“Smart.” If I hadn’t been the one getting married, I would have been perfectly willing to skip the ceremony in favor of the reception. Especially given how much of the buffet I had yet to investigate. I popped the rice ball into my mouth, chewed, swallowed, and asked, “So was that meant to distract me, or to remind me that our lives are always going to be ridiculous?”
“Primarily the latter,” said Tybalt. “However much we might wish differently, you, my love, are a hero, and that’s a title as much earned as given; stop chasing down danger, try to stay home and live a peaceful life, and heroism will still come sniffing around the rafters, looking for a way into the house. If you would make me wait until you feel the possibility of danger has passed before I experience fatherhood, then we will be waiting until your essential nature has changed, and I would prefer not to.”
“Mmm,” I said. “You still haven’t told me how it is that your mother named you, but you never met her.”
“I didn’t say we never met, only that I never knew her,” he said. “She sold my sister and I to our father when we were still new, mewling babes whose eyes had yet to open. He was always searching for possible heirs to the Court of Fogbound Cats, which was the largest and most powerful Court of Cats in all of Albion. Our father, Ainmire, was a powerful man. A great man, in his own manner, but never, not for one instant in the long days of his life, a good man. He gathered children to set against each other as pawns. Our mother had no way of knowing that when he came to her to make his purchase; she knew only she lacked the power to refuse him, and that one of us might inherit someday, and find ourselves placed such that no one and nothing could harm us. So she sold us to Ainmire, with only our names and each other to carry with us into the future. I don’t know whether my sister was allowed to keep her name.”
I blinked. “I thought—”
“I was raised with three sisters. Jill, Colleen, and Cailin.”
I blinked again, more slowly this time. “All three of those names mean ‘girl,’ ” I said.
“Yes. My brothers were Carr and Arlis. I fear our father allowed the boys to keep the names we were bought with, and changed the names of the girls to remind us always what their role was in his Court.”
I didn’t want to ask. I had to ask. “What was their role?”
“They were guarantees against our good behavior. If we challenged and lost, they were killed to remind us of our place in the Court. My brother Carr challenged, and his hostage was killed. My other brother, Arlis, walked away rather than risk his dear Colleen in such a manner, and left me with both her and my own hostage, Jill, as guarantors of my manners. I was a flippant, foolish boy, because I could not play games with the lives of my sisters.”
I looked at him in absolute horror, suddenly glad that I hadn’t been drinking anything.
“So my mother named me, for all that she may not have named my sister, and if I am not a King of Cats, my name will be Rand, as it was when I was but a boy.” He shrugged. “Your name is October, and yet you reject it as much and as often as you can.”
“Not that you ever listen,” I said, lips gone numb.
“No, for ‘Toby’ is no name for a woman of your grace and value,” he said. “I would grant you ‘Tobias,’ if that were the name you had chosen, or ‘Toviah,’ but ‘Toby’ is a step too far for me to swallow. And yet you deny that ‘October’ is your name, and I deny that ‘Toby’ is.”
I frowned. “All right, I accept your premise. What are you saying?”
“Some people change their names for reasons of personal identity, or to reject a name that fails to fit them. Neither of us has done such a thing. We both possess multiple names by which we can pass, and choose the one that suits our situation. When two people disagree about a name, it can sometimes be appropriate to disregard their instructions and call them as you wish.”
“So you’re saying . . .”
“I’m saying that when my nephew takes his throne, it would be a profound insult to call him ‘Rajiv,’ for he will set that name aside, and that to call Walther by the name his parents once gave him would be a disgrace to your house, as well as a denial of the man himself, but that you may call me ‘Tybalt’ for as long as it pleases you. You do not belong to the Court of Cats. It is the name by which you have long known me, and our customs are not your own, nor is it common for a King to slip back into Princehood. It may do me a favor, to use a name other than the one to which I truly belong.”
“It might.” I took a breath, intending to chase the topic of my own given name further, and stopped as a hand landed on my shoulder. I looked back, and there was Amphitrite, standing behind me in all her vaguely nautical finery, although she had at least ditched the pirate look for something a little more “untouchable goddess of the infinite sea.” Fine scales speckled her cheeks like extremely expensive body glitter, and there were tears shining in her oceanic eyes.
“My sister told me you were to be wed within sight of the sea, so of course I knew myself invited,” she said, as if this were a logically constructed sentence and not some weird kind of pureblood word salad. She grabbed a chair from the nearest open table and dragged it over to ours, plopping herself into it without so much as a by-your-leave. “I mean, she also told me what you’d gone and dredged up from the bottom of the sea, and I didn’t believe her about that, so I guess the joke’s on me if you didn’t want me here.”
“I didn’t know you were speaking to each other,” I said.
“Eh, Annie’s banished from my domain for seven years. That doesn’t mean I’m barred from the land. She’d need more power than even she has to accomplish that, and since neither of our moms has decided to put in an unwanted appearance, there’s not much of a risk of me getting locked into the watery deep any time soon.” She leaned over the table, claiming my wine glass and taking a deep sip before setting it down again. “She sends me messages in bottles. It’s quaint and a little old-fashioned, but we’re old-fashioned girls.”
