Page 23 of Be the Serpent

“I promise,” said Stacy, still sounding bewildered.

“Good. I love you. I’ll be right there.” I hung up and slipped the phone back into my pocket before opening the front door and stepping into the house.

The living room was empty and no one was screaming, so I guessed that Mitch was still unconscious. I walked down the hall to the bedroom where he was laid out on the king bed he shared with his wife, eyes closed and face pale, my companions arrayed around him like the spokes of a deeply distressed wheel. As usual, Tybalt was the first to notice my arrival.

“October?”

“Hey. How is he?”

“He hasn’t woken yet. That may be a mercy. I’m not sure there was any truly gentle way to tell him what had happened, but . . . ”

“But I botched it. Yeah, I know.” I shook my head. “This isn’t news any parent should have to hear, and it isn’t news any aunt should have to pass. I wish he were awake.”

Tybalt’s eyes narrowed. “I know that tone. You would ask me to do something inadvisable, were he awake.”

“But you can’t carry an unconscious man through the shadows,” I said. Mitch couldn’t hold his breath if he didn’t know he needed to, and the last thing we needed to do was suffocate him getting him back to Muir Woods. “Do you think Arden will kill me if I call to ask for another taxi run?”

“If she does, will you stay dead?” asked Quentin. His tone was honestly curious, but there was a gleam in his eye that turned it cutting. I eyed him. He glowered back for a moment before his shoulders sagged and he relented. “Sorry. I shouldn’t—I’m sorry. It’s just not fair that everyone else in Faerie stops their dancing and is gone, and you always get better.”

“Would you prefer I died and stayed that way?”

For a moment, he almost seemed to ponder that. Then he shrugged, shaking his head. “Nah. You’d be even more annoying if you were one of the night-haunts.”

“I love you too.” This post-Toronto snippiness was getting annoying, but it was understandable under the circumstances. I gave him a one-armed hug before turning my attention to Tybalt and Simon. “I found Stacy. She’s at the grocery store.”

“Without her car?” asked Simon.

“Maybe she just needed butter or something. If she’d dropped her pancake batter, it’s conceivable that she might have been out of something small that she needed to re-make it.”

Conceivable, but not logical. If she’d just been going to get an ingredient for lunch, why had she been gone so long? Why hadn’t she taken her car? Why hadn’t she cleaned up the batter first? Why would she have walked to a store more than three miles away instead of borrowing something from a neighbor? And why hadn’t she turned off the damned stove? None of the pieces I had came together to make any sort of sense.

Simon looked dubious. Tybalt moved closer.

“Wherever you go from here, I go with you,” he said.

“Did I even imply any different?” I asked. “I don’t want to do this without backup, Honestly, I don’t want to do this at all, and I don’t even know what ‘this’ is yet. Opinions on the Arden thing?”

“You may as well make the attempt,” said Simon. “I can’t imagine angering the Queen would make our situation any worse than it is right now.”

“You really haven’t been hanging out with Toby for very long,” said Quentin. “She can always make things worse.”

Shaking my head at that brutally honest assessment of my talents, I pulled my phone back out of my pocket, selecting another name from my contact list. How did we get by before cellphones? Even in Faerie, a land rich with magic and possibilities, they’ve made things so incredibly much easier that I can’t believe we got by without them for centuries.

Arden picked up on the third ring. “This better be important,” she said, voice tight.

“Hello to you too, Your Majesty,” I said. My tone probably wasn’t as deferential as it was supposed to be when talking to a queen, but then, it never really is. I don’t so much do “deference.” “Is everything settled over there?”

“You mean, do I have three hysterical Seers haranguing my borrowed healer—will you be mad at me if I refuse to give her back? She was my father’s before she went to work for Duke Torquill, and I need a court healer—for information on their brother? If that’s what you mean, then yeah, everything’s settled.”

“So you’re not currently helping with the treatment?”

“Not at the moment—Oh, fuckery. You’re going to ask me to give you a ride, aren’t you? Don’t you have Tybalt with you?”

“I do, but I also have Mitch, and he passed out when he heard the news.”

“Toby kinda fumbled telling him about Jessica,” called Quentin, voice pitched to carry.

I glared at him. “That’s real nice, Quentin, yes, please tell the Queen how bad I am at my job.”