I sighed. “Danny, let her go.”
“What?” He frowned over the top of her head. “She can’t go anywhere when I got hold of her like this.”
“Okay. One, he,” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder, indicating Madden, “still has the crossbow. So she’s not the only threat here. Two, I’m still technically in charge. So could we please stop arguing about crushing the Princess’ head, and let her go already?”
Danny blanched. “Oh, hell, I forgot that part,” he said, and let Arden go. She stumbled forward before sitting down heavily on the steps and glaring up at Danny. He grimaced. “Sorry, Your Highness.”
“I hate you people,” she said, climbing back to her feet. She transferred the glare to me. “What are you doing here? Where’s my brother? What happened to you?”
“We are here because we still need your help, and now, so does Nolan,” I said. “The Queen of the Mists has him.”
“Bitch took him while she was arresting the Duchess,” snarled Arden. She bounded down the stairs to stand in front of me, so close that we were practically nose-to-nose. “Where. Is. He? Tell me. I will get him back, and then you will never see us again.”
“This is still your Kingdom.”
“And a fat lot of good that’s done me!” Arden snarled. “This Kingdom killed my father! My brother’s been asleep for so long that I have no idea how I’m going to get him to adjust to this world when he wakes up! This Kingdom has ruined my life, and now you’re here, stinking of goblin fruit and saying I have a responsibility to it? Screw that. Tell me where to find Nolan. We’re leaving.”
“You asked what happened to me,” I said. “Let me tell you what happened to me. The Queen? That same Queen who had your brother elf-shot, and who has him now? She sent a man to hit me with a goblin fruit pie.”
“I like pie,” said Madden.
“What does pie have to do with anything?” Arden glowered at me, looking frustrated. Honestly, I understood how she felt. There just wasn’t anything I could do about it.
“When we first met, did you assume that I was Daoine Sidhe?” Arden didn’t answer, but then, she didn’t need to. Her expression was answer enough. “My mother, Amandine, she’s—”
“Wait: Amandine?” Arden’s expression shifted from confusion to outright disbelief. “You can’t be Amandine’s kid. You’re part human. Juniper and thorn, you’re mostly human. She’d never bed a human man. Her husband would never stand for it.”
Now it was my turn to look confused. “What are you talking about? Mom’s not married. She was married to my father, but he’s dead now. And before he died, he was human.”
A strange look crossed her face. Then she shook her head, and said, “I don’t care. I don’t care who your mother is, or why that makes pie your weakness. I want my brother back.”
“Amandine isn’t Daoine Sidhe, and neither am I. It’s hard to explain, but when the Queen sent that man . . . I think she was trying to get me hooked so she could destroy my credibility. Maybe that would have worked, except I’m not Daoine Sidhe. I didn’t just get hooked. I changed the balance of my own blood so that the goblin fruit would be even stronger. I turned myself mostly human.”
“So turn yourself back,” she said.
“I can’t. I need a hope chest.”
Arden raised her eyebrows. “My brother is missing and you came to ask if I have something that doesn’t exist? Are you high? Oh, wait, goblin fruit—of course you’re high. There are no hope chests, October. They’re a fairy tale.”
“Says the lost Princess of the Mists,” I snapped. “They’re real. Evening had one. I found it after she died.”
“So? Then you don’t have a problem. Get the hope chest, do whatever it is you do with hope chests, and leave me out of it. I just want to get my brother and get out of here.”
“I gave it to the Queen.”
Arden barked a short, startled laugh. “Oh, is that what this is all about? You still think I’m going to help you overthrow her? Dream on. I am done with insurrections. Find yourselves another Princess.”
“That doesn’t sound very royal,” I said.
“What do any of you know about being royal?” she shot back. “It’s all betrayals and backstabbing and never trusting anyone.”
“I know a lot about being royal,” said Quentin.
It was a calm statement, made with absolute sincerity. We turned toward him. Quentin stepped around Danny, moving with careful grace, his shoulders locked in a line so precise it could have been drawn with a ruler. His chin was up, and his eyes were fixed on Arden.
