“A few days?” asked Stacy, disbelievingly. “Do you honestly think he’s letting you out of the bed after a few days? I’m not even talking about sex, that’s a whole different timeline. He just wants to see you sleep for a damn change.”
Tybalt didn’t argue with her. I glanced at him and frowned. “Hey,” I said. “A little support here?”
“The lady speaks no lies,” he said. “I do want to watch you sleep. And wake, and shower, and eat balanced meals. I have already spoken to your liege, and to your Queen—our Queen now, I suppose, and that’s going to take some adjusting to—and to the Queen Regent of Angels. We are approved by all of them to depart Toronto for the Land of Disney. I would have preferred something with a bit more cultural weight to it, and perhaps a performance of Romeo and Juliet on offer, but I am assured the theatrical offerings of Southern California are adequate, and that I will be able to secure us tickets for any performance I can convince you to attend.”
I blinked at him. Then I blinked again, and looked to Stacy for confirmation. She was beaming, and nodded enthusiastically when I met her eyes.
“That’s right,” she said. “October Daye, you are going to Disneyland.”
“But . . . I promised the boys I’d take them to Disneyland,” I said, slightly dazed. “Tybalt, are we taking a flock of teenagers on our honeymoon?”
“Thank Oberon, no, we are not,” he said gravely. “Bridget assisted with many of the arrangements, having made this journey herself in days past, and she and Etienne have already agreed that they will take our band of shrieking hellions for their own excursion, after we have returned safely home. The house will never be unattended, the cats will never go unfed, and someone else will take the responsibility for the boys—and, one presumes, Chelsea—while we enjoy a moment’s peace.”
“Not just Chelsea,” said a new voice, as my sister all but materialized at my elbow. Dóchas Sidhe don’t have any innate teleportation magic, but purebloods of all kinds move quietly and gracefully, and I’d been distracted enough to let August get the jump on me.
I flinched away, making a small sound of alarm. She sighed, looking disappointed.
“Hey,” she said. “You’re the one who hit me with a baseball bat and slammed my head into a wall. Do you think maybe you could eventually forgive me for being a little hostile the first time we met?”
I glowered at her, not quite mustering the strength for a full-on glare. “This is forgiveness,” I said. “I didn’t tell them you couldn’t come to the wedding, and I didn’t ask you to leave when I saw you before.”
“Oh.” August looked disappointed, and for a moment, I felt almost bad. Then she perked up and beamed at me. “Bridget said there was no way she was going to Disneyland with three teenagers and no help, and then Simon said that if she’d let Dean and Peter come, he’d send me along to help play chaperone.”
Because my pureblood, time-displaced sister was absolutely the right choice for helping shepherd a bunch of over-stimulated, over-sugared teenagers around an amusement park. I stared at her. “You sure you don’t want to pick up a few of the Brown kids? Or maybe some of the other teens from the Court of Cats? Raj has a girlfriend who’d probably love to come.”
“Helen has agoraphobia and doesn’t like to leave her house,” said Raj, now standing by my other elbow. This time, I did yelp. I’m not proud of that, but I was at my own wedding reception, and thought I had the right to let my guard down a little.
Raj looked at me dispassionately, as if I hadn’t just screamed virtually in his ear. “She’s seeing a therapist,” he said. “Arden assisted us in finding someone whose practice is well-equipped for assisting changelings. But Disneyland would not be Helen’s idea of a pleasant vacation, nor would her father allow it. Now, Cal, from the Court, they would probably very much enjoy the opportunity.”
“No,” said August. “No more random teenagers. Gillian may be coming with us, and if she does, she’s the last one.”
The thought of my sister taking my daughter to Disneyland was enough to put my hackles up instantly. I scowled, not bothering to hide it. “If you hurt her . . .”
“October. She’s my niece. She’s family. Our mother may not have been kind, to either of us, but she taught me the importance of family, and our father has only done his best to reinforce that lesson, even as he seizes on this pretty opportunity to rid his halls of children for a few pleasant days of peace and plenty.” She leaned toward me then, grabbing my hands. “May that same peace and plenty rain down upon you for every day and every night you spend together, and may the hours of your marriage be more than can be counted.”
