TWO

DANNY DROVE ALONG THE winding road leading into Muir Woods like it had somehow personally offended him, his foot smashed down on the gas and his face set in a thin-lipped scowl. I sighed.

“You can’t be mad at me forever,” I said.

“I’m pretty sure I can,” he replied. “Let’s find out.”

Quentin cleared his throat. He was sitting in the backseat with a cat carrier full of baby flying hedgehog-things in his lap. The trash can containing the adult arkan sonney took up the rest of the seat, occasionally rattling ominously as they slammed against the metal. Quentin was sitting as far away from them as he could—which was surprisingly far, thanks to Danny’s extensive investment in expansion charms. Those don’t come cheap, but without them, he would never have been able to fit behind the wheel.

Done properly, magic is difficult for humans to notice or focus on, and Danny’s mechanic knew her stuff. His human passengers probably came away from trips with him thinking they’d never been in a cab that spacious but wouldn’t necessarily realize that the car was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. Danny’s fae passengers included Centaurs, Merrow, and even his fellow Trolls, and all of them could get their seatbelts on.

“I’m still here,” said Quentin. “In case you forgot.”

“I never forget you,” I said.

“You forget to answer my questions all the time.”

I groaned, letting my head slam back against the seat. It was padded, making the gesture less effective than it could have been. “Seriously, is this ‘gang up on Toby’ night? Can you let me know when you schedule these, so I can arrange to be somewhere else? Like, I don’t know, another Kingdom?”

“Most other Kingdoms won’t let you in,” said Danny, almost reasonably. “You keep deposin’ their monarchs.”

“I’ve never deposed anyone who didn’t deserve it,” I said. “And I’ve only done it twice.”

“Uh-huh. Y’know, ordinary people don’t commit treason once, much less twice.”

“Oh, root and branch.” I groaned again, with more feeling this time. “Can we not?”

He wasn’t wrong—I knew that. It was still frustrating. Sure, I’d been instrumental in bringing about two regime changes, but neither of them had been intentional, and neither of them had been undeserved.

When King Windermere died in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, he left behind no legitimate heirs. Arden and her brother, Nolan, had been born and raised in secrecy, never publicly claimed by the king. It made sense: his own parents had died under mysterious circumstances, and he’d been trying to give his children a better life by giving them half a chance at survival. Good for them, not so good for the rest of us. In the absence of a clear line of succession, Evening Winterrose had been able to endorse a stranger, putting her own puppet on the throne. The nameless Queen of the Mists, mixed-blood and mad, had strangled the Kingdom like kelp for decades, becoming less yielding and more cruel with every passing year.

She might still be on her stolen throne if she had listened when I came to her and told her goblin fruit was becoming a serious problem. The stuff gives purebloods sweet dreams, lets them forget the troubles of the mortal world for a little while—no big deal. But for anyone with a drop of human blood in their veins, it’s instantly addictive and invariably fatal. Changelings were dying. My people were dying. So I had gone to the Queen and asked her to save them. All I’d wanted was for her to do her duty and, silly me, I’d thought she might. She’d always hated me for reasons I’ve never quite been able to understand, but I hadn’t believed she would allow her hatred to blind her to the necessity of taking care of her people.

I hadn’t believed a lot of things. Or maybe I’d believed the wrong ones. I’d believed she had a right to her throne; I’d believed the High King would never have confirmed her if she wasn’t really Gilad’s daughter. But she didn’t, and she wasn’t, and when she’d ordered me banished for daring to speak up about the goblin fruit, the only solution I’d been able to find had involved putting Arden—the rightful Queen in the Mists—on the throne. Elevating her had resulted in new restrictions on goblin fruit, a fairer, more considerate regime, and me being named a hero of the realm, which proves that no good deed goes unpunished.

My second act of monarchal treason involved King Rhys of Silences, who had been granted his throne by—surprise, surprise—the false Queen of the Mists, after her army had overthrown the rightful ruling family in a short, brutal war. But again, it hadn’t been his Kingdom to begin with, and by returning the crown to Queen Siwan, I’d helped to right a great injustice and stabilize the region.

This did not change the fact that Danny was right, and most of our local monarchs really don’t want me coming for a visit. Ever. Developing a reputation as a king-breaker has definitely been keeping me out of the best parties. Given how much I dislike parties, it’s difficult to see this as a bad thing.

