Rosemary and Rue

TEN

“TYBALT? TYBALT, IT’S TOBY. Are you here?” I stepped cautiously into the alleyway, holding my skirt away from the ground with one hand. The plastic-swaddled hope chest was under my other arm. It felt more visible than it was, and I kept glancing behind me, waiting for someone to lunge out of the darkness and attack me. Thus far, no one had. I didn’t trust my luck to hold. “Come on, Tybalt. We don’t have much time. The sun’s coming up, and I’m supposed to work tonight.”

Oberon only knew what I was going to do about that. My nerves were shot. I’d spent most of the drive to the alley where I’d seen Tybalt most recently trying to pretend that what I had riding in my passenger seat was no big deal. It had worked about as well as the time when I was nine and tried to convince myself I could walk through walls. At least this was leaving fewer external bruises.

Maybe more important, I couldn’t lie to myself about the hope chest. My fingers were still tingling from having held it, and my headache was gone. Wherever it came from, it was the real deal. That made it vital that I get it out of changeling hands. Tybalt isn’t the nicest person I’ve ever met, or even the nicest Cait Sidhe, but he’s a pureblood. He wouldn’t have a changeling’s longing for the hope chest—and no matter how much of a bastard he is or how little he likes me, he keeps his promises. Honesty’s not a virtue among the fae, but when a pureblood makes a promise, he keeps it. All I had to do was make him swear.

Not that it was going to matter if I couldn’t find him. “Why are you always here when I don’t want you?” I muttered, moving toward the back of the alley. He’d been haunting me for most of my adult life. I was never sure whether he hated me because I was a changeling or because of something more personal, and I didn’t care. Hate was hate, and ours was mutual.

Dawn was close, but the sky was still dark, and the fog was thick enough to reduce my range of vision to practically nothing. I’d tried waving the key around in the hopes that it would do its firefly impression again, but it just hung there like so much ornately carved metal. Getting the flashlight out of my trunk was out of the question—I wanted to attract Tybalt, not blind him. That meant standing alone, effectively blind, in a place he’d claimed as his own, when no one knew where I was or how to find me.

Ever have one of those epiphanies that just screams you’re a complete moron? I’d been having one since I got out of the car.

I stood there until my toes were numb and I was shivering so hard that I was running the risk of dropping the hope chest. The sky was starting to get lighter overhead. I had time to make it home, but barely. “Fine, Tybalt,” I said. “You win.” I turned to go.

He was standing behind me.

I squawked in surprise, barely managing to stop myself before I walked straight into his chest. He crossed his arms, one corner of his mouth slanting upward in a smile.

“Really?” he said. “What’s my prize? And why, my dear October, are you gowned so fetchingly? You don’t need to make yourself beautiful for me, you know; you’ll never win my heart. Although you’re welcome to keep trying, if you insist. Next time? Try wearing a corset.”

He kept smiling as I fought to get my breath back, and grinned when I snapped, “Oberon’s fucking balls, Tybalt, give me some warning next time!”

“Why? It’s more fun this way.”

I blinked, the urge to slap the smile off his face fading. He wouldn’t be teasing me if he wasn’t interested in what I was doing there, and as long as he stayed interested, he’d listen. Cats are like that. “Well, hello to you, too. Took you long enough to get here.”

“I was busy.” He frowned, mood turning on a dime. “What are you doing here? The sun’s about to be up, you know. I didn’t think we were going to be making this a habit.”

“Actually I was looking for you.”

“You were looking for me?” Now he looked outright disbelieving. “Have you finally lost your mind, or is this some sort of joke that I’m simply not getting?”

“Neither,” I said. “I need to ask you for a favor.”

“A favor? You’re not serious.” He took another look at my expression, and his eyes widened, pupils contracting. “You are serious. When did you start deciding to ask me for favors? Have I missed something?”

“You want to know why?”

“Since I don’t generally ask questions I don’t want to have answered, yes, that would be pleasant.”

I opened my mouth to reply, and stopped, almost stumbling into him as the pressure of the sun increased, signaling the final approach of dawn. He sighed.

“Ah, the pleasure of your company at dawn. How could I ever have wished to forgo it?” We were already so close together that he didn’t have to move to put his arms around my waist; he just did it, advising mildly, “You may want to hold your breath.”

“Wha—” I asked, too surprised to pull away.

“Suit yourself,” he said, and fell backward, dragging me with him into the shadows still lingering at the mouth of the alley.

