Seanan McGuire - Chimes at Midnight

I sighed. “Sure.” I may be stubborn, but I know when I’ve been beaten. I took a sandwich. Quentin took two. “How are things around here?”

“Good. The Count’s getting his land-legs, and he’s a thoughtful boy who’ll be a thoughtful man someday. Sooner rather than later, if he has his way, but he’s only eighteen. We’re not pushing him yet.” Marcia cocked her head. “How about you? Are you doing well?”

“I am, yeah, except for the whole banishment thing.” The admission would have seemed impossible a year ago, when I’d lost my boyfriend and my daughter on the same brutal night. But time heals all wounds, and mine were healing.

“Banished. You , by her , over goblin fruit. I never thought I’d see the day.” Marcia scowled. “It’s filthy stuff. The Count doesn’t allow it in the knowe, and we’ve managed to keep everyone away from it, but that can’t last forever. Not with the way it’s spreading.”

“I don’t like goblin fruit either.” Marcia was a quarter-blood, more human than fae. Goblin fruit would probably kill her even faster than it killed most changelings. I took another drink of my coffee, and said, “I just can’t focus on that until I’ve dealt with the banishment. I’m not sure what King Gilad has to do with my being kicked out of the Kingdom, but when the Luidaeg tells me to do something, I try to do it. If it can get me un-banished, it’s worth the time.”

“And if not, at least there are sandwiches,” said Quentin.

“Way to look on the bright side there,” I said.

He grinned. “I know.”

Marcia, on the other hand, looked genuinely concerned. “Toby, are you sure that challenging the Queen’s declaration is, you know, a good idea?”

“No,” I admitted. “But it’s the only one I’ve got. She’s not going to stop the goblin fruit, and she’s not going to let me stay in her Kingdom. Right now, you could be handing out goblin fruit sandwiches in her Court and you wouldn’t actually be doing anything wrong.”

“Yes,” said Marcia bitterly. “I know.”

Oberon’s Law is supposedly the one unbreakable rule in Faerie: thou shalt not kill. Or at least, thou shalt not kill purebloods. Killing humans is okay. So is killing changelings. As a changeling who’s known and loved a lot of humans in my time, I’m not a big fan of the way the Law is enforced. I’m even less a fan of the way the Law is sometimes used: as a weapon. I killed a man named Blind Michael. It was self-defense, which is allowed under the Law. I was still considered guilty of his murder by the Queen, who would gladly have put me to death if I hadn’t been pardoned by the High King. At the same time, the bastards who were peddling goblin fruit to changelings could kill hundreds of people and not even get a slap on the wrist.

The Luidaeg was right: Faerie isn’t fair.

“Toby will find a way to fix it,” said Quentin. “She always does.”

“I wish I had as much faith in me as you do,” I said.

“Believing in you is not your job,” said Tybalt mildly. “It’s ours.”

“He’s right,” said Marcia. “So let us work, and eat another sandwich.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Between the burritos, the sandwiches, and the caffeine, I was starting to feel better—or at least less hungry, which was sort of the same thing. Now all I needed was something to hit, and I’d be doing great.

We chatted about the state of the County, our lives, and Marcia’s sandwiches until Dean came back, bare feet slapping against the stone. He looked entirely pleased with himself.

“Mom and Dad are on their way up, and they’d be glad to find you here upon arrival, so don’t leave,” he said.

“First part, formal message, second part, Dean’s addition,” I said to Quentin.

He nodded. “Definitely.”

Dean’s smile didn’t waver. “Hey, this is the most interesting thing that’s happened all week. Let me enjoy it.”

“My apologies, sire, if we endangered your enjoyment.” My mocking bow was accentuated by the coffee mug I was still holding in one hand.

Dean laughed. “You should come to visit more often. I think the knowe has missed you. I know the pixies have.”

“I’ve been busy,” I said. That, and Goldengreen, pleasant as it was these days, was altogether too haunted by the memories of my dead friends. As someone else’s home, I could appreciate it and even enjoy being there, for a little while. Anything longer than that, and I was likely to break down crying.

“Still, you’re always welcome here.” Dean took one of the last remaining sandwiches from the tray. “My parents will meet us in the cove-side receiving room. Come with me?”

“There’s a cove-side receiving room?” I asked, putting my mug down on Marcia’s tray and moving to follow Dean into the hall.

“The door was locked when I got here. I guess you didn’t get around to opening it.”

“I guess not.” Or it hadn’t been there when I was in charge of Goldengreen. I’ve long suspected that knowes were not only alive, they were capable of thought, even if the thoughts of a building were incomprehensible to the rest of us. Goldengreen had definitely expressed its preferences to me more than once when it was supposedly mine. Having a new Count who came from the Undersea could have inspired the knowe to form a more direct connection between the land and the water. As long as that was all it did, I was still comfortable walking down the spiraling stone stairway toward the distant sound of water lapping against sand.

There was a large room at the bottom of the stairs, maybe half the size of the central courtyard, with a high ceiling inlaid in quartz and mother-of-pearl. I wondered whether Dean had noticed how similar it was in design to the ceiling in his mother’s arrival chamber, or whether he’d dismissed it as being some sort of architectural standard for rooms like this.

The floor was treated redwood, which required more upkeep than marble but would be less slippery when wet. That was a good thing, since only two thirds of the room actually had a floor. The wood ended at a narrow strip of clean white sand, and then the water began, extending out into the ocean. Everything smelled of clean saltwater and the Summerlands sea, much like the Luidaeg’s apartment.

Tybalt sniffed the air, and smiled. Quentin looked curiously around. “This is a neat room,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” I replied, directing my comment toward the distant ceiling. Everyone deserves a few compliments. Even a building.

The surface of the water rippled, and the sleek black-haired head of Duchess Dianda Lorden of Saltmist broke through. Her husband was a few strokes behind her. Patrick lacked his wife’s natural advantages where swimming was concerned. Honestly, I was impressed he could make the trip at all, even with the aid of the water-breathing potion her Court alchemists brewed for him. Dean grinned and waved when he saw his parents, looking less like a Count and more like an ordinary teenage boy living on his own for the first time.

Patrick stood, waving back, and began wading through the waist-deep water toward us. Dianda remained low, swimming until the water got too shallow, and then pulling herself the rest of the way to the sand. Instead of legs, she had a jewel-toned tail, scaled in shades of purple and blue, which she stretched out as she reclined. Her flukes barely broke the surface.

“Your Grace,” I said, bowing to her. “Patrick.” He was technically the Ducal consort and not the Duke, which made formality a little less important with him.

Not that Dianda looked that formal. Without legs, she didn’t need pants, and her top was made of blue cotton, embroidered around the neck and cuffs with stylized green kelp. “Hello, October,” she said, sunny smile entirely at odds with her sour disposition the first time we met. Then again, at the time, her children were being held hostage, so I couldn’t blame her. “Forgive me if I don’t get up. It’s harvest season for us in the Undersea, and I’ve been in the fields every night for tides. I’m too tired to deal with having legs right now.”