“The High King invited Toby to get married in Toronto,” said Quentin.

Danny snorted. “The High King is smart enough to want to keep her where he can see her. Arden doesn’t kick her out of the Kingdom because the only kings she doesn’t overthrow are the ones she likes. If I had a Kingdom, I’d be signin’ her up for every cookie of the month club I could find.”

“There are some ice cream of the month clubs, too,” I said mildly. “Mix it up on the dessert front. Really bribe me if you’re going to bribe me.”

Quentin laughed. The sound woke one of the piglets, which whined, kicking off another chorus of squeals and thumps from the trash can. His laugh faded, becoming a scowl. “How long are we going to be cleaning this up?” he asked. “Every time I think we’ve found all the monsters, something else pops out of the bushes and starts threatening to bite the humans.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “We could ask the Luidaeg, but . . . ”

“But she’d have to charge us for the answer,” sighed Quentin. “Right.”

“I need to finish paying down my debts before I go incurring anything further.”

The Luidaeg is the eldest daughter of Oberon and Maeve, which makes her my aunt, a fact that I find bizarre, sort of disturbing, and kind of comforting, in a weird way. She’s also the sea witch and bound to truthfully answer any question she’s asked. The geas forcing her to do so wasn’t very well constructed. She’s allowed to charge whatever she wants for her services, so she sets the prices as high as she can, hoping to dissuade the unwise and unwary from winding up in over their heads.

Me, I’ve been in over my head since the first time we met. She’s been in my debt a time or two, but at the end of the day I owe her enough that I may never finish repaying it all—and that’s a good thing, because the Luidaeg never lies. She can’t. And she’s said, more than once, that she’ll kill me someday. Hopefully, as long as I’m the one in debt to her, she won’t feel motivated to get it done.

“I sort of like the monster huntin’,” said Danny, easing his cab around the last curve between us and the parking lot. A chain hung across the entrance, supposedly barring us from going any further. He kept driving. The car passed through the chain like it was made of mist. One more convenient charm, courtesy of our increasingly stable local government.

As a state park, Muir Woods is supposed to be closed after sundown. As the royal seat of the Kingdom in the Mists, that’s never going to happen. But we’re pretty careful not to be seen, since no one wants to start trouble. Danny parked in front of the bathrooms, next to the large sign informing us the park would open for business at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.

“We got about two hours before the rangers start showing up,” he said, shoving the door open with his foot. “Get it done.”

“Can you get the trash can?” I asked, getting out with a little more decorum. It would have been hard to get out with less. “Quentin has the piglets.”

“Why do I have the piglets?” Quentin shifted the carrier gingerly in his arms as he slid out of the car. “They’re squirming around all over the place.”

“Because you’re the squire and I’m the knight, which means it’s my duty to make you do unpleasant things in the name of your ongoing education.” I waved a hand airily. “Tonight, you’re learning that you don’t like flying pigs.”

Quentin glared without any heat. He knew the real reason I was making him carry the piglets: I’m still part human. Fae are nocturnal, with the eyesight to match. I can see in the dark almost as well as I can see in the daylight, but “almost” doesn’t always cut it when walking through a place as tangled and treacherous as Muir Woods. My reflexes aren’t up to the pureblood standard, either. Since I didn’t want to slip on wet wood and wind up tumbling into one of the multiple streams, creeks, or rivers crisscrossing the valley, it was better to let him deal with the livestock while I focused on staying upright.

Danny slung the trash can over his shoulder, protesting pigs and all, and cast a quick don’t-look-here spell over his car to hide it from any rangers or police who happened to come by on patrol. Then we turned, the three of us moving together, and made our way into the wood.

Even if it weren’t the royal seat of the Kingdom in the Mists, Muir Woods would still be the kind of place that makes even the most stubborn humans think magic could be real, if only for a moment. The redwoods reach for the sky like beanstalks out of a fairy tale, their branches straining upward until they pierce the clouds. Thick underbrush covers the ground, ferns and bushes and native flowers providing a home for so many creatures, both fae and mortal. At night, everything is shrouded in fog, thick and soft and silencing.

The wood is even more incredible through fae eyes. Sparks fill the fog, dancing lights that tempt and tease. Bogeys and bat-winged frogs peer out of the underbrush, attracted by the steadily increasing ambient magic and sheltered by Arden’s protecting charms. She’s something the Mists haven’t had in a hundred years: a true Queen. Looking at the changes wrought during her short reign, it’s impossible not to wonder what the Mists will be like in another decade.

