Page 84 of Be the Serpent

I blinked at him. From the tangle of the pomegranates, Karen called, “Tell Uncle Tybalt he doesn’t have to leave, Auntie Birdie, Quentin just didn’t realize it was you.”

So Quentin was getting the lecture on trigger safety? Well, that was going to be fun for both of us. “No harm done,” I called back. “Maybe a little bit, to Tybalt’s nerves, but he married me on purpose, his nerves must have done something to deserve it.”

Quentin stepped out from between the trees, the crossbow he was still awkwardly holding pointed at the ground. There was no color left in his face; he looked, honestly, ashamed of himself. Eyes on his feet, he said, “I’m so sorry, Toby. People were trying to get inside, and Cassie said if they got in, they were going to hurt us, and then the fighting outside stopped, but the door opened, and I—I just reacted.”

“That’s why we haven’t been training on anything that has a trigger,” I said, as gently as I could. “It’s a lot easier to shoot someone by mistake than it is to stab them. Sometimes shooting is the right choice, but I want you to be a little older and a whole lot better with your blood magic before we take that step. Which leads me to who the hell gave my squire a crossbow without my permission? I will kick their ass.”

“I think that’s treason,” said Quentin. “Since it was Queen Windermere who handed it to me, right around the time the household staff started attacking us.”

“Well, then, I will not kick her ass, but I will look very disapproving in her general direction and maybe tell her she’s not allowed to give presents to my squires anymore.”

It was nice to be talking to him like this, despite the nerves in his voice and the tight ball of dread in my stomach. It was nice to be able, even for a moment, to pretend things were going back to normal. The great evil had been defeated, or at least re-bound so she wasn’t going to hurt anyone else, Arden’s forces had managed to protect the orangery, Simon was alive. On the whole, we could call this day a win.

Except that Jessica was still dead, and we weren’t going to get a magical take-back on that one. Even in Faerie, dead is usually a permanent condition. She had been sweet and silly and scarred and so very, very young, and now she was gone, and no matter what else happened, she was never going to be coming back. That alone would have meant this day couldn’t be considered successful.

But she wasn’t the only thing we’d lost.

Stacy—my dearest friend, my first friend, the wide-eyed barefoot girl who’d offered me her hand when I was terrified and confused and lost in the new world that I had somehow agreed to enter—was gone. And unlike Jessica, who I could probably see among the night-haunts if I was foolish enough to summon them again, or if I just hung around too long after I inevitably wound up at another murder scene, Stacy was gone forever. She hadn’t died. She couldn’t die, because she had never existed.

It was jarring to think about in such blunt terms, but that was the case. There had never been a Stacy. The friend I knew, the friend I remembered and treasured and would be mourning for the rest of my life, she wasn’t real. She was just a pretty painted mask that Titania had been wearing, and not even because she’d wanted to. My best friend had been a punishment. I was going to be trying to digest that information for a while, and wasn’t sure, quite honestly, whether I was ever going to succeed.

Quentin approached me, clearly seeking reassurance, and didn’t object when I took the crossbow out of his hands and tossed it into a small grove of pear trees. Like so many rooms in a knowe, the orangery was substantially larger on the inside than it had any business being. Chelsea liked to make jokes about some British science fiction show about a time traveler with a big blue box that was also bigger on the inside. I leaned over and grabbed Quentin by the shoulders, jerking him into a hug. He came willingly enough, pressing his face into my shoulder as he embraced me back.

His hair smelled like orange blossoms—expected—and blood—less so. I sniffed, then pushed him out to arm’s length, eyes narrowed. “Why do you have Cassandra’s blood in your hair?”

“That would be my fault,” said Walther, stepping out of the cluster of pomegranate trees. “Hi, Toby. Took you long enough to get here.”

“Well, you know, traffic on the bridge, and everything going to hell, and an unexpected jaunt to Shadowed Hills and back. I’m here now.” I let Quentin go, focusing on Walther. “You want to tell me why your girlfriend’s blood is your fault?”

“I was trying to ward the orangery against Titania,” said Walther.

I blinked. “You what?”

“I know, blood magic isn’t my strong suit, but we were sort of desperate in here, Toby,” he said. “We couldn’t leave—there was nowhere to go, and if we let Titania get eyes on Quentin, we were probably going to lose him. We already knew she didn’t have the same effect on her direct descendants as she did on her distant ones, so we weren’t as worried about Cass and the kids, and Cass suggested we try running blood wards around the orangery. Quentin offered to help paint them, since he’s Daoine Sidhe.”

“Mmm,” I said, somewhat dubiously. “Where are the Browns?”

“They’re in here, with me,” called Karen. “But shh, be careful. They’re sleeping.”

That was odd, given the situation. I blinked, frowned, and picked my way across the orangery, which was a maze of tree roots and fallen branches, to push the canopy of pomegranate boughs aside.

The grass that grew throughout the rest of the orangery was dead here in the shadow of the spreading, black-barked pomegranate trees. Ripe fruit dangled from the branches, their leathery skins split to reveal the ruby seeds inside. And there, on the brown-mulch ground, were the Browns.

Mitch was slumped against the tree trunk, Andrew in his lap and Anthony and Cass sleeping to either side, leaning over so that their heads rested against his shoulders. Karen was sitting nearby, her hands folded in her lap. She looked up as I entered, Tybalt and Quentin following close on my heels, and she smiled, wanly. She looked exhausted. If any of them were going to be asleep, I would have expected it to be her.

Walther was standing off to one side, glasses missing, hair mussed. He looked like he’d been running hard for most of the night. Judging by the bloodstains on his cuffs, he had been.

“Hey,” I said. “What’s going on in here?”

“Did you know I can help people sleep?” asked Karen. “If they need it, or if they’d be better off asleep, I can help them. They have to let me. I can’t, like, walk into a museum and knock out all the guards, but if they consent, I can help them sleep.”

“How I know she’s your niece,” said Tybalt, dryly. “Revealing a new magical ability, and the first thing she relates it to is its potential use in grand larceny.”

“Are you objecting to robbing human museums now?” I asked, with interest. “Because human museums are big on robbing whoever they need to in order to make a pretty display. I think robbing them is a morally neutral act.”

“Still an indication of family, in this case,” said Tybalt.

“Fair.” I focused on Karen. “So your family needed to be asleep, and you helped them?”