Page 24 of Silver and Lead (October Daye #19)

“No, it doesn’t,” he said, and his own voice was tight.

“It does, however, mean that when you risk yourself, you are not the only one taking these risks. You say a hope chest doesn’t ask for consent from the people it changes.

Right now, I don’t see how Arden and Sylvester are any different.

They’re not asking consent of our child, and neither are you, because you can’t. I’m only trying to keep you both safe.”

“I know you are,” I said. “But caring doesn’t mean you get to protect me so much that you suffocate me.

I’m not planning to do anything reckless or that could hurt the baby, but it’s important that I do my job, and this ”—I couldn’t stop myself from hitting the last word hard enough to make it obvious, because of course it wasn’t just this, it was everything since we’d come home from Titania’s enchantment—“makes me feel like you don’t trust my judgment. ”

“It has never been my intention to make you feel that way,” he said, with obvious care, “and it isn’t that I don’t trust your judgment.

” He paused, and I could tell that he was weighing out his words.

“But you must see that you rarely plan the things that put you into danger. They seek you out, hero that you are, and then you feel obligated to see them through. Can we be honest about that much?”

“All right, so it’s honesty time. I am honestly going out of my mind being locked up like this.

I need to work. The timing’s crap, but I can’t take much more sitting and staring at the same four walls.

So I repeat: you knew who I was when you married me, and the Luidaeg is right when she says our lives aren’t safe ones.

I know we’ll have to make some adjustments, and we’ve already discussed so many of them, but do you really think I’m never going to do my job again? ”

“Of course not. Just not until you have the baby—”

“There will always be a baby!” I half-shouted.

“From this point forward, there will always be a baby, or a child I might abandon again , the way I did Gillian. She lost me because I did my job. I lost her . And if you think I won’t rearrange the stars to stop that from happening again, I don’t understand how you ever thought you knew me. ”

Tybalt’s pupils narrowed. “So you admit that terrible things can happen if you leave our home?”

“I do. I also admit that Blind Michael came to your Court before I was even involved, and Titania was masquerading as my best friend from childhood. Nothing I did or didn’t do invoked them.

My job is not the only thing that puts me in danger.

That puts us in danger. Our baby is going to be in danger.

That’s what being a part of Faerie means.

But they’re going to have the biggest bad-ass in the realm for a father, and a hero for a mother, and they’re going to be okay.

No matter what else happens, they’re going to be okay.

Now please. You have to stop acting like Amandine.

She wanted to lock me away from anything that might hurt me. ”

He went still, pupils narrowing even further, until they were barely slits. “Do not compare me to that woman,” he said.

“So don’t give me reason to,” I countered.

He opened his mouth, then closed it and turned his face away. After a moment of silence, I reached over and put my hand on his shoulder.

“I’m just so frightened all the time,” he said, voice gone dull and dead.

“It was Anne at first, and the thought of you lying dead amidst the bedclothes, as she did, not even a baby’s cry to break the silence.

But that thought faded quickly. When I dared to fall in love again, I loved an unbreakable woman for a reason.

Whatever happens, you will survive. But October…

when Titania took you from me, took our child from me, I feared I wouldn’t survive.

I know you can endure whatever Faerie throws at you.

I no longer trust myself to do the same. I haven’t for a very long time.”

“Oh, sweetheart…” I tightened my fingers on his shoulder, not letting go.

The kind thing to do would have been to say I could endure the remainder of my pregnancy in semi-confinement, to agree that Arden could wait to be ready for me to come back out into the world.

Unfortunately, that type of kindness isn’t always an option.

And even if it had been, I was realizing that it was no longer the best option for us, if it ever had been to begin with.

“I know how hard this is.” He turned to look at me again and I dropped my hand, steeling myself against the entreaty in his eyes.

“But I still need you to trust me when I say I can protect our child, and accept that you can’t come with me to Dame Altair’s because I won’t be able to get the answers I need if she’s too hostile—which is the same reason I can’t take a squad of royal guards with me. Arden offered, but I refused—”

He snorted before saying dryly, “Of course you did.”