I think they’re going to be amazing.

Not that they’re not already amazing enough. Brilliantly colored lights darted through the trees as the local pixie flock came to investigate us. The chiming of their wings took on a delighted, welcoming note when they recognized me. They swirled around me in a multicolored cloud, ringing louder than ever. I smiled.

“Hello to you, too,” I said.

Several pixies settled in my hair like overdramatic ornaments, casting a soft glow that made it easier for me to see the winding trail that led to the door to Arden’s knowe. The rest flew off, presumably to tell the other members of their flock that we were in the wood. I waved after them and walked on with more certainty.

Faerie has remained hidden despite its proximity to the human world through a variety of tricks, some more sophisticated than others. Things like the pixies and the arkan sonney, for example, hide themselves automatically, using a form of instinctual illusion magic that keeps humans from noticing them unless they force the issue. In the case of the pixies, they’re intelligent enough not to cause trouble with people who know how to hold a flyswatter. In the case of the arkan sonney and other so-called “monsters,” there’s more risk of someone getting gored. Humans tend to notice being stabbed, even when the knives are invisible. That’s why people like me wind up involved. Sometimes we have to police ourselves to prevent a crisis.

A human looking into the wood might see three silhouettes moving slowly toward the hillside trail. But they wouldn’t see the lights, and they wouldn’t notice the way the fog moved against the wind, keeping us out of sight, keeping us safe.

We wear human disguises and we cast keep-away spells and we hide, and we hide, and we hide. I’d say we can’t hide forever, but we’ve been hiding for centuries, and it’s worked out pretty well so far. Who am I to say that things need to change?

The scent of running water and redwood bark filled the air. From behind me, I smelled the frayed edges of Quentin and Danny’s illusions as they released them, briefly overwhelming the natural scent of the wood with their unique magical signatures. Magic is a function of the blood, and everyone’s magic is different, saying something about the caster and their specific heritage. Dóchas Sidhe are walking encyclopedias of magical scents. I can identify a magical trace even if I’ve only encountered it once before, and I can narrow it down from “roses” to “this specific kind of rose, over here, grown in this specific sort of soil.” It’s a mostly useless talent that has occasionally proven to be incredibly useful.

I released my own illusions, surrounding myself with the smell of freshly cut grass and coppery blood. It used to be more copper than blood. I used to be more human than I am now. Finding equilibrium has never been exactly easy for me.

Several more pixies returned, a rainbow escort lighting our way. The pixies in my hair chimed softly as we topped the last rise, and the ancient redwood housing the door to Arden’s knowe appeared. Knowes—better known as hollow hills—are points of connection between the human world and the Summerlands, the shallowest and last accessible realm of Faerie. They have doors in both worlds, although they’re usually constructed entirely in the Summerlands, where real estate is at less of a premium. Seen from the fae side, Arden’s knowe was a dizzying concoction of towers and spires, connected by stairways and paths that wound through the air with distressingly little consideration for gravity. Seen from where we were standing, it was just an inexplicable double door set into a tree that had no business being abused that way. Guards stood to either side, dressed in the livery of the Mists, with Arden’s arms stitched above their hearts.

One of the guards grinned at the sight of us, a female Glastig whose armor had been cut to account for the fact that she had goat’s legs from the thigh down, like someone had gotten bored in the process of sketching a Satyr. She had no tail, but she made up for it with a pair of goat’s ears that stuck almost straight out from the sides of her head, covered in silky, strawberry-blonde fur that matched the fur on her legs.

“Toby! And Danny and Quentin as well,” she said. “May I assume from the fact that you’re toting someone’s trash bin that your mission was a success?”

“Hi, Lowri, and yes, you can assume,” I said. “Since we’re assuming things, may I please assume there’s some sort of cage ready for us to put these things in? We have some pretty pissed-off piggies.”

“They’re not pigs,” said Lowri.

I could almost hear Quentin’s eyeroll. “They have tusks and hooves and they know how to use them,” he said. “That’s piggy enough for me.”

“Oberon would be ashamed of you, having so little concern for the proper names of things,” Lowri chided. Then she winked to make it clear that she was kidding. “Her Highness directed some of the household staff to prepare the stables in hopes of a successful return. When last I spoke with her, she said the task was finished and the stables were secure. I’ll take you there.”

