TWO

CAT IN THE RAFTERS isn’t the best, most exclusive, or most expensive steakhouse in the Bay Area. It is, however, the only steakhouse owned by a Cait Sidhe changeling, a man named Jason Thomas. He’s chosen not to live with the Court, preferring to master the fine art of exposing meat to high temperatures and putting it in front of hungry people. He was waiting in the foyer, dark gray hair at odds with his generally youthful appearance. He smiled when he saw me, which was a nice change from all the nobles who look faintly sick when they see me, like they expect me to start throwing knives at people immediately and without provocation.

“Miss Daye,” he said, a note of relief in his voice. “We greatly appreciate you joining us to dine this evening.”

“I wasn’t given much of a choice,” I said. “I think this is technically an abduction. I want to speak to your manager.”

The corner of his mouth twitched upward as he tried and failed to suppress a smile. “You’re about to have dinner with him. I’ll be sure to pass along the fact that you dislike his company.”

“I can handle it,” I said. “How’d he rope you into this, anyway?”

“He made a reservation,” said Jason mildly. “I may not choose to spend my days in a dusty room full of cats and ancient mattresses, but I am Cait Sidhe, and he is my King. When he calls, I’m compelled to answer.”

“Huh. The feudal system has a lot to answer for.” I shrugged. “Better take me to my fiancé before he decides you’re trying to seduce me and comes out here angry.”

“Is he that much of the jealous sort where you’re concerned?” Jason beckoned for me to follow him through the door into the main dining room.

“Not usually,” I said. “He knows he’s got nothing to worry about. But you’re Cait Sidhe and only sort of under his command. If he’s going to get snitty at anybody, it’s probably you. Sorry about that.”

“No need to apologize, just . . . try not to give him the impression he needs to be ‘snitty’ about anything.” Jason shuddered delicately.

The dining room was surprisingly devoid of customers. It was early in the day, but reservations at Cat in the Rafters are hard to come by; according to Stacy, who actually has to make a reservation when she wants to eat there, people book tables months in advance. I gave Jason a curious look. He shook his head.

“When certain luminaries wish to dine with us, they notify me, and I give the mortal staff the night off,” he said. “You and my King aren’t the only ones dining here tonight, but you’ll have few dinner companions, and all of them fae. You can release your illusions, if you’d prefer.”

“Aw, but I’m not actually wearing mascara,” I said, in a tone that made it clear I didn’t care, and waved a hand dismissively, releasing my human disguise. It burst with the smell of copper and fresh cut grass, and Jason shot me an amused look.

“If you think my King will care, you haven’t paid as much attention to his preferences as we’ve all assumed.”

“No, he knows what he’s getting.”

The steakhouse décor was best described as “rustic,” with rough-hewn redwood walls and quaintly mismatched tables, each topped with a candle burning in a jar of thick red glass. The windows were stained glass portraits of cats, black and tabby and colorpoint and calico. Unlike many of the steakhouses I’d seen, there were no antlers or taxidermically preserved birds on the walls; the lighting came from chandeliers heavy with warm yellow bulbs that mimicked candlelight well enough to make my skin crawl but didn’t flicker. If they’d flickered, I would have run.

I don’t care for candles. They always seem to get me into trouble.

We crossed the empty dining room to a smaller door, which Jason opened to reveal Tybalt standing at attention next to a table set for two. The expected candle centerpiece was conspicuously absent, replaced by a bouquet of flowers, which, in typical Tybalt fashion, couldn’t have come from a local florist, since I doubted any of them would have out-of-season arbutus, or arbutus at all.

Jason murmured a pleasantry I didn’t quite catch and retreated, closing the door behind him and leaving the two of us alone. I started toward my fiancé, my annoyance at the way he’d brought me to the restaurant melting away at the sight of him.

Faerie has more than its fair share of beautiful men. Beauty is the specialty of the Daoine Sidhe, and of basically anyone descended from Titania, whose children have always been as striking as they are cruel. In the great annals of Faerie’s beauty, Tybalt barely even ranks. But as far as I’m concerned, he’s the best of them, and always will be.

Tall, slender, well-muscled, with brown hair banded in streaks of tabby black, and eyes the color of malachite, a dozen shades of green warring for position around the cat-slit ovals of his pupils. He looks less feline than many of his subjects, with only his eyes, hair, and the faint stripes on the skin of his back betraying the fact that he’s not secretly Daoine Sidhe. His ears are pointed, but more like mine than an actual cat’s, and he has the face of a classical sculptor’s masterpiece, strong and flawless.

