The trees loomed around us like sentinels, filled with dancing lights as pixies soared from tree to tree and Will o’ Wisps danced above the water. I wondered idly what the human rangers who ostensibly controlled the park thought of the changes that had occurred over the course of the past seven months. Knowes—better known as “hollow hills” in the human world, which has had a long time to forget the proper names for fae things—have a tendency to weaken the walls between the Summerlands and the mortal worlds when they stand open. Not to the point where monsters can slip easily through, but in more of a “pixies in the backyard, strange whispers in the water, Dryads in the trees” sort of way. Fae communities grow up around them, because we know we’re safe there. We can always run for the Summerlands if things turn sour.
Up until seven months ago, no one knew that there was still a knowe in Muir Woods. I’d known that there had been a knowe there, once upon a time, but I had assumed it was one of the lost ones, so old and so weakened that it had become nothing more than a shallow scrape in the space between worlds. It turned out the knowe was perfectly healthy and structurally sound. It was just waiting for its actual owner to come back and give it permission to open. Enter Arden Windermere, daughter of Gilad Windermere, rightful Queen in the Mists. She had been in hiding since before I was born, choosing safety and obscurity over the dangers inherent in taking the throne.
We would never have found her if the woman who’d been holding the throne of the Mists hadn’t been a psycho bitch who decided to banish me from the Kingdom for the crime of asking her to stop selling drugs that killed changelings. That didn’t sit well with me, or with my allies, and we’d ended up asking some pointed questions about how a woman with no Tuatha blood could be the rightful heir of a Tuatha de Dannan king. One thing led to another, and we’d managed to find Arden, talked her into retaking her Kingdom, and brought her back to the knowe that had been patiently waiting for more than a century for her to come home.
We walked down the carefully-maintained paths through the flat part of the park, across streams and over tiny ponds that still made my skin crawl if I looked at them too closely—I don’t like water much, and I don’t like pools of standing water at all—and began to climb the hiking trail that wound its slow way up the side of the hill. Tybalt let go of my arm as the path narrowed, taking up a position directly behind me. He’d learned the hard way that if he let me out of his sight when we were checking in with the nobility, I’d probably find a way to dump myself in a mud puddle, cover myself in blood, or otherwise render myself completely unpresentable. To be fair, I never did it on purpose. It was just a talent of mine.
The path leveled off, and we stepped into the small clearing that preceded the entry to Arden’s knowe. The doors in the big redwood that served as the knowe’s tie to the mortal world stood open, like they were welcoming us home. Many knowes require complicated rituals or motions to get in. Not this one. This was the royal seat of the Mists, and its doors were never closed to the people of the Kingdom. The pixies clustered in the trees here so thickly that they illuminated the area like so many pastel Christmas lights. Guards in Arden’s livery stood to either side of the doors. I waved. One of them—a diminutive Glastig with hair the color of walnut shells—waved back.
“Evening, October. Quentin. Your Highness.” She bobbed her head to Tybalt, which was as close as any member of the Divided Courts would come to bowing to a Cait Sidhe. The fact that she called him by his title at all said a great deal about relations between Arden’s Court and the Court of Cats. “The Queen’s expecting you, and said that we were to send you right on in when you arrived.”
“Evening, Lowri,” I said, with a quick smile. It was safe for Arden’s guards to stand outside like this: given the strength of the illusions hiding the knowe, they were probably rendered invisible to searching eyes just through proximity. “Where did Madden go with the Mauthe Doog?”
“You mean the big black dogs that pop in and out of view like bad special effects?” asked Lowri, her faint Welsh accent making the question sound even more surreal than it probably should have. The other guard—a Coblynau I didn’t know by name—put a hand over his mouth, concealing a smile.
“Those are the ones,” I confirmed.
“He took them home to meet his siblings,” said Lowri. “Said some of them need proper medical care that’s based on dogs, not on people. He looked awfully sad about it, too, and said that if you asked, we were to tell you he didn’t blame you, since you didn’t know any better.”
I winced. There was something especially unsettling about being chastised, even secondhand, by someone who was essentially a dog. The Cu Sidhe liked to cultivate a simpler way of life, eschewing the complexities of fae politics and human manners. That doesn’t mean they’re rude or stupid: Madden couldn’t have been Arden’s seneschal if he wasn’t a smart guy. It just means they don’t hold grudges or go on vendettas, or host dinner parties that require knowing when to use multiple forks.
“We shall make it up to him later,” said Tybalt.
“Yes, we will,” I said. “Is Arden inside?”
Lowri wrinkled her nose at the informality, which was funny, considering that when we’d met, Lowri had been working in the private guard of the false Queen, who had called Arden things that were far worse than her actual name. “As she said to send you in, I believe that is a fair guess, yes.”
“Cool. See you in a bit.” I waved to the other guard and walked inside, with Quentin and Tybalt following.
Arden’s knowe was a redwood wonderland, perfectly suited to the woods outside. The floor and walls in the entry hall were all paneled in the stuff, and the smell of it suffused the air. Elaborate carved panels on the walls sketched out the history of the Kingdom of the Mists all the way up to the present day, and while new panels seemed to have been added every time we came to visit, none of the old panels seemed to have disappeared. I made a mental note to ask Arden whether the hall was getting longer, or whether it just somehow knew which panels it was safe to hide when I was looking. Either option seemed reasonable. The knowes are alive, and while they may not think like people do, they have opinions about things, and will generally do what they feel best.
The hallway let out on the throne room, where Arden was sitting on her throne, wearing the same purple-and-silver velvet gown that I’d seen through her teleport window, playing with her mobile phone. She looked up at the sound of our footsteps. Then she smiled and unfolded herself from her seat, standing. “Hey. Did you have any trouble getting here?”
“None,” I reported.
“Cool,” she said, and tossed her phone onto the cushion on her throne.
Arden Windermere might not sound much like a queen, but she certainly looked the part, especially these days, now that she had a proper staff of handmaids and clothiers to help her present the appropriate image to her people. She was tall, slim, and elegant in her carriage, standing a few inches taller than Tybalt, who was in turn a few inches taller than me. Her purple-black hair was pulled into a high chignon, secured with loops of amethyst, and her jewelry was all silver, accenting the vibrant colors of her mismatched eyes: one vivid blue, the other liquid mercury. She could easily have walked among the kings and queens of our past, as long as she kept her mouth closed. Not that I’m one to criticize the speech of others, but when Arden talked, it was more Haight Street than High Court.