Page 8 of A Divided Duty

“All right,” I said. “Follow me.”

I turned and started for the tallest hill in the park, not looking back as I walked. Tybalt quickly drew up level with me, and together we climbed to the summit, surrounded by waving golden summer grasses and patches of flowering yellow mustard. A redtail hawk called in the distance, and for a moment, it was almost possible to forget that we were in the very heart of human suburbia, surrounded on all sides by homes and highways, businesses and bodies.

The moment passed. I left the hiking trail for the stand of hawthorn bushes off to the side, Tybalt flashing past me in feline form. I rolled my eyes. “Showoff,” I muttered, as he slunk under the bushes and I crawled, only wincing a little as the thorns dug into my arms.

Once I emerged from the bushes, I made a beeline for the nearest oak tree, running six times counterclockwise around it. Tybalt did the same, shifting back to a bipedal form halfway through. I shook my head indulgently as he did. There was a time when I would have been convinced someone was going to see us, despite the empty afternoon park all around. Keeping the existence of Faerie a secret from the human world is essential if we want to survive, but humans are good at dismissing things they don’t, can’t, or won’t believe. No one was going to see a cat run off into the grass, point at a man, and shout “Shapeshifter!” This wasn’t a movie.

After our sixth trip around the tree, I stopped, turned, and knocked on the surface of a nearby stump, the wood solid and warm beneath my hand. A moment later, a door swung open in the trunk of a hollow oak tree. There hadn’t been a door there before. That wasn’t unusual. Knowes tend to announce themselves in odd ways.

The woman in the doorway was stranger when compared to the human norm. She was lithe and gray-skinned, with darker gray hair, wearing blue-and-yellow livery. Two glowing orbs circled her head, spinning endlessly around her, like they were moons and she was the entire world. She looked at us impassively.

I offered her a shallow bow. “Sir Grianne,” I said. “As a fellow knight of these halls in company of my husband, I beg you entrance. I wish to speak to my liege lord.”

A flicker of amusement kindled in her pale green eyes. “Formal,” she said. I couldn’t tell whether she meant that approvingly or not. “Unusual.”

“Yeah, well.” I straightened. “I don’t stand on formality most of the time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how it’s supposed to work.”

“I’ve been helping her polish her manners,” said Tybalt.

I elbowed him lightly in the side—but when I looked back, Grianne was smiling.

It was easy to forget that the two of them had gone through a whole story of their own while I was busily trying to run away from mine. They were closer now than I remembered them being, and she was looking at him like he was an old friend.

“Rand,” she said, and this time I could hear the approval. “Nice seeing you.”

“I apologize for my long absence,” he said, with a slight bow of his own. “I found my wife, as well you know, and I found her with child. It seemed prudent to stay near our home until the babe was born, and after her arrival, it seemed a good idea to continue staying near to home, for her peace and protection.”

Grianne nodded. “Knew she was pregnant,” she said, gesturing toward me. “Got pictures?”

Tybalt turned. “Can you show her on your phone?” he asked.

I smiled. “Of course I can. And of course I have pictures, Grianne. I’m just trying not to shove them at people until they ask.”

“Asking,” she said, and stepped back from the doorway, allowing us to enter the knowe.

As always, there was a moment of disorientation when I stepped over the threshold, the world warping around me before it allowed me to recover my balance. Entering the Summerlands will do that to a body, especially when that body is still part human. Maybe once I give up the last of my mortality, entering Shadowed Hills won’t make me feel so much like I’m going to toss my cookies. Although given the circumstances, that could have been equally due to the fact that I was nervous about seeing Sylvester.

Either way, I unlocked my phone and spent a few minutes scrolling through baby pictures for Grianne to see. Candela are infamously taciturn, and Grianne is no different: from her, the four-word acknowledgement of my pregnancy bordered on a monologue. Still, she made all the appropriate noises of admiration and appreciation as I flipped through the images of my daughter.

Babies are always a novelty and a delight in Faerie, where the birthrate is less a series of peaks and valleys than a straight, flat line. Miranda was the only full fae baby born in the kingdom so far this year; Simon and his spouses had had twins at almost the same time, but they lived under the Pacific Ocean, in the Kingdom of Leucothea. They were on a different census.

We don’t have a lot of playdates, is what I’m getting at.

Once Grianne had finished admiring my baby pictures, I tucked the phone back into my pocket and shot her a curious look. “You know where the Duke is?”

“Yes.”

I waited. She didn’t say anything else. I pinched the bridge of my nose, barely managing not to sigh. “Can you tell me where he is?”

“Yes.” This time she took pity, and kept talking: “Balcony. Big one.”

“Excellent. You’ve been very helpful.” I turned away, trying to ignore the obvious amusement on Tybalt’s face. “Come on, let’s go.”

He matched me step for step. “You’re sure you want me in attendance? Your liege and I have not always been the closest of associates. When last I saw him, he had me confined to his dungeons.”

“Because he thought you were a weirdo from an extinct descendant line who was stalking his helpless changeling niece,” I said.

Tybalt shrugged one shoulder. “He was partially correct.”