybalt paused, rubbing his hand across his face before he added, “I don’t know when I’d be able to come back, Toby. I’d be leaving you when you need me the most—and while I wouldn’t normally put your welfare above that of my Court without true agony, this time, the two are the same. Whatever Samson has against me, he has against you as well. I will not leave you vulnerable to him.”

He sounded so tired and so earnest. I worried my lip between my teeth before asking, “Does this have anything to do with what you told me before?”

Tybalt blinked. Then he snorted a brief laugh, and asked, “October, in the years since your return…has anything not been in some way related to what I told you before? You handed me a hope chest in a dark alley. You took my heart as collateral, and you’ve never returned it.”

Things always get messed up when I think about them too much. So this time, I didn’t let myself think. I took a few quick steps down, closing the distance between us, and planted a kiss on Tybalt’s mouth. His eyes widened in surprise. Just as he was recovering enough to kiss me back, I stepped away, and said, “I’m going to get changed. Go make sure May and Jazz go off with Danny, okay? I’ll be down as soon as I can.”

“Yes,” said Tybalt, sounding slightly dazed—and then he turned and went.

It wasn’t until I was in my room with the door securely closed between us that I realized that this was the first time I had kissed him. He’d kissed me, sometimes for show, sometimes because he truly meant it…but I’d never kissed him before. Things between us really were changing. With that thought weighing heavy on my mind, and the fate of Faerie potentially hanging in the balance, I went to get changed.