Page 9 of A Divided Duty

“Behave.”

The conversation helped to distract me from the fact that we were walking through a knowe I would once have referred to as my second home—that I had once dreamt of making my first home, of holing up in the kitchens and never, ever leaving. The floor today was polished mahogany, deep red and visceral. The color was echoed in the tapestries on the walls and the pink-and-red trim on the windows, stained glass painting the air around it like a valentine.

As a knowe, Shadowed Hills was fully capable of redecorating entirely on its own, but would generally choose to reflect the tastes and desires of its occupants and owners. This was Luna’s handiwork, ringing her world with roses.

I used to associate roses so strongly with her that they were one of my favorite flowers. Now, though, they made me think of Titania and Evening just as much as they did Luna, and while Luna and I might be fighting, Titania and Evening and I were enemies. Roses, rich red garden roses, were never going to be a comfort to me again.

Even the air smelled like roses. I shivered and moved a little closer to Tybalt as we continued down the hall, passing open rooms and the occasional courtier, all of whom stopped to stare at me like I was the last thing they had ever expected to see. Which maybe I was, given how scarce I’d been lately—and how some of them had treated me while we were all enchanted. Sylvester has always made an effort to employ changelings, so the makeup of the knowe had been a good one for me during that alternate life, but a lot of them had resented the fact that I was treated like family by their Duke, while they were expected to stay within their stations.

It hadn’t been my fault, or his, or theirs. But from the looks some of them were shooting in my direction, they didn’t care about that as much as they cared about the fact that while they’d been eating in the kitchens or their bedrooms, I’d been allowed to sit beside my uncle during family dinners.

It had all been a lie dreamt up by a woman who thought changelings were only worth what they could do for her, but it had seemed real while we were inside it. Tybalt put an arm around my shoulders, shooting a glare over my head at the onlookers, and we kept walking.

Gradually, the knowe brightened around us, reds and rose pinks fading into daffodil yellow, like we were walking into some sort of an Easter display, or into the heart of a large garden rose. The hall curved, and then we were facing a pair of high, intricately filigreed metal doors, set with panes of sparkling silver glass. It was transparent enough to see through, but so filled with captive glitter that it turned functionally opaque. I stepped out from under Tybalt’s arm, and he stayed where he was, watching as I approached and opened the door.

We hadn’t run into Etienne for him to stay with while I talked to my liege, but he could wait in the hall, and here of all places, he wasn’t terribly concerned about me being attacked. Oh, I had been, but that was nothing special—I’ve been attacked just about everywhere. It’s like there’s something about me that just encourages people to want me dead. Probably my sparkling personality.

It’s rarely truly daytime in the Summerlands. The best we tend to manage is a sort of storybook twilight, the sky studded with multiple moons and glowing in shades of purple and blue that the mortal world only sees when atmospheric conditions are somehow precisely right. Shadowed Hills is unusual in that it does experience daylight on occasion: Luna’s gardens need the sun if they’re going to thrive. So I wasn’t sure what to expect when I stepped outside. I just knew it wasn’t the rosy gold and pink of dawn. But that was precisely what I walked into, the sky like a teenager’s prom dress, still sequined with the last stars of the night, and beaded with at least six moons slipping down toward the horizon.

I stopped where I was, blinking. The weather and the time of day in and around the knowes both reflect the needs and mental states of their holders. In the case of Shadowed Hills, that meant responding to Sylvester and Luna, since he had long since made her his equal in the eyes of his land. Dawn is so rare in the Summerlands that I just didn’t have a frame of reference.

The balcony itself was clearly being decorated for a party. Staff and courtiers buzzed everywhere, explaining the semi-empty halls: they’d all been here, getting things ready for whatever they were intending to celebrate. Lines of refreshment tables divided the balcony into discrete sections, this one with small tables and chairs, that one with a temporary stage for the band to occupy. A few Hobs I recognized from the groundskeeping staff were arranging flowers in vast bouquets, dominated by roses, yes, but studded with daffodils and branches of flowering dogwood.

A few more groundskeepers stood nearby with arms full of mustard flowers and blackthorn branches, and my heart sank. I knew what this was all about. I started toward them, and stopped as I spotted a more-familiar figure fussing with the banquet tables. I swerved, heading for her instead. If anyone could explain the situation to me, it would be Melly.

Melly and Ormond had been with Shadowed Hills longer than anyone else I knew on the staff, running the kitchen together with practiced ease that radiated out through the rest of the staff. They were both Hobs, but weren’t a couple, and weren’t related so far as I knew; their relationship was strictly professional, born of the shared desire to keep the kitchen running smoothly and make sure everyone in their orbit was properly fed. Melly was the mother of one of my closest childhood friends, Kerry.

Kerry is a changeling, much like me. Her father was half-Hob, half-human, and left Shadowed Hills long before I arrived there for the first time, pursuing other opportunities, whatever that meant. Kerry baked my wedding cake, and while Stacy, who was our childhood partner in crime, turned out to be Titania in disguise, I was almost certain Kerry wasn’t secretly Maeve.

Almost. Sure enough that I was still willing to hang out with her in the wake of what had happened with Stacy, which was impressive under the circumstances.

“Melly,” I called.

She looked up, eyes widening in surprise, and then turned, a pleased smile creasing her well-worn face. Fae stop aging when they reach physical adulthood, but some descendant lines wear their years differently than others. Hobs, like Coblynau, tend to wrinkle as they get older, softening and sweetening until they look like the ideal of mortal grandparents. Kerry used to grumble that it wasn’t fair that she was the only one of us who was going to get crow’s-feet when she was older, but I always thought it was nice how at least some of us got to look like we were out of our twenties. Eventually.

“Toby-girl!” exclaimed Melly, sounding delighted. She put down the table she’d been adjusting and moved toward me, reaching out to take my hands in hers and squeeze them firmly. “What brings you home? Oh, we’ve missed you, sweetling. Where’s that baby of yours? I want to pinch her little cheeks and tell her what a lucky child she is, to have a hero for a mother.”

“Miranda’s at home with May, having her nap,” I said. “She spends a lot of time sleeping, unless her father and I are trying to sleep. Then she spends a lot of time refusing to sleep. It’s an endless adventure.”

“Stubborn, then, just like her mama,” said Melly, delighted.

“And her father,” I said. “He’s here, waiting in the hall, since he and Duke Torquill haven’t always gotten along.”

“Oh, and he doesn’t want to make things worse for you if the Duke is with the Duchess, no?” Melly sounded truly sympathetic, fully aware of how strained things had become between myself and Luna, and understanding the reason I might be taking precautions.

“Something like that,” I agreed. I waved a hand, trying to encompass the fuss on the balcony around us. “Melly, what’s going on here?”

“Ah…” Melly hesitated, looking at my face. “I think I might prefer not to say.”

“Melly, come on. Please.”

“It doesn’t feel as if it’s my place to tell the Duke’s business, if he hasn’t chosen to disclose it.”

“Melly.”

“His Grace is arranging a celebration of his only daughter’s return, now that her term of offense is coming to an end,” she said. “If you’re here as well, we might rightly be celebrating the both of you. It’s been too long since you walked with us on any reliable sort of basis. We miss you awfully.”

“Yeah, well. I’ve been sort of busy,” I said, uncomfortably. “And the Duchess doesn’t much care for me right now, so it’s best if I keep away.”