“We have stables?” I asked.

“Wonders never cease, do they?” Lowri nodded to the other guard. He nodded back but stayed in position as Lowri led us into the knowe. Our pixie escort accompanied us, ringing gleefully.

The world spun lazily around me as we transitioned from the mortal world to the Summerlands. The ease of the transition was another sign of how much less human I am now than I used to be. There’s a certain pushback against mortals crossing that kind of border. When I was more human, entering a knowe could knock me to my knees and leave me vomiting on the floor. These days, it’s something I can overlook if I’m distracted enough, or in enough of a hurry.

“So how did it go?” asked Lowri. Her hooves clattered on the floor of the entry hall, echoing softly up into the chambered ceiling.

“Not too bad,” I replied, trying to steal glances at the redwood carvings lining the walls. They change sometimes, adding major events and personages from the Kingdom. It can be embarrassing to see myself represented there, but it isn’t embarrassing enough to keep me from scanning for recent developments.

Nothing seemed to have changed since our last visit. That was a good thing. It meant the Kingdom was relatively peaceful for a change. I could use a little peace. Especially while I was trying to help Tybalt with his current problems, I could use a lot of peace.

Assuming he was ever going to start letting me help him. Assuming he ever spoke to me again. I finally understood how my friends felt when I refused to reach out, and I didn’t like it.

“You seem to have stolen someone’s trash can.”

“We can put it back,” protested Danny. One of the arkan sonney hit the side of the can hard enough to make another dent. He amended, “Or not.”

“Or not,” agreed Lowri. She led us through an unmarked door, bypassing the throne room in favor of a long, mostly empty hallway. Smaller carvings lined these walls, showing scenes that were less heroic but equally necessary to the functionality of the Kingdom in general and the knowe in specific. Many of the people they portrayed were friends of mine, from Arden’s seneschal, Madden, to her recently-hired chatelaine, Cassandra Brown.

Cassandra is the eldest daughter of my childhood friend, Stacy, and my adopted niece. I’ll admit, I never expected her to wind up employed by a royal knowe, but she seemed to be doing well for herself, and Arden adored her. There are worse places to stand in our world than at the left hand of the Queen. I should know, having stood in many of them.

The hall wound around the edge of the knowe in a gentle spiral before ending at a narrow stairway. Lowri started down. We followed. Geography doesn’t translate exactly between the Summerlands and the mortal world, but the longer the two areas are tied together, the more closely the bones are likely to conform: we were clearly following the slope of the hill into the valley. For all that Arden’s palace doesn’t exist in the human version of Muir Woods, and for all that the Faerie side of things has a lot more of the truly giant trees still standing, the basics are there on both sides.

Speaking of which . . .

“Where’s Arden?” I asked.

Lowri’s ear twitched in a mix of annoyance and amusement. “Her Majesty is occupied with the business of the realm. You didn’t precisely call ahead to let us know you were coming.”

“She’s the one who sent us monster hunting,” I protested.

“Regardless, she can’t sit around waiting to hear whether you’ve succeeded.”

“And she has queen shit to do, right.”

Quentin audibly groaned. “As Sir Daye’s squire, I must apologize, again, for her having the manners of a kelpie.”

“Don’t be silly, Quentin,” said Danny. “Kelpies are politer.”

“Kelpies are aquatic murder horses that want to rip you apart and eat everything but your liver,” I protested.

Danny smirked. “As I was sayin’.”

The stairs widened as we approached the bottom, until we emerged into an open-walled sunroom with a latticed ceiling dripping with fruit-heavy grapevines. The grapes were pale pink and glowed from within. The pixies in my hair gave a pealing chime of delight and launched themselves into the air, racing to fill their arms with as much fruit as they could hold before darting away. Lowri chuckled.

“When did Arden plant grapes?” I asked.

“They were planted by the previous chatelaine, who hailed from a Kingdom in France before she came to the Mists,” said Lowri. “We found them here when we opened the lower levels. They’ve responded marvelously to care, haven’t they? We should have enough fruit to begin pressing our first wines in a season or two, once the Hobs figure out where the wine cellar is, and we’ll have drinkable vintages a decade or so after that.”

“You haven’t found the wine cellar yet?” Quentin sounded scandalized.