“Yeah, and that’s why I expected you to be over there for a little longer.” I waved a hand, vaguely indicating the point by the buffet where the Luidaeg and Oberon were still standing. He was filling a fresh plate. She appeared to be scolding him, brows knit and hands waving wildly. Everyone around them was studiously pretending they weren’t there, which showed a remarkable amount of common sense, for the fae; even if they thought Oberon was just another random wedding guest—which seemed strange to me only because I knew the truth, and would probably have seemed much more realistic than what was actually happening if I hadn’t—they knew better than to interfere with the target of one of the Firstborn’s ire.
If the Luidaeg started yelling, they would probably stampede for the doors and leave us alone with the buffet, the cake, and the small army of desensitized teenagers who no longer had the common sense to be afraid of the sea witch.
Really, I was going to have to be Chelsea’s knight when the time came. No one else would have any idea how to deal with her.
“Eh. Big sis has a way different relationship to her parents than I do to mine.” Pete shrugged fluidly. The motion took a while. There was a lot of Pete to shrug. As mother of the Merrow, Pete took her role as first ship’s figurehead in the world very seriously. Her full name was Amphitrite, after one of the better-known Greek goddesses of the sea, and she lived up to it gloriously. “Kinda like I have a way different relationship to my descendants than most of my sibs, and that brings us, my sweet little rosebud, to you.” She leaned forward, resting her elbow on the table and her chin on her knuckles, and fixed me with a steady, shark-eyed gaze.
I did my best not to squirm. I have more practice standing up to the attention of the Firstborn than most people, but that doesn’t mean I like it, exactly, just that it no longer feels like fire ants crawling over every inch of my skin, looking for tender places to burrow into my flesh.
“You know, not all of ou
r children have liked their parents. Strange, really, when we’re all such sweet, attentive, loving parents.” Pete smiled as if daring me to argue with her.
Tybalt reached across the table and put his hand over mine. Well, at least if I was about to be turned into a sea turtle or something, he’d be with me on the way down. I kept my eyes on Pete, all too aware that dealing with the Firstborn is like dealing with any sort of charismatic megafauna: don’t show fear. It never ends well.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve met too many of your sisters to believe that.”
“Not my brothers?”
“I’ve only met one of those, and since he was a literal monster, I’m not sure you want him included in the count.”
“Mmm,” she said, noncommittally. “But as I was saying, we haven’t always gotten along with our kids. My descendants, for example, tend to attack me on sight.”
“You do rub some people the wrong way,” I agreed.
“But you, rosebud, you are the first among all our children not to choose their First during a divorce. Not that we usually marry our lovers; even our children are short-lived compared to us, being so much easier to kill than we are, and so it seems a little pointless, as a rule, to marry. Some of my sisters do it for sport, but only when they intend no issue from a union. At least one of my brothers did it as a sort of bad habit; he would disappear on us for a decade or so and come back with a bride he scarce remembered getting, usually some pampered princess he’d abducted from her bower and wed with blood and with weeping, but on the main, we don’t bother.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not Firstborn.”
“I noticed. And neither is your handsome husband.” Pete winked at Tybalt, who tightened his hand on mine. “Don’t worry, kitty. Even if I were in the market for a lover, I don’t steal from ships unless I plan to sink them, and I’m not in the mood for piracy tonight. I came here to see my sister, and see whether she was telling me the truth, and to lay my own blessing upon the happy household—not one of your seven. Such a quaint little custom! I wonder if Dobrinya knew that little custom, out of all the customs he tried to define, would be the one that lingered. He would have been very pleased if he had. But no, I brought you a blessing of my own, and you’d do well not to refuse it.”
I wasn’t sure refusing a gift from one of the First was even possible. I forced a smile instead, and said, somewhat insincerely, “We look forward to hearing it.”
“I know enough of your past to know that you fear death by water, daughter of Simon, who dwells in the deeps now with a daughter of my line, and whose loyalty would be mine to claim, if only I wanted it.”
“Please don’t,” I said hurriedly, realizing only after the words were out that I’d just cut off one of the Firstborn, and that might not go well for me. I cleared my throat and continued, as carefully as I could, “Simon has suffered enough at the hands of the Firstborn, and while I trust you to be kinder than many of your siblings, the Lordens took him into Saltmist so he’d have a chance to rest for a while before anything else could happen to him.”
“Do I look like the sort of thing that happens to people?”
“Please don’t be offended, but that’s exactly what you look like,” I said, and shrugged. “You’re like a very busty natural disaster. You happen to whatever gets in your way, and you may or may not mean it, and you definitely aren’t malicious, but I need my father to get better, because it seems he’s the only parent I’m going to have for a while, so if you could not please break him again, that would be cool.”
To my immense relief, Pete threw her head back and laughed. Across the floor, both Oberon and the Luidaeg looked in our direction. I flashed them a wan smile, keeping most of my attention on the immediate threat.
It says something about my life that the King of all Faerie didn’t register as the biggest threat in the room, but at the moment, the woman who could fill my lungs with water with a wave of her hand seemed like a much more immediate and pressing concern.
