Page 62 of A Divided Duty

“She never agreed to this!”

“None of us did.” Athan braced their hands against their mare’s neck, and they were abruptly mounted. I hadn’t seen them swing themselves into position; one moment they were on foot and the next they were astride, ready to challenge the night as Blind Michael’s Riders always had. “The game is simple: hide-and-seek. We will not fight you if you find her, will allow her to be taken back to her daylit world and softened into something that can survive there. But if the hour grows late and the time runs out before you have her back again, the game’s lost, and the girl lost with it. These are the rules.”

“We didn’t agree to play,” I said quickly.

“No one in this land ever has,” said Athan, hauling on the reins. The mare turned without resisting, cantering away without any sign that she didn’t want to go.

I turned to Tybalt, at least in part to keep myself from chasing after the retreating Rider. He was scowling after them, hands flexing at his sides as he struggled to contain his claws.

“Tybalt?”

“Must everything here be a game?”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “That’s how Michael designed this place, and I don’t think Acacia has ever cared enough to unmake those rules. They play by children’s logic here, and they follow the rules of children’s games. Athan probably thinks there’s no harm in stealing Raysel away from her life. That was done to everyone here except for Acacia, and they’ve all made the best of it.”

Like a Neverland where Peter never asked for permission, only took what he wanted and carried it away, leaving shipwrecks in his wake.

“So what do we do now?”

“We find her.” I tilted my chin up enough to meet his eyes, not flinching away from the misery in his expression. “Athan told us more than they realize. We know there were two people involved in telling the Riders what Luna had planned, and at least one of them was probably a servant at Shadowed Hills. Servants are invisible in the noble houses. They can take advantage of that, if they’re clever about it, and anyone who’s served for more than a few decades is probably clever, to keep from being dismissed from their position. I already thought we needed to go to Shadowed Hills, but now I’m certain. Whoever we’re looking for is probably there.”

Tybalt hesitated, then nodded. “All right,” he said. “We go to Shadowed Hills.”

“Or, well, I go to Shadowed Hills. You go home and give May a few hours of relief.”

For a moment, I thought he was going to argue with me. Then he sighed and leaned toward me, until he was resting his forehead against my own.

“Little fish, I adore you,” he said. “And that may be the only reason I can survive you. We’ll return to the house together, and I’ll remain while you journey onward. Just call before leaving Shadowed Hills. I want to be able to rejoin you when May is prepared to resume sitting for our child.”

“I will,” I agreed. “Let’s go see how close Acacia is to waking up.”

He stepped back, taking my hand, and together we walked back into the woods, away from the looming, tortured shape of Michael’s stable.

THIRTEEN

IT WAS MORE OBVIOUS now which of the trees contained Acacia: where they had all looked the same a few hours before, now the one at the center of the largest ring had the distinct curves and softness of a woman’s body, the gentle outlines of a face. If I looked closely, I could even see the waves in the bark where her hair would have been, were she not currently wrapped in wood.

There was a fallen log nearby. I sat down. After a moment’s hesitation, Tybalt sat beside me, and I scooted closer, resting my head against his shoulder. All around us, the sounds of the night forest continued to play, the chirping of insects, the rustle of leaves, even the skittering of small creatures in the underbrush. I looked up, through the trees to the cloud-patched, starry sky.

“Sometimes I forget just how powerful the Firstborn are, and then I remember that Michael just made this,” I said, idly.

Tybalt made an interrogative sound. I shrugged, still looking up at the stars.

“The whole skerry. The land, the sky, the water—assuming there is any that doesn’t come from a well—the forest, the stars. Well, maybe not the whole forest. I’m sure Acacia did a lot of the heavy lifting there.” What was the point of marrying a woman called “the Mother of Trees” if you weren’t going to ask her to help with the landscaping? It seemed like the very definition of playing to her strengths. “He thought of it, he imagined it, and then he made it real. This whole world exists because he wanted it to. I’m lucky if I can maintain a human disguise long enough to run errands without forgetting what shape I want my ears to be, and he just … made this place. Made it so well that it’s still here, even after he’s dead. The Firstborn are terrifying.”

“That they are,” agreed Tybalt. “I never expected my life to bring me into contact with so many of them, but given the reasons that it does, I wouldn’t trade their presence for anything. In a roundabout way, it was the Firstborn who brought me to you.”

“In a not-so-roundabout way, too,” I said. “I wouldn’t exist without Amandine, no matter what fae law says about my parentage. So that’s one Firstborn essential to our lives.”

“I doubt, without the machinations of the Rose of Winter, that you would ever have come to ask me for my aid,” he said. “And without that request, we might never have grown closer. Once we did grow closer, I feel our love became inevitable, but that initial push was needed, and loathe as I am to grant her credit for anything I adore, she did provide us with the excuse.”

I laughed. “Oh, she would be horrified to hear that we were her fault. If she ever wakes up, remind me to bring a camera with me when I go to tell her.”

Tybalt scoffed. “If she ever wakes up, you will not be ‘going to tell her’ anything. I will be doing my very best to prevent you coming within seven leagues of her, and if I have to sell myself to the Luidaeg to keep that winter witch at bay, I’ll do it.”

“It was a joke, kitty-cat,” I said, dropping my eyes from the sky to look at him.

He was visibly distressed, lips tight and pupils narrowed. He slid an arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer to him. “Some things are never humorous, however lightly said,” he said. “Please, no jokes about that woman. I know too well what she’s capable of.”