Sylvester sighed, shaking his head. “I didn’t expect you to take this well, but I had expected you to take it a little bit better than this.”
“You think I’m overreacting? You’re telling me your brother was married to my mom, and you thought I was going to do anything other than exactly what I’m doing right now?” I glared. “This is not okay.”
“According to fae law, my brother is still married to your mother,” said Sylvester, sounding apologetic.
I stared at him.
Under fae law, a pureblood who has an affair with a mortal isn’t even cheating on their spouse. Showing bad judgment, maybe, but that’s it. Which meant that marrying Dad wouldn’t have required my mother to divorce Simon, because the marriage wouldn’t have counted under fae law. It was just a dalliance taken uncomfortably far. It wasn’t real.
“This isn’t happening,” I said.
Sylvester stood. “I’m afraid it is.”
“Simon Torquill is my stepfather.”
He nodded.
“That’s just . . . that’s not okay.”
“No, it’s not. But I believe it may be why he chose to transform you, rather than killing you. My wrath means nothing to him. Your mother’s, on the other hand . . . there is nothing in this world he wants or yearns for more than Amandine’s forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness for what?” I asked.
Sylvester turned his face away.
I groaned. “So great, he did something so bad you won’t tell me about it even now, and now he’s back in the Kingdom, where he can get to her.” I shook my head, pushing my shock and anger aside in the face of something much more immediately important. “Oak and ash, Sylvester, we have to warn my mother that he’s coming.” Amandine would have no idea. She wouldn’t be prepared. And Firstborn or not, if he took her by surprise . . .
Sylvester shook his head. “Your mother is the last person he would bring to harm, in this world or any other. He loves her. He has always loved her.”
“He’s your brother, and he kidnapped your wife and his own niece,” I snapped. “Why the hell would his estranged wife be off the list of people to hurt?”
“Perhaps because he and Luna have never cared for each other,” Sylvester said. “Why he would hurt Rayseline, I don’t know.” The fury sparked in his eyes again, just for an instant; long enough that I had to struggle not to look away. “I would love the opportunity to ask him. In private.”
I swallowed hard and said, “We don’t know why he’s here. We don’t know what he wants. I want to know that my mother is all right. Please.”
Sylvester sighed. “All right,” he said. “If nothing else, he may have gone to see her. If he has been and gone, perhaps she can tell me where to find him—and if she won’t agree to do that, I may be able to find a trace of his magic to follow. And then . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.
For the first time in my life, I found myself in the awkward position of actually feeling bad for Simon Torquill.
FIVE
WE STEPPED BACK through the main gate. Tybalt and Quentin were standing on the other side of the hallway, next to the wall, and talking in low, intense voices. Tybalt glanced up, seeming to realize that they weren’t alone anymore. Quentin did the same a heartbeat later. Both of them went quiet, stepping apart. Quentin looked at me anxiously. After that first moment, Tybalt didn’t look at me at all. I sighed and filed that away as something I could ask about later. I had a huge file of things to ask about later, and I almost never remembered to ask any of them.
“I should get a secretary,” I muttered.
“What’s that?” asked Sylvester.
“Nothing.” I turned to the boys. “Do you want the short form or the long form? Never mind, scratch that, you’re getting the short form right now, and you’ll get the long form later, probably over alcohol, ice cream, or both. Simon Torquill was married to my mother. Is still married to my mother under fae law. That means he’s family, and that means he can enter her tower without her giving direct and immediate consent. She’s probably not in any danger, since she’s Firstborn, but she’s also confused, so he might be able to get around her defenses. I want her warned at the absolute least, and preferably moved here. Any questions?”
They both gaped at me. Quentin recovered first. “So are you going to call him ‘Daddy’ now? Can I watch? From behind a safe Plexiglas barrier, like they use on MythBusters?”
“No more TV for you,” I snapped. “And I will call Simon Torquill ‘Daddy’ right after I do something else that’s never going to happen, ever. I have a father.” He was long dead and forgotten to almost everyone in the mortal world, but he wasn’t forgotten to me.
“What do we do?” asked Tybalt.
I could have kissed him for that. Would have kissed him for that, if it wouldn’t have required time I wasn’t willing to spend right now. “Sylvester tells his people Simon may be on his way, and that they shouldn’t trust his face—Simon has the same one. They need to make him cast a spell. They need to trust his magic. We head for Mom’s tower. If she’s there, we warn her. If she’s not there, I try to negotiate with the wards and convince them to keep Simon out.” Modifying a spell that had been cast by one of the Firstborn would be easy, right?
Probably not. Even though the spell was my mother’s, it would be like sticking my hands into live current. I still had to try. Amandine was so bad at taking care of herself these days, and Simon was . . . well, Simon. There was no telling what he’d do if he got his hands on her.
For just a moment, I tried to picture the man he must have been in order to get my mother to marry him. I couldn’t find any path between that man and the one I knew.
“What if Simon’s there?” asked Quentin.
Sylvester smiled that thin, alarming smile again, and said, “If he’s there, my brother and I can finally have the reunion I’ve been dreaming of for so long.”
I shuddered. There was no way to interpret his words that didn’t end in blood and screaming.
“We can manage without you,” said Tybalt.
“Ah, yes,” said Sylvester, raising an eyebrow. “Because a half-trained squire, a knight with an abnormal sensitivity to transformation spells, and a King of Cats, that’s the appropriate way to handle my brother, whose magic has been honed to a killing edge by many, many years of villainy. Whatever was I thinking?”
“Okay, can we fight with Simon, instead of with each other?” I asked. “Pretty please?”
“That is my intention, assuming we can find him,” said Sylvester calmly. He continued, “Amy will listen to me, if she’s there, and may respond to me when she doesn’t respond to you. I’m sorry, October. I know she’s your mother, but there are centuries of history between us, and those may be enough to pull her back into the present day, if only for a moment.”
Tybalt spoke before I could. “I do not like you,” he said, looking straight at Sylvester. His voice held the perfect, bald honesty that has been the birthright of the feline kingdom since time began. He stepped up to stand next to me, putting a hand possessively on the back of my arm. His gaze remained fixed on Sylvester the whole time, making it clear who the show of ownership was directed at. “I think you are too comfortable here, in your marble halls, and have forgotten what it means to fight for what is yours. But if you insist on coming, at least you’ll be one more person between Simon and October. Are you sure your men can hold your wards against a member of your own family without you here to bolster them?”
I turned to gape at Tybalt. Sylvester was already nodding. “They are well-trained, and they know their jobs. October was one of them for a reason, after all.”
“Fine. We will wait for you outside in the garden, where October may shout imprecations at her leisure.” One corner of Tybalt’s mouth tilted upward in a smile. “I believe she’ll be calling both of us some rather inventive names.”