She blinked before shaking her head. “Watching them doesn’t make you an expert. It makes you a voyeur. You don’t know anything, kid.”
“I know more about it than you do,” he said, as he reached the bottom of the steps. He shot me an apologetic glance before turning to face her again.
In that instant, I knew. That look . . . it answered all the questions he’d never been willing to, and put so many statements into a new context. I stared at him, slack-jawed, the urge to shake him and the urge to slap him warring for dominance in my mind.
Neither of them won out. Instead, I stayed where I was, and listened as he said, “My name is Quentin Sollys. I am the Crown Prince of the High Kingdom of the Westlands. And I think I know a thing or two about being royal, no matter what you say.”
“I’m going to kill him,” I muttered.
Arden just stared. “What?”
“My father is King Aethlin Sollys of the Westlands,” said Quentin. “I’ve been in blind fosterage for the last six years. It seemed like the best way for me to grow up without being treated like a Prince everywhere I went.” He glanced at me sidelong, and while there was still apology in his eyes, it was underscored now by amusement. “I can definitively say that I’ve not been receiving the royal treatment for the last several years.”
“You people are insane.” Arden shook her head, apparently shaking off her shock at the same time. “She’s not Daoine Sidhe, and a pie turned her human, so she wants me to go through with an act of treason so she can get her hands on a fairy tale, and now you’re telling me it’s okay, because you’re secretly the Crown Prince of the Kingdom that my Kingdom answers to.” She turned, leveling a finger at Danny. “Are you going to tell me that you’re really Oberon in disguise? Is that the next piece of the lunatic pie?”
“Nah, not me,” said Danny. “I’m just the taxi driver. Also, it ain’t treason if you’re the rightful heir. Insurrection, maybe. But that’s a technicality.”
“This is all your fault.” Arden swung back around to face me. “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t tracked me down. I don’t care how much you thought you needed me. You had no right.”
“You said ‘my Kingdom,’” I said.
“What?”
“Just now. You said Quentin’s parents were in charge of the Kingdom your Kingdom answered to.” I shrugged a little. “You know this is your fight, Arden, and you know you don’t have any other choice. You can hate me if you want—I’m sort of used to the Queen hating me—but you also know that I’m here because it’s time for you to step up and do your job.”
“We do not have the luxury of choosing our duty,” said Quentin, in a tone I’d never heard from him before. In that moment, he sounded like a Prince. “Faerie calls. It is your burden, and your blessing, to answer.”
“And while you’re doing that, I can go upstairs and save Jude from the people who want to know where you are,” said Madden, with blissful unconcern.
We all turned to look at him. “What?” I said, after a few seconds of bemused silence.
Madden shrugged. “There are people upstairs talking to Jude. They’re being pretty nasty, since she won’t tell them where you are. I don’t think she knows.”
Shit. “The Queen’s guards must have followed us here. But how . . . ?”
“Your shoes.” Madden again. Again, we all turned to stare at him.
“Wh
at about her shoes, Madden?” asked Arden.
“They’re all spelled up. They smell like secrets.” Madden pointed at my feet, in case we didn’t know where shoes were typically kept. “I think they followed your shoes.”
“My . . . oh, Oberon’s eyes.” I bent, hastily untying my laces before yanking the sneakers off my feet. “I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot and a fool and every other word you can come up with for stupid. Here.” I thrust my shoes toward Arden as I straightened—my shoes, which I held by the blood-red laces the Queen had tied them with when she transformed my dress, back at the beginning of this whole mess. I’d been so relieved not to have another pair of sneakers transmuted into high heels that I hadn’t stopped to wonder why she’d been merciful. I’d just kept on wearing them.
Arden frowned. “What do you want me to do with these?”
“Teleport as far away from here as you can and dump them,” I said. “Aim for Petaluma. If the Queen’s guards are using the shoes to track us, they’ll go after you.”
