Page 4 of Silver and Lead (October Daye #19)

TWO

M UIR WOODS IS A series of hills and trails, and the two are frequently combined.

Not frequently enough for fae needs: Arden’s knowe was located at the top of a hill that was inaccessible by official means, since the park rangers got upset when they saw people hiking outside the designated areas.

Normally, I would have been complaining about the need to climb the hill in court attire.

My current condition meant I didn’t need to.

Tybalt climbed the hillside easily, holding me against his chest in a perfect bridal carry.

The air changed as we reached the top of the hill and transitioned into the Summerlands, becoming sweeter and cleaner, losing the distant taste of petrochemicals.

Even the cleanest air in the mortal world had nothing on Faerie.

I exhaled as Tybalt set me gently on my feet, holding my arms until he was sure I had my balance.

Irritated as I was at the continual coddling, I was grateful for the assist. I’ve never been as graceful as a pureblood, much less one of the Cait Sidhe, but pregnancy had changed my center of balance enough to make me worry about falling.

His eyes searched my face, looking for any sign of distress.

I smiled warmly at him, even as I pushed his hands gently down.

“I’ve got another few weeks of this, you know,” I said. “You don’t want to use up all your fretting on me before the baby even gets here.”

“I promise, I have more fretting in me than you can imagine,” he said.

I laughed as I took his arm and turned us toward the knowe.

“I don’t know,” I teased. “I have a pretty solid imagination.” Was he going to fret more or less when I had a chance to sit down with him and tell him about the Luidaeg’s offer?

A godmother was no small thing, and a Firstborn godmother…

it spoke to more concern on her part for our child’s safety than I was entirely comfortable with.

But if it kept our baby safe, I’d accept it.

Tybalt didn’t dignify my teasing with a response. I hugged his arm, taking a moment to enjoy the silence as we approached the knowe that served as the royal seat of the Kingdom in the Mists.

The doors were already open, tall, elegant impossibilities set into the trunk of a towering redwood.

They revealed a long hallway winding deeper into the structure, far too long for the tree to have contained, and well-lit by some unseen source.

I hugged Tybalt’s arm tighter, bracing myself for the transition.

We had already stepped onto the edge of the Summerlands when we reached the top of the hill.

Stepping into the knowe was something different.

It marked the point where we passed beyond the reach of the mortal world, crossing fully into Faerie.

My human blood meant that it could be difficult for me to make the transition, and indeed, my stomach felt like it flipped as we crossed the threshold, nausea washing over me.

I swallowed bile, forcing myself to keep smiling.

Pregnancy is an endless parade of wonders, and no two women experience it exactly the same.

I missed out on a lot of the back pain and general exhaustion, thanks to the way I healed, but I didn’t get morning sickness so much as I got “frequent and unpredictable nausea with no identifiable triggers.” Honestly, the best thing about having this baby would be keeping dinner down for more than an hour.

I looked around the entrance hall to distract myself as we walked, studying the carved panels lining the walls.

They showed important moments from the Kingdom’s history, and they tended to change depending on what was going on around them.

Sometimes they would show scenes that didn’t seem important at all, but became endlessly relevant after they were put into context.

Other times they would focus on births and coronations, all the important milestones a kingdom lives and dies by.

Tonight, they were a mixture of recent events and ancient history.

They all appeared to have been carved by the same hand, even though that was patently impossible.

Some of these panels had been here since Arden had reclaimed her throne and reopened the knowe, while others depicted events from the past four months.

I saw the Selkies and Roane returning to the Duchy of Ships, from which they had been exiled by Titania’s spell.

I saw changelings running back to their families, some of them people I recognized, some of them people I didn’t.

And I saw myself, pregnant, standing with my arms wrapped around my belly and my mother’s tower behind me.

That, more than anything, confirmed that sometimes the scenes were more representative than literal.

I had never been in my mother’s tower and aware of my condition.