There was a time when I thought he was out of my league. I still sort of do, if I’m being completely honest, but since he doesn’t agree, I try not to argue with him.

He smiled as I approached, and my chest tightened the way it always did when he looked at me like that, like I was the only thing in the world that mattered enough to smile for. “You came,” he said, and the relief in his voice was evident.

“You didn’t give me a lot of choice,” I said. “Danny wasn’t taking ‘no’ for an answer. He got May on his side just by offering to take me out of the house.”

“Well, if I’d been less forceful in my request, would you have come?” Tybalt took a step toward me. He was wearing a white button-down shirt and brown leather pants. Most of his pants are leather, either because he likes it, or because he knows how much I like it. Not the most comfortable material in the world, but the things it does for his ass should be illegal.

“Maybe,” I said, before admitting, “Probably not. I got a weird call from Karen just before he showed up, and I was going to go upstairs and try to relax.”

“You can relax with me instead, over a lovely dinner, and I’ll carry you home after we’re done, to enjoy less gustatory pleasures of the flesh.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close, planting a kiss on my chin. “If I’d asked you on a date, you would have laughed in my face, or told me you’d be happy ordering pizza. Again. For a woman with a penchant for grand, romantic gestures, you have the least interest in actual romance of any lover I’ve ever had.”

“Yes, please tell me about your former lovers while trying to convince me to stay for dinner,” I said dryly. “That always helps me get into the mood.”

He kissed me again, more languidly this time. “Ah, but you are in my arms, and those past loves are long gone from my life, some to the night-haunts and others to their own designs, and none of them shall warm my bed again. That pleasure is reserved for you and you alone.”

I laughed as I pulled away. “Sometimes your tendency to talk like a romance novel is less confusing than others. Let me see these flowers.”

“Ever the practical one,” said Tybalt approvingly, and let me go.

It was a nice bouquet, if non-standard, mixing common flowers with things he must have gone hunting for. “Arbutus, I know,” I said. “That means ‘my love is yours alone.’ Orange blossom’s for eternal love and marriage. Little on the nose, don’t you think? And then ivy, that’s for wedded love, friendship, and fidelity. Getting ahead of yourself there, aren’t you?”

“I know you’re faithful, as you’ve never come home covered in another man’s blood without telling me about it, and I can’t imagine any lover of yours getting close to you without someone bleeding at least a little,” said Tybalt, natural smugness showing through. He circled the table, easing out a chair for me to occupy. “Still, I applaud your sense of caution. I’m ‘getting ahead of myself’ only because of the interminable length of our engagement.”

“It’s been less than two years!” I protested, laughing. My amusement turned to ashes in my mouth as I saw the hurt in his expression, brief but obvious. “Tybalt. You know I want to marry you. You know I’m excited to marry you. I’m not stretching this out to be cruel.”

“I also know you’re mortal, sometimes horrifyingly so, and every day you and I remain unwed, I worry something will happen in your human world that keeps me from your side.” He stepped back from the chair. “So I bring you roses, for love, and stephanotis, to remind you that happiness awaits us on the other side of the ceremony.”

“I’ll still be mortal after we’re married,” I said, easing myself into the chair and watching him with concern. “I don’t know when I’ll be ready to let go of what’s left of my humanity, if I ever will be.” But I had been once, hadn’t I? When Tybalt had been elf-shot, and I hadn’t been sure we’d be able to wake him up? I’d promised to strip the mortality from my blood in order to still be there when he woke up and came back to me.

Was it selfish of me to hold onto my humanity, when there were people who loved me whose lives were going to be so much longer than mine if I didn’t let it go?

Tybalt looked at me gravely as he walked around the table to take his own seat. Then he smiled, chasing away the shadows in his eyes, and said, “And I’ll love you regardless of how human you remain, as I have done so far, as I have promised to do forever. But you must allow me my anxieties about the length of our engagement.”

“Things are moving,” I protested. “May and I were talking about dresses when Danny showed up to collect me!”

“I see.” Tybalt raised an eyebrow, picking up a carafe of water and tipping it over my glass. Normally, that would have been the waiter’s job. Given that we had the dining room to ourselves, I was betting the standard of service for the evening had been set to “leave them alone, for the love of Oberon, or they might decide to eat you.” His own glass was already full. “And did you come to any conclusions that will please me?”