Lowri shrugged. “It hasn’t been a priority. This way.”

She led us across the sunroom to another set of stairs, this one made of redwood planks set into the side of the hill. More grapevines laden with glowing grapes twined around the trees around the steps, providing a soft light that led us down the last twenty yards or so into the valley, where a series of rough farm buildings had been constructed. There was something I recognized as a stable, a chicken coop, and several smaller, boxy structures that I assumed were for goats or sheep or the like.

There was also a dark-haired man in vaguely old-fashioned clothes, using a pitchfork to shovel hay into one of those smaller structures. It looked like a cross between a toolshed and an aviary, with wire mesh covering three of the four sides, and a door set into the fourth. He looked up at the sound of footsteps, smiling brightly at the sight of Lowri.

“Milady Glastig,” he said, bowing around his pitchfork. His accent was as outdated as the rest of him, like he hadn’t spoken to another person since sometime in the 1920s. Which, well, wasn’t far wrong. “I had wondered if you would grace me with your beauty on this night.”

“Sire,” said Lowri, bobbing her head in greeting. Her cheeks colored under the force of his attention. “I believe your sister asked me to remind you that it is no longer the custom to greet those of no family name with the name of their species.”

Nolan Windermere, Prince in the Mists, dismissively waved the hand not clasping the pitchfork. “So much has changed. How can I be expected to keep up?”

“Your sister bids you try.” Lowri stepped to the side, indicating our motley band with a half-sweep of one hand. “Sir October Daye, squire, and companion, to see you, sire.”

“Hi,” I said.

The change in Nolan’s demeanor was immediate. He straightened, returning his hand to the pitchfork, and offered a stiff nod. “Sir Daye. Squire Daoine. Master Troll.”

I could see the utility of calling people by the name of their descendant line when they didn’t have a family name—or, as in Quentin’s case, had chosen not to give it. Danny has a family name, McReady, but so far as I was aware, he hadn’t met Nolan before, and I wasn’t sure Arden could have told him Danny’s surname if she’d tried. There are a lot of fae in the Kingdom in the Mists. Arden was doing her best to meet as many of them as she could, but there was no way she was ever going to learn all their names. The numbers were against her.

“Quentin,” I said, pointing appropriately. “Danny.” Then I pointed to the trash can. “Arkan sonney, as requested, no longer running wild in San Francisco. Am I correct in assuming you’ve been preparing a, um, sty for them?”

“They’re not pigs,” Nolan said, sounding faintly affronted. It was a nice change from the stiff, awkward tone that had characterized most of our interactions thus far.

At least we could have interactions these days. When I first met Nolan, it was extremely one-sided, on account of his having been elf-shot and put into an enchanted sleep by the false Queen. It was all part of her campaign to keep Arden from seeking the throne, and it had worked for a very long time. Arden had been too busy worrying about what would happen to her brother if she got killed or captured to even think about politics.

Then the false Queen had been dethroned. Then Arden had regained her place and been officially recognized as Queen in the Mists. Then—as if all that hadn’t been enough—our friend Walther Davies had finally unlocked one of the doors alchemists throughout Faerie had been throwing themselves against for centuries and discovered the cure for elf-shot.

Nolan had been the first person Arden woke when the cure was approved by the High King. No one blamed her for prioritizing her brother, especially not me. I sometimes suspected Nolan might blame her a little, but if he did, he was smart enough to know it hadn’t been her fault. Her trying to take her throne sooner wouldn’t have woken him up or created the conditions that led us to the elf-shot cure. It might have ended with her dead and him waking up alone, in a world that had marched a hundred years into the future without him.

Elf-shot was created as an alternative to murder. Sometimes I wonder how anyone can possibly know that and still say the fae are kind.

“Pigs or not pigs, we have a bunch of them, and some of us need to drive back to San Francisco before bedtime,” I said. “Is that where they go?”

Nolan started to answer, only to pause and smile as warmly as I’d ever seen him do, eyes fixed on a point behind my shoulder.

“You don’t have to go back to San Francisco,” said the voice of Arden Windermere, Queen in the Mists. “We have plenty of guest rooms.”

“Last time we stayed in them, Quentin wound up elf-shot,” I said, turning to face her. “Plus, I need to feed the cats. May gets pissed when I assume she’ll take care of it.”

