Page 59 of The Brightest Fell

“You don’t know what a breakfast burrito is, and yet you can order them perfectly. Got any more surprises?”

“Putting eggs and—is this sausage? Fascinating—in a tortilla shell is a relatively new idea. It speaks to a shortness of time. People never roll an entire meal up into something portable when they have time to linger. But once you introduced the concept, it was relatively easy to understand.” He picked up his burrito and took an inquisitive bite. His eyes widened. He swallowed. “Mortal genius never fails to delight.”

“Yeah, well, we do have a shortness of time here. We’re only stopping to eat so we don’t fall down.” I was still jittery. We needed to move. We needed to find August.

We needed to eat. I picked up my own burrito and took a bite, only half-listening as Simon resumed chattering amiably about how much the city had changed and how much it had stayed the same; how familiar these streets would always be, all the way down to his bones. There was so much work left to do. There was so little time left to do it.

Tybalt, I’m coming, I thought, and ate, and tried not to think about the future.

EIGHTEEN

WE FINISHED EATING as the breakfast rush was rolling in, busing our trays and waving to Miguel on our way out the door. He waved back, grinning. Whatever Simon said to him, he must have really liked it.

Simon caught the expression on my face and smiled. “Difficult as it may be for you to believe, given our history, there was a time when I was the better liked among my siblings. I have a gregarious nature. September was more critical. She had standards. Whereas Sylvester, well, he was always haring off on some grand adventure and coming back with mud on his boots, bumbling around the place like a disaster waiting to happen. Sometimes I think he wound up landed because Gilad wanted him to stay in one place, rather than visiting every household in the kingdom and breaking all their dishes.”

“He doesn’t talk about September much,” I said carefully.

“No, he wouldn’t,” said Simon. “She died. I know that may not seem like such a betrayal to you—you’ve seen so much death already, and you’re barely more than a child—but we grew up believing we would live forever. Losing her was like losing the moon. Absolutely incomprehensible. The moon can’t simply vanish. It’s easier to forget that it was there in the first place than it is to live with the reality of its absence.”

“Mmm,” I said.

Valencia Street was springing to life around us: businesses were opening, shutters were being rolled up and doors were being unlocked. The street traffic had more than doubled since we’d gone to get breakfast. Locals mingled with tourists, all of them hurrying to get to where they needed to go. Up ahead, a familiar mural looked out over a small urban park. I nodded to myself.

“We’re going to make a stop,” I said, and indicated the building.

Simon followed my finger. “What is it?”

“A bookstore and coffee shop. Arden’s seneschal works there. He’s Cu Sidhe. Even if I can’t find August’s trail, he might be able to.” And if not, he could let us duck into the office long enough to cast a don’t-look-here and hide us from any prying eyes out on the street. Finding August’s trail again might require the use of my candle.

San Francisco is a city of weird layered on weird, but even here, people will notice a woman carrying a burning taper down the middle of the street in broad daylight. We needed to find a way to disappear. A don’t-look-here would do the trick nicely.

Borderlands Books and the Borderlands Café are owned by the same man. Conveniently, there’s a door between them. Less conveniently, the bookstore—which offers substantially more privacy, even when open—opens at noon, while the café’s doors were already unlocked, and the usual assortment of weary students, people with nowhere better to go, and commuters was scattered around the reclaimed hardwood tables, sucking down caffeine as fast as they could.

I relaxed as we stepped inside and I saw the big blond man behind the counter, dishing out lattes and black coffees as fast as his hands could move. He was wearing a shirt for a band called “Cats Laughing,” which I’d never heard of, although I had no doubt Tybalt would approve.

Madden looked up when the door swung closed, and grinned, the wide, honest smile of a man who honestly felt he had nothing to hide, and didn’t see why anyone else would either. Mercifully, he waited until we approached the counter before booming happily, “Toby! And . . . Sylvester? Whoa, I haven’t seen you here in ages!”

He looked so happy that I hated to contradict him. Sadly, I had to. Even if I’d been willing to lie to one of my allies right before I asked for help, there was no way to guarantee that Simon wouldn’t immediately spill the beans. The only thing worse than lying is being caught doing it.

“Simon, actually,” I said. “Sylvester’s brother.”

“We’re catching up,” said Simon, in a voice that was desert-dry with a combination of amusement and caution. It was a rare blend. He wore it well. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Uh, okay,” said Madden dubiously. He looked over his shoulder to the small kitchen, where a human man with hair the color of ripe blueberries was washing dishes. “Hey, Z’ev, can you cover for me a minute? My friend needs to pick something up that she left in the bookstore.”

“Sure thing,” said the man, stripping off his gloves and moving toward the counter, even as Madden was stepping out from behind it and gesturing for us to follow him to the attached bookstore. That’s one of the nice things about small establishments: things can be loose enough to allow for a certain fluidity during the day, which is important when, say, you’re secretly a shapeshifting canine in service to the local fae monarch. To pick an utterly nonspecific example.

No one seemed to think there was anything strange about Madden leading two people past the rope that cordoned the café off from the bookstore when their operating hours didn’t match up. Those people probably would have been a little surprised when, after leading us to the back of the store, Madden turned and bared his teeth at Simon. They were suddenly much larger, seeming to occupy too much real estate in his jaw. Saliva foamed around them, making him look on the verge of rabid.

“I know you,” he snarled, eyes fixed on Simon. “I know what you did. What are you doing?”

“I’m looking for my daughter,” Simon said. To his credit, he didn’t flinch away from the possibility that an angry Cu Sidhe was about to rip his throat out.

It was almost a relief to have someone finally reacting to Simon Torquill the way I thought they should. It was also remarkably inconvenient. I needed Madden’s help, and I didn’t have time to go over the whole story yet again. Not with August still out there somewhere, needing to be found; needing to be saved.

“My mother has taken Tybalt and Jazz as collateral against my bringing my older sister, August Torquill, home,” I said. “Sylvester agreed to wake Simon in order to help me find her, since she’s his daughter, too. Simon has been bound with a blood geas to keep him from acting against my interests in this matter.”

“Blood geasa are only as good as their wording,” said Madden. “They can break.”