Page 69 of A Divided Duty

It sounded like a disaster waiting to happen, but she was right: it would save a lot of time, and the harder I tried to shut her out, the more likely she was to follow me and cause problems by trying to stay out of sight. Like recognizes like, I guess.

“Yes,” I agreed, slowly. “That does sound like a plan, as long as you can promise that you’ll stay in your parents’ quarters until I’m ready to go. Don’t go sleuthing around on your own. Okay? I really need you to be on the same page with this, Chelsea. It could be dangerous for Raysel if you don’t listen to me.”

She looked at me for a moment, eyes wide and bright with both fear and stubborn determination. Then she nodded, once, and waved her hand to open a portal that showed the front porch on the other side. “I’m going to go tell Danny he can leave,” she said, and stepped through, the portal snapping shut behind her.

I sighed and turned my attention to shucking off my untied gown. I hadn’t quite realized how heavy it was until it was on the floor. I turned quickly to the dresser, grabbing jeans and a tank top and re-belting my knives at my waist before stepping into my shoes and moving to grab my leather jacket from where it was hanging on the back of the closet door. I felt better as soon as it settled over my shoulders. I was a knight, and somewhere along the line, this old leather jacket had become my armor. As long as I was wearing it, there was nothing I couldn’t handle.

And maybe if I could get past that attitude, I would get stabbed a little less. Probably not, though.

As an afterthought I fished the candles out of my gown and shoved them into the back pocket of my jeans before I grabbed a hair tie from the bookshelf nearest the door and let myself out of the room, pulling my hair into a ponytail as I trotted down the stairs. Voices were coming from the living room, and I turned in that direction.

No surprise, Chelsea was already there, leaning against the wall. May was sitting on the couch with Jazz, and Tybalt was seated in the battered old leather armchair we’d found at an estate sale, Miranda on his chest, both of them dead asleep. I cast them a fond look.

“I wish Andi were awake, so she could see that Mama does still exist,” said May wryly.

I winced and turned to face her. “I’m sorry. We didn’t expect something this urgent to come up while we were at court, and once it did, we didn’t exactly get to say ‘Yeah, but we can only try to find the missing girl for two hours before we need to get home and relieve my Fetch.’ Can you forgive us?”

May managed to maintain her irritated expression for several seconds before it melted into tired amusement. “Of course. She’s no trouble, but that’s going to change when she starts crawling on her own. For right now, I just feed her, burp her, change her, and try not to drop her.”

I must have looked alarmed, because Jazz laughed. “No one’s dropping the baby, Toby.”

“I know. I just … I hate having to be away from her for this long.”

“Remember when you were climbing the walls trying to get out of here?”

“Yes, I do,” I said. “And I still don’t like being cooped up. But it’s worth it now, if it keeps her safe. I have to do my job.”

“What’s going on?” asked May.

Chelsea pushed away from the wall, shaking her head. “No, no, no,” she said. “Tybalt’s staying here, and he has to wake up eventually. He can fill you in on all the details when he does. For right now, we’re heading to Shadowed Hills so we can get Raysel back, and so I can never let her out of my sight again, got it?”

“Got it,” said May, looking amused. “Just be sure you come home before vanishing for another eight-hour stretch, or we’re going to run out of breast milk in the kitchen, too.”

“We have formula in an emergency,” I said. “She doesn’t like it as much, but she’ll drink it, and it’s not going to hurt her. It was a gift from the Luidaeg. It’s probably the healthiest thing she’ll ever have.”

“I still want you to come home,” said May. “And if you can’t, call, or it’ll be Tybalt’s turn to climb the walls.”

“I will,” I promised. “Where are Dean and Quentin?”

“Upstairs asleep,” said May. “I told them it was safe to get some rest, since you didn’t seem to be on the verge of death or disaster.”

“Good call,” I said.

Chelsea grabbed my wrist. “I already chased off a very irritated Bridge Troll, and we don’t have time to stand around here chatting about everyone in the house,” she said, voice strained. “We need to get to Shadowed Hills.”

Her free hand sketched a circle in the air, a portal opening to show the back garden at Shadowed Hills, all green grass, hedges, and blooming roses. She stepped forward, tugging me with her, and even though the portal had been floating several feet above the ground, we were somehow on the other side, standing on that perfectly manicured grass, surrounded by the sounds of the garden.

Shadowed Hills is one of the few knowes I know with a true day-night cycle. Sylvester gets to decide when the sun rises and sets, and out of respect for Luna’s gardens, he keeps it pretty close to the human world’s twenty-four hours. If anything, the day was further along here than it had been in the mortal world. I took a deep breath, enjoying the uncomplicated smell of roses that weren’t connected to anybody’s magic, that weren’t going to hurt me in some way.

Chelsea still had hold of my wrist. She began pulling me toward the knowe, yanking hard. I dug my heels into the grass, refusing to be moved.

“No,” I said. She turned to give me a scandalized look, and I shook my head. “You promised you’d go to see your mother, remember? I need to do this in my own way, without people clamming up because they assume you’re going to report everything they say back to your father. Go on now. I’ll come find you when I’m ready to leave.”

Still looking deeply unhappy with me, Chelsea released my wrist and opened another portal, stepping through and disappearing. She’d grown up without her magic, come into it, and then been locked out of it for a year for her own safety. Now that she had it back again, she used it as much as she could get away with. I wasn’t sure she’d ever walk anywhere if she didn’t have to, and honestly, I could respect that. She knew what she wanted, and she was staying on course to enjoy herself as much as possible. We should all be that self-aware.

Speaking of self-awareness, I was aware that I had a job to do. I started across the green, angling for the small door at the base of the building, just above the foundation stones. That was the door that would lead me directly to the kitchen, where the people I needed to see were likely to be found.

The door opened on a cool, dim hall, the air heavy with the faint petrichor taste of an underground passage. Here, the seasons outside barely changed anything. It was cool in the summer and warm enough that your fingers wouldn’t freeze in the winter. More, it was effectively invisible to the nobility—beginning with most of the knights and ladies of the court. They were barely titled according to the hierarchy, but it was enough that they wiped the world belowstairs from their minds. I’d always considered that to be short-sighted.