Page 25 of The Innocent Sleep

“Not a name heard often in this time.”

“No, but mine all the same.”

“Do you require the hospitality of my house?”

It would be a gamble, to linger so close to Amandine’s tower, if I failed to remove October on my first attempt. Still, it would also be a convenience, and give me more opportunity to speak with Garm about what the Gwragen knew, and what was kept within the Library. I would have to do my best to keep out of Etienne’s way, and avoid Simon if he came to visit his brother while I was in residence.

“It would be a great honor, sir,” I said.

“Then you have three full days from this moment, and should you please us, your time may be extended,” he said. He slumped in the chair then, moving one hand in an odd gesture which I interpreted as dismissal. “May your quest be fruitful, and your bride to your bower be restored, even as the rose is brought back unto the thorn.”

It was an old blessing, and not one I had heard in quite some time. I hesitated before turning away.

Titania was trying to return Faerie to an older state, and a time when we had been less joyfully entangled with the mortal world. That was no real surprise, and yet still it startled me, as did my revulsion toward the notion. I had been as opposed as any other to Faerie’s entanglement at one point; it was dangerous, to yoke ourselves so closely to such a changeable world. My attitude had altered with time, and with exposure to October and her friends, all of whom had been very much a product of that collision between cultures. It was hard to hate something that had given me some of my favorite people.

Garm bowed as he moved to join me, escorting me from the receiving room. “Melly will prepare a room for you,” he said, once we were back in the hall.

“There’s no rush: I won’t be using it for several hours,” I replied. “I have lingered long enough, and must go to seek my lady. When does your time of duty end?”

“An hour past midnight.”

“I’ll return for you then,” I said. “I wish to accompany you to the Library.”

He nodded, and I had time to see his eyes widen as I stepped into shadow, vanishing from the knowe.

I was assembling quite the list of tasks. Feed my people. Assist Shade in feeding hers. Go to the Library. Learn what I could. Find October. Snap her out of this illusionary reality in which she was trapped. Return Simon and August to the Undersea. And, one assumed eventually, track down and murder Titania.

Really, it was a social calendar that would have exhausted a lesser man. I was tired just thinking about it. I ran through the darkness, covering the short distance between Shadowed Hills and Amandine’s tower in a matter of seconds. I was preparing to drop back into the Summerlands when I slammed into a barrier that knocked me back a step, leaving me disoriented in the dark.

I frowned, moving carefully forward to the point where I had been knocked back, and sniffed at the thin air. Blood and roses, and a trace, distant but clear, of mulled apple cider. Amandine’s tower wards. That was . . . interesting.

Before the divorce, they had always been set to admit family, while keeping everyone else locked out. It was reasonable that she wouldn’t consider me family, but October did, and previously that had been sufficient to get me through doors locked in such a manner. Titania’s spell might have changed October’s mind, briefly, but it couldn’t change the nature of our bond, or unmake the vows we had made to one another. She was carrying my child. Whatever she thought or felt in the moment, we were family.

. . . and unless Titania had thought through things in more detail than seemed to be her custom, October was not Amandine’s family. Neither were August and Simon. The divorce had been as magically binding as our wedding. That style of ward would have left them all sealed outside and left her alone.

Oberon’s protections had covered those of us whom October considered her family. What damage would Titania’s careful revisions have done to that connection? Perhaps October and Amandine once more believed themselves to be family. I couldn’t think about it in too much detail or I would drive myself to distraction, chasing my own tail with no chance for clarification. Better to worry about it later, and deal with the immediate issue to hand: either Titania’s spell had changed things on a deeper level than I would have thought possible, or Amandine had changed her approach, whether she understood why her customary wards weren’t working or not.

Backing up, I found the edge of those wards and stepped out into the Summerlands, finding myself in the tall grass easily twenty yards from the tower. This was untended heath, growing wild and uncultivated. That was little change; I was accustomed to the land around the tower being a bit more grassy and dense with wildflowers, but at least no major structures had appeared or disappeared. The tower itself looked as it always had, tall and white and implacable against the twilight sky, jutting up from Amandine’s walled garden like a challenge to all disarray.

Cautious, and aware that I would be all too visible from the tower windows, I began to approach.

I hadn’t gone but half the distance between myself and the garden wall before I was seized by a sudden wave of agonizing pain, like all my nerves were catching fire at once. I stepped back, and the pain faded.

Another layer of warding, then, this one geared specifically at people who might mean Amandine ill. I took a deep breath and tried to clear my thoughts, telling myself that for all her failings, this wasn’t her fault; she wasn’t the reason for Titania’s return, or why October had been swept away from me. It was a difficult train of thought. Maybe this wasn’t her fault, but so much else had been that it was hard to find any grace for her, however hard I searched.

Finally, sure that I no longer wished her ill—at least in the moment—I took another step forward, and stumbled back as the pain returned. The wards were not going to allow me passage. I was still too far away to stand and yell, if that would have even helped. Well.

One of the reasons some nobles of the Divided Courts hate the Cait Sidhe so much is our gift for getting in where we technically shouldn’t be. A cat may look at a king, after all, and that means a cat must be able to access the king in question. I dropped to the ground, shifting into feline form, and began to trot forward. I passed the point where the pain had been lurking without any further troubles, and flicked my tail smugly before continuing on.

Half-familiar magic pressed oppressively down on me, and I knew changing back into a more humanoid shape would be impossible while inside the spell’s border if it was actively engaged in protecting its people. The thought brought a jet of panic with it. Amandine had imprisoned me in feline form once before, to compel October’s obedience, and the experience had left me traumatized, terrified to change forms, frightened of my own magic. It was no way to live. It had very nearly been enough to destroy me. The thought of it happening again . . .

For October, I would endure it. I prowled onward, belly low to the ground, wind bringing me all manner of information that a Sidhe nose would be incapable of collecting. I smelled flowers and herbs, both healthy and flourishing. I smelled blood and roses, and smoke and mulled cider, and the faint, distant traces of freshly cut grass. October had been here, and recently enough that her magic yet lingered in the air.

When I reached the wall, I leapt up onto it and sat, curling my tail around my legs as I stared into the garden. It was as lush and thriving as its scent implied, flowers in every possible color of the rainbow blooming everywhere I looked. At the center of it stood the tower, pristine, white, and smooth. Some of the windows might have been accessible through the trees, and as if in answer to that thought, one of those windows opened and August slid out, dropping into the waiting branches of a tall cherry tree. Her arrival sent pink petals cascading like confetti, and more fell as she descended.

A moment later, a second head poked out of the window, so familiar that my heart stopped beating and my breath caught in my throat.

“August, you walnut, what do you think you’re doing?” October demanded. “You know Mother’s due to return home today! She’ll scold you silly if she finds you outside the tower, and strip me of all indulgences for a month!”