“Two,” said Tybalt, sounding faintly impressed, as August dropped my hands and walked away.
I turned my scowl on him. “Will they all be like that? People ambushing me with good wishes and then running away?”
“She appears to be sauntering more than running, and is now soliciting a server for a glass of wine,” said Tybalt, eyes following my sister’s retreat. “And no, the pattern does not demand an exit, it’s merely that it seems the people wishing us well have the good sense to know when they’ve exhausted your patience. I’m sure some of them will linger, just as some of them will be set to target me.”
“I’ve got one for Uncle Tybalt,” said Raj abruptly. We both turned to look at him, Tybalt making a little “well?” motion with his hand. Raj yawned.
“Not yet,” he said. “I don’t feel like it. I’ll do it in a little while.”
“Do you know who the other four people are?” I asked.
“I do.”
“And will you tell me?”
“I will not, oh look, there’s Cillian, bye!” And he was abruptly a small Abyssinian cat, shrouded by the smell of black pepper and burning leaves, as he turned and ran away across the clearing.
Stacy snorted. Julie didn’t bother with even that much discretion. She just laughed out loud, and kept laughing as Stacy backed away from me to stand beside her. Then she grinned at me, widely enough to show the pointed tips of her teeth.
“I don’t have a blessing for your house, at least not a formal one,” she said. “I sent a wedding gift from your registry—May has it—and I have a promise for you. I’m done being angry and I’m done lashing out. I know we’d started making our peace even before today, but I wanted to reassure you that I understand what happened wasn’t your fault, and you’ve only ever been doing the best you could with what you had. Which, let’s be honest, wasn’t all that much. I mean, you got screwed pretty hard at the starting line, but you’re doing okay as we move toward the finish.” She looked at Tybalt, clearly trying to see him like I did, then shook her head. “Just don’t expect me to start calling you ‘auntie’ and we’ll be fine.”
“Deal,” I said, laughing a little.
Julie grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me in, close enough to plant kisses on both my cheeks. Then she let me go, pushing me away from her, so that I knocked into Tybalt, who steadied me immediately, laughing a little. “No blessing,” she said again, “but I promise I won’t fight you, and that any kids you have will always know they can run to me for anything they need. You’re not my auntie, but I’ll be theirs. We were wild kids, and we only turned out as well as we did because we had a full pit crew waiting to fix our engines and get us back on the road when we broke something. I’ll be part of that crew for any children you have, forever.”
“Weird, but weirdly touching.” Over her shoulder, I saw two winged figures walking into the room—the orange sunset shape of the Luidaeg’s apprentice, Poppy, and the shorter, slighter form of High King Aethlin’s Ellyllon healer, Galen. “If you’ll excuse me, I see a man I need to talk to.”
“Of course,” she said, still smiling.
I glanced at Tybalt. “Don’t go anywhere,” I said, warningly, and started toward the pair.
The clearing, which had s
eemed immense when we arrived, was filling up more and more, not only with our friends and wedding guests, but with members of the High King’s staff, some in uniform and some out of it. I wondered how well most of them would react if I walked up and asked how they were enjoying crashing my wedding. Not too well, probably. People tend to get twitchy when a kingbreaker approaches them for no apparent reason.
I can’t say I’ve enjoyed the long, slow process of becoming the monster under most of the nobility’s beds, but it gives me a lot more sympathy for the Luidaeg. She became the monster under all the beds in Faerie a long, long time ago, and near as I can tell, she deserves it about as much as I do. Maybe less. After all, I’ve had a choice about most of the things I’ve done. Not all of them, not by a long shot—I didn’t have a choice when I went to Annwn, either the first time or any of the others; I didn’t have a choice when I brought my sister home, or when I found our missing communal father-figure—but enough of them that my reputation is at least partially of my own making.