It had been cold before, but that was a natural cold, the chill of the early morning in a coastal city. This was freezing, the sort of cold that runs all the way down into your bones. My eyes were open, and all I could see was blackness, the sort of endless dark that children swear waits for them beneath the bed and in the closet. I gasped, and felt the back of my throat burn as the cold seared it.

At first, the only source of warmth was Tybalt, who had me tight against him, arms still locked around my waist. Then I felt the hope chest again, heating my skin through the plastic I had wrapped around it. I didn’t throw the warmth away this time; I clung to it, struggling against the urge to take another breath. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew that fighting Tybalt wouldn’t get me out of the darkness. It would strand me there.

Just as I was sure I’d die if I didn’t breathe, Tybalt moved, pushing me forward, away from him, back into the blazing brightness of the morning. I stumbled, going down on one knee on the damp pavement of the alley as I took in huge, blessedly warm gasps of air. Once I was sure I wasn’t dead, I raised my head and stared at him, feeling ice crystals melting in my hair.

“What the hell . . . ?”

“You can talk,” he said, expression radiating utter calm. “Your illusions are intact. You aren’t panicking or in pain. Can you really say that was worse than standing through the dawn?”

I hesitated, actually looking around me. The sun was up. I could taste the ashes of the previous night’s magic in the air . . . and Tybalt was right. My own magic, small as it was, was still entirely intact. I was chilled, but that had been, in its strange and alien way, easier than the sunrise. I stood carefully, testing my balance as I watched him.

“You could have asked me.”

“What would you have said?” I hesitated, and he smiled, looking satisfied. “You see? You would be uselessly gasping for air, and not only would I still not know why you came here, but I would have missed the amusement of watching your expression when I pulled you into the shadows. Now. Since I’ve spared you the dawn, you can honor me with an answer to my question. Why are you here?”

There was no nice way to say what needed to be said. I didn’t even try. “Evening Winterrose is dead.” Tybalt recoiled, eyes going wide. I continued, “You knew Evening. You know what she could do. She used the old forms when she died, and she bound me. She wrapped me in a chain so tight that it’s choking me, and you’re the only person that can help me.”

Tybalt’s eyes remained wide as he frowned. “Me? Why me?” His expression was pained. He and Evening were never friends—they never even cared enough to be enemies—but they’d been in the same city a long, long time. Some ties run deeper than friendship. The news of her death had him off-kilter.

“Because I’m still in her service, and that means I have to keep going, even if it kills me. I need somebody to back me up if things . . . if things don’t go as well as they might.”

He flinched, and demanded, “Why in the hell would she choose you? You couldn’t even find a living woman. How are you planning to avenge a dead one?”

For once, the reminder didn’t sting. Yes, I’d failed, but that didn’t mean I’d fail again. Not this time. “Please, Tybalt. I need you.” I bowed my head in a calculated gesture of submission. A lot of purebloods still say we owe that sort of thing to our “betters.” The world has changed, but they don’t care; time can’t get much of a foothold in fealty. “My skills have limits.” I was laying it on pretty thick. I didn’t think he’d object.

“What do you want from me?” His voice was flat. I glanced up to find him standing at attention, shoulders tense, glaring. I’d handed him a full measure of grief and then asked for favors; if I was lucky, he’d let me finish talking before he ripped me open and left me for the night-haunts.

“I want you to guard this.” I pulled the garbage bag off the hope chest, holding it up for him to see. The touch of the wood against my skin set my hands tingling again, sending bolts of heat up my arms.

Tybalt froze, confusion washing across his face. “Is that . . . ?”

“Yes.”

“But they don’t exist.”

“Guess we were wrong about that, huh? It’s real. Evening had it. She hid a clue with the autumn sprites and told them to bring it to me.” I paused before saying the words I’d been hoping to avoid: “I think she got killed for it.”

“I don’t understand. They’re not . . . the hope chests aren’t real.”

I shook my head. “I know that. I also know that at least one of them exists, and this is it, because I can feel it, Tybalt, I can feel it singing to me. I don’t know how true the stories about hope chests and changelings are, but I know enough to know that I can’t trust myself with it. I can’t trust any changeling with it. It has to be in pureblood hands, at least until I find out who killed Evening.” Please, I added silently. I don’t know how long I can hold out.

