We’d have to talk about that later. For the moment, there was a King of Cats who needed an answer. “No, Sire, that’s not the extent of my powers,” I said politely, focusing my attention back on Jolgeir. “If you’re asking what I think you’re asking, yes. I can adjust the balance of someone else’s blood, if given their consent. I can pull the mortality out of a changeling—or I can make them fully mortal, and let them be human without needing to be killed.”
“I have three daughters,” he said. His voice dipped at the end, turning more serious than anything he had said since we walked into his store. “The eldest of them is twenty-eight. She’s so beautiful. She looks so much like her mother.”
“Have all three of them made the Choice?” I asked.
His nod was brief. “All three of them chose Faerie. Libby encouraged them, although she didn’t know what the consequences would be if they chose the human world. She loves me. She’s loved me since I was just silly old Joe at the library. How could I tell her I would have been forced to kill our babies if they had chosen to be like she was?”
He sounded so anguished that I almost forgot myself and approached the throne—a diplomatic misstep that would have been hard to recover from. But even my sympathy was mixed with rage. Oberon had created the hope chests to prevent situations like this one, and what had happened to them? They were locked up in treasuries and lost in private collections, and no one could use them for their intended purpose. Amandine could have filled some of that gap, but she’d chosen to hide instead, pretending to be Daoine Sidhe, while countless changelings died of old age or at the hands of their parents when they made the wrong Choice.
Not all Cait Sidhe offered their children the Choice. Those who did apparently offered it in all its aspects . . . even the fatal ones.
“You couldn’t tell her,” I said. “Yes, Sire. I can give them the option. It’s painful. It takes a lot out of me—and because of that, I’m afraid I can’t promise to do anything before this war between the Mists and Silences has been averted. But once that’s done, yes. I can let your girls Choose again, and whatever they decide, I can help them make it real.”
“I’ve always thought my middle daughter could have been a Princess,” said Jolgeir, collapsing backward in his seat and staring at me. “She’s so strong, even with human blood in her veins. Take that away . . .”
“If she chooses to be fully fae, I’ll help her,” I said. “But not until we avert this war. Or win it, I suppose.”
“Well.” He looked to Tybalt. “My Court stands with yours. If this war can’t be avoided, the Cait Sidhe of the Court of Whispering Cats will fight for the Mists, and we will win.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well. Um. Good.”
We still might go to war. But I was beginning to feel like, if we did, we might stand a chance.
FIFTEEN
TYBALT AND I WERE nowhere near the comic book store when we left the Court of Cats. That was normal. I hoped Jolgeir at least had ended up back at his place of business, since otherwise Susie was going to be minding the front of the store for a long damn time.
“Stupid nonlinear space,” I complained.
We were standing next to a bright pink storefront that smelled strongly of sugar. Tybalt nudged me onto a bench and vanished inside, returning a few minutes later with a bakery box as violently pink as the business that had produced it.
“Here,” he said, pressing the box into my hands. “You should eat something before you yell at me. You’ll be able to work up a better head of steam if you fuel yourself.”
I eyed him sidelong before opening the box. It was full of donuts. That was normal. The donuts were covered in cereal, M&Ms, and in the case of one large maple bar, bacon. I blinked. “Tybalt?”
“Yes?”
“You know I’m mad at you, right?”
“Yes. I intend to apologize, but in this case, I had reasons for bringing you to my old friend without telling you how I believed the discussion would unspool. I—”
“Stop right there. I didn’t ask you to start explaining yourself, I asked if you knew that I was mad.”
Tybalt sighed. “Yes. I knew you would be angry.”
“Okay. So did you take me to Willy Wonka’s donut factory because you were hoping to distract me so much with laughter that I wouldn’t yell at you?” I stabbed a finger at one of the donuts. “Captain Crunch, Tybalt. This donut is covered in Captain Crunch cereal.”
“I admit it was a small hope of mine, that sugar might lessen your anger,” said Tybalt. “But no, I did not expect to escape your wrath entire. Would not want to, in fact. That was a mean trick I pulled, and I am sorry.”
I looked around. There were people, human people, strolling past with their own pink boxes, or sitting on the benches nearby, enjoying their donuts. A man was feeding a cruller to a large red macaw, which struck me as probably being unhealthy for the bird. No one was paying attention to us, and why should they? We had replaced our human disguises before we left the Court of Cats. Tybalt was still a handsome man, but his human form lacked the irresistible attraction of his true face, and I was just another brunette in tank top and jeans. We blended.
It was an odd feeling. I wasn’t used to fitting in. Still, I kept my voice low as I leaned closer and said, “You know I would have agreed to help your friend anyway. Why did we need to go with the whole cloak-and-dagger routine? It wasn’t necessary. It made me feel like you thought of me as something to use. Like a tool.”
The stricken look that flooded his face was too real to have been forced, starting with his eyes and moving outward until every inch of him was washed in regret. “Oh, October. I’m so sorry. I didn’t intend—I knew he would, given time, find his way to that topic. I knew what your answer would be. I also knew that, for him to take that answer as sincere, he had to reach it on his own, and I feared that if I were to prime you for meeting him, you would have done what you do best, and simply offered.”
“Which would have been too blunt, and left him looking for the catch,” I said slowly.
Tybalt nodded. “Yes. He’s been here, in this political situation, for a long time. Longer than you or I can imagine—my response to such things has always been to leave, to find another place to be, but he has put down roots and done his best to thrive despite adversity. Such a thing makes a man pleasant to talk to, and wary of things which seem too good to be true.”
I looked at Tybalt for a moment before reaching into the pink box and pulling out the maple-bacon bar. I offered him the box, as a peace offering, and he took out a chocolate cake donut crowned with a thick layer of Cocoa Puffs.
“I understand your reasoning, but I don’t appreciate it,” I said, putting the box next to me on the bench. “Please don’t do that again, or if we’re in a situation like this, where it’s genuinely important that I react without prejudice, warn me somehow. Okay? That’s enough to keep me from feeling like I’m being used.”
“I will do my absolute best,” said Tybalt. “Again, you have my deepest apologies.”
“It’s okay. We just have to keep doing better, that’s all. Everything is about doing better.” I took a bite of my donut, giving the crowd another look. Most of the people I’d noticed before had moved on, except for the man with the macaw, which was now holding the cruller in one claw and feeding itself. Still, I kept looking. Tybalt and I had been remarkably circumspect in our conversation, saying nothing that violated the provisions against revealing Faerie’s existence, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
“What is it?” asked Tybalt.
“I don’t know.” I took a deep breath, but all I could smell was sugar. The lingering taste of maple didn’t help. “Look around. Try to be sort of casual about it. Just . . . tell me if anything seems off to you, okay?”