Oddly, that helps me sleep during the day. Knowing I made my own bed makes it easier to lie in it.
The Luidaeg herself had yet to make an appearance. That was fine by me, since her father was also missing, and while it might be my fault he was back, that didn’t make me any more comfortable about having Oberon—the actual Oberon, father of us all, first among the fae—at my wedding, however incognito he was keeping himself. It felt . . . mythological, like something that should have happened to one of the great heroes of old, not something that should be happening to ordinary, everyday me. You know what else happened to the great heroes of old? Well, for the most part, they died. And not pleasantly in their beds, surrounded by their grandchildren, either.
Since dying horribly isn’t really one of my goals, I’d rather stay as far from becoming one of those sorts of stories as possible. “Galen,” I called, once I was close enough not to need to shout. “Do you have a moment?”
“Of course, Sir Daye,” he said, looking away from Poppy, who twinkled and offered me a small, quick wave before wandering off into the crowd. “The young lady who accompanied you here from the Mists, were you aware that she’s Aes Sidhe?”
“I knew, yes.”
“They’re a winged breed that hasn’t been seen in centuries,” he said, clearly warming to his topic. “My grandmother used to talk about having known one of them. He was supposedly a very focused and inventive lover. They all died out, of course, as so many parts of Faerie have. I never thought to see one of her kind.”
So someone was smitten, then. I smiled, turning to head back toward Tybalt, Galen now following blithely along.
“She’s apprenticed to the Luidaeg, did she mention?” I asked. “It keeps her busy, which I have to assume helps to keep her from getting lonely.”
“It must be terrible to be the last of your kind,” said Galen.
“It was,” I said. I wasn’t entirely sure I ever qualified as “the last,” since there had only ever been two of us, and I hadn’t known August even existed for a very long time. I still wasn’t sure I liked her. But one thing I could say for sure was that the time between finding out I wasn’t Daoine Sidhe and finding out that I wasn’t the only Dóchas Sidhe in the world had been one of the loneliest times in my life, even if I hadn’t fully recognized it until it was over.
“Where are we going so hurriedly?”
“Tybalt got shot during the attack on the wedding, and I want someone to take a look at his shoulder before we cut the cake.”
Galen blinked at me. “So you want me . . . for my services as a chiurgeon and nothing more?”
“Why? What did you think I wanted you for?”
“To be honest, milady, I hadn’t the faintest idea. When a bride who was most recently seen swinging a borrowed sword at attempted revolutionaries demands I go with her, I’m inclined to acquiesce, for my own safety if not to satisfy my curiosity.” His wings buzzed as he gave me a sidelong glance. “You travel in the company of legends, after all.”
“Yeah, well. One of those legends got himself shot, and I really want him to be able to keep up with me when the morning comes.”
Tybalt was waiting where I’d asked him to, now joined by Patrick and Simon, both of whom were toasting him with something I would have called champagne, had it not been a delicate shade of baby blue. Tybalt didn’t have a glass. He glanced over as we approached, and since he didn’t have the “I am about to gnaw my own leg off to escape” look I knew from so many unwanted diplomatic parties, and normally felt on my own face, I smiled and came closer before I said, “Healer Galen, as promised. Duke Lorden. Count Torquill.”
I wasn’t actually sure of Simon’s title, or of the etiquette of greeting only one part of a married couple by title, but I trusted the two of them to tell me kindly if I’d gaffed, especially since none of the local monarchs were in earshot. And true enough, Simon laughed, and said, “Count Lorden, please, if you must stand so on formality. I have surrendered my surname in favor of my lady wife’s, as has my husband, and so we are Lordens all.”
“Is that because she has the higher title?” I asked.
“In my case, yes,” said Patrick. “That, and the Undersea would have judged her had she changed her name to match mine, being predisposed as they were to disapprove of our marriage. Someone who cannot breathe in the depths is inherently weakened in their eyes.”
