Belatedly, I was starting to realize that marrying a King of Cats was going to mean learning a lot more about how the Cait Sidhe worked. I was never going to be part of their world, but I was definitely moving into the subdivision next door. “Hi,” I said, smiling at the man as sincerely as I could manage. “I’m October.”
“And you can call me ‘Joe.’ Give me just a second.” The man—Joe—stood, leaning out of his office, and called, “Susie! You’ve got the store for the next hour or two. My lunch date’s here.”
“Yeah, whatever,” called a female voice from the front of the shop. Presumably, the bored clerk we’d seen before was just as bored now that she was in charge.
Joe stepped back into his office, beaming. “There, that’s sorted. Come with me.”
The office was small, and had no visible exits. “Won’t she notice that we didn’t go out through the front . . . ?” I asked hesitantly.
“The new issue of Atomic Robo just came in. Susie’s a great employee, and I love her dearly, but I’d be lucky if she noticed an armed robbery right now. We’re fine. Now come on.” His smile faded a few degrees, and a warning glint came into his eye.
Tybalt stepped into the office. I followed. Joe reached past me to close the door before turning off the light and casting the entire room into shadow.
“Hold your breath,” he said, and we were plunged into cold.
The transition lasted only a few seconds. Then we were standing in ankle-deep grass, surrounded by trees that had twisted and tangled together until they became an impassable wall. Tybalt released my hand and snapped his fingers, allowing his human disguise to waft away into nothing. I took his lead, clapping my hands as Quentin had instructed. I hadn’t cast the illusion, so I couldn’t feel it give way, but my ears stopped itching, and I assumed that meant the release had worked.
A voice chuckled from the shadows near the base of the trees. “What an odd young lady you’ve found, Rand. She’s lovely, but so unique. Whose bloodline is she? Whose name claims her?”
“Come out, Jolgeir,” said Tybalt. There was an edge of impatience in his tone, so thin that I only heard it because I knew to listen. “We are here at your sufferance, and for that, I am grateful, but we are not here to be your playthings. You have plenty such, and finer than we.”
“I don’t know that I’d trust you to assess the value of my toys,” said Joe—Jolgeir—from his hiding place. But he strolled out into the open all the same, giving me my first look at Tybalt’s local equivalent without his human mask on.
Fae tend to stop aging in their mid-twenties, thanks to whatever quirk of impossible biology makes purebloods immortal. Jolgeir was no different. He was recognizably the frame on which the older human man had been constructed: his facial features were a little finer, and his ears, now sharply pointed and subtly feline, would have looked wrong on the pleasant human proprietor of the little comic book store. His hair was still silver, although now it was the mottled silver of a gray cat, shot through with veins of purest white. His eyes were a shade of blue never seen in a purely human face, and his pupils were vertical slits, like Tybalt’s.
He was still wearing brown slacks and a button-down shirt, which explained why Tybalt hadn’t suggested I change my clothes. Kings get to set their own standards, and the standards of the people around them. Of the three of us, Tybalt was the one who looked slightly overdressed. That wasn’t so unusual. He usually dressed better than I did.
Jolgeir looked me thoughtfully up and down, less like he was looking for something wrong, and more like he was trying to take a fair and accurate measure. Finally, he said, “Forgive me for my earlier rudeness, but I truly must ask, what bloodline bore you? You look most like the Daoine Sidhe, but you are not Daoine Sidhe, and no other race so fine in face and form would suit you half so well.”
“I think that was a compliment,” I said. Jolgeir smiled, revealing one pointed incisor. I relaxed a little. A King of Cats who was relaxed enough to be smiling at me was a King of Cats who wasn’t planning to disembowel me any time soon. “Do you know Amandine?”
“Amandine, the blood-worker? The one who claims to be Daoine Sidhe, and is such a liar that I can’t bear her company? That Amandine?”
“That’s the one,” I said. “She’s my mother. She’s also a Firstborn daughter of Oberon. Surprise, and all that.”
Jolgeir frowned. “It seems odd that she could be Firstborn, and I not have heard.”
“Like you said, she lied about it for a long, long time. She even lied to me, until I figured out what she was doing. These days, it’s not quite common knowledge, but she doesn’t get to make it a secret anymore, either. If she didn’t want people to know she wasn’t Daoine Sidhe, she shouldn’t have left me in the position of needing to figure out my magic on my own. Makes it sort of hard to keep things on the down-low.”
“I see.” Jolgeir’s attention shifted to Tybalt. “I suppose I can see the appeal of a novelty. It’s always nice to have something that no one else has.”
Tybalt’s eyes narrowed, but his tone was pleasant as he said, “I would watch myself, were I you, old man. Some people might say that senselessly baiting me was a sign that you wished to be rid of your Kingdom entire.”
“Only if you could take me, kit, and I doubt you can. You couldn’t do it last time.” Jolgeir moved closer, until he and Tybalt were almost nose to nose. They stared at each other for a long moment, long enough that I was starting to consider shoving my way between them. I might regret it for a moment, but I could recover from whatever damage they did to me. The same couldn’t necessarily be said of the damage they would do to each other.
Then something changed in the air between the two men, and they burst out laughing. Tybalt put his hand on Jolgeir’s shoulder; Jolgeir bent forward until his forehead was resting against Tybalt’s, his entire body shaking with merriment. I stared at them, baffled.
“Oh, Rand, your sense of humor remains your best quality! Never let it go, and don’t let marriage change you. The temptation will be there, but I assure you, you and your lady will both enjoy matrimony more and for longer if you remain exactly as you are.”
“You old cat,” said Tybalt, and pounded Jolgeir on the back. “To speak to me of marriage so! How is your Libby? Still wild and full of mad ideas?”
“Older than she was, but lovelier every day than she was the day before.” Jolgeir pulled away from Tybalt, gathering his dignity—such as it was—back around himself before turning to me. “My lady wife, who will not be joining us this day, is of the mortal persuasion. Thirty years she’s been a bride, and three children she’s borne me, and never have I questioned my good fortune. See to it that you and your husband-to-be feel the same.”
“Do my best,” I said. “So is there a rule that says Kings of Cats have to talk like they’re in a BBC production, or am I just lucky with the ones that I run into?”
Tybalt snorted. Jolgeir looked amused. “Being here makes it easy to fall into the old ways of speech. Remember, the modern world is a moving target. For centuries, men of learning and sophistication spoke the way we do.”
“In certain parts of the world, anyway,” said Tybalt.
Jolgeir rolled his eyes. “Must you always make corrections?”
“It is my one true joy; begrudge me not such a simple thing,” said Tybalt.
“I will begrudge you whatsoever I like on my own lands,” said Jolgeir, and offered me his arm. “Walk with me, if you would, milady October? I will show you what lies beyond the briars, and you may tell me what it is that brought you hence. Rand has given me some of the story, but I always like to hear it from the source when possible.”
“If you turn down the romance novel dialog a little bit, I’d be happy to,” I said, and placed my hand on his arm as he roared laughter. Behind him, Tybalt nodded approvingly. I was doing the right thing, then: good. I hated to think what would happen if I acted wrong.