Some had chosen to stay as they were. None of them had chosen to be human. And the rest . . . I had burned the humanity out of them, allowing them to rise pureblooded and immortal. It had been painful for everyone involved. I still felt like I’d done the right thing. Portland’s King of Cats, a pleasant, silver-haired man named Jolgeir, had kissed my cheeks after I pulled the humanity out of his daughters, promising to give me anything I ever wanted, for the rest of my life, as thanks for what I’d done for him.
“It needed to be done, but you did it,” said Maida. “We have a hope chest and no way to make the same offer without making people feel like they should be ashamed of where they came from. Things are changing. A lot of that change is starting here, in the Mists. That’s why we’re so glad to have you teaching our son.”
“But we still miss him,” said Aethlin. “Please, is he happy? We’ve missed so much. Tell us about him.”
“He is happy,” I said, and finally sat down. “Healthy, too, and he’s even started applying himself in his lessons. He and Raj are still pretty much joined at the hip. We hosted a slumber party last night . . .”
Once I started talking about Quentin, it was surprisingly easy to keep going. I was still talking when he came stumbling down the stairs, Raj in cat-form slung over his shoulder like a hand towel. Then there was shouting and hugging and all the joys of a boy enjoying a too-rare reunion with his parents, and for a moment—just a moment—everything felt like it was going to be okay.
FIVE
MUIR WOODS WAS WRAPPED in fog, transformed by the marine weather into a phantom forest, as much legend as reality. I pulled into the parking lot, squinting at seemingly empty spaces as I looked for a safe place to stow my car. At least I didn’t have to deal with tourists for a change. The mortal side of the park was closed due to unsafe weather conditions, all of which had been conjured by our helpful local Leshy and Merrow. Even Dianda had gotten into the act, whipping up the kind of waves that normally appeared only in the bad CGI disaster movies Quentin was so fond of. The storm had been raging for three days, clearing out the humans and leaving the place open for the rest of us.
A few park rangers and members of the Coast Guard had probably noticed that rain was falling everywhere but on Muir Woods, which remained silent and dry, or as dry as anything could be when completely fogged in. They would have chalked it up to California’s often eccentric weather patterns. When you live in a state where it can be raining on one side of the street and eighty degrees and sunny on the other side, you learn to cope.
Coping was something I could have used some help with. In the week since I’d woken up to find the High King and Queen in my dining room, I had crammed so much etiquette into my brain that my skull throbbed, protesting the weight of seemingly useless knowledge. It was sadly necessary. I might be the only changeling at this conclave. If I wasn’t, I’d still be a knight surrounded by Dukes and Countesses, Queens and Marquises, and every other part of the titled alphabet. I needed to be on my best behavior, or I was going to have a lot to answer for.
Most of the parking spaces were already filled by vehicles under don’t-look-here spells, or invisibility charms, or the more blatant holes of absolute nothingness, not even mist, which looked like someone had taken a pair of scissors to the air. I drove past them, finally stopping and peering at the farthest, darkest corner of the lot. It looked empty, but . . .
I elbowed Quentin. “Hey. Is there a car there?” As a Daoine Sidhe, he was better with illusions—both casting and detecting—than I was.
“What?” He looked up. I pointed. He followed my finger, squinted, and said, “No, it’s empty. Except for that big pile of dog poop. Humans don’t clean up after their pets as well as they should.”
“Neither do fae,” I said, pulling forward. “Sylvester’s Afanc crapped all over the walking path the last time I was at Shadowed Hills. I had to throw those shoes away.”
“Oh, yeah.” Quentin quieted again as I finished parking. He’d been quiet for the entire drive, not even objecting when I turned the radio to the local oldies station. Normally he would have argued with me about that, but not today.
I killed the engine and turned in my seat to look at him. “All right, spill,” I said. “Before we get to the knowe and have to deal with every petty noble Arden could scrape out of a crevice, you’re going to tell me what’s wrong.”
“I look like my parents.” Quentin didn’t look at me as he spoke. His attention remained focused on his hands. “I have my dad’s hair, and my mom’s eyes, and her jaw. How are these people not going to know who I am? I might as well be wearing a sign.”
“Oh. I thought you were worried about something major.” I tried to keep my tone light, even informal. It was still a real concern. As the Crown Prince of the Westlands, Quentin would one day be the regent of every single person we were about to go observe. That made him something to be courted and cosseted. More, it made him a target. Take out the primary heir to the throne and maybe they’d get lucky: maybe his little sister wouldn’t have been prepared for her birthright, and they could enjoy a few years of relative freedom from supervision when she took the throne. Of course, that assumed Aethlin and Maida would be stepping down any time soon, which didn’t seem to be their plan, but things could change. Assassinating heirs was a good way to kick-start the process.
I was also worried about the local nobles realizing Quentin could be useful to them and trying to take him away from me. He was my squire and semi-adopted little brother, and I wasn’t going to let him go without a fight. Not even if the people who were trying to remove him from my care were his parents. Not unless they had a damn good reason for doing it.
Quentin gave me a sidelong look. “This is something major.”
“I know. That’s why it’s not something you need to be worried about right now.” I indicated him with a sweep of my hand. “Look at you. The secret son of a pureblood noble line. If this were a human fantasy novel, of course you would be a prince in disguise. Nothing else makes sense. But this is real life, and more, this is pureblood politics. Anyone who looks at you and thinks ‘gosh, he looks a lot like the High King’ is going to follow the thought with ‘but he’s squired to a changeling, which gives him no political advantage, and could actually hurt him when the time comes to take the throne; there’s no way High King Sollys would be that bone-numbingly stupid. I guess he’s a distant cousin or something.’ Maybe you’ll find yourself in a funny Prince-and-the-Pauper situation, where you have to try to hide the fact that you don’t have a convenient identical double, but nobody’s going to finger you for the prince. It just doesn’t make sense. And they’re used to you! They see you all the time. You’re furniture to them. Annoying furniture with bad taste in friends.”
“Do you really think so?” he asked, starting to look hopeful.
“Kiddo, I know so. If you’re really worried, eat a plate of salad with your fingers or something. Your absolute lack of table manners and social graces will convince anyone who happens to be watching that you can’t be the Crown Prince.”
Quentin looked horrified. Even years of exposure to me hadn’t been enough to cancel out his early socialization, which said he needed to be poised and polite at all times, or at least whenever he was in front of people who never saw him five minutes after he rolled out of bed. He was an ordinary teenage boy when we were alone, but put him in front of someone with a title and he was Martha Stewart reborn with pointy ears.