Page 70 of Be the Serpent

To be fair, I didn’t want to hurt him, either. My knives were still sheathed at my hips, and even as he slammed his knee into my sternum, I was trying to pin him down rather than put him out of commission. A flash of near-blinding brown and green interposed itself over the pink, and I barely had time to realize what that meant and grab the cat he’d become by the scruff of the neck before he could shoot off into the dark.

Tybalt hissed and twisted against my grasp as I stood and tucked him in against my chest. He could turn back at any time, but if he was trying not to hurt me, he wouldn’t. And he didn’t. Thank Oberon for that, he didn’t.

“Hey, sweetheart,” I said, and reached for the pink threads again, this time catching hold of them with the edges of my own magic, pulling them tight and looking for the place where they were rooted into his thoughts.

It was like grabbing for super-heated wire. I wasn’t doing it with my hands at all, but I could feel the burn all the way to the bottom of my stomach, caustic acid against the surface of my magical reserves. If this was what it was like to grab something spun by one of the Three, I was going to need a lot more of Oberon’s blood before I could tackle the binding on Titania.

Still, despite the pain, I grabbed on and held him tight, unafraid of damaging myself if it meant saving him in the process. Tybalt fought, until the moment when he didn’t, which was also the moment when the lines began to break in my “hands.” I yanked harder, and the web of pink shattered and fell away, leaving Tybalt limp and motionless in my arms, sides heaving with the effort of breathing.

“Poor love,” I said, and leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead before looking around, eyes still closed. The web of lines making up the Shadow Roads was still intact. That was good.

Tybalt was unconscious and I had no idea how to navigate in here. That was bad.

Colored lines extended in all directions, marked pathways to the most common local destinations. I had to wonder how they appeared to Tybalt, or indeed if they appeared to him: he had commented in the past about letting the shadows guide him. So maybe the Cait Sidhe only ever traveled by instinct, and by following the faint scent trails left behind by the cats who had been there before them. I didn’t have that luxury.

I also didn’t have a single clue which of these tautly drawn threads might lead me back to Muir Woods. I turned a slow circle, trying to inventory the threads. They came in all colors, but one was as riotously red as fox fur, shot through with flecks of burning gold.

Shadowed Hills. It had to be. Technically, I was still banned from the knowe, even if formally I was just being “encouraged” to stay away. Functionally, unless Sylvester released my fealty, he couldn’t turn me away when I was in crisis. More importantly, Chelsea and Etienne would be there, and either one of them could get me back to Muir Woods before Titania showed up and wrecked everything.

Cradling Tybalt against my chest, I began walking. The line stretched out ahead of me, with no clear destination in sight.

Oh, well. Why the hell not? I cleared my throat, tilted my head back, and said, “Hi. I don’t know if the rules are the same for you or what, but it seems to me that you’re something very much like a knowe. Fae made you, and then they used you, over and over again, until the magic that filled your walls began to turn solid and understand itself. I think you know I’m here. I think you know I’m not supposed to be here, and want me to get out as much as I want to leave.”

There was no response—of course there was no response—but I felt an uncomfortable awareness settle across me, heavy enough to notice, like I was being studied by an entire crowd. I kept walking.

“I don’t know how much influence you have here, but I’ve got one of your Kings, and he’s in pretty rough shape, and I love him very much, so if there’s anything you can do to help me help him, I would be very appreciative.”

That didn’t feel like enough. I took a deep breath—and was the air getting thinner? I didn’t want to let the easy lure of Oberon’s blood make me forget that it was a limited resource when I still had a serious fight ahead of me—and added, “Please. I know you love your Kings and Queens. Don’t let me be the reason you lose this one.”

The line I had been trying to follow flared a briefly brighter red, like it had caught fire for a moment. Instead of stretching endlessly into the dark, it now ended in a single flickering point, like a tiny candle. I exhaled.

“That’s just what I needed,” I said, and hurried toward the light, following the line to its end.

When I got there, I closed my eyes, took another deep breath, and stepped forward the way I would have stepped into a knowe, trusting Faerie to see me safely home.

The air on the other side of the step was sweet with blooming honeysuckle, and bright enough to be seen through my closed eyelids. I cracked my eyes cautiously open.

We were standing in one of the long halls of Shadowed Hills, garlands of flowers—including the honeysuckle—strung along the walls between the lower panels and the windows, everything rich and lush with polished wood and velvet. I breathed in as deeply as I could, and while I smelled roses, they were the normal blooming roses of Luna’s many gardens and not the primal poison of Titania.

I turned another circle, getting my bearings, and looked down at Tybalt. He was still breathing harder than I liked, but was clearly exhausted and had fallen asleep in my arms, content to stay there for the moment. That was good. He wasn’t going to be thrilled when he woke up and realized what had happened.

I started walking. The hall I was in should connect to the kitchens before too terribly long, and once I got there, I could ask the household staff for help. Melly and Ormond, the Hobs who functionally run the place, have known me since I was a little girl, and they’ve both adored me just about as long. They could help me lie low while someone went to fetch Etienne for me, and they wouldn’t betray my presence.

And maybe I could get another sandwich. My stomach was oddly unsettled. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had this much to eat in a single day; I shouldn’t still have been hungry.

Oh, well. Problem for later. The hallway curved ahead of me, and I found myself outside the familiar shape of the kitchen door. Breathing a sigh of relief, I pushed it open and slipped inside.

Melly immediately looked up from the dough she was kneading—some sort of piecrust from the looks of it, although it could really have been almost anything—and turned toward the door, her polite server’s smile already in place. “If you’re lost—” she began, and stopped as she saw that it was me standing in the doorway with an unconscious cat in my arms.

“I don’t think I’m lost,” I said, a bit more timidly than I intended. Now that I was here, in what used to be effectively my second home, I was a lot less sure of my welcome.

“Toby!” she squealed, and rushed over to throw her arms around me, mindful of Tybalt as she gave me a squeeze. “I know the Duke’s been being too hard on you, but does that really have to mean the rest of us never get to see you anymore?”

“It does when he has the authority to banish me from the Duchy,” I said. “Right now, if I give him space, I’m not technically breaking any rules when I do come to visit. If I push it, I will be.”

Melly clucked her tongue and shook her head, looking at me reproachfully. “That man,” she said. “He never has been able to understand something good when it’s right under his nose. I’m sorry he’s been being such a fool. But I hear you’ve been getting up to your own share of foolishness.”

“Yes, and some of it’s going on right now,” I said. “The whole story is too complicated to explain at the moment, but I promise I’ll find a way to come back and explain everything if you’ll just call Etienne so he can get me back to Muir Woods.”