“Well, no,” I admitted. “Most of the dresses May thinks would be suitable wouldn’t survive five minutes on me. Lace and blood are not friends.”

Tybalt sighed. “Are you so determined to bleed on our wedding day?”

“No, but I’m also a realist, and blood is going to happen,” I said. There was a breadbasket on the other side of the flowers. I pulled it toward me. If this was a dinner date, I was going to have a pretzel roll. “I mean, at least we know no one’s going to kill me with a little casual stabbing.”

“Yes, because that makes the thought of you bleeding on your wedding dress when I’ve just confessed to the fear of losing you so much better.” Tybalt pushed the butter dish across the table before slumping in his chair, rolling his eyes. “If I didn’t know you as well as I do, I would suspect you of going out of your way to torment me.”

“Luckily, you do know me,” I said, and buttered my roll. “I love you. I want to marry you. There’s not much in this world that I want more than to call myself your wife. Although we’re going to have to discuss last names at some point. I hope you don’t expect me to take yours.”

“Why would I?” he asked, sounding honestly baffled. “I stole it from a man who was very special to me, but whose bones have long since gone to dust in his grave. William would have been glad to make it a loan, I think, but would never have expected me to keep it forever. Your last name remembers a father who was dear enough to you that you still cling to his mortality, even now that you have no intention of leaving Faerie behind. I’ll be glad to wear it on my sleeve for those times when a surname is required by the mortal world.”

I blinked, slowly. “Most human men aren’t that cool about the idea of taking their wife’s name,” I said.

“Then it is a good thing for you that I am not a human man,” said Tybalt, and smiled.

He was still smiling when the door opened and Jason stepped back into the room, a stack of menus in his hand and a tall man following him, pushing a dark-haired woman in a manual wheelchair. The polished hardwood floor offered no unwanted resistance for her wheels, which rolled with an almost imperceptible whispering noise. The man’s shoes, in contrast, were new enough that his heels clicked with every step.

Jason walked them to a table some distance from ours, but with a clear sightline, and handed them their menus before walking over to offer us the same. “Will you be wanting the wine list this evening?” he asked.

“No,” said Tybalt.

“I don’t really drink anymore,” I said. “My body clears the alcohol out too quickly for it to be worth the trouble.”

Jason smiled. “Indeed,” he said. “Well, then, I’ll give you a few minutes to look over your menus before I come back to take your orders.” He went into a quick recitation of the night’s specials, all of which sounded perfectly delicious, and none of which sounded like a good enough reason for him to still be talking. I looked at him flatly. He finished describing the mushroom risotto, smiled, and walked away, leaving us with our menus.

I looked across the table to Tybalt, who was struggling to contain his laughter. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You simply looked so offended by the recitation of market price fish and clever ways of preparing lamb.”

“We’re at a steakhouse,” I said, picking up my menu. “I’m going to eat a steak, not a scallop salad or a creative vegan facsimile of a chicken. A steak and probably a potato of some kind, I haven’t decided.”

“You know, it wouldn’t hurt you to broaden your culinary horizons,” he said, opening his own menu.

“Are you sure about that? Because Mom says she can taste the death of trees when she eats maple syrup. I already have to get my steaks well-done to avoid the ghosts of all the dead cows I’ve swallowed from appearing in my head. Broadening my culinary horizons might hurt me. It might hurt me a lot.”

“My mistake,” said Tybalt, sounding distinctly amused.

I scowled at him for a beat before I returned my attention to my menu. The steaks at Cat in the Rafters really were excellent—enough that I didn’t mind having them cooked more thoroughly than I would once have preferred. The side dishes were even better. Thanks to this being the only local restaurant owned by one of the Cait Sidhe, this was where Tybalt and I tended to end up on our rare date nights—although that made it sound uncomfortably like a Denny’s. No one goes to Denny’s. People just end up there.

There was a faint scrape of wood on wood as one of the other diners pushed back their chair and rose, followed by the tapping of shoes against the floor, which told me who was approaching even before I looked up. If Duchess Lorden was using her wheelchair, she didn’t currently have legs, and if she didn’t have legs, she didn’t have shoes. That meant her husband, Patrick Lorden, was making his way to our table. That didn’t make an enormous amount of sense. The Lordens have about as much trouble getting away for private time as Tybalt and I do, and I would never have taken time out of my date to interrupt theirs.

