“Yes, Quentin?”
“I’d like to request I be assigned to Sir Daye.”
All right, I hadn’t been expecting that. “Oak and ash,
“Because he has taste,” said May.
“Because I think I have a lot to learn from you,” Quentin said, before elbowing May sharply in the side. She yelped. “I like you, and you teach me things no one else does.”
“Like what it feels like to be shot?” I asked.
“Like how to do what needs to be done. Please, Your Grace, I’d like you to consider my request. If she’ll have me.”
I looked to Sylvester. He wasn’t making any effort to hide his smirk. I sighed. “I’ll have you,” I said.
“I already talked her into agreeing,” Sylvester added.
Quentin looked between us, eyes going wide. “Really?”
“Really,” I said.
“Wow. I owe you five bucks,” May said, looking to Sylvester.
“I told you she’d agree.” He clapped me on the shoulder with one hand. “Come on, you three. Marcia promised a celebratory lunch if I could convince Toby to take a squire.”
I gave him a sidelong look. “You were betting on this?”
“Yes, we were,” he said, nodding. “Now come on. We need to work out when his squiring ceremony will be held—and whether you’d like it here or at Shadowed Hills.” Still smiling, he turned and started to walk away. May flashed me a thumbs-up and followed.
Quentin hung back, asking, “You don’t mind, do you?”
Mind? That I’d been talked into taking a squire who obviously wanted to work with me? The vision of Quentin lying shot and dead on some field was receding, replaced by the slow realization that having a squire might not be such a bad deal after all. He already had my back whenever I needed him—hell, he’d helped Tybalt save my life when the Queen threw me in jail for Blind Michael’s murder, and that took guts, since it was technically treason. Maybe he was just a kid, but he knew what he was doing. He’d better: I’d taught him.
I grinned, putting my hand on his shoulder in much the same way Sylvester had put his hand on mine. We were almost the same height. Oak and ash, he was growing up fast. “Actually, Quentin,” I said, “I think this is going to work out just fine.”
TWO
MAY AND SYLVESTER WERE IN THE HALL playing one of May’s favorite games, “spot the bogey.” This involved staring fixedly at the rafters, waiting for the ceiling to move. I will never understand the things my former Fetch finds fun.
Bogeys are shapeshifting mischief-makers that infest abandoned places, like attics, old castles, and Goldengreen, which sat empty for almost two years before I claimed it. The bogeys were there when I opened the doors. Trying to make them leave was more trouble than it was worth, and so we’d come to a weird sort of peace instead, one where they didn’t scare the crap out of the residents, and I didn’t let the residents beat them to death with bricks.
Sylvester looked down as Quentin and I approached. “May was reminding me of some of the more . . . interesting . . . changes you’ve made.” He smiled. “I do believe them to be improvements.”
I smiled back. “That’s good. So do I.”
Goldengreen was in disrepair when I inherited it, but Sylvester never saw it that way. He probably remembered it the way Evening liked presenting it to people—perfect and static—and not as the crumbling shell it became.
It wasn’t a crumbling shell anymore. It was just a little chaotic sometimes. Case in point: a flock of pixies burst from the kitchen, flying in tight formation as they held up the edges of a red-and-white-checked dish towel. The wind of their passage ruffled my hair. The four of us scattered, and I ducked just before one of the stragglers could kick me in the forehead.
Marcia came barreling after the pixies, waving a broom over her head and shouting, “Come back, you filthy little pests! Thieves!” Her eyes widened when she saw us, and she came skidding to a halt, a guilty look on her face. She tried to hide the broom behind her back, enhancing the ridiculousness of the moment. “Uh, hi, Toby. May. Quentin. Um. Your Grace.”
“Hey, Marcia,” I said, amused. “What did they steal this time?” Pixies will steal anything that’s not nailed down, and the ones in Goldengreen seem to see Marcia as a form of entertainment. They know she’ll never catch them with her broom. As for Marcia, I think she’s playing with the pixies as much as they’re playing with her. She’ll just never admit it.
“Two loaves of bread and my good dish towel.”
“You’d better hurry before they shred the towel for loincloths.”
“I know. Sorry about this. Lunch is served.” She bobbed an awkward curtsy and took off running, following the trail of glittering pixie-sweat hanging in the air.
I turned to the others. “Well?” I asked. “Anybody hungry?”
“Starving,” said Quentin. He led the way into the kitchen, where a meal of cold chicken, tossed salad, and apple cake was waiting for us on the worktable. One definite advantage to having my own knowe: I was eating better, since Marcia seemed to have an almost preternatural ability to know when she’d be able to shove a fork into my hand, and her fae blood is just strong enough to grant her some basic hearth magic—like preparing meals at triple speed. Coffee is still a primary part of my diet, but it no longer has to play the role of multiple food groups.
May’s phone rang while we were eating, and she waved a distracted good-bye before running out of the knowe to meet her girlfriend in the museum parking lot outside the mortal entrance. Sylvester, Quentin, and I finished our lunch in comfortable silence.
I was in an excellent mood by the time I escorted Quentin and Sylvester out of Goldengreen. It was a crisp, dry night. The air tasted like summer, and the sky was free of clouds, leaving the stars to glitter brilliantly against the darkness. We were having the sort of June that people write bad love songs about, all perfect weather and clear skies. Nights like this reminded me why I love living in the Bay Area.
A lone cloud skidded in front of the moon, briefly hiding its face, and I shuddered. It had been less than a year since I was held captive in Blind Michael’s lands, being groomed to take his wife’s place and become his new consort. He’d been dead for almost eight months. I killed him. That didn’t make the memory of him sit any easier.
Sylvester’s vehicle for the evening was a classic Cadillac, painted a dark blue that almost blended with the shadows at the parking lot’s edge. Not that the museum’s human employees would have been able to see the car if it were bright red and parked in the rose garden—Sylvester’s don’t-look-here spells are things of beauty. He hugged me, saying, “You’re doing well. Soon, we can start the
I was still groaning theatrically when he and Quentin got into the car and drove off, leaving me to walk to my battered old Volkswagen Bug alone. I performed my usual check of the back before unlocking the door. Call me paranoid, but I only needed to find one assassin lurking in my car for that to become a lifetime habit.
Turning up the radio to ear-busting levels, I sang loudly—and badly—along with song after song as I drove back to my apartment. Even with traffic, I made it home in record time. The wards around my door were intact, meaning that my night might stay decent. Miracles never cease.
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?” I chanted. “With thorny stings and other things that make it a bad place to go.” I snapped my fingers. The wards dissolved, leaving the scent of copper hanging in the air. Piece of cake.
Wards are easier for me these days, since they’re constructed and removed with brute force, and I hit harder than I used to, magically speaking. Sure, sometimes my spells go horribly wrong and things get scorched, but it’s better than a ten-a-day Tylenol habit, right? I was never that attached to my security deposit, anyway.