“Just like you knew I would. Because you have to let me be myself, or you’re trying to change me just as much as Amandine did, and I can’t bear that. Not from her, not from you, not from anyone.”

He was silent for an uncomfortably long moment.

“I don’t like it,” he said at last, and I could hear the anger and terror and resignation in his voice.

“I can’t like it. But you’re right that I didn’t marry you to be your jailer.

I don’t agree with this decision. It is still your right to make it, and I will try to accept it with such grace as I can. ”

“And I will always, always come home to you. I’ve made it through Firstborn and monsters, curses and the Summer Queen. I know it’s hard to trust me when I say things like this, but just try. Try to believe I’m telling you the truth.”

He sighed. “I’m trying, little fish. For all of us, I’m trying.”

I knew how much he was. The trauma of his past losses aside, sometimes it can be easy for me to forget how much he’s the product of a different time and culture.

Even if that weren’t the case, sitting back and letting their loved ones rush into danger unprotected is not in the nature of the Cait Sidhe.

“That’s all I can really ask you for. That, and please just let me do my job.”

“I have said I will do my best.”

“I love you, anxious nerd.” I leaned over and kissed his temple. “So like I was saying, I’ll get Danny to drive me to Dame Altair’s place tomorrow, so I can talk to her.”

“I can’t go with you, but I can’t endure the idea of you going alone,” he said.

I blinked. I hadn’t expected him to capitulate on letting me go without him quite so quickly. “Do you know why you can’t come?” I asked.

“Dame Altair is a staunch traditionalist who considers shapeshifters barely more than animals,” he said.

“I wouldn’t have said ‘staunch,’ and I wouldn’t normally allow her the courtesy of thinking she’s right, but she’s already spun up and primed to attack.

I can’t take you with me,” I said. “I can take Quentin, though; she’ll respect him, even without a known title.

And Danny will be there if anything happens.

And whatever we find, I promise I won’t go off on my own without letting you know, and I’ll take backup. I won’t leave you a widower.”

Tybalt nodded. “I suppose Quentin won’t allow you the flavor of foolishness you sometimes seem to prize,” he said, reaching over to take my face in his hands.

“Only promise me in turn that if I restrain myself like this, if I can resist the urge to follow and protect you, that you’ll do your best to keep yourself from harm in my absence. ”

“What, sir, are you asking me to be careful?” I asked, with exaggerated courtesy.

Tybalt snorted again. “I would never be so foolish. I’m asking you to remember that I am but a man, and not put too much strain on my poor heart by running into danger without concern for your own wellbeing.”

“My wellbeing is pretty difficult to damage,” I said. “But I promise I’ll remember that I’m not rushing in alone, and be as careful as I can, for the baby’s sake.”

Simon cleared his throat. “I’ll witness that promise.”

I turned to look over my shoulder at him.

“Forgive me if I’m intruding,” he said, “but the two of you had grown quiet, and I was hopeful that meant my rejoining you would not be inappropriate.” He was smiling approvingly.

The expression was more for Tybalt than me; he was clearly proud of him for managing to listen and hold back while I went about my business.

I appreciated it, even as I wished it hadn’t been necessary for my kinda-dad to lecture my husband about being chill. It seemed like a shift in our relationship.

But then, our relationship had already shifted, hadn’t it?

Simon’s and mine. It had always been shifting.

First he’d been my liege’s brother, one more snooty pureblood who looked down his nose at me and would never truly accept me as a member of the court.

Then he’d been the villain in my story, the man who condemned me to lose everything.

Then he’d been a victim in his own story, a captive whose mind and magic had been bent to the service of a woman who had never seen a beautiful thing she didn’t attempt to corrupt.

And when that was done, he’d been my mother’s estranged husband and the father of my sister, whose existence had been a baffling surprise.

If things had stopped there, they could have been simple between us.

I could have gone about my life, letting him be one more shadowy figure in the vast crowd of my background, unwanted and ignored.

But then he’d gone and married two of my closest allies, and turned my squire’s boyfriend into my stepbrother in one swift, confusing act.

And then, Titania.