Thus explaining all over again why Dean had never been in consideration to inherit from his mother, even assuming Dianda ever chose to set her seat aside. By marrying land fae, Dianda had rendered her sons unable to take her place. They couldn’t survive the rigors of the position. If there had ever been any question as to whether she’d married for love, that alone was enough to answer it.
“And in my case, I am one man joining an established household. Expecting them to change for me, more than is required by any marriage, would have been unreasonable and arrogant of me—two things I am striving to set aside now that I’ve been given a second chance at happiness.”
“Stop it,” said Patrick, and pushed Simon in the shoulder, light, affectionate, and almost playful. “You are an equal partner, and should consider yourself such. If you truly regret the loss of your name—”
“No,” said Simon, immediately. “I and my daughter have both chosen to set it aside in favor of less fraught lineages. I loved my parents dearly. I honor them through my continued existence, and by doing my best to finally become the man they hoped I’d be. They don’t need me to carry a name that was never truly mine, nor will they care if I disdain it.”
I blinked at him. “Oh,” I said. “Um, well, sorry if I opened a can of worms there. I just wanted to say it was nice having you both here, and I’m glad you could come. And Simon, I’m glad it was you who led me down the proper path.”
“It was only proper because it was yours,” he said, glancing down a little.
August was nowhere to be seen. If I was going to hug her father—our father, from Faerie’s perspective—this was the time to do it without possibly upsetting my sister. Galen was looking at Tybalt’s shoulder, probing the wound gingerly with his fingertips while Tybalt hissed between his teeth; no one needed me for anything.
It seemed like the biggest thing in the world, but it only took a moment to lean over and wrap my arms around Simon’s shoulders, squeezing him as closely as I could. He froze immediately, fingers tightening on the fragile stem of his wine glass, which Patrick leaned over and plucked out of his hand without comment.
I held on. After a long, frozen moment, Simon raised his hand and set it against my forearm, fingers curved to cup my skin, not quite tight enough to hold me in place.
“I’m never going to give up my human father,” I said. “But he’s gone and you’re here, and while we have a lot of ground to make up and a lot of learning about each other to do, I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad we’ll have that
chance.”
“That’s all I ever wanted you to say,” he said, sounding slightly choked up. I blinked. Across the narrow space we’d made between us, Patrick caught my eye and mouthed ‘Thank you,’ with exaggerated precision. I blinked again, and let Simon go.
“No, I don’t accept that,” I said, focusing on Patrick. It was his turn to blink and look bewildered. “Faerie doesn’t seem to have the concept of stepparents where changelings are concerned; either we have two fae parents with legal rights in Faerie or we don’t. I always thought I didn’t, and then for a little while, I did, and now I don’t again. And that’s okay. I kept the parent I wanted and got away from the one who wasn’t good for me. By definition, that means I decided Simon was good for me, and if he’s good for me, he’s family, and there are no debts between family.” I turned my attention to Simon, who looked stricken. “Debts between family were how Amandine liked to do things, as if I owed her something for doing the bare minimum to keep me alive when I was a child, and owed her more for mostly leaving me alone as an adult. She wanted credit for what I did right and absolution for what I did wrong. ‘Thank you’ implies a debt. I don’t want any more debts.”
Simon blinked again, cheeks pale. Patrick looked pleased, moving to put his hands on his husband’s shoulders. Then, without fanfare, Simon burst into tears.
They were quiet tears, almost dignified, as befit a member of the Daoine Sidhe, and I had the thought—as I always did when I saw one of them cry—that it wasn’t remotely fair that they could be so pretty when they cried. My eyes got red and my nose ran when I cried. The Daoine Sidhe just wept crystal tears that didn’t make them look silly or congested or anything.
“I’m sorry,” I said, backing up, until I was just shy of bumping into Galen and Tybalt. I glanced at them, looking for reassurance before this turned into some sort of scene and I had to explain why this was perfectly normal, perfectly fine, the bride always made her father cry at her wedding reception. Why couldn’t we have gone with something normal, like the electric slide? At least that was something I would have known how to deal with.
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