The burning was getting strong again, faster than it had before. The hope chest knew who I was now, and whatever it had been designed to do, it was eager to get to work.

Tybalt glanced away. “The Queen . . .”

“She won’t help me. She’s already refused.”

“Why?” He looked back, suddenly frowning. “What does she know?”

“If I knew that, I’d feel safe asking someone at Shadowed Hills to guard it. But I don’t know why, and that means, for everyone’s sake, that it needs to stay with someone she doesn’t control.” The Courts of Faerie have no control over the Cait Sidhe, by Oberon’s own decree. The Queen couldn’t touch Tybalt. Maybe she wasn’t a murderess, but our brief encounter had left me with the sinking suspicion that she was going insane, and if that was the case, I really didn’t want to deal with her while I was cursed and looking for a murderer.

Tybalt’s eyes narrowed. “Why not just take it Home? I’ve heard you’d still be welcome there. Surely your ban on changelings can’t extend so far as that.”

“Devin’s got enough trouble with the Queen. I don’t need to cause him more.” I studied Tybalt’s expression, and frowned. I didn’t know of any bad blood between him and Home. Fourteen years is plenty of time to start a feud.

“The Tea Gardens, then.”

“That’s the first place anybody who’s trying to find it would look. If they know I can’t hide it with Sylvester . . .”

“They’ll assume you’ve taken it to the Lily-maid.”

“Exactly.” I cocked my head, watching him. “So you’ll do it?”

“You still haven’t said why you’re coming to me. I’m not the only cat in this city.”

“Because you hate me.” Seeing his confusion, I clarified: “There’s never been any love lost between us, and there probably never will be, but you keep your word, and I know that if you say you’ll do this for me, you’ll do it. Your honor might survive betraying a friend, because the friend would forgive you. I wouldn’t.”

His expression hardened. “What’s in it for me?”

“The chance to get me in your debt.” I allowed myself a thin smile. “That’s worth enough that I know you’d keep your word.”

He was silent for a long moment; long enough that I started to worry that I’d gone too far. Finally, voice hushed, he said, “So you’ll trust me because you don’t trust me?”

I swallowed. “Yes,” I said.

“You’ll owe me for this. You may never pay this debt; I may never let you. I could hold it over you for centuries. I could decide to never let you go.” There was an odd warning note in his voice, like he wanted me to reconsider.

“That’s my problem, isn’t it?” I raised my head a little further and met his eyes.

He blinked, apparently surprised by my boldness. Then he shrugged, saying, “Very well,” and reached for the box, trying to tug it from my hands.

I kept my grip on the hope chest. “No,” I said, sharply. “Promise first.”

He glared at me; I glared back. “You know the rules. You want me in your debt, fine, I’m going willingly. But I’m going by the rules. Now promise.”

“If you insist,” he said, and straightened, squaring his shoulders before chanting, “By root and branch, by leaf and vine, on rowan and oak and ash and thorn I swear that what is given to my keeping shall remain in my keeping and shall be given over only to the one who holds my bond. My blood to the defense of the task I am set, my heart to the keeping of the promise to which I am bound.” The air grew thick with the taste of pennyroyal and musk as his magic crackled around us, drowning out the taste of roses.

“Broken promises are the road to our damnation,” I said, the copper and cut grass smell of my own magic undercutting his. “Promises kept are the meeting of all our myriad roads.”

“And such a meeting will my promise be.” The magic shattered around us as the formalities ended and he pulled the hope chest away. This time I let it go, my fingers aching as they pulled away from the wood. How badly did I want it? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to.

“Thank you, Tybalt,” I said, lingering on the forbidden words. Thanks implies fealty. As long as Tybalt held that chest, he was in mine. It was rude beyond belief for me to point it out that way. I wasn’t sure exactly why I did it; chalk it up to stress.

He tucked the chest under his arm, glaring, before he turned and stalked away. He turned back as the shadows parted like curtains in front of him, saying, “There will be a reckoning, October,” before he stepped through them and was gone.

Shivering, I wrapped my arms around myself and walked back down the alley, heading for my car. There was no time to linger; I needed to go to Shadowed Hills, and I was exhausted. I needed to get some sleep. Evening’s curse wasn’t crippling me yet, but it would start eventually, and once that happened, it wouldn’t matter how tired I was. Somehow, time had become a limited commodity.

I stopped beside my car, looking back into the darkness of the alleyway. “Yes, Tybalt,” I said to the empty air. “I know.”