Page 15 of A Divided Duty

“What could possibly be a good-enough cause to interrupt movie night? Dean’s already here, so I know you’re not asking me to go and fetch him.”

“I’m at Shadowed Hills right now. I just had a big fight with Luna. And Sylvester finally took my side.”

Chelsea sucked in her breath, sharp and surprised. “Wait, really? Against the Duchess?”

“Yeah. I think he’s having a panic attack right now. He’s definitely falling apart a little bit, and I need some backup here. I need you to go to Saltmist and ask Simon if he’s willing to come and support his brother. Please.”

“I can do that.” Recalcitrance had been fully replaced by eagerness. “I can do that right now. I’m going to do that right now. Where in the knowe are you?”

“I’m right outside Sylvester’s study. If you bounce to your quarters, your dad will be able to open a portal into the study itself.” Knowes have a tendency to rearrange themselves when they get bored or restless or just feel like there’s a more convenient route for getting the dishes to the kitchen. Most teleporters can’t really navigate them by portal. As Sylvester’s seneschal, Etienne had a rare gift for always opening portals exactly where he wanted to be inside the knowe. Chelsea didn’t quite have the knack yet.

“Got it. I’ll go get him, and I’ll see you soon.”

The line went dead. I put the phone back into my pocket and opened the study door.

Sylvester was still sitting behind his desk, but he had uncovered his face and was looking wearily at Tybalt, who was leaning against the desk, weight balanced on one hip and arms crossed, looking like every dirtbag cousin to have ever appeared in a production of Romeo & Juliet. Sometimes he took way too much pleasure in living up to his name.

“I understand your position, but I think you’re being a little harsh,” said Sylvester.

“Spoken like a man who didn’t need to watch my lady trying to recover from her hurt every time you rejected her over things that weren’t her fault,” said Tybalt. “September would be ashamed of you.”

“Please, Rand. You’re one of the only people left who can invoke my sister from a position of having actual knowledge, not just assumptions. Please don’t make me consider how disappointed she would be by what I’ve become.”

“For my lady’s sake, I’ll refrain, but understand that you deserve it.”

“I do,” said Sylvester.

“Understand?”

“And deserve it.”

I decided that was a good time to interrupt. I walked back to the chair I had abandoned before, dropping myself into it. “We should have company in just a few minutes.”

Sylvester frowned at me. “Who did you call?”

“Exactly who I said I was going to call, in a roundabout sort of way. Chelsea’s on her way to pick up Simon now. There’s no way he’s not going to come. Not when you need him.”

“You’re wrong,” said Sylvester. He sounded so defeated that I wanted to go around the desk and hug him, the way I would have when I was younger, when everything had seemed so much simpler.

But it hadn’t been. He’d been estranged from his brother even then, and Evening had already been weaving her terrible plans for the Mists, and for all of Faerie. Things had always been complicated. I’d just been young and naïve enough not to see how bad they actually were.

I think it’s always like that. The simple, golden days we look back on were never as straightforward as they seemed when we were living through them. They were just doing a better job of hiding how complicated the situations were.

Instead, I leaned in toward Tybalt and gave Sylvester a stern look. “That’s no way to talk about your brother, you know. He really does love you.”

As if to punctuate my statement, the smell of cedar smoke and limes slithered through the air even as a gleaming circle appeared in the air, a few feet in front of the door. All three of us turned to look at it, and as we watched, a man stepped through.

He was a mirror to the man already in the room, pale-skinned, red-haired, and golden-eyed, and yet it was impossible to imagine mistaking one of them for the other. Which was, in its way, terribly funny, because there had been a time when I hadn’t been able to reliably tell them apart. They had the same face in addition to having the same coloring, they were the same height, and now that Simon was eating more regularly, they even had roughly the same build. Unlike Sylvester’s velvet livery, Simon was wearing a light linen shirt and a pair of loose brown trousers; he wasn’t dressed for court, or for company. But he was here.

I caught a glimpse of Etienne behind him before the circle closed, taking the smell of the enchantment with us, and Simon was left in the room with myself, Tybalt, and his brother. He approached the desk with slow caution, hands low at his sides, and bent slightly, tilting his head so that he could get a better look at Sylvester.

“Brother?” he asked.

Sylvester made a strange choking sound, like he couldn’t allow himself to believe that this was happening. “You came,” he said.

“Of course I came,” replied Simon. “All you ever had to do was call. I’ll admit, having one of Dean’s friends suddenly appear in the central nursery and start begging me to come away with her was a little bit surprising, but it wasn’t the strangest thing that’s ever happened, and it worked.”

“Chelsea has a range like no one else I’ve ever met,” I said. “I’m glad she was able to find you. Did she interrupt anything?”