“I will not break your father,” said Pete, still laughing a little. “I should probably be offended that you even felt the need to tell me you didn’t want me to, but I’ve met you and I’ve met him and I’ve met your mom, and asking was the right thing to do, absolutely. Back to the blessing. I know you fear death by water. I know it’s largely due to the man you just asked me not to harm, so good job there, your loyalties aren’t confusing at all.”
“You know, talking to the Luidaeg is easier, because she’s not allowed to lie to me, which makes sarcasm a lot less useful for her,” I said direly.
“Yeah, well, I’m more fun, so it balances. Anyway, as long as I make my home in the peaceful sea, her waters will not claim you. No undertow will take you or your spouse or children from the shore, no depth will see you drowned. If you’re to suffer death by water, it will be at someone else’s doorstep. Sorry it’s not a dinette set.” She stood, offering us a small wave. “That was all. You can go back to gazing into each other’s eyes and trading wine glasses now.”
“That’s not what we were doing,” I began to object, but she had already lost interest and was walking away, heading across the room toward points unknown. I sighed and looked back to Tybalt. “Well, I think the lady who kind of owns the Pacific Ocean just gave us a ‘get out of drowning free’ card. That’s a pretty nice wedding gift.”
“I knew when I proposed that I was marrying into madness,” he said, a bit unsteadily. “It is possible I underestimated the degree.”
“Too late now,” I said cheerfully, and beamed at him.
After only a beat, he beamed back. “It’s been too late for ages,” he said.
“Good man.” I leaned across the table, intending to kiss him.
I didn’t quite make it before Stacy grabbed my arm and halfway yanked me out of my seat, pulling me away from both table and Tybalt. “There you are,” she said, in a tone that implied I’d been hiding all night, and not wandering openly through my own reception in the whitest dress anyone had ever seen.
“I’ve been right here,” I said. “How could you miss me?”
“No one could see you,” she said. “Notice-me-not illusions at your reception are dirty pool, and I’m going to make you pay for this later, when I won’t get in trouble for beating up the bride.” She continued to haul me across the floor, heading back toward the buffet.
I glanced back. Tybalt was following, not looking nearly bothered enough about the fact that I was being abducted. ‘Help me,’ I mouthed exaggeratedly. He shrugged, a small smile on his face.
‘No,’ he mouthed back.
I settled for pouting at him. If he couldn’t save me from my soccer mom best friend, what good was he really?
Stacy didn’t seem to have noticed any of this. She was intent on getting me to her destination, whatever that happened to be. “Have you at least been circulating enough to collect your blessings?” she asked.
“Four of them, plus a bonus from the Duchess of Ships,” I said.
“We don’t shut this party down until you have all seven,” she said. “In case you thought you could keep avoiding the rest of us forever.”
The rest of . . . “Stacy, do you have one of the remaining blessings?” I asked, keeping my tone light.
She looked back over her shoulder at me. “Oh, and here I thought you were having so much fun avoiding me that you’d forgotten I might be asked to be one of your seven.”
“Stacy . . .”
“No, no, it’s fine.” She waved her free hand like she was batting away a moth. “Did you get a blessing from Raj?”
“Not yet.”
“Then here you are: may you and yours always have full bellies, solid roofs, and money enough to do whatever must be done, plus a little left over at the end, for tomorrow’s bread.”
“Oh, that’s a nice one, I like that one,” I said. “They should all be that reason
able. I’m down with the practical blessings. Much nicer than the ones I don’t completely understand.”
“There are like ninety classical ones on the list,” said Stacy, thawing slightly. “We picked the seven that seemed most applicable to your life, and split them up between people we knew you’d be happy to talk to, and ones who might need an excuse if they actually wanted to talk to you.”
“That explains August,” I said.
To my surprise, Stacy actually looked hurt at that. “You really were hiding from me, weren’t you?”
“What? No! No, Tybalt and I have been here the whole time, right over there at that table where no one could miss us. I’m sorry if you couldn’t find us for some reason. Maybe one of the kids was playing some sort of silly game or something.”
“I doubt it, since it’s been delaying cake.” She thawed a bit as she kept hauling me onward. “She telling the truth, Tybalt?”
“As my heart knows it,” he said. “We have had no privacy since well before we were wed.”
“Huh. Then I apologize for the rational assumption that the two of you had slunk off somewhere for a quickie.”
“No need to apologize,” said Tybalt. “Had I believed we might be successful without arousing your wrath, or perhaps that of the sea witch, I would absolutely have absconded with my new bride. This whole process of blessing and milling about takes up so much time, and when one is dealing with October, moments of peace must be seized while they exist.”
“Hey,” I protested, without heat.
“Say he’s wrong without telling a lie and I’ll tell you where to find your last two blessings so you can go to bed,” said Stacy, releasing my wrist as we reached the seemingly empty buffet table. “I dare you.”
“And you know I can’t,” I said.
“Yes, I do,” she agreed. Then she clapped her hands three times, briskly. The conversation around us, which had not flagged when she came dragging the bride like a runaway puppy and trailed by the faintly amused groom, stopped, and the illusion that had been concealing the final banquet table dropped away.
When Sorrows Come Page 43