In the carving, I was looking directly at the viewer, and I was alone.

Wait—not alone. In the background, almost lost among the carved foliage of my mother’s garden, a tabby cat crouched, watching me even as I watched the person looking at the piece.

I shivered. Tybalt followed the line of eyes, and snorted.

“It’s a fine likeness, but a dishonest framing,” he said. “We had you well away from that place before your belly was half so big as that.”

“Only because babies grow so damn much faster in the second half of a pregnancy,” I countered.

“Still. I should have a talk with whichever part of the knowe is providing these images.”

“So you agree with me that the knowes are alive?”

He snorted again, but paused before he replied, with absolute care, “I believe you believe that they’re alive, and more, that I’ve seen sufficient evidence of awareness that I can agree it hurts nothing to treat them as individuals worthy of some small respect.”

“Huh,” I said, feeling unaccountably pleased with myself as we walked onward.

I was wearing a proper gown for a formal occasion.

May had produced it from the back of my closet as soon as I’d told her Arden was calling court.

It was a rich cherrywood red velvet, shading into more golden tones as it neared the hem, and it wrapped around my protruding belly like a moth’s wings, accentuating my size without turning bulky.

The skirt extended all the way to the ground, which was doubtless part of why Tybalt had carried me up the hill.

I didn’t mind. The absence of boning was a relief, and the length of the skirt meant no one would know that I was wearing sneakers.

The sleeves carried on the moth-wing motif, threatening to swallow my hands whole.

Three matching hairpins shaped like large silk moths were tucked into my hair, holding it away from my neck and giving it the faint illusion of being something other than utterly stick-straight.

It was only the second time I’d worn proper court attire since the end of Titania’s enchantment, and the memory of all the balls and courts that had never been felt like they weighed more and more heavily as we neared the closed doors of Arden’s throne room.

Most of me knew that this was business as usual, and Arden was unlikely to spring anything really shocking on me when I was this close to giving birth—not unless she was really in the mood to go to war with the Court of Cats.

Part of me, though, was trying to insist that my appearance here was going to get me thrown into the scullery and punished for impersonating a fine lady.

Quiet, I told that part of me, with all the fierceness I could muster. I am not impersonating a fine lady. I would never. And I wasn’t, because I have never been a lady, and I wasn’t dressed like anyone but myself.

I’m a knight.

I held firmly to that thought as the doors swung open and we stepped into the massive throne room.

Like most throne or receiving rooms, Arden had a dais at one end of the space, hers occupied by two thrones—one for her, and one for her brother.

Other chairs could be added and removed as necessary.

For informal occasions, her seneschal and chatelaine would often sit up there with the Queen and Crown Prince.

For this evening, those places had been removed.

The windows were open, letting the night air flow freely in, accompanied by brightly colored pixies who flitted to and fro among the rafters.

The air was fresh and sweet, smelling of redwoods and rain with a faint undertone of cinnamon.

Arden’s coat of arms hung on the wall behind the dais, next to Nolan’s.

I paused, blinking. While her coat of arms retained its verdant green color, blazoned with star-shaped white blackberry flowers, it had gained a golden bundle of wheat at the bottom, like a foundation under everything else.

I glanced at Nolan’s coat of arms. They displayed a hoop of blackberry brambles against a silver background, and had acquired the same bundle of wheat, this one at the top of the blazon.

Coats of arms are a noble affectation that can always be changed, but the images generally mean something. I couldn’t wait to find out what had triggered this particular transition.

The room was full of people. As this was a court, and not a celebration, there were no refreshment tables; for all of that, servants still circulated with heavy trays laden with drinks and small appetizers, all single-bite and designed to be eaten while standing.

My stomach grumbled, and I put a hand over it, like that could be enough to muffle the sound.

Tybalt snorted, looking genuinely amused, and proceeded to flag down a passing server, a piebald Silene whose eyes were ringed in stark white, giving her an effortlessly startled expression.