“This is idiotic,” said Arden . . . but she took the shoes. “Madden, don’t let them leave.”
“Okay,” said Madden.
Arden turned, her hand sketching an archway in the air. If I squinted, I could almost see the shimmer on the other side—and then she stepped through it and was gone. Almost in the same second there was a clicking sound from above us as someone started to turn the doorknob.
“Shit,” I hissed, and grabbed Quentin’s arm. “Madden, Danny, come on!” I didn’t look to see whether they were following as I took off across the basement, heading for the painted canvas “wall” separating Arden’s makeshift apartment from the rest of the room. If we could just make it through before anyone came down the stairs, we’d be hidden; we might be able to evade the guards, and Jude wouldn’t get hurt. She didn’t deserve to get hurt.
But when Faerie and the human worlds collide, someone always gets hurt. That’s just the way things are. I was a fool to think that it could ever be any different.
I touched the firefly hidden in my hair as I ran, trying to force myself to see the gap in the illusion. Come on, come on . . . I thought—and there it was, a narrow crack in what should have been empty air. I reached out and pulled it open wide enough for me to fit through, hauling Quentin in my wake. Danny was close behind us. Once he was through, he grasped the two pieces of canvas and pulled them shut, holding the seam tight with his massive fingers.
“Where’s Madden?” I whispered.
“He didn’t move,” Danny whispered back.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs cut off any further questions. “—there’s anyone down here,” said Jude dubiously. “Ardith didn’t come in today, and Madden is on his break.”
A dog barked joyful greeting.
“What is that?” demanded an unfamiliar male voice.
“That’s Madden’s dog, Buddy,” said Jude. “We let him stay down here sometimes, when Madden’s working short shifts. Hi, Buddy. Who’s a good boy, hmm? Who is it?”
Madden barked again, apparently asserting that he was, in fact, a good boy. Claws clacked against the basement floor. I’ve known enough canines in my time that it wasn’t hard to picture him jumping up on the Queen’s guards, tongue lolling, tail wagging madly.
Cu Sidhe are interesting. Like Cait Sidhe, sometimes they look a lot like Daoine Sidhe with animal characteristics, although they always have that red and white candy cane hair. Unlike Cait Sidhe, they have two distinct dog forms. One, the form most of them are born in, is a tall sighthound with white fur over most of its body, and red at the ears, tail, and paws. The other is, well, a different kind of dog. It varies from Cu Sidhe to Cu Sidhe, but when they’re in their second dog forms, there’s nothing fae about them. They look like any other mutt enjoying the wonders of the dog park.
Jude seemed to think Madden was a perfectly normal dog. That meant he had to be in his second form—and that we might have a chance at getting out of this unseen. It all depended on how good the Coblynau illusion hiding Arden’s “apartment” really was, and whether getting rid of my shoes would actually make the guards stop following us.
Carefully, I stepped back from the curtain, my bare feet making no sound on the threadbare rug as I moved to sit on the bottom bunk of Arden’s bed. Danny remained where he was, frozen in the act of pinching the curtain closed. After a few seconds, Quentin followed me, taking a seat to my right. I put an arm on his shoulder, not looking at him, and listened to the sound of Madden barking and jumping on the guards, whose muttered exclamations were becoming increasingly frustrated—and increasingly close.
“I told you, there’s no one down here.” Jude again. “I’m not sure why it was so important that you look for your friends in my basement, but I’m going to need to ask you to leave now.”
“They’re here.” This voice, I recognized: the Satyr who tried to arrest me earlier. Apparently, the Ravens hadn’t pecked his eyes out after all. Darn.
“They’re not,” said a second female voice. She just sounded tired. “I don’t know how, but the bitch figured out she was being followed. This was all just misdirection. We need to get back to the hunt.”
The voices were coming from right outside the curtain. No matter how good the illusion was, all it would take was one of them making an over-enthusiastic gesture, and the jig would be up. I closed my eyes and tightened my arm around Quentin’s shoulders. Seconds crawled by.
“Fine,” snarled the Satyr.