But then, I’m a Hero of the Realm, not a person who needs to call upon a Hero of the Realm on a regular basis. It’s sure fun to have a job with nebulous and intentionally ill-defined duties. I lifted my head and turned, directing a smile at the approaching Daoine Sidhe.

Tybalt wasn’t being as friendly. He was also looking at Patrick, but he was scowling, and if his ears had been more feline, they would have been pressed flat against his scalp. Someone did not care for interruptions.

Well. It wasn’t like his possessive streak was anything new, and it wasn’t like Patrick was coming over to try stealing Tybalt’s fiancée, although he might have a job for me. When he was close enough that I wouldn’t need to shout, I tilted my head and said, “Duke Lorden. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“My apologies for interrupting your evening,” said Patrick, mild Boston accent stronger than usual, possibly due to nerves. He turned his attention to Tybalt. “You have my assurance that I’m not planning to disrupt things more than absolutely necessary. My wife is very interested in the salmon, and she might do me material damage if I got in the way of the meal I’ve promised her.”

“I lack her authority to harm you, so I would have to throw myself upon her good graces if you were to break your word,” said Tybalt, in a tone that implied he would absolutely ask Dianda for permission to harm her husband if Patrick spent too long at our table. “Pray, continue.”

Patrick nodded before turning his attention to me. “I felt it appropriate that I offer congratulations on the impending occasion of your marriage,” he said. “I remember my own wedding fondly.”

It was starting to feel like I needed to hurry up and get married just so people would stop trying to talk about it. “Yeah, we’re pretty excited,” I said. “I think Tybalt might tie me up and drag me to Toronto if I don’t agree to a date soon.”

“Toronto?” asked Patrick politely.

“The High King and Queen have requested the honor of hosting the celebration, and we could not in good conscience refuse them,” said Tybalt. “It answers the question of where to conduct the ceremony, since we cannot wed in the Court of Cats, and my lovely lady wife-to-be is currently estranged from her liege. Queen Windermere would have been willing to host, but the fear of giving insult to Duke Torquill would still have loomed troublingly over the event.”

It was public knowledge that I was currently persona non grata at Shadowed Hills, and had been ever since I’d convinced Sylvester to wake his twin brother, Simon, who had been in an enchanted sleep thanks to elf-shot, and then lost him. Simon, not Sylvester, although in a way, I had lost Sylvester, too, in the moment when his brother—now spell-mazed and unable to remember all the progress he’d made toward becoming a good person again—had turned on his temporary allies and disappeared.

Sylvester might have been able to forgive me. His wife, Luna, was not. As far as Luna was concerned, I was responsible for every ill that had befallen her house since I was born, and having me around the knowe was nothing more than a reminder that her life, so carefully constructed and designed, was falling apart around her. So I stayed away. I waited for the moment my liege lord, the first person who had ever treated me like I might matter despite being the unwanted changeling daughter of a local woman who didn’t even belong to the political structure enough to have a minor title, would remember that I was his responsibility and call me home. He might not want me around right now, but I would be loyal to him until the day I died.

That didn’t make me happy about the reminder of my current outcast status. I kicked Tybalt’s ankle discreetly under the table and was rewarded with a slight flinch, followed by an apologetic look. He was annoyed, but he knew he’d overstepped.

“So no date has been settled upon?” asked Patrick. “I assume that means invitations have yet to be delivered?”

So that’s what this was about. I relaxed marginally. “Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re on the list. You and Dianda both, and Peter, of course. Even if we weren’t friends, there’s no way Quentin would let me get away with not inviting Dean, and if I invite Dean and not his parents, that’s sort of a slap in the face, right? I know you may not be able to attend—Toronto is pretty far away, and I’ll understand if Dianda doesn’t want to leave Saltmist unattended—but you’ll be receiving invitations.”

“I wasn’t concerned for myself,” said Patrick uncomfortably. “Is it safe to assume you’ll also be inviting your father to the event?”

I blinked, surprised by the cruel thoughtlessness of the question. I hadn’t been expecting that from him. “My father is dead,” I said, in a sharp tone. “He died a long time ago, believing I was dead, that I’d been killed in the house fire Uncle Sylvester started when he gave me my Changeling’s Choice. I can’t invite a dead man to my wedding, even though I wish I could.”