Arden smiled wryly. “Oh, Maeve forbid your cats should go unfed. They might wither away to nothing.”

I swallowed my first response. She hadn’t been talking about Tybalt. I knew she hadn’t been talking about Tybalt. That didn’t stop my temper from flaring. “According to them, it’s a constant risk.” I indicated the trash can. “We got your beasties. Can we put them in the pen?”

“That’s what it’s for.” Arden walked past me to stand next to her brother, not seeming to notice that her gown—dark blue velvet the color of the Pacific shore at midnight, with drifts of “foam” made from seed pearls and tiny opals stitched around the hem and neckline—was dragging in the dust. Then again, she never seemed to care much about that sort of thing. For her, queenship was a way to protect her family and her father’s legacy, like a jumped-up form of customer service. She was doing a good job so far. She was never going to be one of the great elegant monarchs from the history books, and she didn’t seem to have a problem with that.

Standing next to her brother, it was impossible not to see the resemblance. They both had hair the color of blackberries, so dark it managed to cross over into verging on purple, and mismatched eyes, one pyrite, one mercury. The order of the colors was reversed, his pyrite to her mercury, but apart from that, it would have been understandable to assume they were twins. I knew they were a few years apart, with Arden the elder, but little things like that don’t tend to matter in Faerie, not once the parties involved are past childhood.

Tybalt has centuries on me. I have decades on Quentin. Someday we’re all going to be adults together, and I’m just human enough to find that unsettling.

“Were any of them hurt?” asked Nolan anxiously.

“We nearly were,” I said, guiding Danny into the open pen and helping him ease the trash can to the ground. Which was when we hit a snag. We didn’t have a way to get the arkan sonney out, not without dumping them and hoping for the best. “Quentin, bring the not-piglets over here.”

“There are babies?” Nolan actually clapped his hands as Quentin handed me the carrier. The prince looked as overjoyed as a kid being told they’d be getting a puppy for Christmas.

I groaned. “Look, Danny, I found you a new best friend. Introduce him to your Barghests. I’m sure they’ll get along swimmingly.”

“There’s no reason to make fun of my babies just because you don’t like them,” Danny said reproachfully.

“Your babies are venomous, poisonous, and aggressive.”

“But they love their daddy.”

I let the matter drop, turning to face Arden and Nolan as I asked, “Any idea how we’re supposed to release these things?”

“Come out of the pen and close the door,” she said.

Dutifully, we did as we were told. There are times when it’s good to argue with a queen. I do it all the time. At the moment, I just wanted to get this over with, so I could go home and crawl into my own bed before the sun came up.

As soon as the door was latched, Arden and Nolan exchanged a look, nodded, and sketched two virtually identical portals in the air with matching sweeps of their left hands. Hers smelled of redwood bark and blackberry flowers; his smelled of crushed blackberries and sap. They stepped through, still in unison, and appeared inside the pen.

Lowri grimaced. “I wish she’d stop putting herself in harm’s way like this,” she muttered. “She’s the queen. She doesn’t have to.”

“I think she wants to,” I said, watching as Arden knelt to open the carrier door, while Nolan gingerly tipped the trash can onto its side. He removed the lid, and the three adult arkan sonney spilled out, wings flared, eyes blazing, looking around for danger. They calmed when they saw the piglets, luring them out with soft grunting noises before surrounding them in a protective ring. Arden grabbed the empty carrier, Nolan grabbed the empty trash can, and they both stepped back through their portals, which closed behind them, leaving the arkan sonney in their new enclosure.

The winged pigs snuffled at each other and the ground, the boar flaring his wings and snarling like it would keep us from coming back in. Then the whole group moved to the corner and began grooming one another, seeming to calm down.

“That felt sort of anticlimactic,” said Quentin.

“Word of advice, kid: take it,” I replied. “Any monster hunt that ends with the monsters safely contained and us not gored is a good one.”

“They’re not monsters at all,” said Arden. “They’re adorable. And very lucky. They’ll bring good fortune to the knowe. Are you sure you won’t stay?”

“We’re sure,” I said, before Quentin or Danny could contradict me. Arden looked disappointed but didn’t try to argue. I was grateful for that. I can be a smartass when I want to be, but there’s disagreeing with a queen, and then there’s fighting with one. I try to avoid the latter unless it really, really has to be done. “Can you tell Cassandra I said hello, and I’ll try to grab lunch with her the next time I’m in Berkeley?”