I opened my eyes, startled, and listened to the sound of receding footsteps. Madden barked again, punctuating the sound of those same footsteps climbing the stairs. Finally, the basement door opened and closed again, and the only sound was Madden’s barking.
Quentin started to stand. I pulled him back down to the bed. He turned and blinked at me. I shook my head. If Madden was still barking, we didn’t have the all-clear. We’d come too far to blow things by deciding to be impatient now.
More seconds crawled past, until finally, one more set of footsteps started in the basement outside. Madden was still barking, so they weren’t his. That last pair of feet climbed the stairs, and the door opened and closed one more time.
We waited.
“Okay,” said Madden, sounding pleased with himself. “Okay, okay. The bad people are gone now. Everything is wonderful, and I get to have a ginger cookie once Arden gets back. Protect the basement, get a ginger cookie.”
Danny rolled his eyes as he turned to look at me. “This guy for real?” he muttered.
“Cu Sidhe,” I said, like that explained everything. In a way, it did. They’re not stupid—in fact, some great fae scholars have been Cu Sidhe—but they prefer simplicity and joy to complexity and angst. It’s a nice change from the rest of Faerie. I stood, releasing my hold on Quentin, and walked to the curtain. “You can let go now, Danny.”
He released the seam. I spread the canvas “wall” and walked through, back out into the basement, where a smug-looking Madden was waiting for us.
“They left,” he said. “You did a good hide. It was real quiet. I barely heard you at all.”
That was high praise coming from a Cu Sidhe who’d been in animal form while we were trying to stay silent. I smiled at him, fighting back the urge to ruffle his ears. “You were an excellent diversion and protector,” I said. “You did real good.”
He beamed at the word “good.” I guess the urge to be considered a good dog is genetic. “Arden didn’t want you taken.”
“No, she wants to yell at us herself.” Speaking of yelling at people . . . I turned to Quentin. “Were you serious before?”
He grimaced, looking down at the floor. “I didn’t want you to find out like this.”
“Quentin.”
“You knew I was a blind foster.” He glanced back up at me. “I mean, didn’t you ever wonder if maybe I was . . . ?”
“No! No, I did not! You know why?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “Because your parents approved of you being my squire,
and there is no way the High King would approve of his son and heir being trained by a changeling.”
“I told him what you said.”
That stopped me. “I . . . what?”
“The first time we met—really met, I mean, since you never let me deliver the Duke’s messages—you told me his rank gave him the right to command you, and you’d do what he said because he held your fealty. But that was all. You said he wasn’t better than you. That he got your attention and your courtesy because you respected him. And that changelings weren’t a lesser element to be kept under control.” Quentin bit his lip. “I’d never heard that before. Everyone back home said changelings were inferior, and I’d sort of started to believe them.”
“Even your parents?” The question was out before I could stop it.
To my relief, Quentin shook his head. “No. But they didn’t have time to manage the bulk of my education. That’s why Maman,” he said it the French way, two quick syllables that almost melted together like sealing wax, “said I had to be sent away. I had to learn to be tolerant if I was ever going to be a good . . . a good . . .” He hesitated, seemingly unwilling to finish.
So I finished for him. “A good King. They fostered you to Sylvester and let you be squired to me because having the crap kicked out of you on a daily basis was going to teach you how to be a good King.”
Quentin nodded.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You’re serious. You’re actually serious, and this isn’t a really poorly timed practical joke. You are the Crown Prince of the Westlands.”
“Yup.”
“The Crown Prince of the Westlands has seen me wandering around the house in athletic shorts and a tank top on laundry day.”
“Yup.”
“I’ve been making the Crown Prince of the Westlands do dishes.”
“Yup.”
“Are you gonna run through every chore you’ve ever involved the kid in?” asked Danny. “Because we’ll be here all night, and I don’t think we’ve got time for that.”
“I’m running through chores in a vain effort to stop myself from running through all the times I’ve endangered his life,” I said. “That’s a longer list.”