Humans don’t join the night-haunts. There’s no reason they couldn’t; changelings do, which means mortality isn’t anathema to them. I can ride the memories encased in human blood, and as far as I can tell, that’s what the night-haunts thrive on. But human bodies rot and decay, while fae bodies don’t, and that puts humans outside their purview. More’s the pity.

“You should go now,” said Tybalt, tone suddenly formal in a way it hadn’t been before. He set his own menu aside and pressed his hands flat against the table, fingers flexed just enough to show the points of claws beneath his human-seeming nails. Oh, he was pissed. I knew I liked him for a reason.

My father would have liked him, too, if he’d been able to see me grow up and fall in love. I didn’t remember him well enough to make many sweeping statements about how our relationship would have been when I reached adulthood, but I was absolutely certain he would have liked the man I was going to marry.

“I’m sorry, but you misunderstand,” said Patrick, seemingly oblivious to the danger he was putting himself into, which was ridiculous—the man was married to Dianda Lorden, whose first response to any situation was trying to figure out how she could most efficiently punch it in the throat. Not every situation has a throat, but that’s never stopped Dianda.

I narrowed my eyes. We hadn’t ordered yet, which meant Jason hadn’t brought out the steak knives, but I always bring my own. Maybe a little light stabbing would make Patrick drop whatever this was and go sit down. “Was there something else you needed to say?” I asked coldly.

Patrick took a deep breath, standing up so straight that it looked as if his spine had been starched. “I was referring to your legal father.”

I stared at him, aghast. “You’re talking about Simon?”

“He was, and presently remains, your mother’s husband,” said Patrick. Then he stopped, looking at me, clearly waiting for me to connect the lines he was drawing.

Unfortunately for me, I could. I just didn’t see why it should matter. “Simon was gone before Mom met my father. He has nothing to do with me.”

“He has everything to do with you,” Patrick patiently corrected. “Under fae law, since he remains married to your mother, and humans are not recognized as viable spouses, he is legally your father, and always has been.”

“I know all that, but she left him when he went all dark side and started working for Evening!” I countered.

“She left him. She didn’t divorce him. She couldn’t divorce him, as your sister wasn’t there to agree to the proceedings. A pureblood divorce requires approval from all children involved, as they declare for their chosen family lines. It keeps inheritance from getting complicated.”

“Because this isn’t complicated at all,” I said sourly.

“I repeat my question,” said Patrick. “Will you be inviting your father, who is very much alive, to your wedding?”

“Since he currently wants to kill me on behalf of the nasty-ass Firstborn he works for, and who he’s probably trying to wake up right now, which is something I do my best not to think about more than I have to, and there’s nothing I can do to stop him short of elf-shooting him again, and that would require finding him, which no one’s been able to do—no, I wasn’t planning to invite him to my wedding,” I didn’t try to keep the frustration out of my voice. It would have been a losing battle. “And I frankly don’t appreciate you interrupting my date to ask about it. I thought better of you, Patrick.”

“And were we discussing any other man, I would never have brought it up,” said Patrick. “You realize you must invite him, or the wedding can’t proceed.”

I blinked. “I realize no such thing, and I’d appreciate it if you’d go back to your table now and leave us the fuck alone.”

Tybalt didn’t say anything. He had gone pale and was staring at Patrick, pupils reduced to thin slits against the banded malachite-green of his eyes. I scowled, looking impatiently between the two men.

“Is this where you reveal yet another way in which Faerie is planning to screw me over because I got too complacent?” I demanded. “Because if it is, I’d really, really like you to just walk away. Don’t say anything else. Let us order our dinner and eat in peace. Please.” Not that there was much chance of that. Based solely on the expression on Tybalt’s face, we had already missed the window on “peace” for the evening.

“Yes, it is,” said Patrick. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I didn’t know how many holes there were in your education. I’d say I thought better of your mother, but it would be a lie. I never once in all my days thought better of Amandine. And no matter how poorly I’ve thought of her, she’s continually found ways to disappoint me. Truly, that woman is an artisan of letting people down.”

“Normally, I’d be thrilled to sit around trash-talking my mom,” I said. “Right now, not so much. What are you trying not to say to me right now?”

Patrick sighed heavily. “That’s the problem. It’s nothing you’ll want to hear, and I hate to be the one to say it to you.”

“Then why say it at all?”