“I can,” said Arden. “You’ll come back soon?”

“I will,” I promised. “Quentin, Danny, come on.”

We waved and made our escape, heading for the stairs while Lowri and the Windermeres were clustering around the pen, making cooing noises at the arkan sonney inside.

“Keep walking, don’t look back,” I said softly. “We might get away.”

“Why can’t we stay and look at the piggies?” asked Danny. “They’re cute.”

“They’re cute, but I want to go to bed,” I said.

“I’m supposed to call Dean before dawn,” said Quentin. “The reception here is terrible.”

“Aw,” said Danny. Then, with a pointed look at me, he added, “At least some people remember how to talk to their boyfriends.”

I didn’t respond. I could argue as much as I wanted without convincing him that I wasn’t the one who didn’t want to talk. To be fair, in the past, all too often I had been the reason communication wasn’t happening. Now . . . I would have gladly talked forever, if only Tybalt would let me. I was tired. We’d been running around for hours. It was time to stop.

Danny seemed to realize my silence meant he’d pushed things a bit too far. He didn’t say anything else as we made our way out of the knowe, and I was grateful. The pixies rejoined us for the walk across Muir Woods, wings chiming as they flew. I slouched, letting the lights guide me. Some people need to worry about pixies tricking them into bogs and streams, but the pixies who know me like me, for a lot of reasons, and they wouldn’t do that sort of thing. I hoped.

Maybe I needed to pay more attention to where I was going.

Danny dropped the don’t-look-here as we approached the cab. I climbed into the passenger seat and Quentin got into the back, leaning his head against the window and closing his eyes. I looked at Danny. Danny looked at me.

“Mind if I put the radio on?” he asked awkwardly.

I managed a smile. “Not at all,” I said.

He turned the dial. Rock and roll blasted out of the speakers, earning a small grumble from Quentin. I sank into my seat, turning to look out the window, and trusted Danny to get us where we needed to go. He hadn’t let me down so far. I trusted him not to start letting me down now.

It was hard, going home and knowing that—unless there’d been some sort of miracle while I wasn’t looking—Tybalt wasn’t going to be there. He’d been there less and less as the weeks went by. Mom was off playing happy houses with August. As far as I was aware, she hadn’t spared me a second thought since I’d fixed all her problems for her. And it didn’t matter, because he wasn’t getting better. He was getting worse, and I had no idea how to fix it.

San Francisco appeared ahead of us like its own kind of fairy palace, the lights in the high buildings glittering against the predawn sky. Danny drove like he’d never met a traffic law he didn’t feel like breaking, weaving around the few other cars on the road without slowing down. There were so many charms in and on his cab that the odds were good none of those drivers even realized they were sharing the road, much less took note of the specific car that was so nimbly cutting them off. That was a good thing. He would never have been able to pay all the traffic tickets he’d be accruing if there had been a chance of the police getting involved.

Quentin was asleep in the back seat by the time Danny pulled into our driveway, stopping behind my parked car. Both of us twisted to look at my squire, smiling in fond unison.

“He’s adorable like that,” said Danny.

“I know. He doesn’t. Don’t tell him.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Quentin had his cheek squashed against the glass, coppery hair falling to hide his eyes. He was drooling out of the side of his mouth, and he still managed to look perfect, elegant and composed and like every fairy tale prince Grimm ever decided to write about. That’s the gift of the Daoine Sidhe. No matter what, they manage to look irritatingly amazing.

Really, that should have been my first clue that my heritage wasn’t what my mother claimed it was. I have never looked elegant or composed a night in my life. In fact, it’s a rare night when I’m not covered in my own blood.

Danny looked at me, regret and apology in his eyes. “I’m sorry I’ve been needlin’ you all night. I know it’s hard.”

“I understand why you’re doing it, honestly. But I can’t . . . this isn’t something I can fix with a wave of my hand.” I leaned into the backseat to shake Quentin’s shoulder. He responded with a grumbling noise. “Poor kid’s wiped out.”

“It was a big night,” said Danny, and sighed. “I do know it’s not goin’ to be that easy to fix. I just want you to be happy. It’s been so good watchin’ you work your way toward happy, I don’t want to let your mom get in the way.”

