Page 13 of Once Broken Faith

“You scared my chickens,” said Maida.

I looked between them slowly, finally focusing on Maida’s hair. It was pure silver, with no hints of tarnish. Changelings could inherit a lot of things from their fae parents, but signs of mortality always showed through. I knew Quentin had no human blood. His mother didn’t appear to either. “You have a hope chest,” I said, looking back to Aethlin.

He nodded. “I do. Well, I do now. It belonged to my parents, back when I brought Maida home to meet them.”

“They told me the cost of marrying their son would be my humanity, and I was glad to pay it,” she said. “The human world held nothing for me, and the fae world was promising me everything I could have ever wanted. My father came to the wedding. He still holds his Barony. He says my mother would be proud of what I’ve become, and I believe him.”

“It’s not every human woman’s daughter who can become Queen of a continent,” I agreed. “Does Quentin know?”

“No.” Maida looked regretful. “He was too young to understand when we sent him on fosterage. He knows I was ill when I was younger. He doesn’t know with what, or that it was a disease that purebloods rarely, if ever, suffer from.”

“But he wasn’t too young to have been picking up the wrong attitudes about changelings from the ruffians at Court,” said Aethlin. “He needs to rule everyone with fae blood, no matter how thin, and he needs to do it fairly. We couldn’t tell him where his mother had come from, but we could send him out into the world and hope that he would learn the right lessons.”

“Because telling him would make it look like human blood was something to be ashamed of and concealed,” I said.

Maida nodded. “We don’t tell many people about my origins, because there are people who would take it as a reason to question my authority. I’m not ashamed. I’m not going to weaken myself in the eyes of my vassals, either.”

“No, I understand,” I said.

“Sometimes I don’t,” said Maida. “I heard what you did for the changelings of Silences. Thank you. Truly.”

I managed not to flinch at the forbidden thanks, although it was a near thing. Faerie has some pretty strong prohibitions against saying “thank you.” It implies fealty and debt, two things the fae prefer to avoid. Having the High Queen thank me wasn’t just awkward and weird, it was alarming.

May shared my sentiments. She was struggling not to stare. Suddenly, the reason Jazz wasn’t here made perfect sense. I wouldn’t have been here either, if I’d had any way of avoiding it.

“It needed to be done,” I said. “There were almost fifty of them in the knowe.” Fifty in the knowe, and another dozen in the local Court of Cats. All of them had been offered the same choice: I would shift their blood, if they wanted me to, carrying them either all the way fae or all the way human. For the ones who’d already been exposed to goblin fruit, turning human would have been a death sentence, but I’d offered it all the same, because they had the right to choose.

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.”