“Because it wasn’t his idea,” said Dianda. She had wheeled herself over while I was focused on her husband, and was looking at me levelly, her hands resting on the curve of her wheels. Like Patrick, she was dressed in date night finery; unlike Patrick, hers ended at the waist. Since there were no humans here, she wasn’t bothering with the blanket I’d sometimes seen her drape across her legs, leaving the jewel-toned sweep of her tail exposed. Merrow are basically the classic human idea of mermaids, and Dianda Lorden is a perfect example of her breed.

She took her hands off the wheels and leaned forward, resting her elbows against her own tail. Her fins twitched at the pressure, not quite slapping the floor. “Patrick and I were discussing Dean’s excitement about your upcoming wedding when we realized it was entirely possible your mother had never bothered to explain to you what it meant that she’d been married when you were born. That sort of omission is Amy to the bone. But if we could realize the problems that could cause for you now, others could realize it as well. People who’d be less inclined to help than we are.”

“So far all you’re helping to do is ruin my evening,” I said. “How did you know we were going to be here?”

“Dean mentioned that your fiancé was planning to take you out for a private evening, and there aren’t many places where a King of Cats and a Hero of the Realm can do that,” said Dianda. “I doubt we’ll be able to get a reservation after this.”

“No,” said Tybalt, voice barely above a growl. “You won’t.”

“Can everyone please stop talking around the problem and tell me what the hell is going on?” I demanded. “I’d like to salvage what I can of this evening, if you don’t mind.”

Dianda shook her head. “This is land custom,” she said, and looked to Patrick.

He took a deep breath. “When two purebloods marry, they can’t divorce without consent of their living children—including any changelings or merlins born outside the marriage bed.”

“Patriarchal and weird, but okay,” I said. “At least the kids get a say.”

“Yes, but it meant that when your sister disappeared, her parents—your parents—were no longer able to separate in the eyes of Oberon, because she couldn’t declare whose house she belonged to, and neither could you. Hence their being married when you were born, and still being married today.”

“Not that Simon would ever decide to leave his wife,” interjected Dianda. “He loves that woman the way the moon loves the sea, not that I understand why. She’s never done anything but betray him to serve her own interests.”

“Di,” said Patrick. “Be kind.”

“Oh, I am being kind,” she said. “If I were being unkind, I’d be saying something much worse about her, that self-centered, deceitful, treacherous—”

“Mother to the very patient woman who hasn’t stabbed either of us yet, despite us giving her plenty of reasons to find the idea appealing,” said Patrick, cutting her off and earning himself a brief but vicious glower. “October, because Simon is currently married to your mother, making him your father in the eyes of any chain of inheritance, if you fail to invite him to your wedding, you’re offering him a public insult too large to be ignored. Any relative of his could claim the right to see it satisfied.” He paused to emphasize his next statement. “His relatives or his liege.”

I stared at him. “Bullshit.”

“Yes, but still true.”

I turned to Tybalt. “Bullshit,” I repeated.

“I wish I could agree that this claim has no bearing on our upcoming nuptials, but I do my best not to lie to you, as you find dishonesty personally insulting,” said Tybalt.

“Bullshit,” I said a third time, this time speaking to no one in specific.

Supposedly, Faerie has only one Law, handed down by Oberon himself before his untimely disappearance some five hundred years ago: no one’s allowed to kill a pureblood. Of course, the Law doesn’t apply to humans or to changelings, meaning we can be slaughtered with impunity by anyone who decides we’re looking at them funny, but that’s Faerie for you. Only fair as long as it suits the people in power.

But despite our lack of other formalized laws, a complicated system of manners and etiquette governs everything we do. Giving someone insult is one of the worst things possible, aside from violating hospitality or otherwise transgressing against traditions that date back to the days when our King and Queens still walked among us. Once someone has been given insult, they can demand basically any recompense they like, as long as it doesn’t result in someone winding up dead. Imprisonment, involuntary service, material payment, it’s all on the table.

Not giving a pureblood the excuse to say that I’d given them insult had been one of the major motivations of my youth, and if I’d lost sight of that in the last few years, well, that was on me, wasn’t it?

“Oh,” I said faintly.

“Yeah,” said Dianda. “Oh. I’m sorry we interrupted your dinner. But I’m sure you can understand why it’s important that you find Simon Torquill and bring him home as soon as you possibly can. Patrick?”

“Yes, dear,” said Patrick, and moved to stand behind his wife, gripping the handles of her wheelchair and turning it nimbly around before wheeling her back to their table.

I looked at Tybalt. Neither of us said a word.