“We’ll figure it out.” I looked over my shoulder, flashing what I hoped would be an encouraging smile in his direction. Really, I would have settled for a smile that didn’t make me look sick to my stomach. “We always do.”

“Yeah,” said Danny.

I returned my attention to Quentin, shaking him again. When that didn’t get the response I was looking for, I cleared my throat and said loudly, “Sure, Dianda, come on in. I’m sure Quentin will be thrilled to see you.”

Quentin sat bolt upright, one hand already shoving his hair out of wide, very open eyes. Seeing me and Danny looking at him—Danny barely holding back his laughter—those eyes narrowed.

“Jerk,” he accused.

“Absolutely,” I agreed. “Get up, get inside, and call your boyfriend before you go to bed. We have about an hour before dawn.”

Quentin rolled his eyes. “Later, Danny,” he said, and slouched out of the car, heading up the driveway toward the back door. The kitchen lights were on. May was probably in there, baking something or having a last cup of tea before bed. No wards, not when people were home; he’d be able to let himself in.

I took a breath and reached for the door handle, only to pause as Danny’s hand engulfed my shoulder. All the illusions in the world couldn’t change the sheer size of him, especially when I wasn’t looking at him. My eyes couldn’t lie to me when they weren’t involved.

“You’re not alone anymore,” he said softly.

“I know,” I said, and opened the door. “Open roads and kind fires, Danny.”

“Open roads,” he replied.

I closed the door and waved before following Quentin toward the house. The kitchen door was shut to keep the cats from getting out. I let myself in, stepping out of the cool night air and into warmth and light and the smell of sugar cookies. Quentin was already gone. My Fetch, sitting at the kitchen table with a plate of cookies and a mug of cocoa, lifted her head and offered me a wan smile.

“Do you know what time it is, young lady?” she asked.

“About twenty years past curfew, and thank Titania for that,” I said.

She laughed.

Fetches are rare, terrifying things, omens of impending death that flicker into the world and fade out of it again almost as quickly, leaving nothing behind to mark their passing.

And then there’s May.

She came into existence when the universe decided that all signs pointed toward my inevitable demise, conjured by magic older than anything else I can name, made from my blood and from a night-haunt named Mai, who remembered me being her hero. It was a complicated mixture, and it made a complicated, confusing, wonderful person, my sister in every way that mattered. Ask me to choose between August—sister by blood and birth—and May—sister by magic and adoption—and there wouldn’t be any contest. May would win. May would always win.

She wore the face I’d had when she was summoned, more human than the one I have now, round where I’ve grown pointy, soft where I’ve grown hard. Looking at her was like looking at a mirror that had somehow been permanently trained on my own past. Her hair, still more mousy brown than golden-blonde, was cropped short and streaked with purple and green, like some sort of fabulous bird. The weariness in her fog-colored eyes was familiar enough to be uncomfortable. I wasn’t the only one whose life Amandine had turned upside-down.

“How’s Jazz?” I asked.

“Asleep.” She shrugged, the gesture barely more than a shiver. “She’ll be up in a few hours.”

Most fae are nocturnal. As a Raven-maid, Jazz is one of the few exceptions. Her relationship with May had been based on compromises from the beginning, the two of them stealing hours where they could be awake and together. But she’d been sleeping more and flying less since the incident, and sometimes it felt like she was avoiding the rest of us. Even May.

“Do you want to join her?” I asked. “I can put myself to bed. I promise, I remember the way.”

“Quentin said you caught the arkan sonney?”

“We did. They’re at Muir Woods now. Arden and Nolan prepared a cage for them.”

“We’re building quite the local bestiary,” said May. She stood. “Soon, we’ll have people from all over the Summerlands coming to look at creatures they’d almost forgotten existed.”

“And they can all buy tickets and we’ll be able to renovate the upstairs bathroom.” I made a small shooing gesture. “Go. Sleep with your girlfriend.”

May’s lips drew down. “She won’t even know I’m there.”

“She will. Even if she can’t show it, she will.”

“Okay.” She picked up her tea. “Sleep well when you get there.” Then she was gone, and I was finally, blessedly, alone.

I sat down in the chair she had so recently vacated, looking at the cookies for a moment. I didn’t reach for them. I knew they would only taste of ashes. Finally, I put my head in my hands and my elbows on the table and cried. When did things get so damn complicated? And why, for the love of Oberon, couldn’t I make them go back to the way they were?