Page 30 of The Innocent Sleep

“Tybalt,” she said, seeing me enter.

“Ginevra,” I replied mildly.

“Raj says we’re going to Costco?” she said, in a disbelieving tone. I nodded, and was amused to see the way her eyes widened.

“We are indeed,” I said. “The store will be closed upon our arrival, and they have those flat carts for people who want to buy more mustard than they have space in their homes. We’ll load them with cat food and the contents of the butcher’s shelves, and with anything else we might need, then tow them into shadow. If we can pull the handles through to where Gabriel and Emil can grab them, they can bring the carts fully into the Court, and Cal can handle the unloading.”

The young Cait Sidhe I had requested for this task stood a little straighter, puffing their chest out in pride at being asked to do something of obvious importance.

“I requested this garage not only because of its size and isolation from the main Court, but because of its location,” I said, looking at Ginevra. “Touch the Shadow Roads, and try to chart a course to the nearest Costco.”

Costco is a chain, or I wouldn’t have been nearly so cavalier about robbing them for everything that wasn’t nailed down. There are locations all over the Bay Area and, according to May, the United States. But as distance is still a factor when navigating the Shadow Roads, it was only the closest location we were concerned with. Ginevra closed her eyes, brow briefly furrowing, before her expression cleared and a slow smile blossomed on her lips, making her more lovely than she had ever been.

“Tybalt, you’re a genius,” she said, opening her eyes and turning to face me again.

“I am a man who understands desperation,” I corrected, politely. “The Court must be fed, and I must be free to seek my lady. I’ve found her body. Until I can free her mind, finding the physicality of her does me little good. This new world has some strange ideas about changelings that I have yet to fully comprehend. I need time to learn more, and the freedom to spend it as my quest makes necessary. So we go to the place with the most gathered resources, and we take what we need, and then the three of us will be able to go to Shade and help her do the same, thus keeping her Court from calamity, and I can go seeking a way to free my lady from her unfair predicament.”

“That doesn’t make you not a genius, it just makes you practical,” said Ginevra.

I turned to Gabriel. “Will Opal be well?” I asked.

“She will,” he said. “She’s strong, and she understands the necessity of keeping things under control. I don’t understand much of what you’re saying, but the Lady Ginevra has explained to us that the world isn’t meant to be the way it is right now, and I honestly believe her. There’s no way we could have survived this long, sealed in and depending on only three people to keep us fed and comfortable. We would have starved in the dark decades ago. And there are too many mortal cats.”

I blinked. “What does that have to do with anything?”

He looked uncomfortable. “A mortal cat, unaltered, will go into heat on a regular basis, and those of us who aren’t royal find it much more difficult to refuse our instinctual response. If we’d been locked in for as long as I know we have been, there wouldn’t be so many cats with mostly mortal heritage. They’d all have been bred to full changeling generations ago. That they haven’t means the numbers don’t add up.”

I wouldn’t have thought to use the kittens as proof that Titania’s reality was a false one, but if it worked for Gabriel, I wasn’t going to argue.

“I wish you could walk the shadows with us, old friend,” I said.

“Believe me, so do I,” he responded.

The Costco would close soon. I moved to stand with Raj and Ginevra.

“Once we have the supplies here, we’ll leave Opal and the others to handle distribution and storage, and the three of us will repeat the action in Berkeley,” I said. “It’s best if it were all to happen on the same night, to keep them from bolstering their security, and in my company, Shade will allow your passage.” Privately I thought that at this point, Shade would allow the passage of Faerie’s greatest monsters, if it would just leave her able to feed her people.

Ginevra nodded. “And then you’re off to find October.”

“To bring her home,” I said. “Yes. We may have allies, but it will take time to be sure, and my time will not be freed to that purpose until we have the food to keep our Court alive. Are we ready?”

Both nodded, and I gestured for them to follow as I stepped into shadow.

Even with the efforts we had made at proximity, we would have to pull the carts of stolen goods a short distance along the Shadow Roads. It wouldn’t be easy, or pleasant, and yet it was the only way.

Just because the Shadow Roads are shorter than other means of travel, that doesn’t make them instant. Still, we ran only perhaps twenty yards before we stepped out into the dim, cool air at the back of the warehouse store. Raj gasped. He had been to Costco before, but during the day and with a means of payment, not after hours and considering the whole place as a prize to be looted. Ginevra merely turned and embraced me, pressing her face against my upper arm.

“We can save them,” she said. “Oak and ash, we can actually save them.”

“Then let’s get started.”

We each grabbed the largest cart we could manage on our own and fanned out through the empty aisles, filling them from top to bottom with everything we could lift. The pet section was denuded in a matter of minutes, canned and dry food going into the carts with no concern for brand or quality: we were trying to fill stomachs, not preserve kidneys over the long stretch of time. If this went on long enough for feeding my subjects cheap cat food to become an issue, we were going to be doomed for other reasons. No veterinary care in the Court of Cats. No healer in my Court, although I had encountered them in others. No way out.

Raj filled a cart with treats, toys, and soft beds with fleece linings, shooting me a sharply challenging look when I seemed too curious. “We need to keep them happy as well as fed. Once their bellies are full, they’ll have more energy,” he said.

“There are toys for human children toward the front, and blankets. Be sure to grab some of those as well, for the kits that prefer to play in two-legged form, and for additional bedding.”

Raj brightened and ran off, loading his cart further.